Carson had many opportunities of exploring the country, which he gladly embraced, and thus became familiar with many localities, the knowledge of which was in after years of such essential service to him and others. There were many large tribes of Indians scattered through this country, in these and smaller valleys, beside those which the missions had attached to them. We know not that any record has been kept of the names of these tribes and their numbers; but since the white men intruded, they have melted away as did earlier those east of the Mississippi. These Indians were all of the variety called Diggers, but in better condition than we see them, since the small remnants of large tribes have adopted the vices of the white men, and learned improvidence, by sometimes having plenty without much toil; so that they can say to-day, "No deer, no acorn; white man come! poor Indian hungry," as the happiest style of begging. A brief description of the Tlamath or Digger Indians, and their mode of living, may not now be out of place, and having been visited by Carson in his earlier years, may not be uninteresting. We quote from the language of one who has paid a recent visit to the tribe: "There were a dozen wigwams for the nearly hundred that composed the tribe, one of which was much larger than the rest, and in the centre of the group, the temple, or "medicine lodge." As we entered, the bones of game consumed, and other offal lay about; and to our inquiry why they did not clear away and be more tidy, only a grunt was returned. The men had gone fishing, said the Indian woman we addressed, so we saw but two or three; but in one wigwam which we entered there were fourteen with ourselves--the rest, besides the boy who went before to announce us, were women and children. "We ascended a mound of earth, as it seemed, about six feet high, and through a circular hole, perhaps two feet and a half in diameter, descended a perpendicular ladder about ten feet. This opening, through which we entered, performed the double office of door and window to the space below, which was circular, about fourteen feet across, with arrangements for sleeping, like berths in a steamboat, one over another, on two sides, suspended by tying with bark a rough stick to upright posts, which served to hold the sticks that sustained the roof. The whole was substantially built, the covering being the earth which was taken from the spot beneath, heaped upon a layer of rushes, the floor of the wigwam being four feet below the surface of the ground. On the two sides of the wigwam not occupied by the berths, were barrels filled with fish--dried salmon, seeds, acorns, and roots.