Having spoken in detail of the Indian tribes inhabiting the line of fertile country lying between Red River and the Rocky Mountains, it only remains for me to allude to the Blackfeet with the confederate tribes of Blood, Lurcees and Peagins.  These tribes inhabit the great plains lying between the Red Deer River and the Missouri, a vast tract of country which, with few exceptions, is treeless, and sandy—­a portion of the true American desert, which extends from the fertile belt of the Saskatchewan to the borders of Texas.  With the exception of the Lurcees, the other confederate tribes speak the same language—­the Lurcees, being a branch of the Chipwayans of the North, speak a language peculiar to themselves, while at the same time understanding and speaking the Blackfeet tongue.  At war with their hereditary enemies, the Crees, upon their northern and eastern boundaries—­at war with Kootanais and Flathead tribes on south and west—­at war with Assineboines on the south-east and north-west—­carrying on predatory excursions against the Americans on the Missouri, this Blackfeet nation forms a people of whom it may truly be said that they are against every man, and that every man is against them.  Essentially a wild, lawless, erring race, whose natures have received the stamps of the region in which they dwell; whose knowledge is read from the great book which Day, Night, and the Desert unfold to them; and who yet possess a rude eloquence, a savage pride, and a wild love of freedom of their own.  Nor are there other indications wanting to lead to the hope that this tribe may yet be found to be capable of yielding to influences to which they have heretofore been strangers, namely, Justice and Kindness.

Inhabiting, as the Blackfeet do, a large extent of country which, from the arid nature of its soil mist ever prove useless for purposes of settlement and colonization, I do not apprehend that much difficulty will arise between them and the whites, provided always that measures are taken to guard against certain possibilities of danger, and that the Crees are made to unnderstand that the forts and settlements along the Upper Saskatchewan must be considered as neutral ground upon which hostilities cannot be waged against the Black feet.  As matters at present stand, whenever the Blackfeet venture in upon a trading expedition to the forts of the Hudson Bay Company they are generally assaulted by the Crees, and savagely murdered.  Pee Lacombe estimates the nunber of Blackfeet killed in and around Edmonton alone during his residence in the West, at over forty men, and he has assured me that to his knowledge the Blackfeet have never killed a Cree at that place, except in self-defence.  Mr. W. J. Christie, chief factor at Edmonton house, confirms this statement.  He says, “The Blackfeet respect the whites more than the Crees do, that is, a Blackfoot will never attempt the life of a Cree at our forts, and bands of them are more easily controlled in an excitement,