Note 66 — [309] CHAPTER VI [XIII]

The Washita (an Indian word meaning either "male deer," or "country of large buffaloes") should be distinguished from the river in Arkansas (Ouachita) near the sources of which are the Hot Springs (see Nuttall's Journal, in our volume xiii, note 125). The Washita, which, as the text states, is the chief northern tributary of Red River, rises in the "pan-handle" of Texas and flows east and southeast, roughly parallel with the Canadian. Its confluence with the Red is between the ninety-sixth and ninety-seventh meridians. At the western boundary of Oklahoma, the Washita approaches within fifteen miles of the Canadian; farther east, the approximation of its tributaries is so close as, in one place, scarcely to admit the passage of a single wagon.—Ed.