name. All along the red river and a considerable distance from it on each side is very little frequented except by war Parties, being a warlike route between the Sauteux and their Enemies the Sioux, who are ever at variance.

From the Forks of the Assiniboine & red rivers the plains are quite near the Banks and so extensive that a man may travel from here to Fort Des Prairies, Rocky Mountains, Missouri, Mississipi, and many other places without passing a wood a mile long – all the wood here as in the rest of the Plains being only tufts here and there, (called by the French Ilêts de bois, being surrounded by the plain the same as water an Island is encompassed by water) and slips that grow on the richest lands on low points near the River and on its banks. Half a day's march for the Canoes higher than the Forks, is the passage so called from its being a good fording place and the

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