Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 26.djvu/125

 squares and huts resembled each other. Several of our Frenchmen wandered about; they found the street and squares very clean, the ramparts very level and broad; the palisade supported on cross-pieces morticed into posts of fifteen feet. At fifteen points doubled are green skins which are put for sheathing when required, fastened only above in the places needed, as in the bastion there are four at each curtain well flanked. The fort is built on a height in the open prairies with a ditch upwards of fifteen feet deep to eighteen feet wide. Their fort can only be gained by steps or posts which can be removed when threatened by an enemy. If all their forts are alike, they may be called impregnable to Indians. Their fortifications are not Indian.

This nation is mixed white and black. The women are fairly good-looking, especially the white, many with blonde and fair hair. Both men and women of this nation are very industrious; their huts are large and spacious, separated into several apartments by thick planks; nothing is left lying about; all their baggage is in large bags hung on posts; their beds made like tombs surrounded by skins; all go to bed naked, men and women. These men are always naked, covered only with a buffalo robe; a great part of the women naked like the men, with this difference, that they wear a loose apron, about a hand breadth wide and a foot long, sewed to a girdle in front only; all the women have this kind of protection, although they have a petticoat wnich gives no constraint, they do not close the thighs; as is the case with other Indian women when they sit down. Several carry a kind of gown of very soft deer skin; there are many deer, they are very small. Their fort is full of caves, in which are stored such articles as grain, food, fat, dressed robes, bear skins. They are well supplied with these; it is the money of the country; the more they have of it the richer they believe themselves to be. They are fond of tatooing, but never more than half of the body is tatooed, both of men and