ROSS, =296.5 m.= (2,292 alt., 108 pop.), was named by the railway company. In 1902 a group of 20 Moslem families from Damascus, Syria, filed on homesteads SE. of Ross, and since 1909, when the Federal Government withdrew its objection to their naturalization, many of them have become citizens. They are Americanized in dress, although the women have a penchant for highly colored clothes. Many Old Country foods are still used; one Syrian dish especially well-liked consists of durum wheat boiled, sun-dried, ground, and screened, and stewed with meats and vegetables or sweet oils. The dried grain is ground in a large horse-powered machine resembling a coffee mill. In 1929 this colony built a basement mosque, and each Friday a member of the congregation conducts services. Each person carefully washes his hands and feet before entering the temple; the sexes are segregated during prayer. During Ramadan--the ninth month according to the Mohammedan calendar, which is lunar--the people fast for 30 days, taking food only after dark; the month ends with a feast. The wedding ceremony of the group is unusual, for the bride is not present. Before the wedding she selects two witnesses to act in her behalf, who state the amount of money to be exchanged between the bridegroom and her parents--the bridegroom gives the parents this amount and they return the same amount to him. During the wedding ceremony the bride retires to another room; the father places his hand in that of the bridegroom, a large kerchief is placed over the clasped hands, and a member of the congregation reads the service. It is a custom of these people to shake hands at any chance meeting, no matter how recently they have met. At =298.5 m.= is the junction with a graveled road. Left on this road is SANISH (Arikaran, _real people_), =23 m.= (1,820 alt., 463 pop.), lying in a valley between bluffs bordering the eastern bank of the Missouri River. Spanning the Missouri here is the VERENDRYE BRIDGE, completed in 1927, the third highway bridge built across the river in the State. The site was known to the Indians from the earliest times as the Old Crossing because it was used as a ford by the large buffalo herds in their annual migrations. Adjoining Sanish on the S. is VERENDRYE NATIONAL MONUMENT, in which is CROW FLIES HIGH BUTTE, named for an Hidatsa Indian chieftain. On this butte is a monument dedicated to the Verendryes, who are believed to have visited one of the agricultural Indian tribes here on their exploratory trip into present North Dakota in 1738. The site discovered near Menoken in 1936, however, may be more definitely established as the village they visited (_see Tour 8_). MANITOU (Chippewa, _the Great Spirit_), =302.5 m.= (2,282 alt., 24 pop.), founded when the G. N. Ry. built through the territory in 1887, today consists of only a consolidated school, a store, and an elevator.