Volume 1

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322 UPPER BIG BELLY VILLAGE ON KNIFE RIVER.
reached the summit of this last hill. Here we had a
delightful and extensive prospect of the river in both
directions.
Its borders are well lined with wood of various
kinds. The valley through which the river courses is
about two miles wide, confined on both sides by stupendous
banks, on which nothing grows but a short grass. In
many places, where the bends encroach on the banks, these
are entirely naked, large fragments of soil having given
way and fallen either into the river or plains. Our situation
was so elevated as to make the large trees below us
appear like mere bushes. This spot is one of the most
elevated pieces of ground on the banks of the Missourie.
The water overflows the lower bank in many places in the
spring on the breaking up of the ice ; the current, of
course, must be then increased to an astonishing velocity.
We had now a well-beaten path, but were several times
in danger of breaking our necks in deep pits which the
natives had dug in the path to catch wolves and foxes in
winter. Some of them are lo feet deep, hollowed out to a
space about 30 feet in circumference, whilst the entrance is
no wider than the foot-path and about five feet in length.
Those holes are covered with dry grass at the season when
wolves are good, and every morning are found to contain
some of those animals. In summer the grass grows strong
and high about the mouths, entirely concealing them, until
one arrives upon the very brink and is in danger of tumbling
in headlong.
At four o'clock we descended a large sloping hill and
arrived at the river-side opposite the upper Big Belly village,"
which is situated on Knife river, about one mile from
the Missourie. Here we stopped, called out, and waited
*^ This, the main or larger of the two Minnetaree, Grosventre, or Hidatsa
villages, was situated on the JV. side of Knife r., about i^ m. above its mouth,
and thus in the immediate vicinity of the present town of Causey, Mercer Co.
see L. and C, ch. v., passim, esp. pp. 184, 198, 1177. This is the Jiftk
and last, or uppermost, of the villages of which L. and C. treat, and was the
residence of Le Borgne.