Children rarely figured as the subject matter of Bodmer's paintings or Maximilian's observations. One exception is this portrait of a little girl, most likely the child Maximilian said was drawn at Fort Union in October, 1833 . She was a Blackfeet but was living with the Assiniboins. Perhaps she had been taken captive after some skirmish between these two warring tribes and was being raised by an Assiniboin family. The child is wearing leggings and ornaments that are smaller versions of those seen on adults in other portraits.

On October 11 Prince Maximilian, Bodmer, and a group of hunters from Fort Union set out on a buffalo hunt. Toward noon they sighted their first buffalo about twenty miles from the post, where the hunters were accustomed to taking a weekly count of from nine to fifteen animals. After making camp and a brief respite for lunch, the hunters rode out upon the prairies and discovered a small, scattered herd. Bodmer made several studies of buffalo on this date, both during and after the hunt.

While en route to Fort McKenzie on August 7, Maximilian noted in his journal for that day that he had glimpsed what he supposed to be the distant summits of the Rocky Mountains. On September 9, shortly before his departure from the fort, he again reported that he and Bodmer went into the hills above the river "to paint... the Bear's Paw and to make a drawing of the first chain of the Rocky Mountains," actually an isolated uplift known today as the Highwoods.

A watercolor rendering of Fort McKenzie (Plate 271) is on the reverse of this pencil sketch of a Piegan camp. Presumably both were done in August or September of 1833. The numbers of people gathered at the fort to trade were impressively large: 800 Blackfeet warriors greeted the arrival of Maximilian's keelboat. The camps there were correspondingly large and full of activity. Tableau 43 of the aquatint atlas is based on this initial sketch, with dozens of human figure, dogs, and horses added to the foreground to convey the noisy bustle of camp life. As John C.

In navigating upstream on the lower Mississippi, steamer craft customarily kept close to the banks in order to avoid the intense current. This subjected such vessels to the dangers of encountering driftwood along the banks. Bodmer related that often the paddlewheels were broken as a result of contact with snags and sunken logs. His watercolor sketch of the Mississippi steamer Delphine was made near Baton Rouge the latter part of January, 1833.

Judging from dated inscriptions on various extant studies, Bodmer seems to have stayed in the New Orleans area approximately ten days. Maximilian's subsequent account indicates "about eight days" and states that the artist embarked on the steamer Arkansas for Baton Rouge on January 22. This view of the lower Mississippi, dated January 21, is presumed to have been made at or near New Orleans. It depicts types of craft then in use on the river. What appears to be the head of an Indian is faintly outlined at left center

Continuing down river from Cincinnati on October 13, Maximilian and his traveling companions arrived at Louisville, Kentucky, on the following day. Here they found lodgings ashore for the night. Maximilian devoted several pages in his journal to a description of Louisville and its inhabitants. Of the latter he wrote, "Elegance is the principal concern of the inhabitants here . . .. They are looking for money and fine clothes, while feeling bored and leaning their mostly empty heads against the wall as if they were very heavy."

At the time of Maximilian's visit, the once extensive Bonaparte estate consisted of about 300 acres of garden and park land. Bodmer made a second landscape in this vicinity on the afternoon of July 23. This was later reproduced as Vignette II in the atlas of aquatints that accompanied the publication of Maximilian's travels in North America.