[87] The "Kaskaias" were closely akin to the Comanche, if not identical with them. The name is rarely used after the date of the present account, and the term Comanche is extended so as to include the Indians to which it is here applied. Jedidiah Morse, Indian commissioner, reckoned their numbers (1822) at three thousand, and located them along the base of the Rocky Mountains, in the same area over which the Comanche roamed.—ED. The chief addressed us for some time with great apparent earnestness, but his discourse, as it came to our comprehension by the aid of an interpreter, whom we obtained at this village, seemed directed solely to one object, the exciting our compassion for his poverty. "Father,—You see me here; I am very poor; my young men are very poor; we hope our Great Father will not forget the red skins, his children, they are poor;" with a great deal more in the same strain. He, however, returned frequently to the subject of our journey to the west. "I will tell my young men," said he, (meaning the war parties which should be sent out in that direction,) "when {132} they meet you, to take you by the hand, and smoke the peace pipe with you." The Knife-chief, with his son Petalesharoo, celebrated for his filial affection, his valour, and his humanity, visited us at our camp in the afternoon, and we were proud to entertain one whom we thought so worthy of our admiration. We also received a visit from a _Medicine-man_, who, having heard there were great medicine men belonging to our party, requested to be shown some of the mysteries of their profession. We accordingly displayed before him a pair of bullet-forceps, a small case of surgeons' instruments, and some similar articles, and began to explain to him the use of each. He attended for some time to our discourse, but apparently without comprehending any part of it, and at length turned abruptly away, with an air of dissatisfaction and contempt.