interpreter, at the instigation of the Shoutous, had hatched up a treaty without the actual authority of the chiefs, so that in the present state of things a war betwixt the Cherokees and the Osages is almost inevitable, unless the latter relinquish the banks of the Arkansa, as Messrs. Shoutou wish them. The Osages in a recent council said, they would have no objection to dispose of their lands, provided the whites only were allowed to settle upon them.[209]
I understand that the hot springs of the Washita are situated about a mile from that river, contiguous to the {216} bank of a brook. At the springs, a ridge of between five and six hundred feet, from whence smoke had been seen to issue, appears, by the massive rocks that fill this stream, to have been broken through, or undermined by its torrents. Many thermal springs, besides those employed by visitors, are seen boiling out of the side of the hill, and mingling with the cool water of the brook. The principal fountain, issuing from amidst huge masses of black rocks, apparently bituminous and calcareous slate in thick laminæ, has a stream of near a foot in diameter at its orifice, and hot enough to boil eggs or fish; a steam arises from it as from water in a state of ebullition, attended with a considerable discharge of bubbles. It is only after mixing with the cool water of the brook, at some distance from this spring, that it becomes of a temperature in which it is possible to bathe. There is, however, a kind of rude inclosure made around the spring, as a steam bath, which often probably debilitates, and
