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UNITED STATES, CANADA AND MEXICO
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207
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exactly
on its highest elevation, as its general course is north and south and
its southern extremity terminates in a gradual slope. Our approach to
it was from the east, and the ascent, for the distance of fifty miles,
over a continued succession of slopes and terraces, almost
imperceptibly rising one above the other that seemed to lift us to a
great height. The singular character of this majestic mound continues
on the west side in its descent towards the Missouri. There is not a
tree or bush to be seen from the highest summit of the ridge, though
the eye may range east and west almost to a boundless extent, over a
surface covered with a short grass that is green at one's feet and
about him, but changing to blue in distance, like nothing but the blue
and vastness of the ocean." Of his struggles with Indians to visit the
place, he relates: "We were persisting in the most peremptory terms in
the determination to visit their great medicine (mystery) place, where,
it seems, they had often resolved no white man should ever be allowed
to go. They took us to be ' officers sent by Government to see what
this place was worth.' As 'this red stone was a part of their flesh,'
it would be sacrilegious for white men to touch or take it away—' a
hole would be made in their flesh and the blood could never be made to
stop running.' My companion, Robert S. Wood, and myself were in a fix,
one that demanded the use of every energy we had about us. Astounded at
so unexpected a rebuff, and more than ever excited to go ahead and see
what was to be seen at this strange place, in this emergency we
mutually agreed to go forward, even if it should be at the hazard of
our lives." He says, concerning the quarry itself: " The thousands of
inscriptions and paintings on the rocks at this place, as well as the
ancient diggings for the pipestone, will afford amusement for the
world who will visit it, without furnishing the least data, I should
think, of the time at which these excavations commenced, or of the
period at which the Sioux assumed the exclusive right to it." Mr.
Catlin tells of the many superstitions about smoking among the Indians,
and says: " The red stone of which these pipebowls are made is, in my
estimation, a great curiosity, inasmuch as I am sure it is a variety
of steatite (if it be steatite) differing from that of any
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