simultaneous action ensued. The movement of the chair with one hand, the seizure of the nearest small dish with the other, the sudden sitting down, and the commencement of a vigorous eating, were the work of a moment. In five minutes the company had left the table for the gallery on the street front, the better for damper, Indian-corn bread eaten with molasses, sliced bacon cooked, apparently, in grease, and tea or coffee. Some few, more fortunate or more quick to seize opportunities, had obtained a piece of Johnny-cake, or some apple-sauce, or other delicacy from the smaller dishes, in addition. At dinner it was the same -fat bacon, corn-bread, and tea or coffee. At supper, the same; and at each meal in about equal quantity. The next day the same, and so every day. I concluded, in relation to the whole subject of the domestic economy of Kansas, that unsophisticated nature is contented with little, and that in Kansas, nature is allowed to have very much her own way in this particular.

The population of Leavenworth City fluctuates much with political occasions. It would

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be safe to estimate it, however, at about 1,500. I speak of the time of my visit, when it had been little more than eighteen months in existence as a settlement. It owes its prosperity, in great part, to its favourable position on the Missouri, which brings to it much of the great commerce of the plains and the traffic with the Indians, in addition to the home trade of the territory. The commerce of the plains, which, during more than thirty years, has been rising in importance, has become, since the war with New Mexico, and the removal of commercial restrictions which has followed the war, a most valuable feature in the Kansas trade. Setting aside the very numerous trains in the service of the Government, which maintain communication between Fort Leavenworth and the outposts on the Santa Fé and Oregon routes, the annual value of the regular commerce amounts to from $2,000,000 to $3,000,000. This employs many hundreds of waggons, and a still larger number of men, and tends materially to keep up the price of labour in the territory. Each waggon, again, requires twelve or more oxen, and a great number of mules are also employed

on the expeditions. This makes the rearing of stock a very profitable employment for the farm lands in Kansas and Missouri. The trains go almost exclusively during the spring and summer months, when the prairie grass furnishes the necessary food for the animals. According to the season, they get over from ten to twenty miles in the day. A waggon is estimated to carry about 5,500 lb. The expense of transport varies with the season. It ranges from a little over $1 in the best months to as much over $2 in the worst months, per hundred-weight per 100 miles. The distance from Leavenworth to Santa Fé is between 800 and 900 miles. In the winter months, when the journey is accompanied by great hardship and peril, the mail is the only communication, which is transported once a month by means of mules. With Oregon the trade on the plains has almost ceased in favour of the route by the Pacific; but the Government has still occasion to use the Oregon track as far as Fort Kearney and Fort Laramie, a distance of 600 miles. The great traffic, however, is to Fort Riley, Fort Munn, and thus to Santa Fé. Independence in Mis

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souri, Kansas City on the border, and Leavenworth, are all made use of as the entrepôts of this trade; and few things can be imagined more strangely picturesque than the sight which these cities present when, in the spring or early summer, their streets are filled with scores of long, cumbrous-looking covered waggons, and hundreds of oxen and mules; while a noisy crew of light-hearted adventurers-Missourian, Spanish, half-breed, and Indian-dressed in every variety of romantic costume, are busied in fitting out their train for its many weeks' journeying over the rolling grassy plains of the Western prairies.

CHAPTER XIV.

Traffic with the Indians.-How it is carried on.-Business and Pleasure.-Good Per-centage.--Busy Appearance of Leavenworth.-Necessaries of civilized Life.-Steamboats.-Railroads.-The Electric Telegraph.-Squatter-life.-Land without a Title.-The "Claim."-Division of new Lands.-A "Bee."-" Log-rolling."-Squatter Sovereignty." Tomahawk Rights."-"Entering," or "Pre-empting."-Abuses of the System." Jumping."—" Foundations."—A “Caution."-Right of Suffrage.

An important item in the commerce of Leavenworth is that which is brought to it by the Red Rovers of the prairie.

The traffic with the Indians is a feature by itself, and one of not inconsiderable importance, in the trade of Kansas. It rests almost exclusively, however, in the hands of one or two parties, who, having been known by the Indian tribes for years, are able to monopolize the trade. The chief mode of carrying it on is

the following:

Every quarter of a year the Indian tribes to