Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 V13.djvu/272

 right, there are two of them nearly together, and two also which are separated from each other, nearly opposite to the others on the left. The Indians remark them in the regulation of their routes, and, on some of them, they have made elevated interments. This fondness for burying in high places has not subsided among the aborigines, and, {201} probably, gave rise to the erection of artificial hills over the remains of the dead. Blackbird, the chief of the Mahas, was interred, at his particular request, on the summit of a hill which overlooked the village; and both the Mahas and the Arikarsees made choice of the summit of a neighbouring ridge for their general place of sepulture.

The day was very warm, though occasionally relieved by a breeze from the south-west; and the dazzling light of the prairies proved oppressive and injurious to the eyes. We passed a place where the Indians appeared to have been killing numbers of deer, though not recently.

14th.] We remained to-day on the banks of the Little North Fork, to recruit our horses, that of my companion being from the first totally unfit to travel from a large wound upon its back. I now experienced a relapse of the remittent fever, attended with delirium. Being about 3 o'clock in the afternoon when it came on, I was exposed to a temperature of between 90 and 100°. It was with difficulty that I could crawl into the shade, the thin forest being every where pervious to the sun, so that I felt ready to burn with heat; by forcibly inciting a vomit, I felt relieved. Mr. Lee, profiting by our delay, began to trap for beaver, and the last night caught four of these animals. Scarcely any thing is now employed for bait but the musk or castoreum of the animal itself. As they live in community, they are jealous and hostile to strangers of their