Volume 1

GREAT BIG BELLIES ON KNIFE RIVER. 345
people ; the children and even the youths collected and
followed us in crowds, laughing and making sport of us, to
the great entertainment of the men, who were seated upon
their huts enjoying the cool morning air, and by their significant
smiles seemed to applaud such proceedings. The
dogs also assailed us from every quarter, and were very
troublesome. We, therefore, made no stop at this village,
which consists of about 60 huts, but pushed through the
crowd to the west end, where the road leads along the bank
of Knife river, here about 50 yards wide, with a gentle current.
The water is thick and muddy, and of a reddish
color, that of the Missourie being much lighter or paler.
Here the road is again very pleasant, running through an
open level country, with corn-fields in sight, in which were
numbers of people at work ; beyond them we saw several
hundred horses, feeding upon the hills and along the banks
of Knife river. We came about one mile from the last
village, crossed Knife river, having the water up to our
saddles, with a fine sandy bottom ; and 300 yards further
entered the great village of the Big Bellies, which consists
of about 130 huts.
Here we found Messrs. Charles McKenzie "' and James
" See L. and C, ed. 1893, pp. 203, 226, 232, 1177. Charles McKenzie is
readily distinguished from the many of that surname in the fur trade. He
entered the N. W. Co. as apprenticed clerk in 1803, and became clerk in 1604
on Upper Red r., where he was traveling with Harmon in October of that
year. His first visit to the Mandans was in 1804, when he made one of the
party under F. A. Larocque (the others being William Morrison, J. B.
Turenne, Alexis McKay, and Joseph Azure) ; he left there April 2d, 1805, and
reached Fort Assiniboine May 22d. Again he made the same trip with Mr.
Larocque, Mr. Lafrance, and two voyageurs, leaving Fort Assiniboine June
3d, and leaving the Mandans on his return with Lafrance Aug. 15th. He went
a third time in February, 1806, and returned to Fort Assiniboine in 23 days.
His fourth visit began June 4th, 1806, when he left Fort Assiniboine with Mr.
Caldwell and a freeman. See his The Missouri Indians. A Narrative of Four
Trading Expeditions to the Mississouri, 1804-1805-1806, in Masson, I. 1889,
PP- 315-93—a specially valuable article. The N. W. Co. abandoned the
Missouri trade in 1807, and Mr. McKenzie was stationed for some years about
Lac la Pluie, the Nepigon, etc. He joined the H. B. Co. on the fusion of
1821, and continued in that service till about 1846. Though he never liked it.