The Prince Seravalle, while digging, in the fall of the year 1834, for an ammunition store on the western banks of the Buona Ventura, picked up a beautiful curved ivory tusk, three feet long, which, had it not been for its jet black colour, would have been amazingly alike to that of a large elephant.

Some pieces of it (for unhappily it was sawn into several parts) are now in the possession of the governor of Monterey and Mr. Lagrange, a Canadian trader, who visited the territory in 1840.]

“One summer, and it was a dreadful one, the moon (i.e. the sun) remained stationary for a long time; it was of a red blood colour, and gave neither night nor days.  Takwantona, the spirit of evil, had conquered Nature, and the sages of the Shoshones foresaw many dire calamities.  The great Medecines declared that the country would soon be drowned in the blood of their nation.  They prayed in vain, and offered, without any success, two hundred of their fairest virgins in sacrifice on the altars of Takwantona.  The evil spirit laughed, and answered to them with his destructive thunders.  The earth was shaken and rent asunder; the waters ceased to flow in the rivers, and large streams of fire and burning sulphur rolled down from the mountains, bringing with them terror and death.  How long it lasted none is living to say; and who could?  There stood the bleeding moon; ’twas neither light nor obscurity; how could man divide the time and the seasons?  It may have been only the life of a worm; it may have been the long age of a snake.

“The struggle was fearful, but at last the good Master of Life broke his bonds.  The sun shone again.  It was too late! the Shoshones had been crushed and their heart had become small; they were poor and had no dwellings; they were like the deer of the prairies, hunted by the hungry panther.

“And a strange and numerous people landed on the shores of the sea:  they were rich and strong; they made the Shoshones their slaves, and built large cities, where they passed all their time.  Ages passed:  the Shoshones were squaws; they hunted for the mighty strangers; they were beasts, for they dragged wood and water to their great wigwams; they fished for them, and they themselves starved in the midst of plenty.  Ages again passed:  the Shoshones could bear no more; they ran away to the woods, to the mountains, and to the borders of the sea; and, lo! the great Father of Life smiled again upon them; the evil genii were all destroyed, and the monsters buried in the sands.

“They soon became strong, and great warriors; they attacked the strangers, destroyed their cities, and drove them like buffaloes, far in the south, where the sun is always burning, and from whence they did never return.

“Since that time, the Shoshones have been a great people.  Many, many times strangers arrived again; but being poor and few, they were easily compelled to go to the east and to the north, in the countries of the Crows, Flat-heads, Wallah Wallahs, and Jal Alla Pujees (the Calapooses).”