The Chopunnish, or Pierced-nose Indians, who reside on the Kooskooskee and Lewis's Rivers, are in person stout, portly, well-looking men. The women are small, with good features, and generally handsome, though the complexion of both sexes is darker than that of the Tushepaws. In dress, they resemble that nation, being fond of displaying their ornaments. The buffalo or elk-skin robe, decorated with beads, sea-shells (chiefly mother-of-pearl), attached to an otter-skin collar, is the dress of the men. The same ornaments are hung in the hair, which falls in front in two cues: they add feathers, paints of different colors (principally white, green, and blue), which they find in their own country. In winter, they wear a shirt of dressed skins; long, painted leggings, and moccasons; and a plait of twisted grass round the neck. The dress of the women is more simple, consisting of a long shirt of the mountain-sheep skin, reaching down to the ankles, without a girdle. To this are tied little pieces of brass and shells, and other small articles; but the head is not at all ornamented. The Chopunnish have few amusements; for their life is painful and laborious, and all their exertions are necessary to earn a precarious subsistence. During the summer and autumn, they are busily occupied in fishing for salmon, and collecting their winter store of roots. In winter, they hunt the deer on snow-shoes over the plains; and, towards spring, cross the mountains to the Missouri in pursuit of the buffalo. The soil of these prairies is a light-yellow clay. It is barren, and produces little more than a bearded grass about three inches high, and the prickly-pear, of which we found three species. The first is the broad-leaved kind, common to this river with the Missouri; the second has a leaf of a globular form, and is also frequent on the upper part of the Missouri; the third is peculiar to this country. It consists of small, thick leaves of a circular form, which grow from the margin of each other. These leaves are armed with a great number of thorns, which are strong, and appear to be barbed. As the leaf itself is very slightly attached to the stem, as soon as one thorn touches the moccason, it adheres, and brings with it the leaf, which is accompanied with a re-enforcement of thorns. This species was a greater annoyance on our march than either of the others. CHAPTER XII. FROM THE JUNCTION OF THE KOOSKOOSKEE WITH LEWIS'S RIVER TO THE COLUMBIA. From the mouth of the Kooskooskee to that of the Lewis is about a hundred miles; which distance they descended in seven days. The navigation was greatly impeded by rapids, which they passed with more or less danger and difficulty; being greatly indebted to the assistance of the Indians, as they thankfully acknowledge. Sometimes they were obliged to unload their boats, and to carry them round by land. All these rapids are fishing-places, greatly resorted to in the season.