CHAPTER II.
THE MISSOURI RIVER. 1
The Three Forks - The cataracts - Tributary streams - Gate of the Mountains - Resources of the valley - Scenery - Purity of the air - Bad Lands - Fate of the Elkhorn Steeple - Headquarters of the wolves - Some beaver stories - Lake Eustis and the wonders of the Yellowstone - Geological curiosities - A disastrous gorge - Wanity - Some tribal traditions - Prairie fires.
As I have been speaking of rivers I shall give you a short geographical description of the Missouri, which I am inclined to call my river, as I have so often ascended and descended it during the last four years, traveled along its banks and crossed almost all its tributaries from the mouth of the Yellowstone to the place where the mighty river mingles its turbid stream with that of the peaceful Mississippi. I have drunk the limpid waters of its sources and the muddy waters at its mouth, distant more than
3,000 miles from each other. The prodigious length of its course, the wildness and impetuosity of its current, have induced the Sioux to call it "the Furious." Whenever I crossed this magnificent river the sensations which I experienced bordered on the sublime, and_ my imagination transported me through the world of prairies which it fertilizes to the colossal mountains whence it issues.
It is in the heart of the Rocky Mountains that the Missouri takes its rise, together with many other magnificent streams; such as the Father of Waters, into whose bosom it flows after having fertilized its own borders to a vast extent; the Arkansas and the Red river, both, like itself, majestic tributaries; the Columbia, which becomes the reservoir of all the waters of the Oregon territory, and the Rio
1 Part of Letter IV, Letters and Sketches, p. 85.