A sequence of letters and field notes records extended travels among numerous Indigenous peoples of the North American interior, accompanied by painted portraits and engravings. The narrative details daily life, ceremonial rites, medicine practices, weapons and regalia, hunting techniques—especially buffalo hunts—and various dances and funerary customs, while cataloguing material objects such as pipes, shields, and medicine-bags. Illustrated descriptions combine observational detail with sketches of landscape and travel, and occasional reflections on cultural change and the pressures that threaten traditional lifeways.