31st.  Circumstances had now inclined the Chippewa and Ottawa tribes of Indians to cede to the United States a portion of their extensive territory.  Game had failed in the greater part of it, and they had no other method of raising funds to pay their large outstanding credits to the class of traders, and to provide for an interval of transition, which must indeed happen, in view of their future improvement, between the hunter and agricultural state.

The Drummond Island band had, for a year or two, advocated a sale.  The Ottawas of the peninsula determined to send a delegation to Washington on the subject.  I could not hesitate as to the course which duty proscribed to me, under these important circumstances, and determined to proceed to Washington, although the Secretary and acting Governor of the Territory, Mr. Horner, on being consulted by letter, refused his assent to this step.  His want of proper information on the subject, being but recently come to the territory, did not appear to be such as to justify me in remaining on the island, while the question had been carried by the Indians themselves to, and was, probably, to be decided at Washington before another season.  I determined, therefore, to proceed to Washington, taking one of the latest vessels for the season, on their return from the ports on Lake Michigan.

Nov. 2d.  Mr. Featherstonehaugh writes to me from Galena, on his return from his geological reconnoisance in the north-west, sketching some of the leading events of his progress:—­

“Desirous of giving you a passing notice of my progress, I make time, a few moments’ leisure, to say that, when I had entered the Terre Bleu River, which you remember is that tributary of the St. Peter’s I was anxious to visit, I found I could not penetrate to the Coteau de Prairie from that quarter, and no resource was left to me but to return, or go about three hundred miles higher up, where I was aware I should meet a pretty insolent set of fellows amongst the Yanktons and Tetons.  The Sioux, who had committed pretty bad Indian murders amongst the Chippewas, were in great numbers about Lac qui Parle, and there was no avoiding them.  However, it was in the line of the duty I had undertaken, and I was willing to run some risks to see them.  They were a precious set when I got to them, but by prudence and presents I got along with them, and, having began to sputter a little Sioux, I took courage, left my canoe and men there, and took a guide and interpreter and pushed on to Lac Traverse, and from thence to Coteau de Prairie, the head waters of the St. Peter’s, and to within four days’ march of the Mandan Village, Here I wheeled about back, afraid of winter.  Indeed, on my arrival at Lac Traverse, the weather was bitterly cold, and wood and water were sometimes found with great difficulty, in the intermediate prairies.  The day I left Fort Snelling, the thermometer was very low, the snow six or eight inches deep on the ground; in fact it was quite winter, and all were of opinion, at the fort, that ice would form and drive in a few days.