In the autumn of 1853, just 20 years after Maximilian was among the Hidatsa, an officer passed down the Missouri from Fort Benton to St. Louis, thence to continue to Washington, where he arrived November 21. In his journal are several brief references to the Hidatsa, or, as he designated the tribe, the Gros Ventres. To quote from the journal: "October 8 ... a fine region, full of game, and occasionally speaking a hunting party of Gros Ventres out after buffalo." The next day the small party arrived at Fort Berthold, late in the afternoon. Then, so the journal continues: "We received many visits from the Gros Ventres, and gave them a few presents. The Gros Ventres have a large village of mud houses--very unsightly outside, but within warm and comfortable." The following morning, October 10, 1853, "I visited some of the lodges of the Gros Ventres, and found them exceedingly comfortable and capable of accommodating comfortably a hundred persons. One part of the lodge is appropriated to the horses, dogs, cattle, and chickens, and another to their own sleeping apartments. They all seemed to live sociably and comfortable together during the long cold winters of this cold latitude.... We left Fort Berthold early; but, before we had advanced far, were driven ashore by a strong wind, which continued throughout the day. The smoke from the burning prairies is so dense as to almost hide the sun. The fires, burning in every direction, present at night a beautiful and magnificent, though terrible appearance." (Saxton, (1), pp. 264-265.) What a vivid, though brief, description of conditions in the Upper Missouri Valley when all was in a primitive state. During the years following the visits of Catlin and Maximilian many changes took place in the native villages standing on the banks of the upper Missouri and its tributaries. Writing of a period about 40 years after Maximilian's stay among the Mandan and Hidatsa, the winter of 1833-34, Dr. Matthews said: "The Hidatsa, Minnetaree, or Grosventre Indians, are one of the three tribes which at present inhabit the permanent village at Fort Berthold, Dakota Territory, and hunt on the waters of the Upper Missouri and Yellowstone Rivers, in Northwestern Dakota and Eastern Montana." Describing the village, he continued: "The village consists of a number of houses built very closely together, without any attempt at regularity of position. The doors face in every possible direction; and there is great uniformity in the appearance of the lodges; so it is a very difficult matter to find one's way among them." In a footnote to this paragraph is given the number of structures standing there in the year 1872. The note reads: In the fall of 1872, Dr. C. E. McChesney, then physician at the Berthold agency, counted, with great care, the buildings in the village and, in a letter, gave me the following results: