As we descended towards the Arkansa, we perceived before us the cabins and plantations of another settlement of Cherokees. Passing near a wretched and neglected tenement, we observed a white man, who appeared to be the occupant, and called upon him to direct us to the place where, as we had been told, the river could be forded. It was not until we had repeated our request several times, that he seemed disposed to give any attention. He then approached at a snail's pace, and setting himself down upon the ground, drawled out his direction, terminating each word with a long and hearty yawn. The depression and misery which seemed written on his features, and the sallowness of his complexion, convinced us that disease, as well as native indolence, had some share in occasioning the apparent insolence he had shewn, and cured us of any wish we might have felt to reproach him. Following a winding pathway, which led through deep-tangled thickets and heavy cane-brakes, we {130} arrived at the ford, and crossing without difficulty, halted at the settlement of Walter Webber,[10] a young chief of the Cherokees. Here we found the gentlemen of our party who had left the garrison before us. The chiefs of the Cherokee nation had called a grand council, to meet at Point Pleasant the day after our arrival there, to adopt measures to forward the negotiations for peace with the Osages, with whom they had been at variance for many years. The origin of the quarrel, existing between these powerful and warlike nations, is by some referred to the period of the American revolution, when the Osages killed a number of refugees, who had fled to them for protection. Among these were some Cherokees, some Indians of mixed breed, and it is said some Englishmen, to whom the success of the American arms rendered unsafe a longer residence in the country then occupied by the Cherokee nation. Whether the outrage thus alleged against the Osages was in fact committed, it is not at this time easy to determine. It appears, however, agreeably to the information we have been able to collect, that of late years the Cherokees have almost uniformly been the aggressors, while the abuses of the Osages, so loudly complained of, both by the Cherokees and the Whites, have been acts of retaliation. A large number of Cherokees now live on the south side of the Arkansa, upon lands claimed by the Osages; and all the Cherokees of the Arkansa are in the habit of hunting and committing depredations upon the Osage hunting grounds. In 1817, the Cherokees, with a number of Delawares, Shawnees,[11] Quapaws, and eleven American volunteers, the whole amounting to about six hundred men, made an irruption into the territory of the Osages, having previously taken measures to quiet the suspicions of their enemies, by occasional messages, professing a peaceable disposition on their part. When they had arrived near the village, they {131} sent a deputation to