[Footnote 6: 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.]
A proof of their antiquity and foreign extraction is, that but few of
their records and traditions are local; they refer to countries on the
other side of the sea, countries where the summer is perpetual, the
population numberless, and the cities composed of great palaces, like
the Hindoo traditions, "built by the good genii, long before the
creation of man.
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