A herd of hundreds, and even thousands, is sometimes slaughtered at one of these _battues_.

The Indians make this wholesale destruction for two objects; first, to get the meat, which they preserve by "jerking"-- that is, by cutting into thin strips and drying in the sun--and, secondly, for the skins with which they cover their tents, make their beds, and part of their clothing.

Many of them they barter at the trading-houses of the whites--established in remote regions for this purpose--where they receive in exchange knives, rifles, lead, powder, beads, and vermilion.
Another method the Indians have of hunting the buffalo, is not unlike the last, but is still more fearful to witness.
Most of the region where the buffaloes range consists of high upland prairies, such as in Asia are called "steppes," and in Mexico and South America "mesas," or "table-lands." Such plains are elevated from three to six thousand feet above the level of the sea.

In many places on these table-lands there are deep rifts called "canons," or more properly "barrancas," that have probably been formed by running water during rain-storms.

These are often dry, and look like vast fissures opening down into the earth--often for a thousand feet or more--and extending away for scores of miles across the prairie.