CHAPTER IV.


The Shoshones, or Snake Indians, are a brave and numerous people,
occupying a large and beautiful tract of country, 540 miles from east to
west, and nearly 300 miles from north to south. It lies betwixt 38° and
43° north latitude, and from longitude 116° west of Greenwich to the
shores of the Pacific Ocean, which there extend themselves to nearly the
parallel of 125° west longitude. The land is rich and fertile,
especially by the sides of numerous streams, where the soil is sometimes
of a deep red colour, and at others entirely black. The aspect of this
region is well diversified, and though the greatest part of it must be
classified under the denomination of rolling prairies, yet woods are
very abundant, principally near the rivers and in the low flat bottoms:
while the general landscape is agreeably relieved from the monotony of
too great uniformity by numerous mountains of fantastical shapes and
appearance, entirely unconnected with each other, and all varying in the
primitive matter of their conformation.

Masses of native copper are found at almost every step, and betwixt two
mountains which spread from east to west in the parallel of the rivers
Buona Ventura and Calumet, there are rich beds of galena, even at two or
three feet under ground; sulphur and magnesia appear plentiful in the
northern districts; while in the sand, of the creeks to the south gold
dust is occasionally collected by the Indians. The land is admirably
watered by three noble streams--the Buona Ventura, the Calumet, and the
Nú elejé sha wako, or River of the Strangers, while twenty rivers of