One of La, Vérendrye's principal reasons for visiting the Mandans had been to find out from them as much as possible of the country which lay westward. He had hoped that they would be able to tell him something definite about the Western Sea, something of the best way of reaching it, and of the tribes he should meet on the way. He had had very little time to put questions before his interpreter deserted, and now he feared that he should have to turn back, because he had no means of getting information from the Mandans. With a great deal of difficulty he managed to learn that there were six Mandan villages or forts, some on one side of the Missouri, some on the other, and that farther down this river lived two other tribes, the Panana and the Pananis, who were at war with the Mandans, although they had formerly been their fast friends. The Mandans told him by signs that as one went down the Missouri it became very wide, and that there a race dwelt who were white like himself. These people, they said, rode on horseback both when they hunted {65} and when they went to war; they wore armour and fought with lances and sabres, which they handled with great skill. Their forts and houses were of stone and they cultivated their fields. A whole summer was necessary to reach their country from the Mandan villages. La Vérendrye did not know how much of this to believe, and he was not even sure that he correctly understood what the Mandans tried to convey to him by signs. He was not at all certain that the quarter in which these people, so different from the Mandans, were said to live was the direction it was necessary to take in order to reach the Western Sea. He did not know the truth, that the river by which he stood, the Missouri, emptied into the Mississippi, and that the settlements spoken of by the Mandans were probably the Spanish settlements on the lower waters of the Mississippi. In order to extend his information, he used every agency to learn as much as possible about the Mandans themselves. He sent his son François to another village near by, to examine it and to make further inquiries. La Vérendrye himself made close observations. He walked about the village in which he was quartered, and examined the {66} fortifications with a great deal of interest. There were about one hundred and thirty cabins within the walls; the streets and squares were laid out regularly and were kept remarkably neat and clean. The smooth, wide ramparts were built of timber strengthened with cross-pieces. At each corner was a bastion, and the fort was surrounded by a ditch fifteen feet deep and from fifteen to eighteen feet wide. He was astonished to find such elaborate fortifications among a savage tribe. Nowhere else in the New World had he seen anything of the kind.