Five leagues above them on the same side of the river, resides the nation of Pawnees. This people were among the most numerous of the Missouri Indians, but have been gradually broken and dispersed and even within the past ten years have undergone some sensible changes. They now consist of four bands; the first of about 500 men, to whom of late years have been added a second band called the Republican Pawnees from their having lived on the Republican branch of the River Kanzas--they amount to nearly 250 men. The third are the Pawnees Loups or Wolf Pawnees, who live on the Wolf fork of the Platte, about 90 miles from the principal village and number 280 men. The fourth band originally resided on the Kanzas and Arkansaw but in their wars with the Osages they were so often defeated that they at last retired to their present home on the Red River where they form a tribe of 400 men. All these tribes live in villages and subsist chiefly on corn; but during the intervals of farming rove the plains in quest of buffalo. Beyond them on the river and westward of the Black Mountains are the Kaninaviesch consisting of about 400 men. They are supposed to have been originally Pawnees--but they have degenerated and now no longer live in villages but rove the plains. Still farther to the westward are several tribes who wander and hunt to the sources of the River Platte and thence to Rock Mountain. Of these tribes little is known more than the names and the numbers, as first the Straitan or Kite Indians, a small tribe of one hundred men. They have acquired the name of Kites from their flying; that is their being always on horseback; and the smallness of their numbers is to be attributed to their extreme ferocity; they are the most warlike of all the western Indians; they never yield in battle; they never spare their enemies; and the retaliation of this barbarity has almost extinguished the nation. Then come the Wetapahato and Kiowa tribes associated together and amounting to two hundred men; the Castahana of three hundred men, to which are to be added the Cataka, seventy-five men, and the Dotami. These wandering tribes are conjectured to be the remnants of the great Padouca nation who occupied the country between the upper parts of the River Platte and the River Kanzas. They were visited by Bourgemont in 1724, and then lived on the Kanzas River. The Seats which he described as their residences are now occupied by the Kanzas nation; and of the Padoucas there does not now exist even the name.