As soon as the bandages and dressings were completed they began a medicine dance around him. At first the movement was slow, and accompanied by a low ordinary chant, but gradually both acquired violence and rapidity, till at length they reached the height of fury and frenzy. They swung their tomahawks round the head of the wounded man, rushed upon him with the most dreadful yells, shook their weapons violently in his face, jumped repeatedly over him, pretending each time to give him the fatal blow, then checking it as it descended, and while once or twice I saw them push and kick his limbs, one of the most excited struck him several severe blows on the breast. On inquiry, I learned that all these gesticulations were intended to threaten and banish the evil spirit which was supposed to have possessed him. While this was going on a complete silence reigned throughout the crowd, none being permitted to dance or yell, except those actually engaged in the medicine ceremonies. What, however, may be regarded as the Indian’s universal remedy for all ailments is the sweating bath and sudatory; these sudatories are always near the village, above or below it, on the bank of the river. They are generally built of skins, in the form of a Crow or Sioux lodge, covered with buffalo skins sewed tight together, with a kind of furnace in the centre; or, in other words, in the centre of the lodge are two walls of stone about six feet long, and two and a half apart, and about three feet high; across and over this space between the two walls are laid a number of round sticks, on which the bathing crib is placed. Contiguous to the lodge, and outside of it is a little furnace, something similar in the side of the bank, where the woman kindles a hot fire and heats to a red heat a number of large stones, which are kept at these places for this particular purpose; and having them all in readiness, she goes home or sends word to inform her husband or other one who is waiting that all is ready, when he makes his appearance entirely naked, though with a large buffalo robe wrapped around him. He then enters the lodge, and places himself in the basket with his back towards the door of the lodge, when the squaw brings in a large stone red-hot, between two sticks lashed together somewhat in the form of a pair of tongs, and, placing it under him, throws cold water upon it, which raises a profusion of vapour about him. He is at once enveloped in a cloud of steam, and a woman or child will sit at a little distance and continue to dash water upon the stone, whilst the matron of the lodge is out, and preparing to make her appearance with another heated stone; or he will sit and dip from a wooden bowl with a ladle made of the mountain-sheep’s horn, and throw upon the heated stone, with his own hands, the water which he is drawing through his lungs and pores the next moment, in the delectable and exhilarating vapour, as it distils