19 May: Heavy rain, no wind, warm. At eight o’clock, 69°F [20.6°C]. Departure at about seven thirty. After a few hours, we put in on the left bank, because the men were too drenched. About nine o’clock the weather cleared, [and] we continued the journey. The mouth of the Little Platte River [was] on the right bank. Here Mr. Bodmer wept blood from his left eye. The appearance was deceiving, because it was only an insignificant wound: on his left side he shed bloody tears and on his right he laughed. To [our] left [we] soon saw a settlement; [their] numbers began to steadily increase [as we went on].

At eleven o’clock the mouth of the Conza [Kansas River] was to our right. We put in at a settlement not too far below. About twelve o’clock there was a colony to the left with many small buildings; it had been established just the previous year. About this time [it was] 77°F [25°C]. The weather seemed to be clearing. The riverbanks had layered argillaceous slate. Soon black rain clouds threatened, [and] we hurried to land; but we continued the journey before long, [when] the weather seemed to be clearing up. High, magnificently freshly green forest covered the banks. In the forest there were small, isolated log houses [as well as] grazing cattle—brown, black and white spotted, often brown and white.

We put ashore near a few houses called Portage d’Independence [in a] fine, tall forest. (Independence [itself] is located a little farther inland, about three miles distant: a fine, substantial town.) In one of the houses, we found Mr. Sublette, laid low by an old foot wound. He had always [been involved in] the fur trade [and had] formed a [company] competing with the American Fur Company, but he [had] now sold, that is, ceded, it to them. He was eager to get news from us about the upper Missouri and was waiting here for the steamboat Oto, to journey [on it] to St. Louis.

In the forest to the left, I saw wet turkey buzzards sitting high in the trees with their wings spread wide in an attempt to dry themselves. A retired soldier (a whiskey drinker) asked for passage [on our boat], and I took him along.

After five o’clock we reached the landing place of Liberty on the left bank; however, we did not stop. [There were] magnificent forests everywhere. Descoteaux met a comrade, a Canadian beaver hunter, and asked to leave us. We put him ashore, with his skins and pelts, on the left bank. After a few hours, toward evening, we reached a settlement with a ferry; [place] is known by the name of Williams Ferry or Charaton Scatty. We went ashore for the night at the left bank, a little below the houses, underneath tall, shady forest trees.

While a fire was lit on the beach, I went toward the houses and explored the fields in a little valley surrounded by hills covered with high forest with ample shade. The BaltimoreM01Icterus baltimore. and the vermilion tanagerM02Tanagra rubra. with black wings and tail immediately caught my eye at the edge of the forest. They glowed like fiery sparks in the new, lively green of May: various kinds of oaks with their lobate leaves in different shapes; dainty pinnate or large-leafed walnut trees, among them the interesting shellbark tree; Celtis; Cercis; elms; and high sugar maples [together] formed a dark, virgin forest that, unfortunately, was too wet today.

A housewife in the settlement sold us a chicken for our dinner [and] gave us cream and fresh butter, for which she did not want to take any money. In the surrounding areas, frogs croaked, [including] the [one] with eye spotsM03 In this Tagebuch I have always considered this frog to be Rana halecina; but according to Harlan's information, it is not that one but R. [---]. and a larger one that I can only consider to be identical with the bullfrog of Pennsylvania. They were both caught. We heard tree frogs (Hyla squirella). Below the toppled trees, there was an animal just like our European black and yellow-striped salamander, probably a related species. A Rubus with large, snow-white flowers (R.[—-—]) bloomed very beautifully in all the woodlands of this area. The mandrake (Podophyllum peltatum) grew frequently on the black forest floor. In the dark, dense forest, I heard the bellowing cattle of the neighboring plantation owners, [and then] the dusk drove me home. The frogs croaked exactly like ours in Germany, but their call here is not [as] penetratingly strong and loud. It rained part of the night.