256 JOURNAL OF E. WILLARD SMITH
several thousand buffalo today, two or three herds containing about three hundred. All feel in good spirits although the water is extremely bad, indeed we have had good water but twice since we started. Towards evening we passed a great number of buffaloes, the prairie being actually alive with them. They extended probably about four miles, and numbered nearly two hundred thousand. We were amazed with a scene so new to us, so strange to one accustomed to cities and civilization.
24th. Today we saw nearly as many buffaloes as yesterday. So many are not generally met at this season so far East. We are now about three hundred miles from Independence. We had grown weary with the monotony of traveling till we met buffalo, but the excitement of hunting soon revived us.
26th. We have met with nothing very interesting today, but have seen a great many buffaloes, and at evening en- camped on the banks of the Arkansas. The river here is pretty wide, but not more than two or three feet deep. We shall now continue to travel along the Arkansas for ten or twelve days. The river here is the boundary between Mexico and Missouri Territory.
26th. A pleasant day, but the evenings are becoming cool. We are not as much troubled with mosquitoes as for several nights previously. This has been a long day's journey. We now live on buffalo meat altogether, which requires very little salt. Our party now consists of thirty-six persons, having been joined by four on the sixteenth.
27th. Another pleasant day. We are getting along rapidly, traveling about twenty-five miles a day. Our hunters go out again today for meat. There are two ways of hunting buffaloes. One called approaching, the other running. When a hunter approaches he puts on a white blanket coat and a white cap, so as to resemble a white wolf as much as possible, and crawls on his hands and knees towards the buffalo, until he gets within one hundred and fifty yards, then sinks his knife in the ground, lies prostrate, rests his gun on his knife, and fires at the animal. It generally requires more than one shot to kill a buffalo, even if he should be shot through the heart. The way of hunting
