Note 6 — Chapter IV

The American travellers (even Mr. Catlin, who is generally correct) have entirely mistaken the country inhabited by the Shoshones. One of them represents this tribe as "the Indians who inhabit that part of the Rocky Mountains which lies on the Grand and Green River branches of the Colorado of the West, the valley of Great Bear River, and the hospitable shores of the Great Salt Lakes." It is a great error. That the Shoshones may have been seen in the above-mentioned places is likely enough, as they are a great nation, and often send expeditions very far from their homes; but their own country lies, as I have said, betwixt the Pacific Ocean and the 116th degree of west longitude. As to the "hospitable" shores of the Great Salt Lake. I don't know what it means, unless it be a modern Yankee expression for a tract of horrid swamps with deadly effluvia, tenanted by millions of snakes and other "such hospitable reptiles." The lake is situated on the western country of the Crows, and I doubt if it has ever been visited by any Shoshone.