As we were approaching the upper village we observed sentinels standing on the highest bluffs, posted there, it seems, to watch the approach of any strangers. The first that we observed was at a distance of five miles from the village. In the bottom prairie, numbers of ponies, the property of the village, were grazing, watched by women and children. As we approached the village, young men and boys joined our caravan, and when at last we arrived there a dense crowd of children surrounded us, eager to see the visitors of their village, so that it was necessary for a chief to come to our aid, who opened a way through the immense throng for our wagon to proceed on to the lodge, where we were to put up. We were here, as well as at the other village, struck with the large proportion of children, a circumstance not generally observable among Indians. Mr. Allis informed us that visiting them a few months previous (the smallpox having appeared among some of the Indian tribes) he had vaccinated about 1,500 under 14 years of age (in a population of hardly 6,000); the last time that the whole tribe had been vaccinated, having been 14 years ago. The village stands on a rising ground, about three miles from the river, and consequently the same distance from the nearest timber. In a valley near by flows a beautiful stream, from which the people of the village are supplied with water. The lodge, where we were to remain, was the medicine lodge of the village, and just as we entered it we found a company of about a hundred men engaged in dancing a _medicine_ dance, in order to propitiate the Great Spirit, to grant them prosperity in the approaching buffalo-hunting season, and protection from their enemies. Their naked bodies were painted in the most grotesque manner, their hair and weapons plumed with eagles’ feathers, and thus armed with bows and arrows, spears, and shields, they were dancing to the beat of the drum, intermingled with songs. Their yells rent the air, while the very earth seemed to shake under their feet. After we had sat in the lodge a few minutes, a dense crowd of two or three hundred children filling up the space at the entrance, whose curiosity was probably more attracted by us than by the dancers, a chief came forth from the dancing party, with a whip in his hand, at sight of whom the children made for the door, but as it took some time before the crowd could get out by the narrow opening he commenced plying his whip most unmercifully on the naked backs of the poor children till the entrance was cleared. We were then informed that on account of our arrival, out of deference to us, they would now dance outside; if, however, we wished to look at them while dancing, we were welcome to come out and see them.—After a little while we went out and looked at them for some time, while they were engaged in these religious exercises. Our hearts melted, and our eyes filled with tears at the thought of the benighted state of their minds, living