cypress-wood as a beginning of the post he was ordered to establish; then,
having heard that a war with Spain had ruined his hopes of trade with New
Mexico, he resolved to pursue his explorations.

With him went ten men, white, red, and black, with twenty-two horses bought
from the Indians, for his journeyings were henceforth to be by land. The
party moved in a northerly and westerly course, by hills, forests, and
prairies, passed two branches of the Wichita, and on the 3d of September
came to a river which La Harpe calls the southwest branch of the Arkansas,
but which, if his observation of latitude is correct, must have been the
main stream, not far from the site of Fort Mann. Here he was met by seven
Indian chiefs, mounted on excellent horses saddled and bridled after the
Spanish manner. They led him to where, along the plateau of the low,
treeless hills that bordered the valley, he saw a string of Indian
villages, extending for a league and belonging to nine several bands, the
names of which can no longer be recognized, and most of which are no doubt
extinct. He says that they numbered in all six thousand souls; and their
dwellings were high, dome-shaped structures, built of clay mixed with reeds
and straw, resting, doubtless, on a frame of bent poles. [Footnote:
Beaurain says that each of these bands spoke a language of its own. They
had horses in abundance, descended from Spanish stock. Among them appear to
have been the Ouacos, or Huecos, and the Wichitas,--two tribes better known
as the Pawnee Picts. See Marcy, _Exploration of Red River._] With them
were also some of the roving Indians of the plains, with their conical
teepees of dressed buffalo-skin.

The arrival of the strangers was a great and amazing event for these
savages, few of whom had ever seen a white man. On the day after their
arrival the whole multitude gathered to receive them and offer them the
calumet, with a profusion of songs and speeches. Then warrior after warrior