OCR Text |
Show The Sad Lands. The Bad Lands of Dakota are composed com-posed of a white clay, which, by the uction of rains, has been cut into hillocks. hil-locks. They are not high, seldom more I than forty or fifty feet; but it is np one I and down another the whole way. You ,i cannot follow the water courses, for there are none; a gully, forty feet deep, , with a foot and a half of mud at the bot- ; torn, is tho nearest approach to a water- course in the whole region. At every j few yards you must stop and, with spade and shovel, ent a path down the side of a hill in order to descend, and then np the side of the one opposite in order to ; get up again. ! The mud is as sticky as tar, and in going a few yards tho wheels of a wagon become eolid round cakes, and all the mules that you can hitch to it will not be ablo to pull it a foot further. Then the spades are brought aud the wheels ' cleared, the operation being repeated 1 two or three times in a huti'lred yards. The extent of the Bad Lands in Dakota is probably a hundred miles from north to south by fifteen to thirty miles wide; j and if the Indians find a better strong- hold in this country the plainsmen would like to hear of it. Interview in St. ,1'Quis Globe-Democrat. |