THE CITY OF SAINTS,
AND
THROUGH THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS TO CALIFORNIA.

Unaccustomed, of late years at least, to deal with tales of twice-told travel, I can not but feel, especially when, as in the present case, so much detail has been expended upon the trivialities of a Diary, the want of that freshness and originality which would have helped the reader over a little lengthiness. My best excuse is the following extract from the lexicographer’s “Journey to the Western Islands,” made in company with Mr. Boswell during the year of grace 1773, and upheld even at that late hour as somewhat a feat in the locomotive line.

“These diminutive observations seem to take away something from the dignity of writing, and therefore are never communicated but with hesitation, and a little fear of abasement and contempt. But it must be remembered that life consists not of a series of illustrious actions or elegant enjoyments; the greater part of our time passes in compliance with necessities, in the performance of daily duties, in the removal of small inconveniences, in the procurement of petty pleasures, and we are well or ill at ease as the main stream of life glides on smoothly, or is ruffled by small obstacles and frequent interruptions.”

True! and as the novelist claims his right to elaborate, in the “domestic epic,” the most trivial scenes of household routine, so the traveler may be allowed to enlarge, when copying nature in his humbler way, upon the subject of his little drama, and, not confining himself to the great, the good, and the beautiful, nor suffering himself to be wholly engrossed by the claims of cotton, civilization, and Christianity, useful knowledge and missionary enterprise, to desipere in loco by expatiating upon his bed, his meat, and his drink.

The notes forming the ground-work of this volume were written on patent improved metallic pocket-books in sight of the objects which attracted my attention. The old traveler is again right when he remarks: “There is yet another cause of error not[x] always easily surmounted, though more dangerous to the veracity of itinerary narratives than imperfect mensuration. An observer deeply impressed by any remarkable spectacle does not suppose that the traces will soon vanish from his mind, and, having commonly no great convenience for writing”—Penny and Letts are of a later date—“defers the description to a time of more leisure and better accommodation. He who has not made the experiment, or is not accustomed to require rigorous accuracy from himself, will scarcely believe how much a few hours take from certainty of knowledge and distinctness of imagery; how the succession of objects will be broken, how separate parts will be confused, and how many particular features and discriminations will be found compressed and conglobated with one gross and general idea.” Brave words, somewhat pompous and diffused, yet worthy to be written in letters of gold. But, though of the same opinion with M. Charles Didier, the Miso-Albion (Séjour chez le Grand-Chérif de la Mekkeh, Preface, p. vi.), when he characterizes “un voyage de fantaisie” as “le pire de tous les romans,” and with Admiral Fitzroy (Hints to Travelers, p. 3), that the descriptions should be written with the objects in view, I would avoid the other extreme, viz., that of publishing, as our realistic age is apt to do, mere photographic representations. Byron could not write verse when on Lake Leman, and the traveler who puts forth his narrative without after-study and thought will produce a kind of Persian picture, pre-Raphaelitic enough, no doubt, but lacking distance and perspective—in artists’ phrase, depth and breadth—in fact, a narrative about as pleasing to the reader’s mind as the sage and saleratus prairies of the Far West would be to his ken.

In working up this book I have freely used authorities well known across the water, but more or less rare in England. The books principally borrowed from are “The Prairie Traveler,” by Captain Marcy; “Explorations of Nebraska,” by Lieutenant G. A. Warren; and Mr. Bartlett’s “Dictionary of Americanisms.” To describe these regions without the aid of their first explorers, Messrs. Frémont and Stansbury, would of course have been impossible. If I have not always specified the authority for a statement, it has been rather for the purpose of not wearying the reader by repetitions than with the view of enriching my pages at the expense of others.

In commenting upon what was seen and heard, I have endeavored[xi] to assume—whether successfully or not the public will decide—the cosmopolitan character, and to avoid the capital error, especially in treating of things American, of looking at them from the fancied vantage-ground of an English point of view. I hold the Anglo-Scandinavian[1] of the New World to be in most things equal, in many inferior, and in many superior, to his cousin in the Old; and that a gentleman, that is to say, a man of education, probity, and honor—not, as I was once told, one who must get on onner and onnest—is every where the same, though living in separate hemispheres. If, in the present transition state of the Far West, the broad lands lying between the Missouri River and the Sierra Nevada have occasionally been handled somewhat roughly, I have done no more than I should have permitted myself to do while treating of rambles beyond railways through the semi-civilized parts of Great Britain, with their “pleasant primitive populations”—Wales, for instance, or Cornwall.

I need hardly say that this elaborate account of the Holy City of the West and its denizens would not have seen the light so soon after the appearance of a “Journey to Great Salt Lake City,” by M. Jules Remy, had there not been much left to say. The French naturalist passed through the Mormon Settlements in 1855, and five years in the Far West are equal to fifty in less conservative lands; the results of which are, that the relation of my experiences will in no way clash with his, or prove a tiresome repetition to the reader of both.

If in parts of this volume there appear a tendency to look upon things generally in their ludicrous or absurd aspects—from which nothing sublunary is wholly exempt—my excuse must be sic me natura fecit. Democritus was not, I believe, a whit the worse philosopher than Heraclitus. The Procreation of Mirth should be a theme far more sympathetic than the Anatomy of Melancholy, and the old Roman gentleman had a perfect right to challenge all objectors with

[xii]

Finally, I would again solicit forbearance touching certain errors of omission and commission which are to be found in these pages. Her most gracious majesty has been pleased to honor me with an appointment as Consul at Fernando Po, in the Bight of Biafra, and the necessity of an early departure has limited me to a single revise.

14 St. James’ Square, 1st July, 1861.

Engraved by E. Weller 34. Red Lion Square.

London, Longman & Co.

A tour through the domains of Uncle Samuel without visiting the wide regions of the Far West would be, to use a novel simile, like seeing Hamlet with the part of Prince of Denmark, by desire, omitted. Moreover, I had long determined to add the last new name to the list of “Holy Cities;” to visit the young rival, soi-disant, of Memphis, Benares, Jerusalem, Rome, Meccah; and after having studied the beginnings of a mighty empire “in that New World which is the Old,” to observe the origin and the working of a regular go-ahead Western and Columbian revelation. Mingled with the wish of prospecting the City of the Great Salt Lake in a spiritual point of view, of seeing Utah as it is, not as it is said to be, was the mundane desire of enjoying a little skirmishing with the savages, who in the days of Harrison and Jackson had given the pale faces tough work to do, and that failing, of inspecting the line of route which Nature, according to the general consensus of guide-books, has pointed out as the proper, indeed the only practical direction for a railway between the Atlantic and the Pacific. The commerce of the world, the Occidental Press had assured me, is undergoing its grand climacteric: the resources of India and the nearer orient are now well-nigh cleared of “loot,” and our sons, if they would walk in the paths of their papas, must look to Cipangri and the parts about Cathay for their annexations.

The Man was ready, the Hour hardly appeared propitious for other than belligerent purposes. Throughout the summer of 1860 an Indian war was raging in Nebraska; the Comanches, Kiowas, and Cheyennes were “out;” the Federal government had dispatched three columns to the centres of confusion; intestine feuds among the aborigines were talked of; the Dakotah or Sioux had threatened to “wipe out” their old foe the Pawnee, both tribes being possessors of the soil over which the road ran. Horrible accounts of murdered post-boys and cannibal emigrants, greatly exaggerated, as usual, for private and public purposes,[2] filled the papers, and that nothing might be wanting, the following positive assertion (I afterward found it to be, as Sir Charles Napier characterized one of a Bombay editor’s saying, “a marked and emphatic lie”) was copied by full half the press:

“Utah has a population of some fifty-two or fifty-three thousand—more or less—rascals. Governor Cumming has informed the President exactly how matters stand in respect to them. Neither life nor property is safe, he says, and bands of depredators roam unpunished through the territory. The United States judges have abandoned their offices, and the law is boldly defied every where. He requests that 500 soldiers may be retained at Utah to afford some kind of protection to American citizens who are obliged to remain here.”

“Mormon” had in fact become a word of fear; the Gentiles looked upon the Latter-Day Saints much as our crusading ancestors regarded the “Hashshashiyun,” whose name, indeed, was almost enough to frighten them. Mr. Brigham Young was the Shaykh-el-Jebel, the Old Man of the Hill redivivus, Messrs. Kimball and Wells were the chief of his Fidawin, and “Zion on the tops of the mountains” formed a fair representation of Alamut.

“Going among the Mormons!” said Mr. M—— to me at New Orleans; “they are shooting and cutting one another in all directions; how can you expect to escape?”

Another general assertion was that “White Indians”—those Mormons again!—had assisted the “Washoes,” “Pah Utes,” and “Bannacks” in the fatal affair near Honey Lake, where Major Ormsby, of the militia, a military frontier-lawyer, and his forty men, lost the numbers of their mess.

But sagely thus reflecting that “dangers which loom large from afar generally lose size as one draws near;” that rumors of wars might have arisen, as they are wont to do, from the political necessity for another “Indian botheration,” as editors call it; that Governor Cumming’s name might have been used in vain; that even the President might not have been a Pope, infallible; and that the Mormons might turn out somewhat less black than they were painted; moreover, having so frequently and willfully risked the chances of an “I told you so” from the lips of friends, those “prophets of the past;” and, finally, having been so much struck with the discovery by some Western man of an enlarged truth, viz., that the bugbear approached has more affinity to the bug than to the bear, I resolved to risk the chance of the “red nightcap” from the bloodthirsty Indian and the poisoned bowie-dagger—without my Eleonora or Berengaria—from the jealous Latter-Day Saints. I forthwith applied myself to the audacious task with all the recklessness of a “party” from town precipitating himself for the first time into “foreign parts” about Calais.

And, first, a few words touching routes.

THE PACIFIC RAILROADAs all the world knows, there are three main lines proposed [3] for a “Pacific Railroad” between the Mississippi and the Western Ocean, the Northern, Central, and Southern.[2]

The first, or British, was in my case not to be thought of; it involves semi-starvation, possibly a thorough plundering by the Bedouins, and, what was far worse, five or six months of slow travel. The third, or Southern, known as the Butterfield or American Express, offered to start me in an ambulance from St. Louis, and to pass me through Arkansas, El Paso, Fort Yuma on the Gila River, in fact through the vilest and most desolate portion of the West. Twenty-four mortal days and nights—twenty-five being schedule time—must be spent in that ambulance; passengers becoming crazy by whisky, mixed with want of sleep, are often obliged to be strapped to their seats; their meals, dispatched during the ten-minute halts, are simply abominable, the heats are excessive, the climate malarious; lamps may not be used at night for fear of unexisting Indians: briefly, there is no end to[4] this Via Mala’s miseries. The line received from the United States government upward of half a million of dollars per annum for carrying the mails, and its contract had still nearly two years to run.

There remained, therefore, the central route, which has two branches. You may start by stage to the gold regions about Denver City or Pike’s Peak, and thence, if not accidentally or purposely shot, you may proceed by an uncertain ox-train to Great Salt Lake City, which latter part can not take less than thirty-five days. On the other hand, there is “the great emigration route” from Missouri to California and Oregon, over which so many thousands have traveled within the past few years. I quote from a useful little volume, “The Prairie Traveler,”[7] by Randolph B. Marcy, Captain U. S. Army. “The track is broad, well worn, and can not be mistaken. It has received the major part of the Mormon emigration, and was traversed by the army in its march to Utah in 1857.”

The mail-coach on this line was established in 1850, by Colonel Samuel H. Woodson, an eminent lawyer, afterward an M. C., and right unpopular with Mormondom, because he sacrilegiously owned part of Temple Block, in Independence, Mo., which is the old original New Zion. The following are the rates of contract and the phases through which the line has passed.

1. Colonel Woodson received for carrying a monthly mail $19,500 (or $23,000?): length of contract 4 years.

2. Mr. F. McGraw, $13,500, besides certain considerable extras.

3. Messrs. Heber Kimball & Co. (Mormons), $23,000.

4. Messrs. Jones & Co., $30,000.

5. Mr. J. M. Hockaday, weekly mail, $190,000.

6. Messrs. Russell, Majors, & Waddell, army contractors; weekly mail, $190,000.[8]

Thus it will be seen that in 1856 the transit was in the hands of the Latter-Day Saints: they managed it well, but they lost the contracts during their troubles with the federal government in 1857, when it again fell into Gentile possession. In those early days it had but three changes of mules, at Forts Bridger, Laramie, and Kearney. In May, 1859, it was taken up by the present firm, which expects, by securing the monopoly of the whole line between the Missouri River and San Francisco, and by canvassing at head-quarters for a bi-weekly—which they have now obtained—and even a daily transit, which shall constitutionally extinguish the Mormon community, to insert the fine edge of that[5] wedge which is to open an aperture for the Pacific Railroad about to be. At Saint Joseph (Mo.), better known by the somewhat irreverent abbreviation of St. Jo, I was introduced to Mr. Alexander Majors, formerly one of the contractors for supplying the army in THE UTAH LINE.Utah—a veteran mountaineer, familiar with life on the prairies. His meritorious efforts to reform the morals of the land have not yet put forth even the bud of promise. He forbade his drivers and employés to drink, gamble, curse, and travel on Sundays; he desired them to peruse Bibles distributed to them gratis; and though he refrained from a lengthy proclamation commanding his lieges to be good boys and girls, he did not the less expect it of them. Results: I scarcely ever saw a sober driver; as for profanity—the Western equivalent for hard swearing—they would make the blush of shame crimson the cheek of the old Isis bargee; and, rare exceptions to the rule of the United States, they are not to be deterred from evil talking even by the dread presence of a “lady.” The conductors and road-agents are of a class superior to the drivers; they do their harm by an inordinate ambition to distinguish themselves. I met one gentleman who owned to three murders, and another individual who lately attempted to ration the mules with wild sage. The company was by no means rich; already the papers had prognosticated a failure, in consequence of the government withdrawing its supplies, and it seemed to have hit upon the happy expedient of badly entreating travelers that good may come to it of our evils. The hours and halting-places were equally vilely selected; for instance, at Forts Kearney, Laramie, and Bridger, the only points where supplies, comfort, society, are procurable, a few minutes of grumbling delay were granted as a favor, and the passengers were hurried on to some distant wretched ranch,[9] apparently for the sole purpose of putting a few dollars into the station-master’s pockets. The travel was unjustifiably slow, even in this land, where progress is mostly on paper. From St. Jo to Great Salt Lake City, the mails might easily be landed during the fine weather, without inconvenience to man or beast, in ten days; indeed, the agents have offered to place them at Placerville in fifteen. Yet the schedule time being twenty-one days, passengers seldom reached their destination before the nineteenth; the sole reason given was, that snow makes the road difficult in its season, and that if people were accustomed to fast travel, and if letters were received under schedule time, they would look upon the boon as a right.

Before proceeding to our preparations for travel, it may be as well to cast a glance at the land to be traveled over.

[6]

The United States territory lying in direct line between the Mississippi River and the Pacific Ocean is now about 1200 miles long from north to south, by 1500 of breadth, in 49° and 32° N. lat., about equal to Equatorial Africa, and 1800 in N. lat. 38°. The great uncultivable belt of plain and mountain region through which the Pacific Railroad must run has a width of 1100 statute miles near the northern boundary; in the central line, 1200; and through the southern, 1000. Humboldt justly ridiculed the “maddest natural philosopher” who compared the American continent to a female figure—long, thin, watery, and freezing at the 58th°, the degrees being symbolic of the year at which woman grows old. Such description manifestly will not apply to the 2,000,000 of square miles in this section of the Great Republic—she is every where broader than she is long.

The meridian of 105° north longitude (G.)—Fort Laramie lies in 104° 31′ 26″—divides this vast expanse into two nearly equal parts. The eastern half is a basin or river valley rising gradually from the Mississippi to the Black Hills, and the other outlying ranges of the Rocky Mountains. The average elevation near the northern boundary (49°) is 2500 feet, in the middle latitude (38°) 6000 feet, and near the southern extremity (32°), about 4000 feet above sea level. These figures explain the complicated features of its water-shed. The western half is a mountain region whose chains extend, as far as they are known, in a general N. and S. direction.

The 99th meridian (G.)—Fort Kearney lies in 98° 58′ 11″—divides the western half of the Mississippian Valley into two unequal parts.

The eastern portion, from the Missouri to Fort Kearney—400 to 500 miles in breadth—may be called the “Prairie land.” It is true that passing westward of the 97° meridian, the mauvaises terres, or Bad Grounds, are here and there met with, especially near the 42d parallel, in which latitude they extend farther to the east, and that upward to 99° the land is rarely fit for cultivation, though fair for grazing. Yet along the course of the frequent streams there is valuable soil, and often sufficient wood to support settlements. This territory is still possessed by settled Indians, by semi-nomads, and by powerful tribes of equestrian and wandering savages, mixed with a few white men, who, as might be expected, excel them in cunning and ferocity.

The western portion of the valley, from Fort Kearney to the base of the Rocky Mountains—a breadth of 300 to 400 miles—is emphatically “the desert,” sterile and uncultivable, a dreary expanse of wild sage (artemisia) and saleratus. The surface is sandy, gravelly, and pebbly; cactus carduus and aloes abound; THE WESTERN GRAZING-GROUNDS.grass is found only in the rare river bottoms where the soils of the different strata are mixed, and the few trees along the borders of streams—fertile lines of wadis, which laborious irrigation and coal mining[7] might convert into oases—are the cotton-wood and willow, to which the mezquite[10] may be added in the southern latitudes. The desert is mostly uninhabited, unendurable even to the wildest Indian. But the people on its eastern and western frontiers, namely, those holding the extreme limits of the fertile prairie, and those occupying the desirable regions of the western mountains, are, to quote the words of Lieutenant Gouverneur K. Warren, U. S. Topographical Engineers, whose valuable reconnaissances and explanations of Nebraska in 1855, ’56, and ’57 were published in the Reports of the Secretary of War, “on the shore of a sea, up to which population and agriculture may advance and no farther. But this gives these outposts much of the value of places along the Atlantic frontier, in view of the future settlements to be formed in the mountains, between which and the present frontier a most valuable trade would exist. The western frontier has always been looking to the east for a market; but as soon as the wave of emigration has passed over the desert portion of the plains, to which the discoveries of gold have already given an impetus that will propel it to the fertile valleys of the Rocky Mountains, then will the present frontier of Kansas and Nebraska become the starting-point for all the products of the Mississippi Valley which the population of the mountains will require. We see the effects of it in the benefits which the western frontier of Missouri has received from the Santa Fé tract, and still more plainly in the impetus given to Leavenworth by the operations of the army of Utah in the interior region. This flow of products has, in the last instance, been only in one direction; but when those mountains become settled, as they eventually must, then there will be a reciprocal trade materially beneficial to both.”

The mountain region westward of the sage and saleratus desert, extending between the 105th and 111th meridian (G.)—a little more than 400 miles—will in time become sparsely peopled. Though in many parts arid and sterile, dreary and desolate, the long bunch grass (Festuca), the short curly buffalo grass (Sisleria dactyloides), the mesquit grass (Stipa spata), and the Gramma, or rather, as it should be called, “Gamma” grass (Chondrosium fœnum),[11] which clothe the slopes west of Fort Laramie, will enable it to rear an abundance of stock. The fertile valleys, according to Lieutenant Warren, “furnish the means of raising sufficient quantities of grain and vegetables for the use of the inhabitants, and beautiful healthy and desirable locations for their homes. The remarkable freedom here from sickness is one of the attractive features of the region, and will in this respect go far to compensate[8] the settler from the Mississippi Valley for his loss in the smaller amount of products that can be taken from the soil. The great want of suitable building material, which now so seriously retards the growth of the West, will not be felt there.” The heights of the Rocky Mountains rise abruptly from 1000 to 6000 feet over the lowest known passes, computed by the Pacific Railroad surveyors to vary from 4000 to 10,000 feet above sea-level. The two chains forming the eastern and western rims of the Rocky Mountain basin have the greatest elevation, walling in, as it were, the other sub-ranges.

There is a popular idea that the western slope of the Rocky Mountains is smooth and regular; on the contrary, the land is rougher, and the ground is more complicated than on the eastern declivities. From the summit of the Wasach range to the eastern foot of the Sierra Nevada, the whole region, with exceptions, is a howling wilderness, the sole or bed of an inland sweetwater sea, now shrunk into its remnants—the Great Salt and the Utah Lakes. Nothing can be more monotonous than its regular succession of high grisly hills, cut perpendicularly by rough and rocky ravines, and separating bare and barren plains. From the seaward base of the Sierra Nevada to the Pacific—California—the slope is easy, and the land is pleasant, fertile, and populous.

After this aperçu of the motives which sent me forth, once more a pilgrim, to young Meccah in the West, of the various routes, and of the style of country wandered over, I plunge at once into personal narrative.

Lieutenant Dana (U. S. Artillery), my future compagnon de voyage, left St. Louis,[12] “the turning-back place of English sportsmen,” for St. Jo on the 2d of August, preceding me by two days. Being accompanied by his wife and child, and bound on a weary voyage to Camp Floyd, Utah Territory, he naturally wanted a certain amount of precise information concerning the route, and one of the peculiarities of this line is that no one knows any thing about it. In the same railway car which carried me from St. Louis were five passengers, all bent upon making Utah with the least delay—an unexpected cargo of officials: Mr. F********, a federal judge with two sons; Mr. W*****, a state secretary; and Mr. G****, a state marshal. As the sequel may show, Dana was doubly fortunate in securing places before the list could be filled up by the unusual throng: all we thought of at the time was our good luck in escaping a septidium at St. Jo, whence the stage started on Tuesdays only. We hurried, therefore, to pay for our tickets—$175 each being the moderate sum—to reduce our luggage to its minimum approach toward 25 lbs., the price of transport for excess[9] being exorbitantly fixed at $1 per lb., and to lay in a few necessaries for the way, tea and sugar, tobacco and cognac. I will not take liberties with my company’s KIT.“kit;” my own, however, was represented as follows:

One India-rubber blanket, pierced in the centre for a poncho, and garnished along the longer side with buttons, and corresponding elastic loops with a strap at the short end, converting it into a carpet-bag—a “sine quâ non” from the equator to the pole. A buffalo robe ought to have been added as a bed: ignorance, however, prevented, and borrowing did the rest. With one’s coat as a pillow, a robe, and a blanket, one may defy the dangerous “bunks” of the stations.

For weapons I carried two revolvers: from the moment of leaving St. Jo to the time of reaching Placerville or Sacramento the pistol should never be absent from a man’s right side—remember, it is handier there than on the other—nor the bowie-knife from his left. Contingencies with Indians and others may happen, when the difference of a second saves life: the revolver should therefore be carried with its butt to the fore, and when drawn it should not be leveled as in target practice, but directed toward the object by means of the right fore finger laid flat along the cylinder while the medius draws the trigger. The instinctive consent between eye and hand, combined with a little practice, will soon enable the beginner to shoot correctly from the hip; all he has to do is to think that he is pointing at the mark, and pull. As a precaution, especially when mounted upon a kicking horse, it is wise to place the cock upon a capless nipple, rather than trust to the intermediate pins. In dangerous places the revolver should be discharged and reloaded every morning, both for the purpose of keeping the hand in, and to do the weapon justice. A revolver is an admirable tool when properly used; those, however, who are too idle or careless to attend to it, had better carry a pair of “Derringers.” For the benefit of buffalo and antelope, I had invested $25 at St. Louis in a “shooting-iron” of the “Hawkins” style—that enterprising individual now dwells in Denver City—it was a long, top-heavy rifle; it weighed 12 lbs., and it carried the smallest ball—75 to the pound—a combination highly conducive to good practice. Those, however, who can use light weapons, should prefer the Maynard breech-loader, with an extra barrel for small shot; and if Indian fighting is in prospect, the best tool, without any exception, is a ponderous double-barrel, 12 to the pound, and loaded as fully as it can bear with slugs. The last of the battery was an air-gun to astonish the natives, and a bag of various ammunition.

Captain Marcy outfits his prairie traveler with a “little blue mass, quinine, opium, and some cathartic medicine put up in doses for adults.” I limited myself to the opium, which is invaluable when one expects five consecutive days and nights in a prairie[10] wagon, quinine, and Warburg’s drops, without which no traveler should ever face fever, and a little citric acid, which, with green tea drawn off the moment the leaf has sunk, is perhaps the best substitute for milk and cream. The “holy weed Nicotian” was not forgotten; cigars must be bought in extraordinary quantities, as the driver either receives or takes the lion’s share: the most satisfactory outfit is a quantum sufficit of Louisiana Pirique and Lynchburg gold-leaf—cavendish without its abominations of rum and honey or molasses—and two pipes, a meerschaum for luxury, and a brier-root to fall back upon when the meerschaum shall have been stolen. The Indians will certainly pester for matches; the best lighting apparatus, therefore, is the Spanish mechero, the Oriental sukhtah—agate and cotton match—besides which, it offers a pleasing exercise, like billiards, and one at which the British soldier greatly excels, surpassed only by his exquisite skill in stuffing the pipe.

For literary purposes, I had, besides the two books above quoted, a few of the great guns of exploration, Frémont, Stansbury, and Gunnison, with a selection of the most violent Mormon and Anti-Mormon polemicals, sketching materials—I prefer the “improved metallics” five inches long, and serving for both diary and drawing-book—and a tourist’s writing-case of those sold by Mr. Field (Bible Warehouse, The Quadrant), with but one alteration, a snap lock, to obviate the use of that barbarous invention called a key. For instruments I carried a pocket sextant with a double face, invented by Mr. George, of the Royal Geographical Society, and beautifully made by Messrs. Cary, an artificial horizon of black glass, and bubble tubes to level it, night and day compasses, with a portable affair attached to a watch-chain—a traveler feels nervous till he can “orienter” himself—a pocket thermometer, and a B. P. ditto. The only safe form for the latter would be a strong neckless tube, the heavy pyriform bulbs in general use never failing to break at the first opportunity. A Stanhope lens, a railway whistle, and instead of the binocular, useful things of earth, a very valueless telescope—(warranted by the maker to show Jupiter’s satellites, and by utterly declining so to do, reading a lesson touching the non-advisability of believing an instrument-maker)—completed the outfit.

The prairie traveler is not particular about TOILET.toilet: the easiest dress is a dark flannel shirt, worn over the normal article; no braces—I say it, despite Mr. Galton—but broad leather belt for “six-shooter” and for “Arkansas tooth-pick,” a long clasp-knife, or for the rapier of the Western world, called after the hero who perished in the “red butchery of the Alamo.” The nether garments should be forked with good buckskin, or they will infallibly give out, and the lower end should be tucked into the boots, after the sensible fashion of our grandfathers, before those ridiculous Wellingtons were dreamed of by our sires. In warm weather,[11] a pair of moccasins will be found easy as slippers, but they are bad for wet places; they make the feet tender, they strain the back sinews, and they form the first symptom of the savage mania. Socks keep the feet cold; there are, however, those who should take six pair. The use of the pocket-handkerchief is unknown in the plains; some people, however, are uncomfortable without it, not liking “se emungere” after the fashion of Horace’s father.

In cold weather—and rarely are the nights warm—there is nothing better than the old English tweed shooting-jacket, made with pockets like a poacher’s, and its similar waistcoat, a “stomach warmer” without a roll collar, which prevents comfortable sleep, and with flaps as in the Year of Grace 1760, when men were too wise to wear our senseless vests, whose only property seems to be that of disclosing after exertions a lucid interval of linen or longcloth. For driving and riding, a large pair of buckskin gloves, or rather gauntlets, without which even the teamster will not travel, and leggins—the best are made in the country, only the straps should be passed through and sewn on to the leathers—are advisable, if at least the man at all regards his epidermis: it is almost unnecessary to bid you remember spurs, but it may be useful to warn you that they will, like riches, make to themselves wings. The head-covering by excellence is a brown felt, which, by a little ingenuity, boring, for instance, holes round the brim to admit a ribbon, you may convert into a riding-hat or night-cap, and wear alternately after the manly slouch of Cromwell and his Martyr, the funny three-cornered spittoon-like “shovel” of the Dutch Georges, and the ignoble cocked-hat, which completes the hideous metamorphosis.

And, above all things, as you value your nationality—this is written for the benefit of the home reader—let no false shame cause you to forget your hat-box and your umbrella. I purpose, when a moment of inspiration waits upon leisure and a mind at ease, to invent an elongated portmanteau, which shall be perfection—portable—solid leather of two colors, for easy distinguishment—snap lock—in length about three feet; in fact, long enough to contain without creasing “small clothes,” a lateral compartment destined for a hat, and a longitudinal space where the umbrella can repose: its depth—but I must reserve that part of the secret until this benefit to British humanity shall have been duly made by Messrs. Bengough Brothers, and patented by myself.

The dignitaries of the mail-coach, acting upon the principle “first come first served,” at first decided, maugre all our attempts at “moral suasion,” to divide the party by the interval of a week. Presently reflecting, I presume, upon the unadvisability of leaving at large five gentlemen, who, being really in no particular hurry, might purchase a private conveyance and start leisurely westward, they were favored with a revelation of “’cuteness.” On the day before departure, as, congregated in the Planter’s House[12] Hotel, we were lamenting over our “morning glory,” the necessity of parting—in the prairie the more the merrier, and the fewer the worse cheer—a youth from the office was introduced to tell, Hope-like, a flattering tale and a tremendous falsehood. This juvenile delinquent stated with unblushing front, over the hospitable cocktail, that three coaches instead of one had been newly and urgently applied for by the road-agent at Great Salt Lake City, and therefore that we could not only all travel together, but also all travel with the greatest comfort. We exulted. But on the morrow only two conveyances appeared, and not long afterward the two dwindled off to one. “The Prairie Traveler” doles out wisdom in these words: “Information concerning the route coming from strangers living or owning property near them, from agents of steam-boats and railways, or from other persons connected with transportation companies”—how carefully he piles up the heap of sorites—“should be received with great caution, and never without corroboratory evidence from disinterested sources.” The main difficulty is to find the latter—to catch your hare—to know whom to believe.

I now proceed to my Diary.

THE START.

Tuesday, 7th August, 1860.

Precisely at 8 A.M. appeared in front of the Patee House—the Fifth Avenue Hotel of St. Jo—the vehicle destined to be our home for the next three weeks. We scrutinized it curiously.

The mail is carried by a “Concord coach,” a spring wagon, comparing advantageously with the horrible vans which once dislocated the joints of men on the Suez route. MAIL-COACH.—MULES.The body is shaped somewhat like an English tax-cart considerably magnified. It is built to combine safety, strength, and lightness, without the slightest regard to appearances. The material is well-seasoned white oak—the Western regions, and especially Utah, are notoriously deficient in hard woods—and the manufacturers are the well-known coachwrights, Messrs. Abbott, of Concord, New Hampshire; the color is sometimes green, more usually red, causing the antelopes to stand and stretch their large eyes whenever the vehicle comes in sight. The wheels are five to six feet apart, affording security against capsising, with little “gather” and less “dish;” the larger have fourteen spokes and seven fellies; the smaller twelve and six. The tires are of unusual thickness, and polished like steel by the hard dry ground; and the hubs or naves and the metal nave-bands are in massive proportions. The latter not unfrequently fall off as the wood shrinks, unless the wheel is allowed to stand in water; attention must be paid to resetting them, or in the frequent and heavy “sidlins” the spokes may snap off all round like pipe-stems. The wagon-bed is supported by iron bands or perpendiculars abutting upon wooden rockers, which[13] rest on strong leather thoroughbraces: these are found to break the jolt better than the best steel springs, which, moreover, when injured, can not readily be repaired. The whole bed is covered with stout osnaburg supported by stiff bars of white oak; there is a sun-shade or hood in front, where the driver sits, a curtain behind which can be raised or lowered at discretion, and four flaps on each side, either folded up or fastened down with hooks and eyes. In heavy frost the passengers must be half dead with cold, but they care little for that if they can go fast. The accommodations are as follows: In front sits the driver, with usually a conductor or passenger by his side; a variety of packages, large and small, is stowed away under his leather cushion; when the brake must be put on, an operation often involving the safety of the vehicle, his right foot is planted upon an iron bar which presses by a leverage upon the rear wheels; and in hot weather a bucket for watering the animals hangs over one of the lamps, whose companion is usually found wanting. The inside has either two or three benches fronting to the fore or placed vis-à-vis; they are movable and reversible, with leather cushions and hinged padded backs; unstrapped and turned down, they convert the vehicle into a tolerable bed for two persons or two and a half. According to Cocker, the mail-bags should be safely stowed away under these seats, or if there be not room enough, the passengers should perch themselves upon the correspondence; the jolly driver, however, is usually induced to cram the light literature between the wagon-bed and the platform, or running-gear beneath, and thus, when ford-waters wash the hubs, the letters are pretty certain to endure ablution. Behind, instead of dicky, is a kind of boot where passengers’ boxes are stored beneath a stout canvas curtain with leather sides. The comfort of travel depends upon packing the wagon; if heavy in front or rear, or if the thoroughbraces be not properly “fixed,” the bumping will be likely to cause nasal hemorrhage. The description will apply to the private ambulance, or, as it is called in the West, “avalanche,” only the latter, as might be expected, is more convenient; it is the drosky in which the vast steppes of Central America are crossed by the government employés.

On this line mules are preferred to horses as being more enduring. They are all of legitimate race; the breed between the horse and the she-ass is never heard of, and the mysterious jumard is not believed to exist. In dry lands, where winter is not severe—they inherit the sire’s impatience of cold—they are invaluable animals; in swampy ground this American dromedary is the meanest of beasts, requiring, when stalled, to be hauled out of the mire before it will recover spirit to use its legs. For sureness of foot (during a journey of more than 1000 miles, I saw but one fall and two severe stumbles), sagacity in finding the road, apprehension of danger, and general cleverness, mules are superior[14] to their mothers: their main defect is an unhappy obstinacy derived from the other side of the house. They are great in hardihood, never sick nor sorry, never groomed nor shod, even where ice is on the ground; they have no grain, except five quarts per diem when snow conceals the grass; and they have no stable save the open corral. Moreover, a horse once broken down requires a long rest; the mule, if hitched up or ridden for short distances, with frequent intervals to roll and repose, may still, though “resté,” get over 300 miles in tolerable time. The rate of travel on an average is five miles an hour; six is good; between seven and eight is the maximum, which sinks in hilly countries to three or four. I have made behind a good pair, in a light wagon, forty consecutive miles at the rate of nine per hour, and in California a mule is little thought of if it can not accomplish 250 miles in forty-eight hours. The price varies from $100 to $130 per head when cheap, rising to $150 or $200, and for fancy animals from $250 to $400. The value, as in the case of the Arab, depends upon size; “rats,” or small mules, especially in California, are not esteemed. The “span”—the word used in America for beasts well matched—is of course much more expensive. At each station on this road, averaging twenty-five miles apart—beyond the forks of the Platte they lengthen out by one third—are three teams of four animals, with two extra, making a total of fourteen, besides two ponies for the express riders. In the East they work beautifully together, and are rarely mulish beyond a certain ticklishness of temper, which warns you not to meddle with their ears when in harness, or to attempt encouraging them by preceding them upon the road. In the West, where they run half wild and are lassoed for use once a week, they are fearfully handy with their heels; they flirt out with the hind legs, they rear like goats, breaking the harness and casting every strap and buckle clean off the body, and they bite their replies to the chorus of curses and blows: the wonder is that more men are not killed. Each fresh team must be ringed half a dozen times before it will start fairly; there is always some excitement in change; some George or Harry, some Julia or Sally disposed to shirk work or to play tricks, some Brigham Young or General Harney—the Trans-Vaal Republican calls his worst animal “England”—whose stubbornness is to be corrected by stone-throwing or the lash.

But the wagon still stands at the door. We ought to start at 8 30 A.M.; we are detained an hour while last words are said, and adieu—a long adieu—is bidden to joke and julep, to ice and idleness. Our “plunder”[13] is clapped on with little ceremony; a hat-case falls open—it was not mine, gentle reader—collars and other small gear cumber the ground, and the owner addresses to the clumsy-handed driver the universal G— d—, which in these lands changes from its expletive or chrysalis form to an adjectival[15] development. We try to stow away as much as possible; the minor officials, with all their little faults, are good fellows, civil and obliging; they wink at non-payment for bedding, stores, weapons, and they rather encourage than otherwise the multiplication of whisky-kegs and cigar-boxes. We now drive through the dusty roads of St. Jo, the observed of all observers, and presently find ourselves in the steam ferry which is to convey us from the right to the left bank of the Missouri River. The “Big Muddy,” as it is now called—the Yellow River of old writers—venerable sire of snag and sawyer, displays at this point the source whence it has drawn for ages the dirty brown silt which pollutes below their junction the pellucid waters of the “Big Drink.”[14] It runs, like the lower Indus, through deep walls of stiff clayey earth, and, like that river, its supplies, when filtered (they have been calculated to contain one eighth of solid matter), are sweet and wholesome as its brother streams. The Plata of this region, it is the great sewer of the prairies, the main channel and common issue of the water-courses and ravines which have carried on the work of denudation and degradation for days dating beyond the existence of Egypt.

According to Lieutenant Warren, who endorses the careful examinations of the parties under Governor Stevens in 1853, the THE MISSOURI RIVERMissouri is a superior river for navigation to any in the country, except the Mississippi below their junction. It has, however, serious obstacles in wind and frost. From the Yellow Stone to its mouth, the breadth, when full, varies from one third to half a mile; in low water the width shrinks, and bars appear. Where timber does not break the force of the winds, which are most violent in October, clouds of sand are seen for miles, forming banks, which, generally situated at the edges of trees on the islands and points, often so much resemble the Indian mounds in the Mississippi Valley, that some of them—for instance, those described by Lewis and Clarke at Bonhomme Island—have been figured as the works of the ancient Toltecs. It would hardly be feasible to correct the windage by foresting the land. The bluffs of the Missouri are often clothed with vegetation as far as the debouchure of the Platte River. Above that point the timber, which is chiefly cotton-wood, is confined to ravines and bottom lands, varying in width from ten to fifteen miles above Council Bluffs, which is almost continuous to the mouth of the James River. Every where, except between the mouth of the Little Cheyenne and the Cannon Ball rivers, there is a sufficiency of fuel for navigation; but, ascending above Council Bluffs, the protection afforded by forest growth on the banks is constantly diminishing. The trees also are injurious; imbedded in the channel by the “caving-in” of the banks, they form the well-known sawyers, or floating timbers, and snags, trunks standing like chevaux de frise at various[16] inclinations, pointing down the stream. From the mouth of the James River down to the Mississippi, it is a wonder how a steamer can run: she must lose half her time by laying to at night, and is often delayed for days, as the wind prevents her passing by bends filled with obstructions. The navigation is generally closed by ice at Sioux City on the 10th of November, and at Fort Leavenworth by the 1st of December. The rainy season of the spring and summer commences in the latitude of Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, and Southern Nebraska, between the 15th of May and the 30th of June, and continues about two months. The floods produced by the melting snows in the mountains come from the Platte, the Big Cheyenne, the Yellow Stone, and the Upper Missouri, reaching the lower river about the 1st of July, and lasting a month. Rivers like this, whose navigation depends upon temporary floods, are greatly inferior for ascent than for descent. The length of the inundation much depends upon the snow on the mountains: a steamer starting from St.Louis on the first indication of the rise would not generally reach the Yellow Stone before low water at the latter point, and if a miscalculation is made by taking the temporary rise for the real inundation, the boat must lay by in the middle of the river till the water deepens.

Some geographers have proposed to transfer to the Missouri, on account of its superior length, the honor of being the real head of the Mississippi; they neglect, however, to consider the direction and the course of the stream, an element which must enter largely in determining the channels of great rivers. It will, I hope, be long before this great ditch wins the day from the glorious Father of Waters.

The reader will find in Appendix No. I. a detailed itinerary, showing him the distances between camping-places, the several mail stations where mules are changed, the hours of travel, and the facilities for obtaining wood and water—in fact, all things required for the novice, hunter, or emigrant. In these pages I shall consider the route rather in its pictorial than in its geographical aspects, and give less of diary than of dissertation upon the subjects which each day’s route suggested.

Landing in Bleeding Kansas—she still bleeds[15]—we fell at once into “Emigration Road,” a great thoroughfare, broad and well worn as a European turnpike or a Roman military route, and undoubtedly the best and the longest natural highway in the world.[17] For five miles the line bisected a bottom formed by a bend in the river, with about a mile’s diameter at the neck. The scene was of a luxuriant vegetation. A deep tangled wood—rather a thicket or a jungle than a forest—of oaks and elms, hickory, basswood[16] and black walnut, poplar and hackberry (Celtis crassifolia), box elder, and the common willow (Salix longifolia), clad and festooned, bound and anchored by wild vines, creepers, and huge llianas, and sheltering an undergrowth of white alder and red sumach, whose pyramidal flowers were about to fall, rested upon a basis of deep black mire, strongly suggestive of chills—fever and ague. After an hour of burning sun and sickly damp, the effects of the late storms, we emerged from the waste of vegetation, passed through a straggling “neck o’ the woods,” whose yellow inmates reminded me of Mississippian descriptions in the days gone by, THE PRAIRIE.and after spanning some very rough ground we bade adieu to the valley of the Missouri, and emerged upon the region of the Grand Prairie,[17] which we will pronounce “perrairey.”

Differing from the card-table surfaces of the formation in Illinois and the lands east of the Mississippi, the Western prairies are rarely flat ground. Their elevation above sea-level varies from 1000 to 2500 feet, and the plateau’s aspect impresses the eye with an exaggerated idea of elevation, there being no object of comparison—mountain, hill, or sometimes even a tree—to give a juster measure. Another peculiarity of the prairie is, in places, its seeming horizontality, whereas it is never level: on an open plain, apparently flat as a man’s palm, you cross a long groundswell which was not perceptible before, and on its farther incline you come upon a chasm wide and deep enough to contain a settlement. The aspect was by no means unprepossessing. Over the rolling surface, which, however, rarely breaks into hill and dale, lay a tapestry of thick grass already turning to a ruddy yellow under the influence of approaching autumn. The uniformity was relieved by streaks of livelier green in the rich soils of the slopes, hollows, and ravines, where the water gravitates, and, in the deeper “intervales” and bottom lands on the banks of streams and courses, by the graceful undulations and the waving lines of[18] mottes or prairie islands, thick clumps and patches simulating orchards by the side of cultivated fields. The silvery cirri and cumuli of the upper air flecked the surface of earth with spots of dark cool shade, surrounded by a blaze of sunshine, and by their motion, as they trooped and chased one another, gave a peculiar liveliness to the scene; while here and there a bit of hazy blue distance, a swell of the sea-like land upon the far horizon, gladdened the sight—every view is fair from afar. Nothing, I may remark, is more monotonous, except perhaps the African and Indian jungle, than those prairie tracts, where the circle of which you are the centre has but about a mile of radius; it is an ocean in which one loses sight of land. You see, as it were, the ends of the earth, and look around in vain for some object upon which the eye may rest: it wants the sublimity of repose so suggestive in the sandy deserts, and the perpetual motion so pleasing in the aspect of the sea. No animals appeared in sight where, thirty years ago, a band of countless bisons dotted the plains; they will, however, like the wild aborigines, their congeners, soon be followed by beings higher in the scale of creation. These prairies are preparing to become the great grazing-grounds which shall supply the unpopulated East with herds of civilized kine, and perhaps with the yak of Tibet, the llama of South America, and the koodoo and other African antelopes.

As we sped onward we soon made acquaintance with a traditionally familiar feature, the “pitch-holes,” or “chuck-holes”—the ugly word is not inappropriate—which render traveling over the prairies at times a sore task. They are gullies and gutters, not unlike the Canadian “cahues” of snow formation: varying from 10 to 50 feet in breadth, they are rivulets in spring and early summer, and—few of them remain perennial—they lie dry during the rest of the year. Their banks are slightly raised, upon the principle, in parvo, that causes mighty rivers, like the Po and the Indus, to run along the crests of ridges, and usually there is in the sole a dry or wet cunette, steep as a step, and not unfrequently stony; unless the break be attended to, it threatens destruction to wheel and axle-tree, to hound and tongue. The pitch-hole is more frequent where the prairies break into low hills; the inclines along which the roads run then become a net-work of these American nullahs.

Passing through a few wretched shanties[18] called Troy—last insult to the memory of hapless Pergamus—and Syracuse (here we are in the third, or classic stage of United States nomenclature), we made, at 3 P.M., Cold Springs, the junction of the Leavenworth route. Having taken the northern road to avoid rough ground and bad bridges, we arrived about two hours behind time.SQUALOR. The aspect of things at Cold Springs, where we were allowed an[19] hour’s halt to dine and to change mules, somewhat dismayed our fine-weather prairie travelers. The scene was the rale “Far West.” The widow body to whom the shanty belonged lay sick with fever. The aspect of her family was a “caution to snakes:” the ill-conditioned sons dawdled about, listless as Indians, in skin tunics and pantaloons fringed with lengthy tags such as the redoubtable “Billy Bowlegs” wears on tobacco labels; and the daughters, tall young women, whose sole attire was apparently a calico morning-wrapper, color invisible, waited upon us in a protesting way. Squalor and misery were imprinted upon the wretched log hut, which ignored the duster and the broom, and myriads of flies disputed with us a dinner consisting of dough-nuts, green and poisonous with saleratus, suspicious eggs in a massive greasy fritter, and rusty bacon, intolerably fat. It was our first sight of squatter life, and, except in two cases, it was our worst. We could not grudge 50 cents a head to these unhappies; at the same time, we thought it a dear price to pay—the sequel disabused us—for flies and bad bread, worse eggs and bacon.

The next settlement, Valley Home, was reached at 6 P.M. Here the long wave of the ocean land broke into shorter seas, and for the first time that day we saw stones, locally called rocks (a Western term embracing every thing between a pebble and a boulder), the produce of nullahs and ravines. A well 10 to 12 feet deep supplied excellent water. The ground was in places so far reclaimed as to be divided off by posts and rails; the scanty crops of corn (Indian corn), however, were wilted and withered by the drought, which this year had been unusually long. Without changing mules we advanced to Kennekuk, where we halted for an hour’s supper under the auspices of Major Baldwin, whilom Indian agent; the place was clean, and contained at least one charming face.

Kennekuk derives its name from a chief of the Kickapoos, in whose reservation we now are. This tribe, in the days of the Baron la Hontan (1689), a great traveler, but “aiblins,” as Sir Walter Scott said of his grandmither, “a prodigious story-teller,” then lived on the Rivière des Puants, or Fox River, upon the brink of a little lake supposed to be the Winnebago, near the Sakis (Osaki, Sawkis, Sauks, or Sacs),[19] and the Pouteoustamies (Potawotomies). They are still in the neighborhood of their[20] dreaded foes, the Sacs and Foxes,[20] who are described as stalwart and handsome bands, and they have been accompanied in their southern migration from the waters westward of the Mississippi, through Illinois, to their present southern seats by other allies of the Winnebagoes,[21] the Iowas, Nez Percés, Ottoes, Omahas, Kansas, and Osages. Like the great nations of the Indian Territory, the Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, and Chickasaws, they form intermediate social links in the chain of civilization between the outer white settlements and the wild nomadic tribes to the west, the Dakotahs and Arapahoes, the Snakes and Cheyennes. They cultivate the soil, and rarely spend the winter in hunting buffalo upon the plains. Their reservation is twelve miles by twenty-four; as usual with land set apart for the savages, it is well watered and timbered, rich and fertile; it lies across the path and in the vicinity of civilization; consequently, the people are greatly demoralized. The men are addicted to intoxication, and the women to unchastity; both sexes and all ages are inveterate beggars, whose principal industry is horse-stealing. Those Scottish clans were the most savage that vexed the Lowlands; it is the case here: the tribes nearest the settlers are best described by Colonel B——’s phrase, “great liars and dirty dogs.” They have well-nigh cast off the Indian attire, and rejoice in the splendors of boiled and ruffled shirts, after the fashion of the whites. According to our host, a stalwart son of that soil which for generations has sent out her best blood westward, Kain-tuk-ee, the Land of the Cane, the Kickapoos number about 300 souls, of whom one fifth are braves. He quoted a specimen of their facetiousness: when they first saw a crinoline, they pointed to the wearer and cried, “There walks a wigwam.” Our “vertugardin” of the 19th century has run the gauntlet of the world’s jests, from the refined[21] impertinence of Mr. Punch to the rude grumble of the American Indian and the Kaffir of the Cape.

Beyond Kennekuk we crossed the first Grasshopper Creek. Creek, I must warn the English reader, is pronounced “CRIK.”“crik,” and in these lands, as in the jargon of Australia, means not “an arm of the sea,” but a small stream of sweet water, a rivulet; the rivers of Europe, according to the Anglo-American of the West, are “criks.” On our line there are many grasshopper creeks; they anastomose with, or debouch into, the Kansas River, and they reach the sea viâ the Missouri and the Mississippi. This particular Grasshopper was dry and dusty up to the ankles; timber clothed the banks, and slabs of sandstone cumbered the sole. Our next obstacle was the Walnut Creek, which we found, however, provided with a corduroy bridge; formerly it was a dangerous ford, rolling down heavy streams of melted snow, and then crossed by means of the “bouco” or coracle, two hides sewed together, distended like a leather tub with willow rods, and poled or paddled. At this point the country is unusually well populated; a house appears after every mile. Beyond Walnut Creek a dense nimbus, rising ghost-like from the northern horizon, furnished us with a spectacle of those perilous prairie storms which make the prudent lay aside their revolvers and disembarrass themselves of their cartridges. Gusts of raw, cold, and violent wind from the west whizzed overhead, thunder crashed and rattled closer and closer, and vivid lightning, flashing out of the murky depths around, made earth and air one blaze of living fire. Then the rain began to patter ominously upon the carriages; the canvas, however, by swelling, did its duty in becoming water-tight, and we rode out the storm dry. Those learned in the weather predicted a succession of such outbursts, but the prophecy was not fulfilled. The thermometer fell about 6° (F.), and a strong north wind set in, blowing dust or gravel, a fair specimen of “Kansas gales,” which are equally common in Nebraska, especially during the month of October. It subsided on the 9th of August.

Arriving about 1 A.M. at Locknan’s Station, a few log and timber huts near a creek well feathered with white oak and American elm, hickory and black walnut, we found beds and snatched an hourful of sleep.

8th August, to Rock Creek.

Resuming, through air refrigerated by rain, our now weary way, we reached at 6 A.M. a favorite camping-ground, the “Big Nemehaw” Creek, which, like its lesser neighbor, flows after rain into the Missouri River, viâ Turkey Creek, the Big Blue, and the Kansas. It is a fine bottom of rich black soil, whose green woods at that early hour were wet with heavy dew, and scattered over the surface lay pebbles and blocks of quartz and porphyritic granites. “Richland,” a town mentioned in guide-books, having disappeared, we drove for breakfast to Seneca, a city consisting of a few[22] shanties, mostly garnished with tall square lumber fronts, ineffectually, especially when the houses stand one by one, masking the diminutiveness of the buildings behind them. The land, probably in prospect of a Pacific Railroad, fetched the exaggerated price of $20 an acre, and already a lawyer has “hung out his shingle” there.

Refreshed by breakfast and the intoxicating air, brisk as a bottle of veuve Clicquot—it is this that gives one the “prairie fever”—we bade glad adieu to Seneca, and prepared for another long stretch of twenty-four hours. That day’s chief study was of wagons, those ships of the great American Sahara which, gathering in fleets at certain seasons, conduct the traffic between the eastern and the western shores of a waste which is every where like a sea, and which presently will become salt. The white-topped wain—banished by railways from Pennsylvania, where, drawn by the “Conestoga horse,” it once formed a marked feature in the landscape—has found a home in the Far West. They are not unpicturesque from afar, these long-winding trains, in early morning like lines of white cranes trooping slowly over the prairie, or in more mysterious evening resembling dim sails crossing a rolling sea. The vehicles are more simple than our Cape wagons—huge beds like punts mounted on solid wheels, with logs for brakes, and contrasting strongly with the emerald plain, white tilts of twilled cotton or osnaburg, supported by substantial oaken or hickory bows. The wain is literally a “prairie ship:” its body is often used as a ferry, and when hides are unprocurable the covering is thus converted into a “bull boat.” Two stakes driven into the ground, to mark the length, are connected by a longitudinal keel and ribs of willow rods; cross-sticks are tied with thongs to prevent “caving in,” and the canvas is strained over the frame-work. In this part of the country the wagon is unnecessarily heavy; made to carry 4000 lbs., it rarely carries 3000: westward I have seen many a load of 3¹⁄₂ tons of 2000 lbs. each, and have heard of even 6 tons. The wheels are of northern white oak, well seasoned under pain of perpetual repairs, the best material, “bow-dark” Osage orange-wood (bois d’arc or Maclura aurantiaca), which shrinks but little, being rarely procurable about Concord and Troy, the great centres of wagon manufacture. The neap or tongue (pole) is jointed where it enters the hounds, or these will be broken by the heavy jolts; and the perch is often made movable, so that after accidents a temporary conveyance can be made out of the débris. A long covered wooden box hangs behind: on the road it carries fuel; at the halt it becomes a trough, being preferred to nose-bags, which prevent the animals breathing comfortably; and in the hut, where every part of the wagon is utilized, it acts as a chest for valuables. A bucket swings beneath the vehicle, and it is generally provided with an extra chain for “coraling.” The teams vary in number from six[23] to thirteen yoke; they are usually oxen, an “Old Country” prejudice operating against the use of cows.[22] The yoke, of pine or other light wood, is, as every where in the States, simple and effective, presenting a curious contrast to the uneasy and uncertain contrivances which still prevail in the antiquated Campagna and other classic parts of Europe. A heavy cross-piece, oak or cotton-wood, is beveled out in two places, and sometimes lined with sheet-lead, to fit the animals’ necks, which are held firm in bows of bent hickory passing through the yoke and pinned above. The several pairs of cattle are connected by strong chains and rings projecting from the under part of the wood-work.

THE “RIPPER.”The “ripper,” or driver, who is bound to the gold regions of Pike’s Peak, is a queer specimen of humanity. He usually hails from one of the old Atlantic cities—in fact, from settled America—and, like the civilized man generally, he betrays a remarkable aptitude for facile descent into savagery. His dress is a harlequinade, typical of his disposition. Eschewing the chimney-pot or stove-pipe tile of the bourgeois, he affects the “Kossuth,” an Anglo-American version of the sombrero, which converts felt into every shape and form, from the jaunty little head-covering of the modern sailor to the tall steeple-crown of the old Puritan. He disregards the trichotomy of St. Paul, and emulates St. Anthony and the American aborigines in the length of his locks, whose ends are curled inward, with a fascinating sausage-like roll not unlike the Cockney “aggrawator.” If a young hand, he is probably in the buckskin mania, which may pass into the squaw mania, a disease which knows no cure: the symptoms are, a leather coat and overalls to match, embroidered if possible, and finished along the arms and legs with fringes cut as long as possible, while a pair of gaudy moccasins, resplendent with red and blue porcelain beads, fits his feet tightly as silken hose. I have heard of coats worth $250, vests $100, and pants $150: indeed, the poorest of buckskin suits will cost $75, and if hard-worked it must be renewed every six months. The successful miner or the gambler—in these lands the word is confined to the profession—will add $10 gold buttons to the attractions of his attire. The older hand prefers to buckskin a “wamba” or round-about, a red or rainbow-colored[24] flannel over a check cotton shirt; his lower garments, garnished a tergo with leather, are turned into Hessians by being thrust inside his cow-hide Wellingtons; and, when in riding gear, he wraps below each knee a fold of deer, antelope, or cow skin, with edges scalloped where they fall over the feet, and gartered tightly against thorns and stirrup thongs, thus effecting that graceful elephantine bulge of the lower leg for which “Jack ashore” is justly celebrated. Those who suffer from sore eyes wear huge green goggles, which give a crab-like air to the physiognomy, and those who can not procure them line the circumorbital region with lampblack, which is supposed to act like the surma or kohl of the Orient. A broad leather belt supports on the right a revolver, generally Colt’s Navy or medium size (when Indian fighting is expected, the large dragoon pistol is universally preferred); and on the left, in a plain black sheath, or sometimes in the more ornamental Spanish scabbard, is a buck-horn or ivory-handled bowie-knife. In the East the driver partially conceals his tools; he has no such affectation in the Far West: moreover, a glance through the wagon-awning shows guns and rifles stowed along the side. When driving he is armed with a mammoth fustigator, a system of plaited cow-hides cased with smooth leather; it is a knout or an Australian stock-whip, which, managed with both hands, makes the sturdiest ox curve and curl its back. If he trudges along an ox-team, he is a grim and grimy man, who delights to startle your animals with a whip-crack, and disdains to return a salutation: if his charge be a muleteer’s, you may expect more urbanity; he is then in the “upper-crust” of teamsters; he knows it, and demeans himself accordingly. He can do nothing without whisky, which he loves to call tarantula juice, strychnine, red-eye, corn juice, Jersey lightning, leg-stretcher, “tangle-leg,”[23] and many other hard and grotesque names; he chews tobacco like a horse; he becomes heavier “on the shoulder” or “on the shyoot,” as, with the course of empire, he makes his way westward; and he frequently indulges in a “spree,” which in these lands means four acts of drinking-bout, with a fifth of rough-and-tumble. Briefly, he is a post-wagon driver exaggerated.

Each train is accompanied by men on horse or mule back—oxen are not ridden after Cape fashion in these lands.[24] The equipment of the cavalier excited my curiosity, especially the saddle,THE PRAIRIE SADDLE. which has been recommended by good authorities for military use. The coming days of fast warfare, when “heavies,” if not wholly[25] banished to the limbo of things that were, will be used as mounted “beef-eaters,” only for show, demand a saddle with as little weight as is consistent with strength, and one equally easy to the horse and the rider. In no branch of improvement, except in hat-making for the army, has so little been done as in saddles. The English military or hunting implement still endures without other merit than facility to the beast, and, in the man’s case, faculty of falling uninjured with his horse. Unless the rider be copper-lined and iron-limbed, it is little better in long marches than a rail for riding. As far as convenience is concerned, an Arab pad is preferable to Peat’s best. But the Californian saddle can not supply the deficiency, as will, I think, appear in the course of description.

The native Indian saddle is probably the degenerate offspring of the European pack-saddle: two short forks, composing the pommel and cantle, are nailed or lashed to a pair of narrow sideboards, and the rude tree is kept in shape by a green skin or hide allowed to shrink on. It remarkably resembles the Abyssinian, the Somal, and the Circassian saddle, which, like the “dug-out” canoe, is probably the primitive form instinctively invented by mankind. It is the sire of the civilized saddle, which in these lands varies with every region. The Texan is known by its circular seat; a string passed round the tree forms a ring: provided with flaps after the European style, it is considered easy and comfortable. The Californian is rather oval than circular; borrowed and improved from the Mexican, it has spread from the Pacific to the Atlantic slope of the Rocky Mountains, and the hardy and experienced mountaineer prefers it to all others: it much resembles the Hungarian, and in some points recalls to mind the old French cavalry demipique. It is composed of a single tree of light strong wood, admitting a freer circulation of air to the horse’s spine—an immense advantage—and, being without iron, it can readily be taken to pieces, cleaned or mended, and refitted. The tree is strengthened by a covering of raw-hide carefully sewed on; it rests upon a “sweat-leather,” a padded sheet covering the back, and it is finished off behind with an “anchero” of the same material protecting the loins. The pommel is high, like the crutch of a woman’s saddle, rendering impossible, under pain of barking the knuckles, that rule of good riding which directs the cavalier to keep his hands low. It prevents the inexperienced horseman being thrown forward, and enables him to “hold on” when likely to be dismounted; in the case of a good rider, its only use is to attach the lariat, riata, or lasso. The great merit of this “unicorn” saddle is its girthing: with the English system, the strain of a wild bull or of a mustang “bucker” would soon dislodge the riding gear. The “sincho” is an elastic horsehair cingle, five to six inches wide, connected with “lariat straps,” strong thongs passing round the pommel and cantle; it is girthed well back[26] from the horse’s shoulder, and can be drawn till the animal suffers pain: instead of buckle, the long terminating strap is hitched two or three times through an iron ring. The whole saddle is covered with a machila, here usually pronounced macheer, two pieces of thick leather handsomely and fancifully worked or stamped, joined by a running thong in the centre, and open to admit the pommel and cantle. If too long, it draws in the stirrup-leathers, and cramps the ankles of any but a bowlegged man. The machila is sometimes garnished with pockets, always with straps behind to secure a valise, and a cloak can be fastened over the pommel, giving purchase and protection to the knees. The rider sits erect, with the legs in a continuation of the body line, and the security of the balance-seat enables him to use his arms freely: the pose is that of the French schools in the last century, heels up and toes down. The advantages of this equipment are obvious; it is easier to horse and man probably than any yet invented. On the other hand, the quantity of leather renders it expensive: without silver or other ornaments, the price would vary from $25 at San Francisco to $50 at Great Salt Lake City, and the highly got-up rise to $250 = £50 for a saddle! If the saddle-cloth slips out, and this is an accident which frequently occurs, the animal’s back will be galled. The stirrup-leathers can not be shortened or lengthened without dismounting, and without leggins the board-like leather macheer soon makes the mollets innocent of skin. The pommel is absolutely dangerous: during my short stay in the country I heard of two accidents, one fatal, caused by the rider being thrown forward on his fork. Finally, the long seat, which is obligatory, answers admirably with the Californian pacer or canterer, but with the high-trotting military horse it would inevitably lead—as has been proved before the European stirrup-leather was shortened—to hernias and other accidents.

To the stirrups I have but one serious objection—they can not be made to open in case of the horse falling; when inside the stiff leather macheer, they cramp the legs by bowing them inward, but habit soon cures this. Instead of the light iron contrivances which before recovered play against the horse’s side, which freeze the feet in cold, and which toast them in hot weather, this stirrup is sensibly made of wood. In the Eastern States it is a lath bent somewhat in the shape of the dragoon form, and has too little weight; the Californian article is cut out of a solid block of wood, mountain mahogany being the best, then maple, and lastly the softer pine and cotton-wood. In some parts of the country it is made so narrow that only the toe fits in, and then the instep is liable to be bruised. For riding through bush and thorns, it is provided in front with zapateros or leathern curtains, secured to the straps above, and to the wood on both sides: they are curiously made, and the size, like that of the Turk’s lantern,[27] denotes the owner’s fashionableness; dandies may be seen with the pointed angles of their stirrup-guards dangling almost to the ground. The article was borrowed from Mexico—the land of character dresses. When riding through prickly chapparal, the leathers begin higher up, and protect the leg from the knee downward. I would not recommend this stirrup for Hyde Park, or even Brighton; but in India and other barbarous parts of the British empire, where, on a cold morning’s march, men and officers may be seen with wisps of straw defending their feet from the iron, and on African journeys, where the bush is more than a match for any texture yet woven, it might, methinks, be advantageously used.

The same may be said of the THE PRAIRIE SPUR.spurs, which, though cruel in appearance, are really more merciful than ours. The rowels have spikes about two inches long; in fact, are the shape and size of a small starfish; but they are never sharpened, and the tinkle near the animal’s sides serves to urge it on without a real application. The two little bell-like pendants of metal on each side of the rowel-hinge serve to increase the rattling, and when a poor rider is mounted upon a tricksy horse, they lock the rowels, which are driven into the sincho, and thus afford another point d’appui. If the rider’s legs be long enough, the spurs can be clinched under the pony’s belly. Like the Mexican, they can be made expensive: $25 a pair would be a common price.

BRIDLE.The bridle is undoubtedly the worst part of the horse’s furniture. The bit is long, clumsy, and not less cruel than a Chifney. I have seen the Arab ring, which, with sufficient leverage, will break a horse’s jaw, and another, not unlike an East Indian invention, with a sharp triangle to press upon the animal’s palate, apparently for the purpose of causing it to rear and fall backward. It is the offspring of the Mexican manége, which was derived, through Spain, from the Moors.

Passing through Ash Point at 9 30 A.M., and halting for water at Uncle John’s Grocery, where hang-dog Indians, squatting, standing, and stalking about, showed that the forbidden luxury—essence of corn—was, despite regulations, not unprocurable there, we spanned the prairie to Guittard’s Station. This is a clump of board houses on the far side of a shady, well-wooded creek—the Vermilion, a tributary of the Big Blue River, so called from its red sandstone bottom, dotted with granitic and porphyritic boulders.

Our conductor had sprained his ankle, and the driver, being in plain English drunk, had dashed like a Phaeton over the “chuck-holes;” we willingly, therefore, halted at 11 30 A.M. for dinner. The host was a young Alsatian, who, with his mother and sister, had emigrated under the excitement of Californian fever, and had been stopped, by want of means, half way. The improvement upon the native was palpable: the house and kitchen were clean, the fences neat; the ham and eggs, the hot rolls and coffee, were[28] fresh and good, and, although drought had killed the salad, we had abundance of peaches and cream, an offering of French to American taste which, in its simplicity, luxuriates in the curious mixture of lacteal with hydrocyanic acid.

At Guittard’s I saw, for the first time, the Pony Express rider arrive. In March, 1860, “the great dream of news transmitted from New York to San Francisco (more strictly speaking from St. Joseph to Placerville, California) in eight days was tested.” It appeared, in fact, under the form of an advertisement in the St. Louis “Republican,”[25] and threw at once into the shade the great Butterfield Mail, whose expedition had been the theme of universal praise. Very meritoriously has the contract been fulfilled. At the moment of writing (Nov., 1860), the distance between New York and San Francisco has been farther reduced by the advance of the electric telegraph—it proceeds at the rate of six miles a day—to Fort Kearney from the Mississippi and to Fort Churchill from the Pacific side. The merchant thus receives his advices in six days. The contract of the government with Messrs. Russell, Majors, and Co., to run the mail from St. Joseph to Great Salt Lake City, expired the 30th of November, and it was proposed to, continue it only from Julesburg on the crossing of the South Platte, 480 miles west of St. Joseph. Mr. Russell, however, objected, and so did the Western States generally, to abbreviating the mail-service as contemplated by the Post-office Department. His spirit and energy met with supporters whose interest it was not to fall back on the times when a communication between New[29] York and California could not be secured short of twenty-five or thirty days; and, aided by the newspapers, he obtained a renewal of his contract. The riders are mostly youths, mounted upon active and lithe Indian nags. They ride 100 miles at a time—about eight per hour—with four changes of horses, and return to their stations the next day: of their hardships and perils we shall hear more anon. The letters are carried in leathern bags, which are thrown about carelessly enough when the saddle is changed, and the average postage is $5 = £1 per sheet.

Beyond Guittard’s the prairies bore a burnt-up aspect. Far as the eye could see the tintage was that of the Arabian Desert, sere and tawny as a jackal’s back. It was still, however, too early;THE PRAIRIE FIRES. October is the month for those prairie fires which have so frequently exercised the Western author’s pen. Here, however, the grass is too short for the full development of the phenomenon, and beyond the Little Blue River there is hardly any risk. The fire can easily be stopped, ab initio, by blankets, or by simply rolling a barrel; the African plan of beating down with boughs might also be used in certain places; and when the conflagration has extended, travelers can take refuge in a little Zoar by burning the vegetation to windward. In Texas and Illinois, however, where the grass is tall and rank, and the roaring flames leap before the wind with the stride of maddened horses, the danger is imminent, and the spectacle must be one of awful sublimity.

In places where the land seems broken with bluffs, like an iron-bound coast, the skeleton of the earth becomes visible; the formation is a friable sandstone, overlying fossiliferous lime, which is based upon beds of shale. These undergrowths show themselves at the edges of the ground-waves and in the dwarf precipices, where the soil has been degraded by the action of water. The yellow-brown humus varies from forty to sixty feet deep in the most favored places, and erratic blocks of porphyry and various granites encumber the dry water-courses and surface drains. In the rare spots where water then lay, the herbage was still green, forming oases in the withering waste, and showing that irrigation is its principal, if not its only want.

Passing by Marysville, in old maps Palmetto City, a county town which thrives by selling whisky to ruffians of all descriptions, we forded before sunset the “Big Blue,” a well-known tributary of the Kansas River. It is a pretty little stream, brisk and clear as crystal, about forty or fifty yards wide by 2·50 feet deep at the ford. The soil is sandy and solid, but the banks are too precipitous to be pleasant when a very drunken driver hangs on by the lines of four very weary mules. We then stretched once more over the “divide”—the ground, generally rough or rolling, between the fork or junction of two streams, in fact, the Indian Doab—separating the Big Blue from its tributary the Little Blue. At 6 P.M. we changed our fagged animals for fresh, and the land[30] of Kansas for Nebraska, at Cotton-wood Creek, a bottom where trees flourished, where the ground had been cleared for corn, and where we detected the prairie wolf watching for the poultry. The fur of our first coyote was light yellow-brown, with a tinge of red, the snout long and sharp, the tail bushy and hanging, the gait like a dog’s, and the manner expressive of extreme timidity; it is a far more cowardly animal than the larger white buffalo-wolf and the black wolf of the woods, which are also far from fierce. At Cotton-wood Station we took “on board” two way-passengers, “lady” and “gentleman,” who were drafted into the wagon containing the Judiciary. A weary drive over a rough and dusty road, through chill night air and clouds of musquetoes, which we were warned would accompany us to the Pacific slope of the Rocky Mountains, placed us about 10 P.M. at Rock, also called Turkey Creek—surely a misnomer; no turkey ever haunted so villainous a spot! Several passengers began to suffer from fever and nausea; in such travel the second night is usually the crisis, after which a man can endure for an indefinite time. The “ranch” was a nice place for invalids, especially for those of the softer sex. Upon the bedded floor of the foul “doggery” lay, in a seemingly promiscuous heap, men, women, children, lambs, and puppies, all fast in the arms of Morpheus, and many under the influence of a much jollier god. The employés, when aroused pretty roughly, blinked their eyes in the atmosphere of smoke and musquetoes, and declared that it had been “merry in hall” that night—the effects of which merriment had not passed off. After half an hour’s dispute about who should do the work, they produced cold scraps of mutton and a kind of bread which deserves a totally distinct generic name. The strongest stomachs of the party made tea, and found some milk which was not more than one quarter flies. This succulent meal was followed by the usual douceur. On this road, however mean or wretched the fare, the station-keeper, who is established by the proprietor of the line, never derogates by lowering his price.

The Valley of the Little Blue, 9th August.

LITTLE BLUE RIVER VALLEY.A little after midnight we resumed our way, and in the state which Mohammed described when he made his famous night journey to heaven—bayni ’l naumi wa ’l yakzán—we crossed the deep shingles, the shallow streams, and the heavy vegetation of the Little Sandy, and five miles beyond it we forded the Big Sandy. About early dawn we found ourselves at another station, better than the last only as the hour was more propitious. The colony of Patlanders rose from their beds without a dream of ablution, and clearing the while their lungs of Cork brogue, prepared a neat déjeûner à la fourchette by hacking “fids” off half a sheep suspended from the ceiling, and frying them in melted tallow. Had the action occurred in Central Africa, among the Esquimaux,[31] or the Araucanians, it would not have excited my attention: mere barbarism rarely disgusts; it is the unnatural cohabitation of civilization with savagery that makes the traveler’s gorge rise.

Issuing from Big Sandy Station at 6 30 A.M., and resuming our route over the divide that still separated the valleys of the Big Blue and the Little Blue, we presently fell into the line of the latter, and were called upon by the conductor to admire it. It is pretty, but its beauties require the cosmetic which is said to act unfailingly in the case of fairer things—the viewer should have lately spent three months at sea, out of sight of rivers and women. Averaging two miles in width, which shrinks to one quarter as you ascend, the valley is hedged on both sides by low rolling bluffs or terraces, the boundaries of its ancient bed and modern debordements. As the hills break off near the river, they show a diluvial formation; in places they are washed into a variety of forms, and being white, they stand out in bold relief. In other parts they are sand mixed with soil enough to support a last-year’s growth of wheat-like grass, weed-stubble, and dead trees, that look like old corn-fields in new clearings. One could not have recognized at this season Colonel Frémont’s description written in the month of June—the “hills with graceful slopes looking uncommonly green and beautiful.” Along the bluffs the road winds, crossing at times a rough projecting spur, or dipping into some gully washed out by the rains of ages. All is barren beyond the garden-reach which runs along the stream; there is not a tree to a square mile—in these regions the tree, like the bird in Arabia and the monkey in Africa, signifies water—and animal life seems well-nigh extinct. As the land sinks toward the river bottom, it becomes less barren. The wild sunflower (Helianthus)—it seldom, however, turns toward the sun—now becomes abundant; it was sparse near the Missouri; it will wax even more plentiful around Great Salt Lake City, till walking through the beds becomes difficult. In size it greatly varies according to the quality of the soil; six feet is perhaps the maximum. It is a growth of some value. The oleaginous seeds form the principal food of half-starved Indians, while the stalks supply them with a scanty fuel: being of rapid growth, it has been used in the States to arrest the flow of malaria, and it serves as house and home to the rattlesnake. Conspicuous by its side is the sumach, whose leaf, mixed with kinnikinik, the peel of the red willow, forms the immemorial smoking material of the Wild Man of the North. Equally remarkable for their strong odor are large beds of wild onions; they are superlatively wholesome, but they effect the eater like those of Tibet. The predominant colors are pink and yellow, the former a lupine, the latter a shrub, locally called the rabbit-bush. The blue lupine also appears with the white mallow, the eccentric putoria, and the taraxacum (dandelion), so much[32] used as salad in France and in the Eastern States. This land appears excellently adapted for the growth of manioc or cassava. In the centre of the bottom flows the brownish stream, about twenty yards wide, between two dense lines of tall sweet cotton-wood. The tree which was fated to become familiar to us during our wanderings is a species of poplar (P. monilifera), called by the Americo-Spaniards, and by the people of Texas and New Mexico, “Alamo:” resembling the European aspen, without its silver lining, the color of the leaf, in places, appears of a dull burnished hue, in others bright and refreshingly green. Its trivial name is derived, according to some, from the fibrous quality of the bark, which, as in Norway, is converted into food for cattle and even man; according to others, from the cotton-like substance surrounding the seeds. It is termed “sweet” to distinguish it from a different tree with a bitter bark, also called a cotton-wood or narrow-leaved cotton-wood (Populus angustifolia), and by the Canadians liard amère. The timber is soft and easily cut; it is in many places the only material for building and burning, and the recklessness of the squatters has already shortened the supply.

This valley is the Belgium of the adjoining tribes, the once terrible Pawnees, who here met their enemies, the Dakotahs and the Delawares: it was then a great buffalo ground; and even twenty years ago it was well stocked with droves of wild horses, turkeys, and herds of antelope, deer, and elk. The animals have of late migrated westward, carrying off with them the “bones of contention.” Some details concerning the present condition of these bands and their neighbors may not be uninteresting—these poor remnants of nations which once kept the power of North America at bay, and are now barely able to struggle for existence.

In 1853, the government of the United States, which has ever acted paternally toward the Indians, treating with them—Great Britain did the same with the East Indians—as though they were a civilized people, availed itself of the savages’ desire to sell lands encroached upon by the whites, and set apart for a general reservation 181,171 square miles. Here, in the Far West, were collected into what was then believed to be a permanent habitation, the indigenes of the land, and the various bands once lying east of the Mississippi. This “Indian’s home” was bounded, in 1853, on the north by the Northwestern Territory and Minnesota; on the south by Texas and New Mexico; to the east lay Iowa, Missouri, and Arkansas; and to the west, Oregon, Utah, and New Mexico.

The savages’ reservation was then thus distributed. The eastern portion nearest the river was stocked with tribes removed to it from the Eastern States, namely, the Iowas, Sacs and Foxes, Kickapoos, Delawares, Potawotomies, Wyandottes, Quapaws, Senecas, Cherokees, Seminoles, Creeks, Choctaws, Chickasaws, Miamis,[33] and Ottawas. The west and part of the northeast—poor and barren lands—were retained by the aboriginal tribes, Ponkahs, Omahas or Mahas, Pawnees, Ottoes, Kansas or Konzas, and Osages. The central and the remainder of the western portion—wild countries abounding in buffalo—were granted to the Western Pawnees, the Arickarees, Arapahoes, Cheyennes, Kiowas, Comanches, Utahs, Grosventres, and other nomads.

It was somewhat a confusion of races. For instance, the Pawnees form an independent family, to which some authors join the Arickaree; the Sacs (Sauk) and Foxes, Winnebagoes, Ottoes, Kaws, Omahas, Cheyennes, Mississippi Dakotahs, and Missouri Dakotahs, belong to the Dakotan family; the Choctaws, Creeks, and Seminoles are Appalachians; the Wyandottes, like the Iroquois, are Hodesaunians; and the Ottawas, Delawares, Shawnees, Potawotomies, Peorians, Mohekuneuks, Kaskaskias, Piankeshaws, Weaws, Miamis, Kickapoos, and the Menomenes, are, like the Ojibwas, Algonquins.

The total number of Indians on the prairies and the Rocky Mountains was estimated roughly at 63,000.

Still the resistless tide of emigration swept westward: the federal government was as powerless to stem it as was General Fitzroy of New South Wales to prevent, in 1852, his subjects flocking to the “gold diggings.” Despite all orders, reckless whites would squat upon, and thoughtless reds, bribed by whisky, tobacco, and gunpowder, would sell off the lands. On the 20th of May, 1854, was passed the celebrated “Kansas-Nebraska Bill,” an act converting the greater portion of the “Indian Territory,”THE INDIAN TERRITORY. and all the “Northwestern Territory,” into two new territories—Kansas, north of the 37th parallel, and Nebraska, north of the 40th. In the passage of this bill, the celebrated “Missouri Compromise” of 1828, prohibiting negro slavery north of 36° 30′, was repealed, under the presidency of General Pierce.[26] It provided that the[34] rights and properties of the Indians, within their shrunken possessions, should be respected. By degrees the Indians sold their lands for whisky, as of old, and retired to smaller reservations. Of course, they suffered in the bargain; the savage ever parts with his birthright for the well-known mess of pottage. The Osages, for instance, canceled $4000, claimed by unscrupulous traders, by a cession of two million acres of arable land. The Potawotomies fared even worse; under the influence of liquor, ὡς λεγουσι, their chiefs sold 100,000 acres of the best soil on the banks of the Missouri for a mere song. The tribe was removed to a bald smooth prairie, sans timber and consequently sans game; many fled to the extreme wilds, and the others, like the Acadians of yore, were marched about till they found homes—many of them six feet by two—in Fever Patch, on the Kaw or Kansas River. Others were more fortunate. The Ottoes, Omahas, and Kansas had permanent villages near the Missouri and its two tributaries, the Platte and the Kansas. The Osages, formerly a large nation in Arkansas, after ceding 10,000,000 of acres for a stipend of $52,000 for thirty years, were settled in a district on the west bank of the Neosho or Whitewater—the Grand River. They are described as the finest and largest men of the semi-nomad races, with well-formed heads and symmetrical figures, brave, warlike, and well disposed to the whites. Early in June, after planting their maize, they move in mounted bands to the prairies, feast upon the buffalo for months, and bring home stores of smoked and jerked meat. When the corn is in milk they husk and sundry it; it is then boiled, and is said to be better flavored and more nutritious than the East Indian “butah” or the American hominy. After the harvest in October they return to the game country, and then pass the winter under huts or skin lodges. Their chief scourge is small-pox: apparently, all the tribes carry some cross. Of the settled races the best types are the Choctaws and the Cherokees; the latter have shown a degree of improvability,[35] which may still preserve them from destruction; they have a form of government, churches, theatres, and schools; they read and write English; and George Guess, a well-known chief, like the negro inventor of the Vai syllabarium in West Africa, produced an alphabet of sixty-eight characters, which, improved and simplified by the missionaries, is found useful in teaching the vernacular.

Upon the whole, however, the philanthropic schemes of the government have not met with brilliant success. The chiefs are still bribed, and the people cheated by white traders, and poverty, disease, and debauchery rapidly thin the tribesmen. Sensible heads have proposed many schemes for preserving the race. Apparently the best of these projects is to introduce the Moravian discipline. MISSIONARIES. Of all missionary systems, I may observe, none have hitherto been crowned with important results, despite the blood and gold so profusely expended upon them, except two—those of the Jesuits and the United Brethren. The fraternity of Jesus spread the Gospel by assimilating themselves to the heathen; the Unitas Fratrum by assimilating the heathen to themselves. The day of Jesuitism, like that of protection, is going by. The advance of Moravianism, it may safely be prophesied, is to come. These civilization societies have as yet been little appreciated, because they will not minister to that ignorant enthusiasm which extracts money from the pockets of the many. Their necessarily slow progress is irksome to ardent propagandists. We naturally wish to reap as well as to sow; and man rarely invests capital in schemes of which only his grandson will see the results.

The American philanthropist proposes to wean the Indian savage from his nomad life by turning his lodge into a log tent, and by providing him with cattle instead of buffalo, and the domestic fowl instead of grasshoppers. The hunter become a herdsman would thus be strengthened for another step—the agricultural life, which necessarily follows the pastoral. Factors would be appointed instead of vicious traders—coureurs des bois, as the Canadians call them; titles to land would be granted in fee-simple, practically teaching the value of property in severalty, alienation into white hands would be forbidden, and, if possible, a cordon militaire would be stretched between the races. The agricultural would lead to the mechanical stage of society. Agents and assistant craftsmen would teach the tribes to raise mills and smithies (at present there are mills without millers, stock without breeders, and similar attempts to make civilization run before she can walk), and a growing appreciation for the peace, the comfort, and the luxuries of settled life would lay the nomad instinct forever.

The project labors only under one difficulty—the one common to philanthropic schemes. In many details it is somewhat visionary—utopian. It is, like peace on earth, a “dream of the wise.” Under the present system of Indian agencies, as will in a future[36] page appear, it is simply impossible. It has terrible obstacles in the westward gravitation of the white race, which, after sweeping away the aborigines—as the gray rat in Europe expelled the black rat—from the east of the Mississippi in two centuries and a half, threatens, before a quarter of that time shall have elapsed, to drive in its advance toward the Pacific the few survivors of now populous tribes, either into the inhospitable regions north of the 49th parallel, or into the anarchical countries south of the 32d. And where, I may ask, in the history of the world do we read of a people learning civilization from strangers instead of working it out for themselves, through its several degrees of barbarism, feudalism, monarchy, republicanism, despotism? Still it is a noble project; mankind would not willingly see it die.

THE PAWNEES.The Pawnees were called by the French and Canadian traders Les Loups, that animal being their totem, and the sign of the tribe being an imitation of the wolf’s ears, the two fore fingers of the right hand being stuck up on the side of the head. They were in the last generation a large nation, containing many clans—Minnikajus, the Sans Arc, the Loup Fork, and others. Their territory embraced both sides of the Platte River, especially the northern lands; and they rendered these grounds terrible to the trapper, trader, and traveler. They were always well mounted. Old Mexico was then, and partially is still, their stable, and a small band has driven off horses by hundreds. Of late years they have become powerless. The influenza acts as a plague among them, killing off 400 or 500 in a single season, and the nation now numbers little more than 300 braves, or rather warriors, the latter, in correct parlance, being inferior to the former, as the former are subservient to the chief. A treaty concluded between them and the United States in the winter of 1857 sent them to a reserve on the Loup Fork, where their villages were destroyed by the Sioux. They are Ishmaelites, whose hand is against every man. They have attempted, after the fashion of declining tribes, to strengthen themselves by alliances with their neighbors, but have always failed in consequence of their propensity to plunder developing itself even before the powwow was concluded. They and the northern Dakotahs can never be trusted. Most Indian races, like the Bedouin Arabs, will show hospitality to the stranger who rides into their villages, though no point of honor deters them from robbing him after he has left the lodge-shade. The Pawnees, African-like, will cut the throat of a sleeping guest. They are easily distinguished from their neighbors by the scalp-lock protruding from a shaven head. After killing white men, they have insulted the corpse in a manner familiar to those who served in the Affghan war. They have given up the practice of torturing prisoners, saying that the “Great Spirit,” or rather, as the expression should be translated, the “Great Father” no longer wills it. The tradition is, that a few years ago a squaw of a hostile tribe was snatched[37] from the stake by a white trader, and the action was interpreted as a decree of heaven. It is probably a corruption of the well-known story of the rescue of the Itean woman by Petalesharoo, the son of the “Knife Chief.” Like the Southern and Western Indians generally, as is truly remarked by Captain Mayne Reid,[27] “They possess more of that cold continence and chivalrous delicacy than characterize the Red Men of the forest.” They are too treacherous to be used as soldiers. Like most pedestrian Indians, their arms and bodies are light and thin, and their legs are muscular and well developed. They are great in endurance. I have heard of a Pawnee, who, when thoroughly “stampeded” by his enemies, “loped” from Fort Laramie to Kearney—300 miles—making the distance as fast as the mail. This bad tribe is ever at war with their hereditary enemies the Sioux. They do not extend westward of Fort Kearney. The principal sub-tribe is the Arickaree, or Ree, called Pedani by the Dakotah, who attacked and conquered them. Their large villages, near the mouth of the Grand River, were destroyed by the expedition sent in 1825-26, under Colonel Leavenworth, to chastise the attack upon the trading party of General Ashley.

THE DELAWARES.A more interesting people than the Pawnee is the Delaware, whose oldest tradition derives him from the region west of the Mississippi. Thence the tribe migrated to the Atlantic shores, where they took the title of Lenne Lenape, or men, and the neighboring races in respect called them “uncle.” William Penn and his followers found this remnant of the great Algonquin confederacy in a depressed state: subjugated by the Five Nations, they had been compelled to take the name of “Iroquois Squaws.” In those days they felt an awe of the white man, and looked upon him as a something godlike. Since their return to the West their spirit has revived, their war-path has reached through Utah to the Pacific Ocean, to Hudson’s Bay on the north, and southward to the heart of Mexico. Their present abodes are principally near Fort Leavenworth upon the Missouri, and in the Choctaw territory near Fort Arbuckle, upon the eastern Colorado or Canadian River. They are familiar with the languages, manners, and customs of their pale-faced neighbors; they are so feared as rifle shots that a host of enemies will fly from a few of their warriors, and they mostly lead a vagrant life, the wandering Jews of the West, as traders, hunters, and trappers, among the other Indian tribes. For 185 years the Shawnees have been associated with them in intermarriage, yet they are declining in numbers; here and there some are lost, one by one, in travel or battle; they have now dwindled to about a hundred warriors, and the extinction of the tribe appears imminent. As hunters and guides, they are preferred to all others by the whites, and it is believed that they would make as formidable partisan soldiers as any on this continent.[38] When the government of the United States, after the fashion of France and England, begins to raise “Irregular Native Corps,” the loss of the Delawares will be regretted.

Changing mules at Kiowa about 10 A.M., we pushed forward through the sun, which presently was mitigated by heavy nimbi, to Liberty Farm, where a station supplied us with the eternal eggs and bacon of these mangeurs de lard. It is a dish constant in the great West, as the omelet and pigeon in the vetturini days of Italy, when, prompted by the instincts of self-preservation, the inmates of the dove-cot, unless prevented in time, are said to have fled their homes at the sight of Milordo’s traveling carriage, not to return until the portent had disappeared. The Little Blue ran hard by, about fifty feet wide by three or four deep, fringed with emerald-green oak groves, cotton-wood, and long-leaved willow: its waters supply catfish, suckers, and a soft-shelled turtle, but the fish are full of bones, and taste, as might be imagined, much like mud. The country showed vestiges of animal life, the prairie bore signs of hare and antelope; in the valley, coyotes, wolves, and foxes, attracted by the carcasses of cattle, stared us in the face, and near the stream, plovers, jays, the bluebird (sialia), and a kind of starling, called the swamp or redwinged blackbird, twittered a song of satisfaction. We then resumed our journey over a desert, waterless save after rain, for twenty-three miles; it is the divide between the Little Blue and the Platte rivers, a broken table-land rising gradually toward the west, with, at this season, a barren soil of sand and clay. As the evening approached, a smile from above lit up into absolute beauty the homely features of the world below. The sweet commune with nature in her fairest hours denied to the sons of cities—who must contemplate her charms through a vista of brick wall, or over a foreground of chimney-pots—consoled us amply for all the little hardships of travel. Strata upon strata of cloud-banks, burnished to golden red in the vicinity of the setting sun, and polished to dazzling silvery white above, lay piled half way from the horizon to the zenith, with a distinct strike toward a vanishing point in the west, and dipping into a gateway through which the orb of day slowly retired. Overhead floated in a sea of amber and yellow, pink and green, heavy purple nimbi, apparently turned upside down—their convex bulges below, and their horizontal lines high in the air—while in the east black and blue were so curiously blended that the eye could not distinguish whether it rested upon darkening air or upon a lowering thunder-cloud. We enjoyed these beauties in silence; not a soul said, “Look there!” or “How pretty!”

At 9 P.M., reaching “Thirty-two-mile Creek,” we were pleasantly surprised to find an utter absence of the Irishry. The station-master was the head of a neat-handed and thrifty family from Vermont; the rooms, such as they were, looked cosy and clean—and the chickens and peaches were plump and well “fixed.” Soldiers[39] from Fort Kearney loitered about the adjoining store, and from them we heard past fights and rumors of future wars which were confirmed on the morrow. Remounting at 10 30 P.M., and before moonrise, we threaded the gloom without other accident than the loss of a mule that was being led to the next station. The amiable animal, after breaking loose, coquetted with its pursuers for a while, according to the fashion of its kind, and when the cerne or surround was judged complete, it dashed through the circle and gave leg-bail, its hoofs ringing over the stones till the sound died away in the distant shades.

The Platte River and Fort Kearney, August 10.

LA GRANDE PLATTE. After a long and chilly night—extensive evaporation making 40° F. feel excessively cold—lengthened by the atrocity of the musquetoes, which sting even when the thermometer stands below 45°, we awoke upon the hill sands divided by two miles of level green savanna, and at 4 A.M. reached Kearney Station, in the valley of La Grande Platte, seven miles from the fort of that name. The first aspect of the stream was one of calm and quiet beauty, which, however, it owed much to its accessories: some travelers have not hesitated to characterize it as “the dreariest of rivers.” On the south is a rolling range of red sandy and clayey hillocks, sharp toward the river—the “coasts of the Nebraska.” The valley, here two miles broad, resembles the ocean deltas of great streams; it is level as a carpet, all short green grass without sage or bush. It can hardly be called a bottom, the rise from the water’s edge being, it is calculated, about 4 feet per 1000. Under a bank, from half a yard to a yard high, through its two lawns of verdure, flowed the stream straight toward the slanting rays of the rising sun, which glittered upon its broad bosom, and shed rosy light over half the heavens. In places it shows a sea horizon, but here it was narrowed by Grand Island, which is fifty-two miles long, with an average breadth of one mile and three quarters, and sufficiently elevated above the annual flood to be well timbered.

Without excepting even the Missouri, the Platte is doubtless the most important western influent of the Mississippi. Its valley offers a route scarcely to be surpassed for natural gradients, requiring little beyond the superstructure for light trains; and by following up its tributary—the Sweetwater—the engineer finds a line laid down by nature to the foot of the South Pass of the Rocky Mountains, the dividing ridge between the Atlantic and the Pacific water-beds. At present the traveler can cross the 300 or 400 miles of desert between the settlements in the east and the populated parts of the western mountains by its broad highway, with never-failing supplies of water, and, in places, fuel. Its banks will shortly supply coal to take the place of the timber that has thinned out.

[40]

The Canadian voyageurs first named it La Platte, the Flat River, discarding, or rather translating after their fashion, the musical and picturesque aboriginal term, “Nebraska,” the “shallow stream:” the word has happily been retained for the Territory. Springing from the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains, it has, like all the valley streams westward of the Mississippi, the Niobrara, or Eau qui court,[28] the Arkansas, and the Canadian River, a declination to the southeast. From its mouth to the junction of its northern and southern forks, the river valley is mostly level, and the scenery is of remarkable sameness: its singularity in this point affects the memory. There is not a tributary, not a ravine, in places not a tree to distract attention from the grassy intermediate bottom, which, plain as a prairie, extends from four to five and even twelve miles in width, bounded on both sides by low, rolling, sandy hills, thinly vegetated, and in few places showing dwarf bluffs. Between the forks and Fort Laramie the ground is more accented, the land near its banks often becomes precipitous, the road must sometimes traverse the tongues and ridges which project into the valley, and in parts the path is deep with sand. The stream averages about a mile in breadth, and sometimes widens out into the semblance of an estuary, flowing in eddies where holes are, and broken by far-reaching sand-bars and curlew shallows. In places it is a labyrinth of islets, variously shaped and of all sizes, from the long tongue which forms a vista to the little bouquet of cool verdure, grass, young willows, and rose-bushes. The shallowness of the bed causes the water to be warm in summer; a great contrast to the clear, cool springs on its banks. The sole is treacherous in the extreme, full of quicksands and gravel shoals, channels and cuts, which shift, like those of the Indus, with each year’s flood; the site being nearly level, the river easily swells, and the banks, here of light, there of dark colored silt, based, like the floor, on sand, are, though vertical, rarely more than two feet high. It is a river willfully wasted by nature. The inundation raises it to about six feet throughout: this freshet, however, is of short duration, and the great breadth of the river causes a want of depth which renders it unfit for the navigation of a craft more civilized than the Indian’s birch or the Canadian fur-boat. Colonel Frémont failed to descend it in September with a boat drawing only four inches. The water, like that of the Missouri, and for the same reason, is surcharged with mud drained from the prairies; carried from afar, it has usually a dark tinge; it is remarkably opaque after floods; if a few inches deep, it looks bottomless, and, finally, it contains little worth fishing for. From the mouth to Fort Kearney, beyond which point timber is rare, one bank, and one only, is fringed with narrow lines of well-grown cotton-wood, red willows,[41] and cedars, which are disappearing before the emigrant’s axe. The cedar now becomes an important tree. It will not grow on the plains, owing to the dryness of the climate and the excessive cold; even in the sheltered ravines the wintry winds have power to blight all the tops that rise above prairie level, and where the locality is better adapted for plantations, firs prevail. An interesting effect of climate upon the cedar is quoted by travelers on the Missouri River. At the first Cedar Island (43° N. lat.) large and straight trees appear in the bottom lands, those on the bluffs being of inferior growth; higher up the stream they diminish, seldom being seen in any number together above the mouth of the Little Cheyenne (45° N. lat.), and there they are exceedingly crooked and twisted. In the lignite formations above the Missouri and the Yellow Stone, the cedar, unable to support itself above ground, spreads over the hill-sides and presents the appearance of grass or moss.

Beyond the immediate banks of the Platte the soil is either sandy, quickly absorbing water, or it is a hard, cold, unwholesome clay, which long retains muddy pools, black with decayed vegetation, and which often, in the lowest levels, becomes a mere marsh. The wells deriving infiltration from the higher lands beyond are rarely more than three feet deep; the produce is somewhat saline, and here and there salt may be seen efflorescing from the soil around them. In the large beds of prêle (an equisetum), scouring rush, and other aquatic plants which garnish the banks, myriads of musquetoes find a home. Flowers of rich, warm color appear, we remark, in the sandy parts: the common wild helianthus and a miniature sunflower like chamomile, a thistle (Carduus leucographus), the cactus, a peculiar milk-plant (Asclepias syrivea), a spurgewort (Asclepias tuberosa), the amorpha, the tradescantia, the putoria, and the artemisia, or prairie sage. THE WILD GARDEN.The richer soils and ravines produce in abundance the purple aster—violet of these regions—a green plant, locally known as “Lamb’s Quarters,” a purple flower with bulbous root, wild flax with pretty blue blossoms, besides mallow, digitalis, anemone, streptanthis, and a honeysuckle. In parts the valley of the Platte is a perfect parterre of wild flowers.

After satisfying hunger with vile bread and viler coffee—how far from the little forty-berry cup of Egypt!—for which we paid 75 cents, we left Kearney Station without delay. Hugging the right bank of our strange river, at 8 A.M. we found ourselves at Fort Kearney, so called, as is the custom, after the gallant officer, now deceased, of that name.

Every square box or block-house in these regions is a fort; no misnomer, however, can be more complete than the word applied to the military cantonments on the frontier. In former times the traders to whom these places mostly belonged erected quadrangles of sun-dried brick with towers at the angles; their forts still[42] appear in old books of travels: the War Department, however, has been sensible enough to remove them. The position usually chosen is a river bottom, where fuel, grass, and water are readily procurable. The quarters are of various styles; some, with their low verandas, resemble Anglo-Indian bungalows or comfortable farm-houses; others are the storied houses, with the “stoop” or porch of the Eastern States in front; and low, long, peat-roofed tenements are used for magazines and out-houses. The best material is brown adobe or unburnt brick; others are of timber, whitewashed and clean-looking, with shingle roofs, glass windows, and gay green frames—that contrast of colors which the New Englander loves. The habitations surround a cleared central space for parade and drill; the ground is denoted by the tall flag-staff, which does not, as in English camps, distinguish the quarters of the commanding officer. One side is occupied by the officers’ bungalows, the other, generally that opposite, by the adjutant’s and quartermaster’s offices, and the square is completed by low ranges of barrack and commissariat stores, while various little shops, stables, corrals for cattle, a chapel, perhaps an artillery park, and surely an ice-house—in this point India is far behind the wilds of America—complete the settlement. Had these cantonments a few more trees and a far more brilliant verdure, they would suggest the idea of an out-station in Guzerat, the Deccan, or some similar Botany Bay for decayed gentlemen who transport themselves.

While at Washington I had resolved—as has already been intimated—when the reports of war in the West were waxing loud, to enjoy a little Indian fighting.INDIAN FIGHTING. The meritorious intention—for which the severest “wig,” concluding with something personally offensive about volunteering in general, would have been its sole result in the “fast-anchored isle”—was most courteously received by the Hon. John B. Floyd, Secretary of War, who provided me with introductory letters addressed to the officers commanding various “departments”[29]—“divisions,” as they would[43] be called by Englishmen—in the West. The first tidings that saluted my ears on arrival at Fort Kearney acted as a quietus: an Indian action had been fought, which signified that there would be no more fighting for some time. Captain Sturgis, of the 1st Cavalry, U. S., had just attacked, near the Republican Fork of Kansas River, a little south of the fort, with six companies (about 350 men) and a few Delawares, a considerable body of the enemy, Comanches, Kiowas, and Cheyennes, who apparently had forgotten the severe lesson administered to them by Colonel—now Brigadier General—Edwin V. Sumner, 1st Cavalry, in 1857, and killed twenty-five with only two or three of his own men wounded. According to details gathered at Fort Kearney, the Indians had advanced under a black flag, lost courage, as wild men mostly will, when they heard the pas de charge, and, after making a running fight, being well mounted as well as armed, had carried off their “cripples” lashed to their horses. I had no time to call upon Captain Sully, who remained in command at Kearney with two troops (here called companies) of dragoons, or heavy cavalry, and one of infantry; the mail-wagon would halt there but a few minutes. I therefore hurriedly chose the alternative of advancing, with the hope of seeing “independent service” on the road. Intelligence of the fight had made even the conductor look grave; fifty or sixty miles is a flea-bite to a mounted war-party, and disappointed Indians upon the war-path are especially dangerous—even the most friendly can not be trusted when they have lost, or have not succeeded in taking, a few scalps. We subsequently heard that they had crossed our path, but whether the tale was true or not is an essentially doubtful matter. If this chance failed, remained the excitement of the buffalo and the Mormon; both were likely to show better sport than could be found in riding wildly about the country after runaway braves.

OUTPOST SYSTEMS.We all prepared for the “gravity of the situation” by discharging and reloading our weapons, and bade adieu, about 9 30 A.M., to Fort Kearney. Before dismissing the subject of forts, I am disposed to make some invidious remarks upon the army system of outposts in America.

The War Department of the United States has maintained the same system which the British, much to their loss—I need scarcely trouble the reader with a list of evils done to the soldier by outpost duty—adopted and pertinaciously kept up for so long a time in India; nay, even maintain to the present day, despite the imminent danger of mutiny. With the Anglo-Scandinavian race, the hate of centralization in civil policy extends to military organization,[44] of which it should be the vital principle. The French, gifted with instinct for war, and being troubled with scant prejudice against concentration, civil as well as military, soon abandoned, when they found its futility, the idea of defending their Algerian frontier by extended lines, block-houses, and feeble intrenched posts. They wisely established, at the centres of action, depôts, magazines, and all the requisites for supporting large bodies of men, making them pivots for expeditionary columns, which by good military roads could be thrown in overwhelming numbers, in the best health and in the highest discipline, wherever an attack or an insurrectionary movement required crushing.

The necessity of so doing has long occurred to the American government, in whose service at present “a regiment is stationed to-day on the borders of tropical Mexico; to-morrow, the war-whoop, borne on a gale from the northwest, compels its presence to the frozen latitudes of Puget’s Sound.” The objections to altering their present highly objectionable system are two: the first is a civil consideration, the second a military one.

As I have remarked about the centralization of troops, so it is with their relation to civilians; the Anglo-Scandinavian blood shows similar manifestations in the Old and in the New Country. The French, a purely military nation, pet their army, raise it to the highest pitch, send it in for glory, and when it fails are to its faults a little blind. The English and Anglo-Americans, essentially a commercial and naval people, dislike the red coat; they look upon, and from the first they looked upon, a standing army as a necessary nuisance; they ever listen open-eared to projects for cutting and curtailing army expenditure; and when they have weakened their forces by a manner of atrophy, they expect them to do more than their duty, and if they can not command success, abuse them. With a commissariat, transport, and hospitals—delicate pieces of machinery, which can not run smoothly when roughly and hurriedly put together—unaccustomed to and unprepared for service, they land an army 3000 miles from home, and then make the world ring with their disappointment, and their complainings anent fearful losses in men and money. The fact is that, though no soldiers in the world fight with more bravery and determination, the Anglo-Scandinavian race, with their present institutions, are inferior to their inferiors in other points, as regards the art of military organization. Their fatal wants are order and economy, combined with the will and the means of selecting the best men—these belong to the emperor, not to the constitutional king or the president—and most of all, the habit of implicit subjection to the commands of an absolute dictator. The end of this long preamble is that the American government apparently thinks less of the efficiency of its troops than of using them as escorts to squatters, as police of the highway. Withal they fail; emigrants will not be escorted; women and children will struggle when they[45] please, even, in an Indian country, and every season has its dreadful tales of violence and starvation, massacre and cannibalism. In France the emigrants would be ordered to collect in bodies at certain seasons, to report their readiness for the road to the officers commanding stations, to receive an escort, as he should deem proper, and to disobey at their peril.

The other motive of the American outpost system is military, but also of civilian origin. Concentration would necessarily be unpalatable to a number of senior officers, who now draw what in England would be called command allowances at the several stations.[30] One of the principles of a republic is to pay a man only while he works; pensions, like sinecures, are left to governments less disinterested. The American army—it would hardly be believed—has no pensions, sale of commissions, off-reckonings, nor retiring list. A man hopelessly invalided, or in his second childhood, must hang on by means of furloughs and medical certificates to the end. The colonels are mostly upon the sick-list—one died lately aged ninety-three, and dating from the days of Louis XVI.—and I heard of an officer who, though practicing medicine for years, was still retained upon the cadre of his regiment. Of course, the necessity of changing such an anomaly has frequently been mooted by the Legislature; the scandalous failure, however, of an attempt at introducing a pension-list into the United States Navy so shocked the public that no one will hear of the experiment being renewed, even in corpore vili, the army.

To conclude the subject of outpost system. If the change be advisable in the United States, it is positively necessary to the British in India. The peninsula presents three main points, not to mention the detached heights that are found in every province, as the great pivots of action, the Himalayas, the Deccan, and the Nilgherry Hills, where, until wanted, the Sepoy and his officer, as well as the white soldier—the latter worth £100 a head—can be kept in health, drilled, disciplined, and taught the hundred arts which render an “old salt” the most handy of men. A few years ago the English soldier was fond of Indian service; hardly a regiment returned home without leaving hundreds behind it. Now, long, fatiguing marches, scant fare, the worst accommodation, and the various results of similar hardships, make him look upon the land as a Golgotha; it is with difficulty that he can be prevented from showing his disgust. Both in India and America, this will be the great benefit of extensive railroads: they will do away with single stations, and enable the authorities to carry out a system of concentration most beneficial to the country and to the service,[46] which, after many years of sore drudgery, may at last discern the good time coming.

In the United States, two other measures appear called for by circumstances. The Indian race is becoming desperate, wild-beast like, hemmed in by its enemies that have flanked it on the east and west, and are gradually closing in upon it. The tribes can no longer shift ground without inroads into territories already occupied by neighbors, who are, of course, hostile; they are, therefore, being brought to final bay.

THE CAMEL CORPS.The first is a camel corps. At present, when disturbances on a large scale occur in the Far West—the spring of 1862 will probably see them—a force of cavalry must be sent from the East, perhaps also infantry. “The horses, after a march of 500 or 600 miles, are expected to act with success”—I quote the sensible remarks of a “late captain of infantry” (Captain Patterson, U. S. Army)—“against scattered bands of mounted hunters, with the speed of a horse and the watchfulness of a wolf or antelope, whose faculties are sharpened by their necessities; who, when they get short of provisions, separate and look for something to eat, and find it in the water, in the ground, or on the surface; whose bill of fare ranges from grass-seed, nuts, roots, grasshoppers, lizards, and rattlesnakes, up to the antelope, deer, elk, bear, and buffalo, and who, having a continent to roam over, will neither be surprised, caught, conquered, overawed, or reduced to famine by a rumbling, bugle-blowing, drum-beating town passing through their country on wheels, at the speed of a loaded wagon.” But the camel would in these latitudes easily march sixty miles per diem for a week or ten days, amply sufficient to tire out the sturdiest Indian pony; it requires water only after every fifty hours, and the worst soil would supply it with ample forage in the shape of wild sage, rabbit-bush, and thorns. Each animal would carry two men, with their arms and ammunition, rations for the time required, bedding and regimental necessaries, with material to make up a tente d’abri if judged necessary. The organization should be that of the Sindh Camel Corps, which, under Sir Charles Napier, was found so efficient against the frontier Beloch. The best men for this kind of fighting would be the Mountaineers, or Western Men, of the caste called “Pikes;” properly speaking, Missourians, but popularly any “rough” between St. Louis and California. After a sound flogging, for the purpose of preparing their minds to admit the fact that all men are not equal, they might be used by sea or land, whenever hard, downright fighting is required. It is understood that hitherto the camel, despite the careful selection by Mr. De Leon, the excellent Consul General of the United States in Egypt, and the valuable instructions of Hekekyan Bey, has proved a failure in the Western world. If so, want of patience has been the sole cause; the animal must be acclimatized by slow degrees before heavy loading to test its powers[47] of strength and speed. Some may deem this amount of delay impossible. I confess my belief that the Anglo-Americans can, within any but the extremest limits, accomplish any thing they please—except unity.

The other necessity will be the raising of native regiments. The French in Africa have their Spahis, the Russians their Cossacks, and the English their Sepoys. The American government has often been compelled, as in the case of the Creek battalion, which did good service during the Seminole campaign, indirectly to use their wild aborigines; but the public sentiment, or rather prejudice, which fathers upon the modern Pawnee the burning and torturing tastes of the ancient Mohawk, is strongly opposed to pitting Indian against Indian in battle. Surely this is a false as well as a mistaken philanthropy. If war must be, it is better that Indian instead of white blood should be shed. And invariably the effect of enlisting savages and barbarians, subjecting them to discipline, and placing them directly under the eye of the civilized man, has been found to diminish their ferocity. The Bashi Buzuk, left to himself, roasted the unhappy Russian; in the British service he brought his prisoner alive into camp with a view to a present or promotion. When talking over the subject with the officers of the United States regular army, they have invariably concurred with me in the possibility of the scheme, provided that the public animus could be turned pro instead of con; and I have no doubt but that they will prove as leaders of Irregulars—it would be invidious to quote names—equal to the best of the Anglo-Indians, Skinner, Beatson, and Jacob. The men would receive about ten dollars per man, and each corps number 300. They would be better mounted and better armed than their wild brethren, and they might be kept, when not required for active service, in a buffalo country, their favorite quarters, and their finest field for soldierlike exercises. The main point to be avoided is the mistake committed by the British in India, that of appointing too many officers to their Sepoy corps.

We left Kearney at 9 30 A.M., following the road which runs forty miles up the valley of the Platte. It is a broad prairie, plentifully supplied with water in wells two to four feet deep; the fluid is cool and clear, but it is said not to be wholesome. Where the soil is clayey pools abound; the sandy portions are of course dry. Along the southern bank near Kearney are few elevations; on the opposite or northern side appear high and wooded bluffs. The road was rough with pitch-holes, and for the first time I remarked a peculiar gap in the ground like an East Indian sun-crack—in these latitudes you see none of the deep fissures which scar the face of mother earth in tropical lands—the effect of rain-streams and snow-water acting upon the clay. Each succeeding winter lengthens the head and deepens the sole of this deeply-gashed water-cut till it destroys the road. A curious mirage[48] appeared, doubling to four the strata of river and vegetation on the banks. The sight and song of birds once more charmed us after a desert where animal life is as rare as upon the plains of Brazil. After fifteen miles of tossing and tumbling, we made “Seventeen-mile Station,” and halted there to change mules. About twenty miles above the fort the southern bank began to rise into mounds of tenacious clay, which, worn away into perpendicular and precipitous sections, composes the columnar formation called O’Fallon’s Bluffs. At 1 15 P.M. we reached Plum Creek, after being obliged to leave behind one of the conductors, who had become delirious with the “shakes.” The establishment, though new, was already divided into three; the little landlady, though she worked so manfully, was, as she expressed it, “enjoying bad health;” in other words, suffering from a “dumb chill.” I may observe that the Prairie Traveler’s opinions concerning the power of encamping with impunity upon the banks of the streams in this country must not be applied to the Platte. The whole line becomes with early autumn a hotbed of febrile disease. And generally throughout this season the stranger should not consider himself safe on any grounds save those defended from the southern trade-wind, which, sweeping directly from the Gulf of Mexico, bears with it noxious exhalations.

About Plum Ranch the soil is rich, clayey, and dotted with swamps and “slews,” by which the English traveler will understand sloughs. The dryer portions were a Gulistan of bright red, blue, and white flowers, the purple aster, and the mallow, with its parsnip-like root, eaten by the Indians, the gaudy yellow helianthus—we remarked at least three varieties—the snowy mimulus, the graceful flax, sometimes four feet high, and a delicate little euphorbia, while in the damper ground appeared the polar plant, that prairie compass, the plane of whose leaf ever turns toward the magnetic meridian. This is the “weed-prairie,” one of the many divisions of the great natural meadows; grass prairie, rolling prairie, motte prairie, salt prairie, and soda prairie. It deserves a more poetical name, for

Buffalo herds were behind the hills, but we were too full of sleep to follow them. The plain was dotted with blanched skulls and bones, which would have made a splendid bonfire. Apparently the expert voyageur has not learned that they form good fuel; at any rate, he has preferred to them the “chips” of which it is said that a steak cooked with them requires no pepper.[31]

We dined at Plum Creek on BUFFALO-BEEF.buffalo, probably bull beef, the[49] worst and dryest meat, save elk, that I have ever tasted; indeed, without the assistance of pork fat, we found it hard to swallow. As every one knows, however, the two-year old cow is the best eating, and at this season the herds are ever in the worst condition. The animals calve in May and June, consequently they are in August completely out of flesh. They are fattest about Christmas, when they find it difficult to run. All agree in declaring that there is no better meat than that of the young buffalo: the assertion, however, must be taken cum grano salis. Wild flesh was never known to be equal to tame, and that monarch did at least one wise thing who made the loin of beef Sir Loin. The voyageurs and travelers who cry up the buffalo as so delicious, have been living for weeks on rusty bacon and lean antelope; a rich hump with its proper menstruum, a cup of café noir as strong as possible, must truly be a “tit-bit.” They boast that the fat does not disagree with the eater; neither do three pounds of heavy pork with the English plow-boy, who has probably taken less exercise than the Canadian hunter. Before long, buffalo flesh will reach New York, where I predict it will be held as inferior to butcher’s meat as is the antelope to park-fed venison. While hunting, Indians cut off the tail to test the quality of the game, and they have acquired by habit a power of judging on the run between fat and lean.

Resuming our weary ride, we watered at “Willow Island Ranch,” and then at “Cold Water Ranch”—drinking-shops all—five miles from Midway Station, which we reached at 8 P.M. Here, while changing mules, we attempted with sweet speech and smiles to persuade the landlady, who showed symptoms of approaching maternity, into giving us supper. This she sturdily refused to do, for the reason that she had not received due warning. We had, however, the satisfaction of seeing the employés of the line making themselves thoroughly comfortable with bread and buttermilk. Into the horrid wagon again, and “a rollin:” lazily enough the cold and hungry night passed on.[32]

To the Forks of the Platte. 11th August.

Precisely at 1 35 in the morning we awoke, as we came to a halt at Cotton-wood Station. Cramped with a four days’ and four nights’ ride in the narrow van, we entered the foul tenement, threw ourselves upon the mattresses, averaging three to each, and ten in a small room, every door, window, and cranny being shut—after[50] the fashion of these Western folks, who make up for a day in the open air by perspiring through the night in unventilated log huts—and, despite musquetoes, slept.

The morning brought with it no joy. We had arrived at the westernmost limit of the “gigantic Leicestershire” to which buffalo at this season extend, and could hope to see no trace of them between Cotton-wood Station and the Pacific. I can not, therefore, speak ex cathedrâ concerning this, the noblest “venerie” of the West: almost every one who has crossed the prairies, except myself, can. Captain Stansbury[33] will enlighten the sportsman upon the approved method of bryttling the beasts, and elucidate the mysteries of the “game-beef,” marrow-bone and depuis, tongue and tender-loin, bass and hump, hump-rib and liver, which latter, by-the-by, is not unfrequently eaten raw, with a sprinkling of gall,[34] by the white hunter emulating his wild rival, as does the European in Abyssinia. The Prairie Traveler has given, from experience, the latest observations concerning the best modes of hunting the animal. All that remains to me, therefore, is to offer to the reader a few details collected from reliable sources, and which are not to be found in the two works above alluded to.

The bison (Bison Americanus) is trivially known as the Prairie Buffalo, to distinguish it from a different and a larger animal, the Buffalo of the Woods, which haunts the Rocky Mountains. The “Monarch of the Prairies,” the “most gigantic of the indigenous mammalia of America,” has, it is calculated, receded westward ten miles annually for the last 150 years. When America was discovered, the buffalo extended down to the Atlantic shore. Thirty years ago, bands grazed upon the banks of the Missouri River. The annual destruction is variously computed at from 200,000 to 300,000 head: the American Fur Company receive per annum about 70,000 robes, which are all cows; and of these not more than 5000 fall by the hands of white men. At present there are three well-known bands, which split up, at certain seasons, into herds of 2000 and 3000 each. The first family is on the head-waters of the Mississippi; the second haunts the vast crescent-shaped valley of the Yellow Stone; while the third occupies the prairie country between the Platte and the Arkansas. A fourth band, westward of the Rocky Mountains, is quite extinct. Fourteen to fifteen years ago, buffalo was found in Utah Valley, and later still upon the Humboldt River: according to some, they emigrated northward, through Oregon and the lands of the Blackfeet. It is more probable, however, that they were killed off by the severe winter of 1845, their skulls being still found scattered in heaps, as if a sudden and general destruction had come upon the doomed tribe.

[51]

THE BUFFALO.The buffalo is partially migratory in its habits: it appears to follow the snow, which preserves its food from destruction. Like the antelope of the Cape, when on the “trek,” the band may be reckoned by thousands. The grass, which takes its name from the animal, is plentiful in the valley of the Big Blue; it loves the streams of little creeks that have no bottom-land, and shelters itself under the sage. It is a small, moss-like gramen, with dark seed, and, when dry, it has been compared by travelers to twisted gray horsehair. Smaller herds travel in Indian file; their huge bodies, weighing 1500 lbs., appear, from afar, like piles erected to bridge the plain. After calving, the cows, like the African koodoo and other antelopes, herd separately from the males, and for the same reason, timidity and the cares of maternity. As in the case of the elephant and the hippopotamus, the oldsters are driven by the young ones, en charivari, from the band, and a compulsory bachelorhood souring their temper, causes them to become “rogues.” The albino, or white buffalo, is exceedingly rare; even veteran hunters will confess never to have seen one. The same may be said of the glossy black accident called the “silk robe,” supposed by Western men to be a cross between the parent and the offspring. The buffalo calf has been tamed by the Flatheads and others: I have never, however, heard of its being utilized.

The Dakotahs and other Prairie tribes will degenerate, if not disappear, when the buffalo is “rubbed out.” There is a sympathy between them, and the beast flies not from the barbarian and his bow as it does before the face of the white man and his hot-mouthed weapon. The aborigines are unwilling to allow travelers, sportsmen, or explorers to pass through the country while they are hunting the buffalo; that is to say, preserving the game till their furs are ready for robes. At these times no one is permitted to kill any but stragglers, for fear of stampeding the band; the animal not only being timid, but also in the habit of hurrying away cattle and stock, which often are thus irretrievably lost. In due season the savages surround one section, and destroy it, the others remaining unalarmedly grazing within a few miles of the scene of slaughter. If another tribe interferes, it is a casus belli, death being the punishment for poaching. The white man, whose careless style of battue is notorious, will be liable to the same penalty, or, that failing, to be plundered by even “good Indians;” and I have heard of an English gentleman who, for persisting in the obnoxious practice, was very properly threatened with prosecution by the government agent.

What the cocoanut is to the East Indian, and the plantain and the calabash to various tribes of Africans, such is the “bos” to the carnivorous son of America. No part of it is allowed to waste. The horns and hoofs make glue for various purposes, especially for feathering arrows; the brains and part of the bowels[52] are used for curing skins; the hide clothes the tribes from head to foot; the calf-skins form their apishamores, or saddle-blankets; the sinews make their bow-strings, thread, and finer cord; every part of the flesh, including the fœtus and placenta, is used for food. The surplus hides are reserved for market. They are prepared by the squaws, who, curious to say, will not touch a bear-skin till the age of maternity has passed; and they prefer the spoils of the cow, as being softer than those of the bull. The skin, after being trimmed with an iron or bone scraper—this is not done in the case of the “parflèche,” or thick sole-leather—and softened with brain or marrow, is worked till thoroughly pliable with the hands. The fumigation, which gives the finishing touch, is confined to buckskins intended for garments. When the hair is removed, the hides supply the place of canvas, which they resemble in whiteness and facility of folding. Dressed with the hair, they are used, as their name denotes, for clothing; they serve also for rugs and bedding. In the prairies, the price ranges from $1 to $1 50 in kind; in the Eastern States, from $5 to $10. The fancy specimens, painted inside, decorated with eyes, and otherwise adorned with split porcupine quills dyed a gamboge-yellow, fetch from $8 to $35. A “buffalo” (subaudi robe) was shown to me, painted with curious figures, which, according to my Canadian informant, were a kind of hieroglyph or aide-mémoire, even ruder than the Mexican picture-writing.

The Indians generally hunt the buffalo with arrows. They are so expert in riding that they will, at full speed, draw the missile from the victim’s flank before it falls. I have met but one officer, Captain Heth, of the 10th Regiment, who ever acquired the art. The Indian hog-spear has been used to advantage. Our predecessors in Eastern conquest have killed with it the tiger and nylgau; there is, therefore, no reason why it might not be efficiently applied to the buffalo. Like the Bos Caffre, the bison is dull, surly, and stupid, as well as timid and wary; it requires hard riding, with the chance of a collar-bone broken by the horse falling into a prairie-dog’s home; and when headed or tired an old male rarely fails to charge.

The flies chasing away the musquetoes—even as Aurora routs the lingering shades of night—having sounded our reveillée at Cotton-wood Station, we proceeded by means of an “eye-opener,” which even the abstemious judge could not decline, and the use of the “skillet,” to prepare for a breakfast composed of various abominations, especially cakes of flour and grease, molasses and dirt, disposed in pretty equal parts. After paying the usual 50 cents, we started in the high wind and dust, with a heavy storm brewing in the north, along the desert valley of the dark, silent Platte, which here spread out in broad basins and lagoons, picturesquely garnished with broad-leafed dock and beds of prêle, flags and water-rushes, in which, however, we saw nothing but[53] traces of Monsieur Maringouin. On our left was a line of sub-conical buttes, red, sandy-clay pyramids, semi-detached from the wall of the rock behind them, with smooth flat faces fronting the river, toward which they slope at the natural angle of 45°. The land around, dry and sandy, bore no traces of rain; a high wind blew, and the thermometer stood at 78° (F.), which was by no means uncomfortably warm. Passing Junction-House Ranch and Frémont Slough—whisky-shops both—we halted for “dinner,” about 11 A.M., at Frémont Springs, so called from an excellent little water behind the station. The building is of a style peculiar to the South, especially Florida—two huts connected by a roofwork of thatched timber, which acts as the best and coolest of verandas. THE MODEL VERANDA. The station-keeper, who receives from the proprietors of the line $30 per month, had been there only three weeks; and his wife, a comely young person, uncommonly civil and smiling for a “lady,” supplied us with the luxuries of pigeons, onions, and light bread, and declared her intention of establishing a poultry-yard.

An excellent train of mules carried us along a smooth road at a slapping pace, over another natural garden even more flowery than that passed on the last day’s march. There were beds of lupins, a brilliant pink and blue predominating, the green plant locally known as “Lamb’s Quarters” (Chenopodium album); the streptanthis; the milk-weed, with its small white blossoms; the anemone; the wild flax, with its pretty blue flowers, and growths which appeared to be clematis, chamomile, and digitalis. Distant black dots—dwarf cedars, which are yearly diminishing—lined the bank of the Platte and the long line of River Island; they elicited invidious comparisons from the Pennsylvanians of the party. We halted at HALF-WAY HOUSE.Half-way House, near O’Fallon’s Bluffs, at the quarters of Mr. M——, a compagnon de voyage, who had now reached his home of twenty years, and therefore insisted upon “standing drinks.” The business is worth $16,000 per annum; the contents of the store somewhat like a Parsee’s shop in Western India—every thing from a needle to a bottle of Champagne. A sign-board informed us that we were now distant 400 miles from St. Jo, 120 from Fort Kearney, 68 from the upper, and 40 from the lower crossing of the Platte. As we advanced the valley narrowed, the stream shrank, the vegetation dwindled, the river islands were bared of timber, and the only fuel became buffalo chip and last year’s artemisia. This hideous growth, which is to weary our eyes as far as central valleys of the Sierra Nevada, will require a few words of notice.

The artemisia, absinthe, or wild sage differs much from the panacea concerning which the Salernitan school rhymed:

Yet it fills the air with a smell that caricatures the odor of the[54] garden-plant, causing the traveler to look round in astonishment; and when used for cooking it taints the food with a taste between camphor and turpentine. It is of two kinds. The smaller or white species (A. filifolia) rarely grows higher than a foot. Its fetor is less rank, and at times of scarcity it forms tolerable fodder for animals. The Western men have made of it, as of the “red root,” a tea, which must be pronounced decidedly inferior to corn coffee. The Indians smoke it, but they are not particular about what they inhale: like that perverse p——n of Ludlow, who smoked the bell-ropes rather than not smoke at all, or like school-boys who break themselves in upon ratan, they use even the larger sage as well as a variety of other graveolent growths. The second kind (A. tridentata) is to the family of shrubs what the prairie cedar is to the trees—a gnarled, crooked, rough-barked deformity. It has no pretensions to beauty except in earliest youth, and in the dewy hours when the breeze turns up its leaves that glitter like silver in the sun; and its constant presence in the worst and most desert tracts teaches one to regard it, like the mangrove in Asia and Africa, with aversion. In size it greatly varies; in some places it is but little larger than the white species; near the Red Buttes its woody stem often attains the height of a man and the thickness of his waist. As many as fifty rings have been counted in one wood, which, according to the normal calculation, would bring its age up to half a century. After its first year, stock will eat it only when threatened with starvation. It has, however, its use; the traveler, despite its ugliness, hails the appearance of its stiff, wiry clumps at the evening halt: it is easily uprooted, and by virtue of its essential oil it makes a hot and lasting fire, and ashes over. According to Colonel Frémont, “it has a small fly accompanying it through every change of elevation and latitude.” The same eminent authority also suggests that the respiration of air so highly impregnated with aromatic plants may partly account for the favorable effect of the climate upon consumption.

At 5 P.M., as the heat began to mitigate, we arrived at Alkali Lake Station, and discovered some “exiles from Erin,” who supplied us with antelope meat and the unusual luxury of ice taken from the Platte. We attempted to bathe in the river, but found it flowing liquid mire. The Alkali Lake was out of sight; the driver, however, consoled me with the reflection that I should “glimpse” alkali lakes till I was sick of them.

Yesterday and to-day we have been in a line of Indian “removes.” The wild people were shifting their quarters for grass; when it becomes a little colder they will seek some winter abode on the banks of a stream which supplies fuel and where they can find meat, so that with warmth and food, song and chat—they are fond of talking nonsense as African negroes—and smoke and sleep, they can while away the dull and dreary winter. Before[55] describing the scene, which might almost serve for a picture of Bedouin or gipsy life—so similar are the customs of all savages—I have something to say about the Red Man.

This is a country of misnomers. America should not, according to the school-books, have been named America, consequently the Americans should not be called Americans. A geographical error, pardonable in the fifteenth century, dubbed the old tenants of these lands Indians,[35] but why we should still call them the THE RED MEN.Red Men can not be conceived. I have now seen them in the north, south, east, and west of the United States, yet never, except under the influence of ochre or vermilion, have I seen the Red Man red. The real color of the skin, as may be seen under the leggins, varies from a dead pale olive to a dark dingy brown. The parts exposed to the sun are slightly burnished, as in a Tartar or an Affghan after a summer march. Between the two extremes above indicated there are, however, a thousand shades of color, and often the skin has been so long grimed in with pigment, grease, and dirt that it suggests a brick-dust tinge which a little soap or soda would readily remove. Indeed, the color and the complexion, combined with the lank hair, scant beard, and similar peculiarities, renders it impossible to see this people for the first time without the strongest impression that they are of that Turanian breed which in prehistoric ages passed down from above the Himalayas as far south as Cape Comorin.

Another mistake touching the Indian is the present opinion concerning him and his ancestors. He now suffers in public esteem from the reaction following the high-flown descriptions of Cooper and the herd of minor romancers who could not but make their heroes heroes. Moreover, men acquainted only with the degenerate Pawnees or Diggers extend their evil opinions to the noble tribes now extinct—the Iroquois and Algonquins, for instance, whose remnants, the Delawares and Ojibwas, justify the high opinion of the first settlers. The exploits of King Philip, Pontiac, Gurister Sego, Tecumseh, Keokuk, Iatan, Captain J. Brant, Black Hawk, Red Jacket, Osceola, and Billy Bowlegs, are rapidly fading away from memory, while the failures of such men as Little Thunder, and those like him, stand prominently forth in modern days. Besides the injustice to the manes and memories of the dead, this depreciation of the Indians tends to serious practical evils. Those who see the savage lying drunk about stations, or eaten up with disease, expect to beat him out of the field by merely showing their faces; they fail, and pay the penalty with[56] their lives—an event which occurs every year in some parts of America.

The remove of the village presented an interesting sight—an animated shifting scene of bucks and braves, squaws and pappooses, ponies dwarfed by bad breeding and hard living, dogs and puppies struggling over the plains westward. In front, singly or in pairs, rode the men, not gracefully, not according to the rules of Mexican manège, but like the Abyssinian eunuch, as if born upon and bred to become part of the animal. Some went barebacked; others rode, like the ancient chiefs of the Western Islands, upon a saddle-tree, stirrupless, or provided with hollow blocks of wood: in some cases the saddle was adorned with bead hangings, and in all a piece of buffalo hide with the hair on was attached beneath to prevent chafing. The cruel ring-bit of the Arabs is not unknown. A few had iron curbs, probably stolen. For the most part they managed their nags with a hide thong lashed round the lower jaw and attached to the neck. A whip, of various sizes and shapes, sometimes a round and tattooed ferule, more often a handle like a butcher’s tally-stick, flat, notched, one foot long, and provided with two or three thongs, hung at the wrist. Their nags were not shod with parflèche, as among the horse-Indians of the South. Their long, lank, thick, brownish-black hair, ruddy from the effects of weather, was worn parted in the middle, and depended from the temples confined with a long twist of otter or beaver’s skin in two queues, or pig-tails, reaching to the breast: from the poll, and distinct from the remainder of the hair, streamed the scalp-lock. This style of hair-dressing, doubtless, aids in giving to the coronal region that appearance of depression which characterizes the North American Indians as a race of “Flatheads,” and which, probably being considered a beauty, led to the artificial deformities of the Peruvian and the Aztec. The parting in men, as well as in women, was generally colored with vermilion, and plates of brass or tin, with beveled edges, varying in size from a shilling to half a crown, were inserted into the front hair. The scalp-lock—in fops the side-locks also—was decorated with tin or silver plates, often twelve in number, beginning from the head and gradually diminishing in size as they approached the heels; a few had eagle’s, hawk’s, and crow’s feathers stuck in the hair, and sometimes, grotesquely enough, crownless Kossuth hats, felt broadbrims, or old military casquettes, surmounted all this finery. Their scanty beard was removed; they compare the bushy-faced European to a dog running away with a squirrel in its mouth. In their ears were rings of beads, with pendants of tin plates or mother of pearl, or huge circles of brass wire not unlike a Hindoo tailor’s; and their fore-arms, wrists, and fingers were, after an African fashion, adorned with the same metals, which the savage ever prefers to gold or silver. Their other decorations were cravats of white or white and blue, oval beads, and necklaces[57] of plates like those worn in the hair. PRAIRIE-INDIAN DRESS.The body dress was a tight-sleeved waistcoat of dark drugget, over an American cotton shirt; others wore tattered flannels, and the middle was wrapped round with a common blanket, presented by the government agent—scarlet and blue being the colors preferred, white rare: a better stuff is the coarse broadcloth manufactured for the Indian market in the United States. The leggins were a pair of pantaloons without the body part—in their palmy days the Indians laughed to scorn their future conquerors for tightening the hips so as to impede activity—looped up at both haunches with straps to a leathern girdle, and all wore the breech-cloth, which is the common Hindoo languti or T-bandage. The cut of the leggins is a parallelogram, a little too short and much too broad for the limb; it is sewn so as to fit tight, and the projecting edges, for which the light-colored list or bordering is usually preserved, answers the effect of a military stripe. When buckskin leggins are made the outside edges are fringed, producing that feathered appearance which distinguishes in our pictures the nether limbs of the Indian brave. The garb ends with moccasins,[36] the American brogues, which are made in two ways. The simplest are of one piece, a cylinder of skin cut from above and below the hock of some large animal—moose, elk, or buffalo—and drawn on before shrinking, the joint forming the heel, while the smaller end is sewn together for a toe. This rough contrivance is little used but as a pis aller. The other kind is made of tanned hide in two pieces—a sole and an upper leather, sewn together at the junction; the last is a bit of board rounded off at the end. They are open over the instep, where also they can be laced or tied, and they fit as closely as the Egyptian mizz or under-slipper, which they greatly resemble. They are worn by officers in the Far West as the expatriated Anglo-Indian adopts the “Juti.” The greatest inconvenience to the novice is the want of heel; moreover, they render the feet uncomfortably tender, and, unless soled with parflèche or thick leather, they are scant defense against stony ground; during dry weather they will last fairly, but they become, after a single wetting, even worse than Bombay-made Wellingtons. A common pair will cost $2; when handsomely embroidered with bead-work by the squaws they rise to $15.

The braves were armed with small tomahawks or iron hatchets, which they carried with the powder-horn, in the belt, on the right side, while the long tobacco-pouch of antelope skin hung by the left. Over their shoulders were leather targes, bows and arrows, and some few had rifles; both weapons were defended from damp in deer-skin cases, and quivers with the inevitable bead-work, and the fringes which every savage seems to love. These articles reminded me of those in use among the Bedouins of El Hejaz. Their nags were lean and ungroomed; they treat them as cruelly[58] as do the Somal; yet nothing—short of whisky—can persuade the Indian warrior, like the man of Nejd, to part with a favorite steed. It is his all in all, his means of livelihood, his profession, his pride; he is an excellent judge of horse-flesh, though ignoring the mule and ass; and if he offers an animal for which he has once refused to trade, it is for the reason that an Oriental takes to market an adult slave—it has become useless. Like the Arab, he considers it dishonorable to sell a horse; he gives it to you, expecting a large present, and if disappointed he goes away grumbling that you have “swallowed” his property. He is fond of short races—spurts they are called—as we had occasion to see; there is nothing novel nor interesting in the American as there is in the Arabian hippology; the former learned all its arts from Europeans, the latter taught them.

Behind the warriors and braves followed the baggage of the village. The lodge poles, in bundles of four and five, had been lashed to pads or pack-saddles, girthed tight to the ponies’ backs, the other ends being allowed to trail along the ground like the shafts of a truck; the sign easily denotes the course of travel. The wolf-like dogs were also harnessed in the same way; more lupine than canine, they are ready when hungry to attack man or mule; and, sharp-nosed and prick-eared, they not a little resemble the Indian pariah dog. Their equipments, however, were of course on a diminutive scale; a little pad girthed round the barrel, with a breastplate to keep it in place, enabled them to drag two short light lodge poles tied together at the smaller extremity. One carried only a hawk on its back—yet falconry has never, I believe, been practiced by the Indian. Behind the ponies the poles were connected by cross-sticks, upon which were lashed the lodge covers, the buffalo robes, and other bulkier articles. Some had strong frames of withes or willow basket-work, two branches being bent into an oval, garnished below with a net-work of hide thongs for a seat, covered with a light wicker canopy, and opening, like a cage, only on one side; a blanket or a buffalo robe defends the inmate from sun and rain. These are the litters for the squaws when weary, the children, and the puppies, which are part of the family till used for feasts. It might be supposed to be a rough conveyance; the elasticity of the poles, however, alleviates much of that inconvenience. A very ancient man, wrinkled as a last year’s walnut, and apparently crippled by old wounds, was carried, probably by his great-grandsons, in a rude sedan. The vehicle was composed of two pliable poles, about ten feet long, separated by three cross-bars twenty inches or so apart; a blanket had been secured to the foremost and hindermost, and under the centre-bit lay Senex secured against falling out. In this way the Indians often bear the wounded back to their villages; apparently they have never thought of a horse-litter, which might be made with equal facility, and would certainly save work.

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THE SQUAWS.While the rich squaws rode, the poorer followed their pack-horses on foot, eying the more fortunate as the mercer’s wife regards what she terms the “carriage lady.” The women’s dress not a little resembles their lords’; the unaccustomed eye often hesitates between the sexes. In the fair, however, the waistcoat is absent, the wide-sleeved shift extends below the knees, and the leggins are of somewhat different cut. All wore coarse shawls, or white, blue, and scarlet cloth-blankets round their bodies. Upon the Upper Platte we afterward saw them dressed in cotton gowns, after a semi-civilized fashion, and with bowie-knives by their sides. The grandmothers were fearful to look upon—horrid excrescences of nature, teaching proud man a lesson of humility, and a memento of his neighbor in creation, the “humble ape”—it is only civilization that can save the aged woman from resembling the gorilla. The middle-aged matrons were homely bodies, broad and squat like the African dame after she has become mère de famille; their hands and feet were notably larger from work than those of the men, and the burdens upon their backs caused them to stoop painfully. The young squaws—pity it is that all our household Indian words, pappoose, for instance, tomahawk, wigwam, and powwow, should have been naturalized out of the Abenaki and other harsh dialects of New England—deserved a more euphonious appellation. The belle savage of the party had large and languishing eyes and dentists’ teeth that glittered, with sleek, long black hair like the ears of a Blenheim spaniel, justifying a natural instinct to stroke or pat it, drawn straight over a low, broad, Quadroon-like brow. Her figure had none of the fragility which distinguishes the higher race, who are apparently too delicate for human nature’s daily food—porcelain, in fact, when pottery is wanted; nor had she the square corpulency which appears in the negro woman after marriage. Her ears and neck were laden with tinsel ornaments, brass-wire rings adorned her wrists and fine arms, a bead-work sash encircled her waist, and scarlet leggins, fringed and tasseled, ended in equally costly moccasins. When addressed by the driver in some terms to me unintelligible, she replied with a soft clear laugh—the principal charm of the Indian, as of the smooth-throated African woman—at the same time showing him the palm of her right hand as though it had been a looking-glass. The gesture would have had a peculiar significance in Sindh; here, however, I afterward learned, it simply conveys a refusal. The maidens of the tribe, or those under six, were charming little creatures, with the wildest and most piquant expression, and the prettiest doll-like features imaginable; the young coquettes already conferred their smiles as if they had been of any earthly value. The boys once more reminded me of the East; they had black beady eyes, like snakes, and the wide mouths of young caymans. Their only dress, when they were not in “birth-day suit,” was the Indian[60] languti. None of the braves carried scalps, finger-bones, or notches on the lance, which serve like certain marks on saw-handled pistols farther east, nor had any man lost a limb. They followed us for many a mile, peering into the hinder part of our traveling wigwam, and ejaculating “How! How!” the normal salutation. It is supposed to mean “good,” and the Western man, when he drinks to your health, says “Here, how!” and expects a return in kind. The politeness of the savages did not throw us off our guard; the Dakotah of these regions are expert and daring kleptomaniacs; they only laughed, however, a little knowingly as we raised the rear curtain, and they left us after begging pertinaciously—bakhshish is an institution here as on the banks of the Nile—for tobacco, gunpowder, ball, copper caps, lucifers, and what not. The women, except the pretty party, looked, methought, somewhat scowlingly, but one can hardly expect a smiling countenance from the human biped trudging ten or twenty miles under a load fit for a mule. A great contrast with these Indians was a train of “Pike’s Peakers,” who, to judge from their grim looks, were returning disappointed from the new gold diggings. I think that if obliged to meet one of the two troops by moonlight alone, my choice would have fallen upon “messieurs les sauvages.”

At 6 P.M. we resumed our route, with a good but fidgety train, up the Dark Valley, where musquetoes and sultry heat combined to worry us. Slowly traveling and dozing the while, we arrived about 9 15 P.M. at Diamond Springs, a bright little water much frequented by the “lightning-bug” and the big-eyed “Devil’s darning-needle,”[37] where we found whisky and its usual accompaniment, soldiers. The host related an event which he said had taken place but a few days before. An old mountaineer, who had married two squaws, was drinking with certain Cheyennes, a tribe famous for ferocity and hostility to the whites. The discourse turning upon topics stoical, he was asked by his wild boon companions if he feared death. The answer was characteristic: “You may kill me if you like!” Equally characteristic was their acknowledgment; they hacked him to pieces, and threw the corpse under a bank. In these regions the opposite races regard each other as wild beasts; the white will shoot an Indian as he would a coyote. He expects to go under whenever the “all-fired, red-bellied varmints”—I speak, oh reader, Occidentally—get the upper hand, and vice versâ.

THE PLATTE RIVER.The Platte River divides at N. lat. 40° 05′ 05″, and W. long. (G.) 101° 21′ 24″. The northern, by virtue of dimensions, claims to be the main stream. The southern, which is also called in obsolete maps Padouca, from the Pawnee name for the Iatans, whom[61] the Spaniards term Comanches,[38] averages 600 yards, about 100 less than its rival in breadth, and, according to the prairie people, affords the best drinking. Hunters often ford the river by the Lower Crossing, twenty-eight miles above the bifurcation. Those with heavily-loaded wagons prefer this route, as by it they avoid the deep loose sands on the way to the Upper Crossing. The mail-coach must endure the four miles of difficulty, as the road to Denver City branches off from the western ford.

At 10 P.M., having “caught up” the mules, we left Diamond Springs, and ran along the shallow river which lay like a thin sheet of shimmer broken by clumps and islets that simulated, under the imperfect light of the stars, houses and towns, hulks and ships, wharves and esplanades. On the banks large bare spots, white with salt, glistened through the glooms; the land became so heavy that our fagged beasts groaned; and the descents, water-cuts, and angles were so abrupt that holding on constituted a fair gymnastic exercise. The air was clear and fine. My companions snored while I remained awake enjoying a lovely aurora, and, Epicurean-like, reserving sleep for the Sybaritic apparatus, which, according to report, awaited us at the grand établissement of the Upper Crossing of La Grande Platte.

This was our fifth night in the mail-wagon. I could not but meditate upon the difference between travel in the pure prairie air, despite an occasional “chill,” and the perspiring miseries of an East Indian dawk, or of a trudge in the miasmatic and pestilential regions of Central Africa. Much may be endured when, as was ever the case, the highest temperature in the shade does not exceed 98° F.

12th August. We cross the Platte.

AURORA.Boreal aurora glared brighter than a sunset in Syria. The long streamers were intercepted and mysteriously confused by a massive stratum of dark cloud, through whose narrow rifts and jagged chinks the splendors poured in floods of magic fire. Near the horizon the tint was an opaline white—a broad band of calm, steady light, supporting a tender rose-color, which flushed to crimson as it scaled the upper firmament. The mobility of the spectacle was its chiefest charm. The streamers either shot out or shrank from full to half length; now they flared up, widening till they filled the space between Lucifer rising in the east and Aries setting in the west; then they narrowed to the size of a span; now they stood like a red arch with steadfast legs and oscillating summit; then, broadening at the apex, they apparently[62] revolved with immense rapidity; at times the stars shone undimmed through the veil of light, then they were immersed in its exceeding brilliancy. After a full hour of changeful beauty, paling in one place and blushing in another, the northern lights slowly faded away with a blush which made the sunrise look colder than its wont. It is no wonder that the imaginative Indian, looking with love upon these beauties, connects them with the ghosts of his ancestors.

Cramped with cold and inaction—at 6 A.M. the thermometer showed only 56° F. in the sun—hungry, thirsty, and by no means in the mildest of humors, we hear with a gush of joy, at 3 15 A.M., the savage Yep! yep! yep! with which the driver announces our approach. The plank lodgings soon appear; we spring out of the ambulance; a qualm comes over us; all is dark and silent as the grave; nothing is prepared for us; the wretches are all asleep. A heavy kick opens the door of the soon-found restaurant, when a pheesy, drowsy voice from an inner room asks us, in German-English—so strong is the causality, the crapulousness of why and wherefore in this “divided, erudite race”—“And how ze komen in?” Without attempting to gratify his intellectual cravings, we ordered him out of bed, and began to talk of supper, refreshment, and repose. But the “critter” had waxed surly after securing for himself a compound epithet, of which “hunds—” is the first syllable, and his every negative answer concluded with a faint murmur of “petampt.” I tried to get his bed for Mrs. Dana, who was suffering severely from fatigue. He grumbled out that his “lady and bebbé” were occupying it. At length I hit upon the plan of placing the cushions and cloaks upon the table, when the door opened for a second dog-Teuton, who objected to that article of furniture being used otherwise than for his morning meal. Excédés, and mastering with pain our desire to give these villain “sausage-eaters” “particular fits,” we sat down, stared at the fire, and awaited the vile food. For a breakfast cooked in the usual manner, coffee boiled down to tannin (ever the first operation), meat subjected to half sod, half stew, and, lastly, bread raised with sour milk corrected with soda, and so baked that the taste of the flour is ever prominent, we paid these German rascals 75 cents, a little dearer than at the Trois Frères.

At the Upper Crossing of the South Fork there are usually tender adieux, the wenders toward Mormonland bidding farewell to those bound for the perilous gold regions of Denver City and Pike’s Peak. If “fresh,” they take leave of one another with sincere commiseration for one another’s dooms, each deeming, of course, his own the brighter. The wagons were unloaded, thus giving us the opportunity of procuring changes of raiment and fresh caps—our felts had long disappeared under the influence of sleeping on the perch. By some means we retained our old ambulance,[63] which, after five days and nights, we had learned to look upon as a home; the Judiciary, however, had to exchange theirs for one much lighter and far less comfortable. Presently those bound to Denver City set out upon their journey. Conspicuous among them was a fair woman who had made her first appearance at Cotton-wood Creek—fit place for the lune de mélasse—with an individual, apparently a well-to-do drover, whom she called “Tom” and “husband.” She had forgotten her “fixins,” which, according to a mischievous and scandalous driver, consisted of a reticule containing a “bishop,” a comb, and a pomatum-pot, a pinchbeck watch, and a flask of “Bawme”—not of Meccah. Being a fine young person of Scotch descent, she had, till dire suspicions presented themselves, attracted the attentions of her fellow-travelers, who pronounced her to be “all sorts of a gal.” But virtue is rabid in these lands, and the purity of the ermine must not be soiled. It was fortunate for Mr. and Mrs. Mann—the names were noms de voyage—that they left us so soon. In a certain Southern city I heard of a high official who, during a trip upon one of the floating palaces of the Mississippi, had to repeat “deprendi miserum est;” the fond, frail pair was summarily ejected with bag and baggage to furnish itself with a down-stream passage on board a lumber raft.

THE “PADOUCA.”We crossed the “Padouca” at 6 30 A.M., having placed our luggage and the mails for security in an ox cart. The South Fork is here 600 to 700 yards broad; the current is swift, but the deepest water not exceeding 250 feet, the teams are not compelled to cross diagonally. The channel was broken with sand-banks and islets; the bed was dark and gravelly; the water, though dark as hotel coffee, was clear, not, as described by Captain Stansbury, “perfectly opaque with thick yellow mud,” and the earth-banks, which rise to five feet, are never inundated. The half-broken mules often halted, and seemed inclined to lie down; a youth waded on the lower side of the team, shouting and swinging his arms to keep them from turning their heads down stream; the instinct of animals to find an easy ford ended with a few desperate struggles up the black oozy mire. Having reloaded on the left bank, and cast one last look of hatred upon the scene of our late disappointment, we set out at 7 A.M. to cross the divide separating the Northern and Southern Forks of the Platte.

We had now entered upon the outskirts of the American wilderness, which has not one feature in common with the deserts of the Old World. In Arabia and Africa there is majesty in its monotony: those awful wastes so brightly sunburnished that the air above them appears by contrast black; one vast and burning floor, variegated only by the mirage-reek, with nothing below the firmament to relieve or correct the eye. Here it is a brown smooth space, insensibly curving out of sight, wholly wanting “second distance,” and scarcely suggesting the idea of immensity;[64] we seem, in fact, to be traveling for twenty miles over a convex, treeless hill-top. The air became sultry, white clouds shut in the sky, and presently arose the high south wind, which at this season blows a gale between 10 A.M. and 3 P.M. The ground, bleached where sandy, was thinly scattered here and there with wiry grass, dun and withered, and with coarse and sunburnt shrubs, among which the “leadplant” (Amorphe canescens) was the characteristic. A dwarf aloetic vegetation became abundant; vegetation was fast going the way of all grass; after rain, however, it is doubtless fresh and copious. The buffalo grass sought the shade of the wild sage. A small euphorbia, the cotton-weed, a thistle haunted by the Cynthia cardua, that butterfly common to the eastern and western hemispheres, and a bright putoria, mingled with mushrooms like huge bulbs. The cactus was of two kinds: the flat-leaved species is used by white men to filter water, and by the savages, who peel and toast it, as provaunt:[39] there is another globular variety (an echinocactus) lying stalkless, like a half melon, with its brilliant flowers guarded by a panoply of spines. We pursued a sandy tract, broken by beds of nullahs and fiumaras, between two ridges of hillocks, draining to the right into a low bottom denoted by a lively green, with bays and bends of lush, reed-like grass. This is the well-known Lodge-Pole Creek or Fork, a mere ditch, the longest and narrowest of its kind, rising from a mountain lakelet near the “New Bayou” or “Park,” in the Black Hills, and falling into the South Fork of the Platte, about seventy miles west of the bifurcation. By following up this water along the Cherokee trail to its head in the Cheyenne Pass of the Rocky Mountains, instead of describing the arc viâ Fort Laramie, the mail would gain 61 miles; emigrants, indeed, often prefer the short cut. Moreover, from the Cheyenne Pass to Great Salt Lake City, there is, according to accounts, a practicable road south of the present line, which, as it would also save time and labor, has been preferred for the mail line.

In the American Sahara animal life began to appear. The coyote turned and stared at us as though we were trespassing upon his property. This is the jackal of the Western world, the small prairie-wolf, the Canis latrans, and the old Mexican coyotl, best depicted by the old traveler, Abbé Clavigero, in these words: “It is a wild beast, voracious like the wolf, cunning like the fox, in form like the dog, and in some qualities like the jackal.” The[65] animal has so often been described that there is little new to say about it. The mountain men are all agreed upon one thing, namely, that the meat is by no means bad; most of them have tried “wolf-mutton” in hard times, and may expect to do so again. The civilizee shudders at the idea of eating wolf from a food-prejudice, whose consideration forms a curious chapter in human history. It is not very easy, says Dr. Johnson, to fix the principles upon which mankind have agreed to eat some animals and reject others; and as the principle is not evident, so it is not uniform. Originally invented for hygienic purposes, dietetic laws soon became tenets of religion, and passed far beyond their original intention: thus pork, for instance, injurious in Syria, would not be eaten by a Jew in Russia. An extreme arbitrariness marks the modern systems of civilized people: the Englishman, for instance, eats oysters, periwinkles, shrimps, and frogs, while he is nauseated by the snails, robins, and crows which the Frenchman uses; the Italian will devour a hawk, while he considers a rabbit impure, and has refused to touch potatoes even in a famine; and all delight in that foul feeder, the duck, while they reject the meat of the cleanly ass. The Mosaic law seems still to influence the European world, causing men to throw away much valuable provision because unaccustomed to eat it or to hear of its being eaten. The systems of China and Japan are far more sensible for densely populated countries, and the hippophagists have shown, at least, that one animal has been greatly wasted. The terrible famines, followed by the equally fearful pestilences, which have scourged mankind, are mainly owing to the prevalence of these food-prejudices, which, as might be expected, are the most deeply rooted in the poorer classes, who can least afford them.

I saw to-day, for the first time, a prairie-dog village.THE PRAIRIE-DOG VILLAGE. The little beast, hardly as large as a Guinea-pig, belongs to the family of squirrels and the group of marmots—in point of manner it somewhat resembles the monkey. “Wish-ton-Wish”[40]—an Indian onomatoplasm—was at home, sitting posted like a sentinel upon the roof, and sunning himself in the midday glow. It is not easy to shoot him; he is out of doors all day; but, timid and alert, at the least suspicion of danger he plunges with a jerking of the tail, and a somersault, quicker than a shy young rabbit’s, into the nearest hole, peeping from the ground, and keeping up a feeble little cry (wish! ton! wish!), more like the note of a bird than a bark. If not killed outright, he will manage to wriggle into his home. The villages are generally on the brow of a hill, near a creek or pond, thus securing water without danger of drowning. The earth burrowed out while making the habitations is thrown up in heaps, which serve as sitting-places in the wet season, and give[66] a look-out upon the adjacent country; it is more dangerous to ride over them than to charge a field of East Indian “T’hur,” and many a broken leg and collar-bone have been the result. The holes, which descend in a spiral form, must be deep, and they are connected by long galleries, with sharp angles, ascents and descents, to puzzle the pursuer. Lieutenant Pike had 140 kettles of water poured into one without dislodging the occupant. The village is always cleared of grass, probably by the necessities of the tenants, who, though they enjoy insects, are mainly graminivorous, and rarely venture half a mile from home. The limits are sometimes three miles square, and the population must be dense, as a burrow will occur every few paces. The Cynomys Ludovicianus prepares for winter by stopping the mouth of its burrow, and constructing a deeper cell, in which it hibernates till spring appears. It is a graceful little animal, dark brown above and white below, with teeth and nails, head and tail somewhat like the gray sciurus of the States. The Indians and trappers eat this American marmot, declaring its flesh to be fatter and better than that of the squirrel. Some travelers advise exposing the meat for a night or two to the frost, by which means the rankness of subterranean flavor is corrected. It is undoubted that the rattlesnake—both of the yellow and black species—and the small white burrowing-owl (Strix cunicularia) are often found in the same warren with this rodent, a curious happy family of reptile, bird, and beast, and in some places he has been seen to associate with tortoises, rattlesnakes, and horned frogs (Phrynosoma). According to some naturalists, however, the fraternal harmony is not so perfect as it might be: the owl is accused of occasionally gratifying his carnivorous lusts by laying open the skull of Wish-ton-Wish with a smart stroke of the beak. We sighted, not far from the prairie-dog village, an animal which I took to be a lynx; but the driver, who had often seen the beast in Minnesota and Old “Ouisconsinc,” declared that they are not to be found here.

At 12 45 P.M., traveling over the uneven barren, and in a burning sirocco, we reached Lodge-Pole Station, where we made our “noonin.” The hovel fronting the creek was built like an Irish shanty, or a Beloch hut, against a hill side, to save one wall, and it presented a fresh phase of squalor and wretchedness. The mud walls were partly papered with “Harper’s Magazine,” “Frank Leslie,” and the “New York Illustrated News;” the ceiling was a fine festoon-work of soot, and the floor was much like the ground outside, only not nearly so clean. In a corner stood the usual “bunk,”[41] a mass of mingled rags and buffalo[67] robes; the centre of the room was occupied by a rickety table, and boxes, turned up on their long sides, acted as chairs. The unescapable stove was there, filling the interior with the aroma of meat. As usual, the materials for ablution, a “dipper” or cup, a dingy tin skillet of scanty size, a bit of coarse gritty soap, and a public towel, like a rag of gunny bag, were deposited upon a rickety settle outside.

There being no “lady” at the station on Lodge-Pole Creek, milk was unprocurable. Here, however, began a course of antelope venison,THE ANTELOPE. which soon told upon us with damaging effect. I well knew the consequences of this heating and bilious diet in Asia and Africa; but thinking it safe to do at Rome as the Romans do, I followed in the wake of my companions, and suffered with them. Like other wild meats, bear, deer, elk, and even buffalo, antelope will disagree with a stranger; it is, however, juicy, fat, and well-flavored, especially when compared with the hard, dry, stringy stuff which the East affords; and the hunter and trapper, like the Indian, are loud in its praise.

The habitat of the prong-horn antelope (Antelocapra Americana, called “le cabris” by the Canadian, and “the goat” by the unpoetic mountain man) extends from the plains west of the Missouri to the Pacific Ocean; it is also abundant on Minnesota and on the banks of the Red River; its southern limit is Northern Mexico, whence it ranges to 53° N. lat. on the Saskatchewan. It is about the size of a small deer, the male weighing 65 lbs. in good condition. The coat is coarse and wiry, yellow dun on the back, with dull white under the belly, and the tanned skin is worth three dollars. It is at once the fleetest and the wariest animal on the prairies, and its sense of hearing as acute as its power of smell. The best time for “still hunting” (i.e., stalking) is at early dawn, when the little herds of four or five are busy grazing. They disappear during the midday heats of summer, and in the evening, as in India and Arabia, they are wild and wary. They assemble in larger bodies near the Rocky Mountains, where pasturage—not sage, which taints the meat—abounds, and the Indian savages kill them by surrounds, especially in winter, when the flesh is fattest. White men usually stalk them. During the migration season few are seen near the road; at other times they are often sighted. They are gifted, like the hippopotamus, with a truly feminine curiosity; they will stand for minutes to stare at a red wagon-bed, and, despite their extreme wariness, they will often approach, within shot, a scarlet kerchief tied to a stick, or any similar decoy. In manner they much resemble the Eastern gazelle. When the herd is disturbed, the most timid moves off first, followed by the rest; the walk gradually increases from a slow trot to a bounding gallop. At times they halt, one by one, and turn to gaze, but they presently resume flight, till they reach some prominent place where their keen vision can[68] command the surrounding country. When well roused, they are thoroughly on the alert; the hunter will often find that, though he has moved toward them silently, up the wind and under cover, they have suspected sinister intentions and have shifted ground.

Besides the antelope, there are three species of deer in the regions east of the Rocky Mountains. Perhaps the most common is the red deer of the Eastern States (Cervus Virginianus; le chevreuil): it extends almost throughout the length of the continent, and is seemingly independent of altitude as of latitude. The venison is not considered equal to that of the antelope; travelers, however, kill off the deer to save butchers’ bills, so that it is now seldom “glimpsed” from the line of route. The black-tailed or long-eared deer (Cervus macrotis) is confined to the higher ground; it has similar habits to the red variety, and is hunted in the same way. The long-tailed, or jumping deer (Cervus leucrurus, vulgarly called the roebuck), affects, like the black-tailed, the Rocky Mountains. The elk (Cervus Canadensis) is found in parts of Utah Territory and forty miles north of the mail-road, near the Wind-River Mountains—a perfect paradise for sportsmen. It is noble shooting, but poor eating as the Indian sambar.[42] The moose (Cervus Alces), the giant of the deer kind, sometimes rising seventeen hands high, and weighing 1200 lbs., is an inhabitant of higher latitudes—Nova Scotia, Canada, Maine, and other parts of New England.

At Lodge-Pole Station, the mules, as might be expected from animals allowed to run wild every day in the week except one, were like newly-caught mustangs.[43] The herdsman—each station boasts of this official—mounted a nag barebacked, and, jingling a bell, drove the cattle into the corral, a square of twenty yards, formed by a wall of loose stones, four to five feet high. He wasted three quarters of an hour in this operation, which a well-trained shepherd’s dog would have performed in a few minutes. Then two men entering with lassos or lariats, thongs of flexible plaited or twisted hide, and provided with an iron ring at one end to form the noose—the best are made of hemp, Russian, not Manilla—proceeded, in a great “muss” on a small scale, to secure their victims. The lasso[44] in their hands was by no means the[69] “unerring necklace” which the Mexican vaquéro has taught it to be: they often missed their aim, or caught the wrong animal. The effect, however, was magical: a single haul at the noose made the most stiff-necked mule tame as a costermonger’s ass. The team took, as usual, a good hour to trap and hitch up: the latter was a delicate operation, for the beasts were comically clever with their hoofs.

At 3 P.M., after a preliminary ringing, intended to soothe the fears of Madame, we set out au grand galop, with a team that had never worked together before. They dashed down the cahues with a violence that tossed us as in a blanket, and nothing could induce them, while fresh, to keep the path. The yawing of the vehicle was ominous: fortunately, however, the road, though self-made, was excellent; the sides were smooth, and the whole country fit to be driven over. At first the view was sadly monotonous. It was a fair specimen of the rolling prairie, in nowise differing from any other land except in the absence of trees. According to some travelers, there is in several places an apparently progressive decay of the timber, showing that formerly it was more extensive than it is now. Others attribute the phenomenon to the destruction of forests in a former era by fires or by the aborigines. It is more satisfactory to account for it by a complication of causes—a want of proper constituents, an insufficiency of rain, the depth of the water below the surface, the severity of the eight months of winter snow, the fierce winds—the hardiest growths that present their heads above the level of the prairies have dead tops—the shortness of the summers, and last, but not least, CLOUDS OF GRASSHOPPERS.the clouds of grasshoppers. According to Lieutenant Warren, whose graphic description is here borrowed, these insects are “nearly the same as the locusts of Egypt; and no one who has not traveled on the prairie, and seen for himself, can appreciate the magnitude of the swarms. Often they fill the air for many miles of extent, so that an inexperienced eye can scarcely distinguish their appearance from that of a shower of rain or the smoke of a prairie fire. The height of their flight may be somewhat appreciated, as Mr. E. James saw them above his head, as far as their size would render them visible, while standing on the top of a peak of the Rocky Mountains, 8500 feet above the plain, and an elevation of 14,500 above that of the sea, in the region where the snow lies all the year. To a person standing in one of these swarms as they pass over and around him, the air becomes sensibly darkened, and the sound produced by their wings resembles that of the passage of a train of cars on a railroad when standing two or three hundred yards from the track. The Mormon settlements have suffered more from the ravages of these insects than[70] probably all other causes combined. They destroyed nearly all the vegetables cultivated last year at Fort Randall, and extended their ravages east as far as Iowa.”

As we advanced, the horizon, every where within musket-shot—a wearying sight!—widened out, and the face of the country notably changed. A scrap of blue distance and high hills—the “Court-house” and others—appeared to the northwest. The long, curved lines, the gentle slopes, and the broad hollows of the divide facing the South Fork changed into an abrupt and precipitous descent, “gullied” like the broken ground of sub-ranges attached to a mountain chain. Deep ravines were parted by long narrow ridges, sharp-crested and water-washed, exposing ribs and backbones of sandstone and silicious lime, like the vertebræ of some huge saurian: scatters of kunker, with a detritus of quartz and granite, clothed the ground, and, after passing Lodge-Pole Creek, which bears away to the west, the rocky steps required the perpetual application of the brake. Presently we saw a dwarf cliff inclosing in an elliptical sweep a green amphitheatre, the valley of our old friend the Platte. On the far bank of its northern fork lay a forty-mile stretch of sandy, barren, glaring, heat-reeking ground, not unlike that which the overland traveler looking southward from Suez sees.[45] We left far to the right a noted spot, Ash Hollow, situated at the mouth of the creek of the same prenomen. It is described as a pretty bit in a barren land, about twenty acres, surrounded by high bluffs, well timbered with ash and cedar, and rich in clematis and other wild flowers. Here, in 1855, the doughty General Harney, with 700 to 800 men, “gave Jessie” to a large war-party of Brûlé Sioux under their chief Little Thunder, of whom more anon, killing 150, and capturing 60 squaws and children, with but seven or eight casualties in his own force.

Descending into the bed of a broad “arroyo,”[46] at this season bone dry, we reached, at 5 45 P.M., Mud-Spring Station, which takes its name from a little run of clear water in a black miry hollow. A kind of cress grows in it abundantly, and the banks are bright with the “morning-glory” or convolvulus. The station-house was not unlike an Egyptian fellah’s hut. The material was sod, half peat with vegetable matter; it is taken up in large flakes after being furrowed with the plow, and is cut to proper lengths with a short-handled spade. Cedar timber,[47] brought from the neighboring hills, formed the roof. The only accommodation was an open shed, with a sort of doorless dormitory by its side.[71] We dined in the shed, and amused ourselves with feeding the little brown-speckled swamp-blackbirds that hopped about us tame and “peert” as wrens, and when night drew near we sought shelter from the furious southern gale, and heard tales of Mormon suffering which made us think lightly of our little hardships.[48] Dreading the dormitory—if it be true that the sultan of fleas inhabits Jaffa and his vizier Grand Cairo, it is certain that his vermin officials have settled pro tem. on Emigration Road—I cast about for a quieter retreat.AN IMPROMPTU BEDROOM. Fortune favored me by pointing out the body of a dismantled wagon, an article—like the Tyrian keels which suggested the magalia—often used as a habitation in the Far West, and not unfrequently honored by being converted into a bridal-chamber after the short and sharp courtship of the “Perraries.” The host, who was a kind, intelligent, and civil man, lent me a “buffalo” by way of bedding; the water-proof completed my outfit, provided with which I bade adieu for a while to this weary world. The thermometer sank before dawn to 62° (F.). After five nights more or less in the cramping wagon, it might be supposed that we should have enjoyed the unusual rest; on the contrary, we had become inured to the exercise; we could have kept it up for a month, and we now grumbled only at the loss of time.

Past the Court-house and Scott’s Bluffs. August 13th.

At 8 A.M., after breaking our fast upon a tough antelope steak, and dawdling while the herdsman was riding wildly about in search of his runaway mules—an operation now to become of daily occurrence—we dashed over the Sandy Creek with an élan calculated to make timid passengers look “skeery,” and began to finish the rolling divide between the two forks. We crossed several arroyos and “criks” heading in the line of clay highlands to our left, a dwarf sierra which stretches from the northern to the southern branch of the Platte. The principal are Omaha Creek, more generally known as “Little Punkin,”[49] and Lawrence Fork.[72][50] The latter is a pretty bubbling stream, running over sand and stones washed down from the Court-house Ridge; it bifurcates above the ford, runs to the northeast through a prairie four to five miles broad, and swells the waters of old Father Platte: it derives its name from a Frenchman slaughtered by the Indians, murder being here, as in Central Africa, ever the principal source of nomenclature. The heads of both streams afford quantities of currants, red, black, and yellow, and cherry-sticks which are used for spears and pipe-stems.

After twelve miles’ drive we fronted the Court-house, the remarkable portal of a new region, and this new region teeming with wonders will now extend about 100 miles. It is the mauvaises terres, or Bad lands, a tract about 60 miles wide and 150 long, stretching in a direction from the northeast to the southwest, or from the Mankizitah (White-Earth) River, over the Niobrara (Eau qui court) and Loup Fork to the south banks of the Platte: its eastern limit is the mouth of the Keya Paha. The term is generally applied by the trader to any section of the prairie country where the roads are difficult, and by dint of an ill name the Bad lands have come to be spoken of as a Golgotha, white with the bones of man and beast. American travelers, on the contrary, declare that near parts of the White River “some as beautiful valleys are to be found as any where in the Far West,” and that many places “abound in the most lovely and varied forms in endless variety, giving the most striking and pleasing effects of light and shade.” The formation is the pliocene and miocene tertiary, uncommonly rich in vertebrate remains: the mauvaises terres are composed of nearly horizontal strata, and “though diversified by the effects of denuding agencies, and presenting in different portions striking characteristics, yet they are, as a whole, a great uniform surface, gradually rising toward the mountains, at the base of which they attain an elevation varying between 3000 and 5500 feet above the level of the sea.”

The Court-house, which had lately suffered from heavy rain, resembled any thing more than a court-house; that it did so in former days we may gather from the tales of many travelers, old Canadian voyageurs, who unanimously accounted it a fit place for Indian spooks, ghosts, and hobgoblins to meet in powwow, and to “count their coups” delivered in the flesh. The Court-house lies about eight miles from the river, and three from the road; in circumference it may be half a mile, and in height 300 feet; it is, however, gradually degrading, and the rains and snows of not many years will lay it level with the ground. The material is a rough conglomerate of hard marl; the mass is apparently the flank or shoulder of a range forming the southern buttress of the Platte, and which, being composed of softer stuff, has gradually[73] melted away, leaving this remnant to rise in solitary grandeur above the plain. In books it is described as resembling a gigantic ruin, with a huge rotunda in front, windows in the sides, and remains of roofs and stages in its flanks: verily potent is the eye of imagination! To me it appeared in the shape of an irregular pyramid, whose courses were inclined at an ascendable angle of 35°, with a detached outwork composed of a perpendicular mass based upon a slope of 45°; in fact, it resembled the rugged earthworks of Sakkara, only it was far more rugged. According to the driver, the summit is a plane upon which a wagon can turn. My military companion remarked that it would make a fine natural fortress against Indians, and perhaps, in the old days of romance and Colonel Bonneville, it has served as a refuge for the harried fur-hunter. I saw it when set off by weather to advantage. A blazing sun rained fire upon its cream-colored surface—at 11 A.M. the glass showed 95° in the wagon—and it stood boldly out against a purple-black nimbus which overspread the southern skies, growling distant thunders, and flashing red threads of “chained lightning.”

I had finished a hasty sketch, when suddenly appeared to us a most interesting sight—a neat ambulance,[51] followed by a fourgon and mounted soldiers, from which issued an officer in uniform, who advanced to greet Lieutenant Dana. The traveler was Captain, or rather Major Marcy, who was proceeding westward on leave of absence. After introduction, he remembered that his vehicle contained a compatriot of mine. THE COMPATRIOT.The compatriot, whose length of facial hair at once told his race—for

was a Mr. A——, British vice-consul at * * *’s, Minnesota. Having lately tried his maiden hand upon buffalo, he naturally concluded that I could have no other but the same object. Pleasant estimate, forsooth, of a man’s brain, that it can find nothing in America worthy of its notice but bison-shooting! However, the supposition had a couleur locale. Every week the New York papers convey to the New World the interesting information that some distinguished Britisher has crossed the Atlantic and half crossed the States to enjoy the society of the “monarch of our prairies.” Americans consequently have learned to look upon this Albionic eccentricity as “the thing.” That unruly member the tongue was upon the point of putting in a something about[74] the earnest, settled purpose of shooting a prairie-dog, when the reflection that it was hardly fair so far from home to “chaff” a compatriot evidently big with the paternity of a great exploit, with bit and bridle curbed it fast.

Shortly after “liquoring up” and shaking hands, we found ourselves once more in the valley of the Platte, where a lively green relieved eyes which still retained retina-pictures of the barren, Sindh-like divide. The road, as usual along the river-side, was rough and broken, and puffs of simoom raised the sand and dust in ponderous clouds. At 12 30 P.M. we nooned for an hour at a little hovel called a ranch, with the normal corral; and I took occasion to sketch the far-famed Chimney Rock. The name is not, as is that of the Court-house, a misnomer: one might almost expect to see smoke or steam jetting from the summit. Like most of these queer malformations, it was once the knuckle-end of the main chain which bounded the Platte Valley; the softer adjacent strata of marl and earthy limestone were disintegrated by wind and weather, and the harder material, better resisting the action of air and water, has gradually assumed its present form. Chimney Rock lies two and a half miles from the south bank of the Platte. It is composed of a friable yellowish marl, yielding readily to the knife. The shape is a thin shaft, perpendicular and quasi conical. Viewed from the southeast it is not unlike a giant jack-boot based upon a high pyramidal mound, which, disposed in the natural slope, rests upon the plain. The neck of sandstone connecting it with the adjacent hills has been distributed by the floods around the base, leaving an ever-widening gap between. This “Pharos of the prairie sea” towered in former days 150 to 200 feet above the apex of its foundation,[52] and was a landmark[75] visible for 40 to 50 miles: it is now barely 35 feet in height. It has often been struck by lightning; imber edax has gnawed much away, and the beginning of the end is already at hand. It is easy to ascend the pyramid; but, while Pompey’s Pillar, Peter Botte, and Ararat have all felt the Anglo-Scandinavian foot, no venturous scion of the race has yet trampled upon the top of Chimney Rock. Around the waist of the base runs a white band which sets off its height and relieves the uniform tint. The old sketches of this curious needle now necessarily appear exaggerated; moreover, those best known represent it as a column rising from a confused heap of boulders, thus conveying a completely false idea. Again the weather served us: nothing could be more picturesque than this lone pillar of pale rock lying against a huge black cloud, with the forked lightning playing over its devoted head.

After a frugal dinner of biscuit and cheese we remounted and pursued our way through airy fire, which presently changed from our usual pest—a light dust-laden breeze—into a Punjaubian dust-storm, up the valley of the Platte. We passed a ranch called ROBIDOUX’ FORT.“Robidoux’ Fort,” from the well-known Indian trader of that name;[53] it is now occupied by a Canadian or a French Creole,[76] who, as usual with his race in these regions, has taken to himself a wife in the shape of a Sioux squaw, and has garnished his quiver with a multitude of whitey-reds. The driver pointed out the grave of a New Yorker who had vainly visited the prairies in search of a cure for consumption. As we advanced the storm increased to a tornado of north wind, blinding our cattle till it drove them off the road. The gale howled through the pass with all the violence of a khamsin, and it was followed by lightning and a few heavy drops of rain. The threatening weather caused a large party of emigrants to “fort themselves” in a corral near the base of Scott’s Bluffs.

The corral, a Spanish and Portuguese word, which, corrupted to “kraal,” has found its way through Southern Africa, signifies primarily a square or circular pen for cattle, which may be made of tree-trunks, stones, or any other convenient material. The corral of wagons is thus formed. The two foremost are brought near and parallel to each other, and are followed by the rest, disposed aslant, so that the near fore wheel of the hinder touches the off hind wheel of that preceding it, and vice versâ on the other side. The “tongues,” or poles, are turned outward, for convenience of yoking, when an attack is not expected, otherwise they are made to point inward, and the gaps are closed by ropes and yoke and spare chains. Thus a large oval is formed with a single opening fifteen to twenty yards across; some find it more convenient to leave an exit at both ends. In dangerous places the passages are secured at night either by cords or by wheeling round the near wagons; the cattle are driven in before sundown, especially when the area of the oval is large enough to enable them to graze, and the men sleep under their vehicles. In safer travel the tents are pitched outside the corral with their doors outward, and in front of these the camp-fires are lighted. The favorite spots with teamsters for corraling are the re-entering angles of deep streams, especially where these have high and precipitous banks, or the crests of abrupt hills and bluffs—the position for nighting usually chosen by the Australian traveler—where one or more sides of the encampment is safe from attack, and the others can be protected by a cross fire. As a rule Indians avoid attacking strong places; this, however, must not always be relied upon; in 1844 the Utah Indians attacked Uintah Fort, a trading-post belonging to M. A. Robidoux, then at St. Louis, slaughtered the men, and carried off the women. The corral is especially useful for two purposes: it enables the wagoners to yoke up with ease, and it secures them from the prairie traveler’s prime dread—the stampede. The Western savages are perfectly acquainted with the habits of animals, and in their marauding expeditions they instinctively adopt the system of the Bedouins,[77] the Gallas, and the Somal. Providing themselves with rattles and other implements for making startling noises, they ride stealthily up close to the cattle, and then rush by like the whirlwind with a volley of horrid whoops and screams. When the “cavallard” flies in panic fear, the plunderers divide their party; some drive on the plunder, while the others form a rear-guard to keep off pursuers. The prairie-men provide for the danger by keeping their fleetest horses saddled, bridled, and ready to be mounted at a moment’s notice. When the animals have stampeded, the owners follow them, scatter the Indians, and drive, if possible, the madriña, or bell-mare, to the front of the herd, gradually turning her toward the camp, and slacking speed as the familiar objects come in sight. Horses and mules appear peculiarly timorous upon the prairies. A band of buffalo, a wolf, or even a deer, will sometimes stampede them; they run to great distances, and not unfrequently their owners fail to recover them.

SCOTT’S BLUFFS.“Scott’s Bluffs,” situated 285 miles from Fort Kearney and 51 from Fort Laramie, was the last of the great marl formations which we saw on this line, and was of all by far the most curious. In the dull uniformity of the prairies, it is a striking and attractive object, far excelling the castled crag of Drachenfels or any of the beauties of romantic Rhine. From a distance of a day’s march it appears in the shape of a large blue mound, distinguished only by its dimensions from the detached fragments of hill around. As you approach within four or five miles, a massive medieval city gradually defines itself, clustering, with a wonderful fullness of detail, round a colossal fortress, and crowned with a royal castle. Buttress and barbican, bastion, demilune, and guard-house, tower, turret, and donjon-keep, all are there: in one place parapets[78] and battlements still stand upon the crumbling wall of a fortalice like the giant ruins of Château Gaillard, the “Beautiful Castle on the Rock;” and, that nothing may be wanting to the resemblance, the dashing rains and angry winds have cut the old line of road at its base into a regular moat with a semicircular sweep, which the mirage fills with a mimic river. Quaint figures develop themselves; guards and sentinels in dark armor keep watch and ward upon the slopes, the lion of Bastia crouches unmistakably overlooking the road; and as the shades of an artificial evening, caused by the dust-storm, close in, so weird is its aspect that one might almost expect to see some spectral horseman, with lance and pennant, go his rounds about the deserted streets, ruined buildings, and broken walls. At a nearer aspect again, the quaint illusion vanishes; the lines of masonry become yellow layers of boulder and pebble imbedded in a mass of stiff, tamped, bald marly clay; the curtains and angles change to the gashings of the rains of ages, and the warriors are metamorphosed into dwarf cedars and dense shrubs, scattered singly over the surface. Travelers have compared this glory of the mauvaises terres to Gibraltar, to the Capitol at Washington, to Stirling Castle. I could think of nothing in its presence but the Arabs’ “City of Brass,” that mysterious abode of bewitched infidels, which often appears at a distance to the wayfarer toiling under the burning sun, but ever eludes his nearer search.

Scott’s Bluffs derive their name from an unfortunate fur-trader there put on shore in the olden time by his boat’s crew, who had a grudge against him: the wretch, in mortal sickness, crawled up the mound to die. The politer guide-books call them “Capitol Hills:” methinks the first name, with its dark associations, must be better pleasing to the genius loci. They are divided into three distinct masses. The largest, which may be 800 feet high, is on the right, or nearest the river. To its left lies an outwork, a huge, detached cylinder whose capping changes aspect from every direction; and still farther to the left is a second castle, now divided from, but once connected with the others. The whole affair is a spur springing from the main range, and closing upon the Platte so as to leave no room for a road.

After gratifying our curiosity we resumed our way. The route lay between the right-hand fortress and the outwork, through a degraded bed of softer marl, once doubtless part of the range. METEOROLOGICAL PHENONMENON.The sharp, sudden torrents which pour from the heights on both sides, and the draughty winds—Scott’s Bluffs are the permanent head-quarters of hurricanes—have cut up the ground into a labyrinth of jagged gulches steeply walled in. We dashed down the drains and pitch-holes with a violence which shook the nave-bands from our sturdy wheels.[54] Ascending, the driver showed a place[79] where the skeleton of an “elephant” had been lately discovered. On the summit he pointed out, far over many a treeless hill and barren plain, the famous Black Hills and Laramie Peak, which has been compared to Ben Lomond, towering at a distance of eighty miles. The descent was abrupt, with sudden turns round the head of earth-cracks deepened to ravines by snow and rain; and one place showed the remains of a wagon and team which had lately come to grief. After galloping down a long slope of twelve miles, with ridgelets of sand and gravel somewhat raised above the bottom, which they cross on their way to the river, we found ourselves, at 5 30 P.M., once more in the valley of the Platte. I had intended to sketch the Bluffs more carefully from the station, but the western view proved to be disappointingly inferior to the eastern. After the usual hour’s delay we resumed our drive through alternate puffs of hot and cold wind, the contrast of which was not easy to explain. The sensation was as if Indians had been firing the prairies—an impossibility at this season, when whatever herbage there is is still green. It may here be mentioned that, although the meteorology of the earlier savans, namely, that the peculiar condition of the atmosphere known as the Indian summer[55] might be produced by the burning of the plain-vegetation, was not thought worthy of comment, their hypothesis is no longer considered trivial. The smoky canopy must produce a sensible effect upon the temperature of the season. “During a still night, when a cloud of this kind is overhead, no dew is produced; the heat which is radiated from the earth is reflected or absorbed, and radiated back again by the particles of soot, and the coating of the earth necessary to prevent the deposition of water in the form of dew or hoar-frost is prevented.” According to Professor Henry, of Washington, “it is highly probable that a portion of the smoke or fog-cloud produced by the burning of one of the Western prairies is carried entirely across the eastern portion of the continent to the ocean.”

Presently we dashed over the Little Kiowa Creek, forded the Horse Creek, and, enveloped in a cloud of villainous musquetoes,[80] entered at 8 30 P.M. the station in which we were to pass the night. It was tenanted by one Reynal, a French Creole—the son of an old soldier of the Grand Armée, who had settled at St. Louis—a companionable man, but an extortionate: he charged us a florin for every “drink” of his well-watered whisky. The house boasted of the usual squaw, a wrinkled old dame, who at once began to prepare supper, when we discreetly left the room. These hard-working but sorely ill-favored beings are accused of various horrors in cookery, such as grinding their pinole, or parched corn, in the impurest manner, kneading dough upon the floor, using their knives for any purpose whatever, and employing the same pot, unwashed, for boiling tea and tripe. In fact, they are about as clean as those Eastern pariah servants who make the knowing Anglo-Indian hold it an abomination to sit at meat with a new arrival or with an officer of a “home regiment.” The daughter was an unusually fascinating half-breed, with a pale face and Franco-American features. How comes it that here, as in Hindostan, the French half-caste is pretty, graceful, amiable, coquettish, while the Anglo-Saxon is plain, coarse, gauche, and ill-tempered? The beauty was married to a long, lean down-Easter, who appeared most jealously attentive to her, occasionally hinting at a return to the curtained bed, where she could escape the admiring glances of strangers. Like her mother, she was able to speak English, but she could not be persuaded to open her mouth. This is a truly Indian prejudice, probably arising from the savage, childish sensitiveness which dreads to excite a laugh; even a squaw married to a white man, after uttering a few words in a moment of épanchement, will hide her face under the blanket.

The half-breed has a bad name in the land. Like the negro, the Indian belongs to a species, sub-species, or variety—whichever the reader pleases—that has diverged widely enough from the Indo-European type to cause degeneracy, physical as well as moral, and often, too, sterility in the offspring. These half-breeds are, therefore, like the mulatto, quasi-mules. The men combine the features of both races; the skin soon becomes coarse and wrinkled, and the eye is black, snaky, and glittering like the Indian’s. The mongrels are short-lived, peculiarly subject to infectious diseases, untrustworthy, and disposed to every villainy. The half-breed women, in early youth, are sometimes attractive enough, uniting the figure of the mother to the more delicate American face; a few years, however, deprive them of all litheness, grace, and agility. They are often married by whites, who hold them to be more modest and humble, less capricious and less exacting, than those of the higher type: they make good wives and affectionate mothers, and, like the Quadroons, they are more “ambitious”—that is to say, of warmer temperaments—than either of the races from which they are derived. The so-called red is a higher ethnic type than the black man; so, in the United States,[81] where all admixture of African blood is deemed impure, the aboriginal American entails no disgrace—some of the noblest of the land are descended from “Indian princesses.” The half-breed girls resemble their mothers in point of industry, and they barter their embroidered robes and moccasins, and mats and baskets, made of bark and bulrush, in exchange for blankets, calicoes, glass beads—an indispensable article of dress—mirrors, needles, rings, vermilion, and other luxuries. The children, with their large black eyes, wide mouths, and glittering teeth, flattened heads, and remarkable agility of motion, suggest the idea of little serpents.

The day had been fatiguing, and our eyes ached with the wind and dust. We lost no time in spreading on the floor the buffalo robes borrowed from the house, and in defying the smaller tenants of the ranch. Our host, M. Reynal, was a study, but we deferred the lesson till the next morning.

To Fort Laramie. 14th August.

M. REYNAL.M. Reynal had been an Indian trader in his youth. Of this race there were in his day two varieties: the regular trader and the coureur des bois, or unlicensed peddler, who was subject to certain pains and penalties. The former had some regard for his future; he had a permanent interest in the Indians, and looked to the horses, arms, and accoutrements of his protégés, so that hunting might not flag. The bois brûlé peddler, having—like an English advertising firm—no hope of dealing twice with the same person, got all he could for what he could. These men soon sapped the foundation of the Indian’s discipline. One of them, for instance, would take protection with the chief, pay presents, and by increasing the wealth, enhance the importance of his protector. Another would place himself under the charge of some ambitious aspirant to power, who was thus raised to a position of direct rivalry. A split would ensue; the weaker would secede with his family and friends, and declare independence; a murder or two would be the result, and a blood-feud would be bequeathed from generation to generation. The licensed traders have ever strenuously opposed the introduction of alcohol, a keg of which will purchase from the Indian every thing that is his, his arms, lodge, horses, children, and wives. In olden times, however, the Maine Liquor Law was not, as now, in force through the territories. The coureur des bois, therefore, entered the country through various avenues, from the United States and from Mexico, without other stock in trade but some kegs of whisky, which he retailed at the modest price of $36 per gallon. He usually mixed one part of fire with five of pure water, and then sold a pint-canful for a buffalo robe. “Indian liquor” became a proverbial term. According to some travelers, a barrel of “pure Cincinnati,” even after running the gauntlet of railroad and lake travel, has afforded a[82] hundred barrels of “good Indian liquor.” A small bucketful is poured into a wash-tub of water; a large quantity of “dog-leg” tobacco and red pepper is then added, next a bitter root common in the country is cut up into it, and finally it is colored with burnt sugar—a nice recipe for a morning’s headache! The only drawback to this traffic is its danger. The Indian, when intoxicated, is ready for any outrageous act of violence or cruelty; vinosity brings out the destructiveness and the utter barbarity of his character; it makes him thirst tiger-like for blood. The coureur des bois, therefore, who in those days was highly respected, was placed in the Trader’s Lodge, a kind of public house, like the Iwanza of Central Africa, and the village chief took care to station at the door a guard of sober youths, sometimes habited like Europeans, ready to check the unauthorized attempts of ambitious clansmen upon the whisky-vendor’s scalp. The Western men, who will frequently be alluded to in these pages, may be divided, like the traders, into two classes. The first is the true mountaineer, whom the platitude and tame monotony of civilized republican life has in early youth driven, often from an honored and wealthy family, to the wilds and wolds, to become the forlorn hope in the march of civilization. The second is the offscouring and refuse of the Eastern cities, compelled by want, fatuity, or crime to exile himself from all he most loves. The former, after passing through the preliminary stage greenhorn, is a man in every sense of the term: to more than Indian bravery and fortitude, he unites the softness of woman, and a child-like simplicity, which is the very essence of a chivalrous character; you can read his nature in his clear blue eyes, his sun-tanned countenance, his merry smile, and his frank, fearless manner. The latter is a knave or a fool; it would make “bad blood,” as the Frenchman says, to describe him.

M. Reynal’s history had to be received with many grains of salt. The Western man has been worked by climate and its consequences, by the huge magnificence of nature and the violent contrasts of scenery, into a remarkable resemblance to the wild Indian. He hates labor—which poet and divine combine to deify in the settled states—as the dire effect of a primeval curse; “loaf” he must and will; to him one hour out of the twenty-four spent in honest industry is satis superque. His imagination is inflamed by scenery and climate, difficulty and danger; he is as superstitious as an old man-o’-war’s-man of the olden school; and he is a transcendental liar, like his prototype the aborigine, who in this point yields nothing to the African negro. I have heard of a man riding eighty miles—forty into camp and forty out—in order to enjoy the sweet delights of a lie. His yarns and stories about the land he lives in have become a proverbial ridicule; he will tell you that the sun rises north of what it did se puero; he has seen mountains of diamonds and gold nuggets scattered like rocks[83] over the surface of our general mother. I have been gravely told of a herd of bison which arrested the course of the Platte River, causing its waters, like those of the Red Sea, to stand up, wall fashion, while the animals were crossing. Of this Western order is the well-known account of a ride on a buffalo’s horns, delivered for the benefit of a gaping world by a popular author of the yellow-binding category. In this age, however, the Western man has become sensitive to the operation of “smoking.” A popular Joe Miller anent him is this: A traveler, informed of what he might educe by “querying,” asked an old mountaineer, who shall be nameless, what difference he observed in the country since he had first settled in it.

“Wal, stranger, not much!” was the reply; “only when I fust come here, that ’ere mountain,” pointing to the tall Uinta range, “was a hole!”

Disembarrassing M. Reynal’s recital of its mask of improbabilities and impossibilities, remained obvious the naked fact that he had led the life of a confirmed coureur des bois. The French Canadian and Creole both, like the true Français de France, is loth to stir beyond the devil-dispelling sound of his chapel-bell; once torn from his chez lui, he apparently cares little to return, and, like the Englishman, to die at home in his own land. The adventurous Canadians—in whom extremes meet—have wandered through the length and breadth of the continent; they have left their mark even upon the rocks in Utah Territory. M. Reynal had quitted St. Louis at an early age as trader, trapper, every thing in short, provided with a little outfit of powder, ball, and whisky. At first he was unfortunate. In a war between the Sioux and the Pawnees, he was taken prisoner by the latter, and with much ado preserved, by the good aid of his squaw, that useful article his scalp. Then fickle fortune turned in his favor. He married several wives, identified himself with the braves, and became a little brother of the tribe, while his whisky brought him in an abundance of furs and peltries. After many years, waxing weary of a wandering life, he settled down into the somewhat prosaic position in which we had the pleasure of finding him. He was garrulous as a veteran soldier upon the subject of his old friends the trappers, that gallant advance guard who, sixty years ago, unconsciously fought the fight of civilization for the pure love of fighting; who battled with the Indian in his own way, surpassing him in tracking, surprising, ambuscading, and shooting, and never failing to raise the enemy’s hair. They are well-nigh extinct, those old pioneers, wild, reckless, and brave as the British tar of a century past; they live but in story; their place knows them no longer; it is now filled by the “prospector.” Civilization and the silk hat have exterminated them. How many deeds of stern fight and heroic endurance have been ignored by this world, which knows nothing of its greatest men, carent[84] quia vale sacro! We talk of Thermopylæ and ignore Texas; we have all thrilled at the account of the Mameluke Bey’s leap; but how many of us have heard of Major Macculloch’s spring from the cliff?

Our breakfast was prepared in the usual prairie style. First the coffee—three parts burnt beans, which had been duly ground to a fine powder and exposed to the air, lest the aroma should prove too strong for us—was placed on the stove to simmer till every noxious principle was duly extracted from it. Then the rusty bacon, cut into thick slices, was thrown into the fry-pan: here the gridiron is unknown, and if known would be little appreciated, because it wastes the “drippings,” which form with the staff of life a luxurious sop. Thirdly, antelope steak, cut off a corpse suspended for the benefit of flies outside, was placed to stew within influence of the bacon’s aroma. Lastly came the bread, which of course should have been “cooked” first. The meal is kneaded with water and a pinch of salt; the raising is done by means of a little sour milk, or more generally by the deleterious yeast-powders of the trade. The carbonic acid gas evolved by the addition of water must be corrected, and the dough must be expanded by saleratus or prepared carbonate of soda or alkali, and other vile stuff, which communicates to the food the green-yellow tinge, and suggests many of the properties of poison. A hundred-fold better, the unpretending chapati, flapjack, scone, or, as the Mexicans prettily called it, “tortilla!” The dough, after being sufficiently manipulated upon a long, narrow, smooth board, is divided into “biscuits” and “dough-nuts,”[56] and finally it is placed to be half cooked under the immediate influence of the rusty bacon and graveolent antelope. “Uncle Sam’s stove,” be it said with every reverence for the honored name it bears, is a triumph of convenience, cheapness, unwholesomeness, and nastiness—excuse the word, nice reader. This travelers’ bane has exterminated the spit and gridiron, and makes every thing taste like its neighbor: by virtue of it, mutton borrows the flavor of salmon trout, tomatoes resolve themselves into greens. I shall lose my temper if the subject is not dropped.

We set out at 6 A.M. over a sandy bottom, from which the musquetoes rose in swarms. After a twelve-mile stretch the driver pointed out on the right of the road, which here runs between high earth-banks, a spot still infamous in local story. At this place, in 1854, five Indians, concealing themselves in the bed of a dwarf arroyo, fired upon the mail-wagon, killing two drivers and one passenger, and then plundered it of 20,000 dollars.[85] “Long-chin,” the leader, and the other murderers, when given up by the tribe, were carried to Washington, D. C., where—with the ultra-philanthropy which has of modern days distinguished the “Great Father’s” government of his “Poor Children of the Plains”—the villains were liberally rewarded and restored to their homes.[57] To cut off a bend of the Platte we once more left the valley, ascended sundry slopes of sand and clay deeply cut by dry creeks, and from the summit enjoyed a pretty view. A little to the left rose the aerial blue cone of that noble landmark, LARAMIE PEAK.Laramie Peak, based like a mass of solidified air upon a dark wall, the Black Hills, and lit up with the roseate hues of the morning. The distance was about sixty miles; you would have guessed twenty. On the right lay a broad valley, bounded by brown rocks and a plain-colored distance, with the stream winding through it like a thread of quicksilver; in places it was hidden from sight by thickets of red willow, cypress clumps, and dense cool cotton-woods. All was not still life; close below us rose the white lodges of the Ogalala tribe.

INDIAN VILLAGES.These Indian villages are very picturesque from afar when dimly seen dotting the verdure of the valleys, and when their tall white cones, half hidden by willow clumps, lie against a blue background. The river side is the savages’ favorite site; next to it the hill foot, where little groups of three or four tents are often seen from the road, clustering mysteriously near a spring. Almost every prairie-band has its own way of constructing lodges, encamping and building fires, and the experienced mountaineer easily distinguishes them.

The Osages make their lodges in the shape of a wagon-tilt, somewhat like our gipsies’ tents, with a frame-work of bent willow rods planted in the ground, and supporting their blankets, skins, or tree-basts.

The Kickapoos build dwarf hay-stack huts, like some tribes of Africans, setting poles in the earth, binding them over and lashing them together at the top; they are generally covered with clothes or bark.

The Witchetaws, Wakoes, Towakamis, and Tonkowas are described by the “Prairie Traveler” as erecting their hunting lodges of sticks put up in the form of the frustrum of a cone, and bushed over like “boweries.”

All these tribes leave the frame-work of their lodges standing when they shift ground, and thus the particular band is readily recognized.

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The Sacs, Foxes, Winnebagoes, and Menomenes build lodges in the form of an ellipse, some of them 30-40 feet long, by 14-15 wide, and large enough to shelter twenty people permanently, and sixty temporarily.[58] The covering is of plaited rush-mats bound to the poles, and a small aperture in the lodge acts as chimney.

The Delawares and Shawnees, Cherokees and Choctaws, prefer the Indian pal, a canvas covering thrown like a tente d’abri over a stick supported by two forked poles.

The Sioux, Arapahoes, Cheyennes, Utahs, Snakes, Blackfeet, and Kiowas use the Comanche lodge covered with bison skins, which by dressing become flexible as canvas. They are usually of a shining white, save where smoke-stained near the top; the lodges of great chiefs are sometimes decorated with horizontal stripes of alternate black and white, and ornamented with figures human and bestial, crosses, circles, and arabesques. The lodge is made of eight to twenty-four straight peeled poles or saplings of ash, pine, cedar, or other wood, hard and elastic if possible, about 20 feet long; the largest marquees are 30 feet in diameter by 35 feet high, and are comprised of 26-30 buffalo skins; and they are sometimes planted round a “basement” or circular excavation two or three feet deep. When pitching, three poles lashed to one another with a long line, somewhat below the thinner points, are raised perpendicularly, and the thicker ends are spread out in a tripod to the perimeter of the circle which is to form the lodge floor; the rest of the poles are then propped against the three first, and disposed regularly and equidistantly to make a steady and secure conical frame-work. The long line attached to the tripod is then wound several times round the point where the poles touch, and the lower end is made fast to the base of the lodge, thus securing the props in position. The covering of dressed, hairless, and water-proof cow-buffalo hide—traders prefer osnaburg—cut and sewn to fit the frame like an envelope, and sometimes pinned together with skewers, is either raised at first with the tripod, or afterward hoisted with a perch and spread round the complete structure. It is pinned to the ground with wooden pegs, and a narrow space forms a doorway, which may be closed with a blanket suspended from above and spread out with two small sticks. The apex is left open with a triangular wing or flap, like a lateen sail, and is prevented from closing by a pole inserted into a pocket at the end. The aperture points to windward when ventilation is required, and, drawing like a wind-sail, it keeps the interior cool and comfortable; when smoke is to be carried off, it is turned to leeward, thus giving draught to the fire, and making the abode warm in the severest weather; while in lodges of other forms,[87] you must lie down on the ground to prevent being asphyxiated. By raising the lower part so as freely to admit the breeze, it is kept perfectly free from musquetoes, which are unable to resist the strong draught. The squaws are always the tent-pitchers, and they equal Orientals in dexterity and judgment. Before the lodge of each warrior stands his light spear, planted Bedouin-fashion in the ground, near or upon a tripod of thin, cleanly-scraped, wands, seven to eight feet long, which support his spotless white buffalo-skin targe, sometimes decorated with his “totem”—we translate the word “crest”—and guarded by the usual prophylactic, a buckskin sack containing medicine. Readers of “Ivanhoe”—they are now more numerous in the New than in the Old Country—ever feel “a passing impulse to touch one of these spotless shields with the muzzle of the gun, expecting a grim warrior to start from the lodge and resent the challenge.” The fire, as in the old Hebridean huts, is built in the centre of the hard dirt floor; a strong stick planted at the requisite angle supports the kettle, and around the walls are berths divided by matted screens; the extremest uncleanliness, however, is a feature never absent. In a quiet country these villages have a simple and patriarchal appearance. The tents, which number from fifteen to fifty, are disposed round a circular central space, where animals can be tethered. Some have attached to them corrals of wattled canes, and a few boast of fields where corn and pumpkins are raised.

The Comanche lodge is the favorite tenement of the Canadian and Creole voyageurs, on account of its coolness or warmth when wanted, its security against violent winds, and its freedom from musquetoes. While traveling in an Indian country they will use no other. It has been simplified by Major H. H. Sibley, of the United States Army, who has changed the pole frame-work for a single central upright, resting upon an iron tripod, with hooks for suspending cooking utensils over the fire; when folded up, the tripod admits the upright between its legs, thereby reducing the length to one half—a portable size. THE “SIBLEY TENT.”The “Sibley tent” was the only shelter of the United States Army at Fort Scott, in Utah Territory, during the hard winter of 1857-8, and gave universal satisfaction. The officers still keep to the old wall-tent. This will, however, eventually be superseded by the new form, which can accommodate comfortably twelve, but not seventeen, the usual number allotted to it. Captain Marcy is of opinion that of the tents used in the different armies of Europe, “none in point of convenience, comfort, and economy will compare with the ‘Sibley tent’ for campaigning in cold weather.” In summer, however, it has, like all conical tents, many disadvantages: there is always a loss of room; and for comfortably disposing kit—chair, table, and camp couch—there is nothing equal to the wall-tent. The price of a “Sibley,” when made of good material, is from $40 to $50 (£8-£10), and it can be procured from Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York.

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At 10 20 A.M. we halted to change mules at Badeau’s Ranch, or, as it is more grandiloquently called, “Laramie City.” The “city,” like many a Western “town,” still appertains to the category of things about to be; it is at present represented by a single large “store,” with out-houses full of small half-breeds. The principal articles of traffic are liquors and groceries for the whites, and ornaments for the Indians, which are bartered for stock (i. e., animals) and peltries. The prices asked for the skips were from $1-$1 30 for a fox or a coyote, $3 for wolf, bear, or deer, $6-$7 for an elk, $5 for a common buffalo, and from $8 to $35 for the same painted, pictographed, and embroidered. Some of the party purchased moccasins, for which they paid $1-$2; the best articles are made by the Snakes, and when embroidered by white women rise as high as $25. I bought, for an old friend who is insane upon the subject of pipes, one of the fine marble-like sandstone bowls brought from the celebrated Côteau (slope) des Prairies, at the head of Sioux River—

This instrument is originally the gift of Gitchie Manitou, who, standing on the precipice of the Red Pipe-stone Rock, broke off a fragment and moulded it into a pipe, which, finished with a reed, he smoked over his children to the north, south, east, and west. It is of queer shape, not unlike the clay and steatite articles used by the Abyssinians and the Turi or Sinaitic Bedouins. The length of the stick is 23 inches, of the stem 9·50, and of the bowl 5 inches; the latter stands at a right angle upon the former; both are circular; but the 2·75 inches of stem, which project beyond the bowl, are beveled off so as to form an edge at the end. The peculiarity of the form is in the part where the tobacco is inserted; the hole is not more than half an inch broad, and descends straight without a bulge, while the aperture in the stem is exactly similar. The red color soon mottles and the bowl clogs if smoked with tobacco; in fact, it is fit for nothing but the “kinnikinik” of the Indians. To prepare this hard material with the rude tools of a savage must be a work of time and difficulty; also the bowls are expensive and highly valued: for mine I paid $5, and farther West I could have exchanged it for an Indian pony.

Having finished our emplettes at M. Badeau’s, we set out at 11 30 P.M. over a barren and reeking bit of sandy soil. Close to the station, and a little to the right of the road, we passed the barrow which contains the remains of Lieutenant Grattan and his thirty men. A young second lieutenant of Irish origin and fiery temper, he was marching westward with an interpreter, a small body of men, and two howitzers, when a dispute arose, it is said, about a cow, between his party and the THE BRULÉS AND GENERAL HARNEY.Brûlés or Burnt-Thigh Indians. The latter were encamped in a village of 450 to 500 lodges, which, reckoning five to each, gives a total of 2200 to 2500 souls. A[89] fight took place; the whites imprudently discharged both their cannon, overshooting the tents of the enemy; their muskets, however, did more execution, killing Matriya, “the Scattering Bear,” who had been made chief of all the Sioux by Colonel Mitchell of the Indian Bureau. The savages, seeing the fall of Ursa Major, set to in real earnest; about 1200 charged the soldiers before they could reload; the little detachment broke, and not a man survived to tell the tale. The whites in the neighborhood narrowly preserved their scalps—M. Badeau owned that he owed his to his Sioux squaw—and among other acts of violence was the murder and highway robbery which has already been recounted. Both these events occurred in 1854. As has been said, in 1855, General W. S. Harney, who, whatever may be his faults as a diplomatist, is the most dreaded “Minahaska”[59] in the Indian country, punished the Brûlés severely at Ash Hollow. They were led by their chosen chief Little Thunder, who, not liking the prospect, wanted to palaver; the general replied by a charge, which, as usual, scattered the “chivalry of the prairies” to the four winds. “Little Thunder” was solemnly deposed, and Mato Chigukesa, “Bear’s Rib,” was ordered to reign in his stead; moreover, in 1856, a treaty was concluded, giving to whites, among other things, the privilege of making roads along the Platte and White-Earth Rivers (Mankisita Wakpa—Smoking-earth Water) to Forts Pierre and Laramie, and to pass up and down the Missouri in boats. Since that time, with the exception of plundering an English sportsman, Sir G—— G——, opposing Lieutenant Warren’s expedition to the Black Hills, and slaughtering a few traders and obscure travelers, the Brûlés have behaved tolerably to their pale-face rivals.

As we advanced the land became more barren; it sadly wanted rain: it suffers from drought almost every year, and what vegetable matter the soil will produce the grasshopper will devour. Dead cattle cumbered the way-side; the flesh had disappeared; the bones were scattered over the ground; but the skins, mummified, as it were, by the dry heat, lay life-like and shapeless, as in the Libyan Desert, upon the ground. This phenomenon will last till we enter the humid regions between the Sierra Nevada and the Pacific Ocean, and men tell wonderful tales of the time during which meat can be kept. The road was a succession of steep ascents and jumps down sandy ground. A Sioux “buck,” mounted upon a neat nag, and wrapped up, despite sun and glare, as if it had been the depth of winter, passed us, sedulously averting his eyes. The driver declared that he recognized the horse,[90] and grumbled certain Western facetiæ concerning “hearty-chokes and caper sauce.”

In these lands the horse-thief is the great enemy of mankind; for him there is no pity, no mercy; Lynch-law is held almost too good for him; to shoot him in flagrante delicto is like slaying a man-eating Bengal royal tiger—it entitles you to the respect and gratitude of your species. I asked our conductor whether dandiness was at the bottom of the “buck’s” heavy dress. “’Guess,” was the reply, “what keeps cold out, keeps heat out tew!”

At 12 15 P.M., crossing Laramie’s Fork, a fine clear stream about forty yards broad, we reached Fort Laramie—another “fort” by courtesy, or rather by order—where we hoped to recruit our exhausted stores.

The straggling cantonment requires no description: it has the usual big flag, barracks, store-houses, officers’ quarters, guard-houses, sutlers’ stores, and groceries, which doubtless make a good thing by selling deleterious “strychnine” to passing trains who can afford to pay $6 per gallon.

Fort Laramie, called Fort John in the days of the American Fur Company, was used by them as a store-house for the bear and buffalo skins, which they collected in thousands. The old adobe enceinte, sketched and described by Frémont and Stansbury, soon disappeared after the place was sold to the United States government. Its former rival was Fort Platte, belonging in 1842—when the pale face first opened this road—to Messrs. Sybille, Adams, and Co., and situated immediately on the point of land at the junction of Laramie Fort with the Platte. The climate here is arid and parching in summer, but in winter tolerably mild, considering the altitude—4470 feet—and the proximity of the Black Hills; yet it has seen hard frost in September. It is also well defended from the warm, moist, and light winds, which, coming from the Mexican Gulf, cause “calentures” on the lower course of the river. The soil around the settlement is gravelly and sterile, the rocks are sand, lime, and clay, and there is a solitary, desolate look upon every thing but the bright little stream that bubbles from the dark heights. The course is from S.W. to N.E.: about half way it bifurcates, with a right fork to the west and main fork east, and near Laramie it receives its main affluent, the Chugwater.

My companion kindly introduced me to the officer commanding the fort, Colonel B. Alexander, 10th Infantry, and we were at once made at home. The amiable mistress of the house must find charitable work enough to do in providing for the wants of way-worn friends who pass through Laramie from east to west. We rested and dined in the cool comfortable quarters, with only one qualm at heart—we were so soon to leave them. On these occasions the driver seems to know by instinct that you are enjoying yourself, while he, as an outsider, is not. He becomes,[91] therefore, unusually impatient to start; perhaps, also, time runs more rapidly than it is wont. At any rate, after a short two hours, we were compelled to shake hands with our kind and considerate hosts, and to return to limbo—the mail-wagon.

From Fort Laramie westward the geological formation changes; the great limestone deposits disappear, and are succeeded by a great variety of sandstones, some red, argillaceous, and compact; others gray or yellow, ferruginous, and coarse. Pudding-stones or conglomerates also abound, and the main chain of the Laramie Mountains is supposed to be chiefly composed of this rock.

Beyond the fort there are two roads. The longer leads to the right, near the Platte River. It was formerly, and perhaps is still, a favorite with emigrants. We preferred the left, which, crossing the edges of the Black Hills, is rough and uneven, but is “some shorter,” as the guide-book says, than the other. The weather began to be unusually disagreeable with heat and rain-drops from a heavy nimbus, that forced us to curtain up the rattling vehicle; perhaps, too, we were a little cross, contrasting the present with the past—civilized society, a shady bungalow, and wonderfully good butter. At 4 P.M., following the Platte Valley, after two hours’ drive we halted to change mules at Ward’s Station, alias the “Central Star,” where several whites were killed by the Sioux in 1855, among them M. Montalan, a Parisian.

Again we started for another twenty-five miles at 4 P.M. The road was rough, and the driver had a curious proclivity for losing the way. I have often found this to be the case after passing through a station. There was little to remark, except that the country was poor and bad, that there was clear water in a ravine to the right, and that we were very tired and surly. But as sorrow comes to an end as well as joy, so, at 9 30 P.M., we drove in, somewhat consoled, to HORSESHOE STATION.Horseshoe Station—the old Fer à Cheval—where one of the road agents, Mr. Slade, lived, and where we anticipated superior comfort.

We were entichés by the aspect of the buildings, which were on an extensive scale—in fact, got up regardless of expense. An ominous silence, however, reigned around. At last, by hard knocking, we were admitted into a house with the Floridian style of veranda previously described, and by the pretensions of the room we at once divined our misfortune—we were threatened with a “lady.” The “lady” will, alas! follow us to the Pacific; even in hymns we read,

Our mishap was really worse than we expected—we were exposed to two “LADIES.”“ladies,” and of these one was a Bloomer. It is only fair to state that it was the only hermaphrodite of the kind that ever met my eyes in the United States; the great founder of the order has long since subsided into her original obscurity, and[92] her acolytes have relapsed into the weakness of petticoats. The Bloomer was an uncouth being; her hair, cut level with her eyes, depended with the graceful curl of a drake’s tail around a flat Turanian countenance, whose only expression was sullen insolence. The body-dress, glazed brown calico, fitted her somewhat like a soldier’s tunic, developing haunches which would be admired only in venison; and—curious inconséquence of woman’s nature!—all this sacrifice of appearance upon the shrine of comfort did not prevent her wearing that kind of crinoline depicted by Mr. Punch upon “our Mary Hanne.” The pantalettes of glazed brown calico, like the vest, tunic, blouse, shirt, or whatever they may call it, were in peg-top style, admirably setting off a pair of thin-soled Frenchified patent-leather bottines, with elastic sides, which contained feet large, broad, and flat as a negro’s in Unyamwezi. The dear creature had a husband: it was hardly safe to look at her, and as for sketching her, I avoided it, as men are bidden by the poet to avoid the way of Slick of Tennessee. The other “lady,” though more decently attired, was like women in this wild part of the world generally—cold and disagreeable in manner, full of “proper pride,” with a touch-me-not air, which reminded me of a certain

Her husband was the renowned Slade:

His was a noted name for “deadly strife;” he had the reputation of having killed his three men; and a few days afterward the grave that concealed one of his murders was pointed out to me. This pleasant individual “for an evening party” wore the revolver and bowie-knife here, there, and every where. He had lately, indeed, had a strong hint not to forget his weapon. One M. Jules, a French trader, after a quarrel which took place at dinner, walked up to him and fired a pistol, wounding him in the breast. As he rose to run away Jules discharged a second, which took effect upon his back, and then, without giving him time to arm, fetched a gun and favored him with a dose of slugs somewhat larger than revolver bullets. The fiery Frenchman had two narrow escapes from Lynch-lawyers: twice he was hung between wagons, and as often he was cut down. At last he disappeared in the farther West, and took to lodge and squaw. The avenger of blood threatens to follow him up, but as yet he has taken no steps.

It at once became evident that the station was conducted upon the principle of the Western hotel-keeper of the last generation, and of Continental Europe about A.D. 1500—the innkeeper of “Anne of Geierstein”—that is to say, for his own convenience; the public there was the last thing thought of. One of our party[93]
[94]
[95] who had ventured into the kitchen was fiercely ejected by the “ladies.” In asking about dormitories we were informed that “lady travelers” were admitted into the house, but that the ruder sex must sleep where it could—or not sleep at all if it preferred. We found a barn outside: it was hardly fit for a decently brought-up pig; the floor was damp and knotty; there was not even a door to keep out the night breeze, now becoming raw, and several drunken fellows lay in different parts of it. Two were in one bunk, embracing maudlingly, and freely calling for drinks of water. Into this disreputable hole we were all thrust for the night: among us, it must be remembered, was a federal judge, who had officiated for years as minister at a European court. His position, poor man! procured him nothing but a broken-down pallet. It was his first trip to the Far West, and yet, so easily are Americans satisfied, and so accustomed are they to obey the ridiculous jack-in-office who claims to be one of the powers that be, he scarcely uttered a complaint. I, for one, grumbled myself to sleep. May gracious Heaven keep us safe from all “ladies” in future! better a hundred times the squaw, with her uncleanliness and civility.

We are now about to leave the land of that great and dangerous people, the Sioux, and before bidding adieu to them it will be advisable to devote a few pages to their ethnology.

THE SIOUX.The Sioux belong essentially to the savage, in opposition to the Aztecan peoples of the New World. In the days of Major Pike (1805-1807), they were the dread of all the neighboring tribes, from the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri to the Raven River on the latter. According to Lieutenant Warren, they are still scattered over an immense territory extending from the Mississippi on the east to the Black Hills on the west, and from the forks of the Platte on the south to Minsi Wakan, or the Devil’s Lake, on the north. Early in the winter of 1837 they ceded to the United States all their lands lying east of the Mississippi, which became the Territory of Minnesota. They are to the North American tribes what the great Anizeh race is among the Bedouins of Arabia. Their vernacular name, Dakotah, which some pronounce Lakotah, and others Nakotah, is translated “leagued” or “allied,” and they sometimes speak of themselves as Osheti Shakowin, or the “Seven Council Fires.” The French call them “les Coupes-gorges,” from their sign or symbol, and the whites generally know them as the Sues or Sioux, from the plural[96] form of Nadonaisi, which in Ojibwa means an enemy. The race is divided into seven principal bands, viz.:

1. Mdewakantonwan (Minowa Kantongs[60] or Gens du Lac), meaning “Village of the Mdewakan”—Mille Lacs or Spirit Lake. They formerly extended from Prairie du Chien to Prairie des Français, thirty-five miles up the St. Peter’s River. They have now moved farther west. This tribe, which includes seven bands, is considered the bravest of the Sioux, and has even waged an internecine war with the Folles Avoines[61] or Menomenes, who are reputed the most gallant of the Ojibwas (Chippewas), and who, inhabiting a country intersected by lakes, swamps, water-courses, and impenetrable morasses, long bade defiance to all their neighbors. They have received annuities since 1838, and their number enrolled in 1850 was 2000 souls.

2. Wahpekute (Washpeconte, translated Gens de Feuillestirées, and by others the “Leaf Shooters”). Their habitation lies westward of the Des Moines, Cannon, and Blue-Earth Rivers. According to Major Pike, they were like the Bedouin Ghuzw, a band of vagabonds formed of refugees, who for some bad deed had been expelled their tribes. The meaning of their name is unknown; in 1850 they numbered 500 or 600 souls.

3. Sisitonwan (Sussitongs, or the Village of the Marsh). This band used to hunt over the vast prairies lying eastward of the Mississippi, and up that stream as high as Raven River. They now plant their corn about Lake Traverse (Lac Travers) and on the Côteau des Prairies, and numbered in 1850 about 2500 souls.

4. Wahpetonwans (Washpetongs, Gens des Feuilles, because they lived in woods), the “Village in the Leaves.” They have moved from their old home about the Little Rapids of the Minnesota River to Lac qui Parle and Big Stone Lake. In 1850 they numbered 1000 to 1200 souls. They plant corn, have substituted the plow for the hoe, and, according to the missionaries,[97] have made some progress in reading and writing their own language.

The above four constitute the Mississippi and Minnesota Sioux, and are called by those on the Missouri “Isánti,” from Isanati or Isanyati, because they once lived near Isantamde, one of the Mille Lacs. They number, according to Major Pike, 5775 souls; according to Lieutenant Warren, about 6200; and many of those on the Mississippi have long since become semi-civilized by contact with the white settlements, and have learned to cultivate the soil. Others, again, follow the buffalo in their primitive wildness, and have of late years given much trouble to the settlers of Northern Iowa.

5. Ihanktonwans (Yanctongs, meaning “Village at the End”), also sometimes called Wichiyela, or First Nation. They are found at the mouth of the Big Sioux, between it and the Missouri River, as high up as Fort Look-out, and on the opposite bank of the Missouri. In 1851 they were set down at 240 lodges = 2400 souls; they have since increased to 360 lodges and 2880 souls, of whom 576 are warriors. Distance from the buffalo country has rendered them poor; the proximity of the pale face has degenerated them, and the United States have purchased most of their lands.

6. Ihanktonwannas (Yanctannas), one of the “End Village” bands. They range between the James and the Missouri Rivers, as far north as Devil’s Lake. The Dakotah Mission numbered them at 400 lodges = 4000 souls; subsequent observers at 800 lodges = 6400 souls, and 1280 warriors; and, being spirited and warlike, they give much trouble to settlers in the Dakotah Territory. A small portion live in dirt lodges during the summer. This band suffered severely from small-pox in the winter of 1856-7. They are divided into the Hunkpatidans (of unknown signification), Pabakse or Cut-heads, and Kiyuksa, deriders or breakers of law. From their sub-tribe the Wazikute, or Pine Shooters, sprang, it is said, the Assiniboin tribe of the Dakotahs. Major Pike divides the “Yanctongs” into two grand divisions, the Yanctongs of the North and the Yanctongs of the South.

7. Titonwan (Teton, “Village of the Prairies”), inhabiting the trans-Missourian prairies, and extending westward to the dividing ridge between the Little Missouri and Powder River, and thence south on a line near the 106° meridian. They constitute more than one half of the whole Dakotah nation. In 1850 they were numbered at 1250 lodges = 12,500 souls, but that number was supposed to be overestimated. They are allied by marriage with the Cheyennes and Arickarees, but are enemies of the Pawnees and Crows. The Titonwan, according to Major Pike, are, like the Yanctongs, the most erratic and independent not only of the Sioux, but “of all the Indians in the world.” They follow the buffalo as chance directs, clothing themselves with the robes, and[98] making their lodges, saddles, and bridles of the same material, the flesh of the animal furnishing their food. None but the few families connected with the whites have planted corn. Possessing an innumerable stock of horses, they are here this day and five hundreds of miles off in a week, moving with a rapidity scarcely to be imagined by the inhabitants of the civilized world: they find themselves equally at home in all places. The Titonwan are divided into seven principal bands, viz.:

The Hunkpapa, “they who camp by themselves” (?). They roam from the Big Cheyenne up to the Yellow Stone, and west to the Black Hills, and number 365 lodges, 2920 souls, and 584 warriors.

The Sisahapa or Blackfeet live with the Hunkpapa, and, like them, have little reverence for the whites: they number 165 lodges, 1321 souls, and 264 warriors.

The Itazipko, Sans Arc, or “No Bows;” a curious name—like the Sans Arc Pawnees, they are good archers—perhaps given to them in olden times, when, like certain tribes of negroes, they used the spear to the exclusion of other weapons: others, however, translate the word “Bow-pith.” They roam over nearly the same lands as the Hunkpapa, number about 170 lodges, 1360 souls, and 272 warriors.

The Minnikanye-wozhipu, “those who plant by the water,” dwell between the Black Hills and the Platte. They number about 200 lodges, 1600 inmates, and 320 warriors: they are favorably disposed toward the whites.

The Ogalala or Okandanda are generally to be found on or about the Platte, near Fort Laramie, and are the most friendly of all the Titonwan toward the whites. They number about 460 lodges, 3680 souls, and 736 warriors.

The Sichangu, Brûlés or Burnt-Thighs, living on the Niobrara and White-Earth Rivers, and ranging from the Platte to the Cheyenne, number about 380 lodges, containing 3680 inmates.

The Oohenonpa, “Two Boilings” or “Two Kettle-band,” are much scattered among other tribes, but are generally to be found in the vicinity of Fort Pierre. They number about 100 lodges, 800 inmates, and 160 warriors.

The author of the above estimate, allotting eight to ten inmates to a lodge, of whom between one fifth and one sixth are warriors, makes an ample allowance. It is usual to reckon in a population between one fourth, one fifth, and one sixth—according to the work—as capable of bearing arms, but the civilized rule will not apply to the North American Indian. The grand total of the number of the Sioux nations, including the Isánti, would amount to 30,200 souls. Half a century ago it was estimated by Major Pike at 21,675, and in 1850 the Dakotah Mission set them down at 25,000. It is the opinion of many that, notwithstanding the ravages of cholera and small-pox, the Dakotah nation, except when mingled with the frontier settlements, rather increases than diminishes.[99] It has been observed by missionaries that whenever an account of births and deaths has been kept in a village the former usually exceed the latter. The original numbers of the Prairie Indians have been greatly overestimated both by themselves and by strangers; the only practicable form of census is the rude proceeding of counting their “tipi,” or skin tents. It is still a moot question how far the Prairie Indians have diminished in numbers, which can not be decided for some years.[62]

The Dakotahs are mostly a purely hunting tribe in the lowest condition of human society: they have yet to take the first step, and to become a pastoral people. The most civilized are the Mdewakantonwans, who, even at the beginning of the present century, built log huts and “stocked” land with corn, beans, and pumpkins. The majority of the bands hunt the buffalo within their own limits throughout the summer, and in the winter pitch their lodges in the clumps or fringes of tree and underwood along the banks of the lakes and streams. The bark of the cotton-wood furnishes fodder for their horses during the snowy season, and to obtain it the creeks and branches have been thinned or entirely denuded of their beautiful groves. They buy many animals from the Southern Indians, who have stolen them from New Mexico, or trapped them on the plains below the Rocky Mountains. Considerable numbers are also bred by themselves. The Dakotah nation is one of the most warlike and numerous in the United States territory. In single combat on horseback they are described as having no superiors; a skill acquired by constant practice enables them to spear their game at full speed, and the rapidity with which they discharge their arrows, and the accuracy of their aim, rival the shooting which may be made with a revolver. They are not, however, formidable warriors; want of discipline and of confidence in one another render them below their mark. Like the Moroccans in their last war with Spain, they never attack when they should, and they never fail to attack when they should not.

The Dakotahs, when first visited by the whites, lived around the head-waters of the Mississippi and the Red River of the north. They have gradually migrated toward the west and southwest, guarded by their allies the Cheyennes, who have given names successively to the Cheyenne of Red River, to the Big Cheyenne of the Missouri, and to the section of the country between the Platte and the Arkansas which they now occupy. The Dakotah first moved to the land now occupied by the THE OJIBWA.Ojibwa (anciently known as Chippewas, Orechipewa, or Sauteurs[63]), which tribe inhabited[100] the land between Sault[64] St. Marie and Lake Winnipeg, while their allies the Crees occupied the country from Lake Winnipeg to the Kisiskadjiwan and Assiniboin Rivers. The plains lying southward of the latter river were the fields of many a fierce and bloody fight between the Dakotahs and the other allied two tribes, until a feud caused by jealousy of the women arose among the former, and made a division which ended in their becoming irreconcilable enemies, as they are indeed to the present day. The defeated party fled to the craggy precipices of the Lake of the Woods, and received from the Ojibwa the name of Assiniboin or Dakotah of the Rocks, by which they are now universally known to the whites. They retain, however, among themselves the term Dakotah, although their kinsmen universally, when speaking of them, called them “hohe” or enemies, and they still speak the Sioux language. After this feud the Assiniboins strengthened themselves by alliance with the Ojibwa and Cree tribes, and drove the Dakotah from all the country north of the Cheyenne River, which is now regarded as the boundary-line. The three races are still friendly, and so hostile to the Dakotah that no lasting peace can be made between them; in case of troubles with either party, the government of the United States might economically and effectually employ one against the other. The common war-ground is the region about Lake Minsiwakan, where they all meet when hunting buffalo. The Assiniboin tribe now extends from the Red River westward along the Missouri as far as the mouth of Milk River: a large portion of their lands, like those of the Cree, is British territory. They suffered severely from small-pox in 1856-7, losing about 1500 of their tribe, and now number about 450 lodges, or 3600 souls. Having comparatively few horses, they rely mainly upon the dog for transportation, and they use its flesh as food.

The Dakotah, according to Lieutenant Warren, are still numerous, independent, warlike, and powerful, and have the means of prolonging an able resistance to the advance of the Western settlers. Under the present policy of the United States government—this is written by an American—which there is no reason to believe likely to be changed, THE INDIAN’S FUTURE.encroachments will continue, and battle and murder will be the result. There are many inevitable causes at work to produce war with the Dakotah before many years.[65] The conflict will end in the discomfiture of the natives,[101] who will then fast fall away. Those dispossessed of their lands can not, as many suppose, retire farther west; the regions lying beyond one tribe are generally occupied by another, with whom deadly animosity exists. Even when the white settlers advance their frontier, the natives linger about till their own poverty and vice consign them to oblivion, and the present policy adopted by the government is the best that could be devised for their extermination. It is needless to say that many of the Sioux look forward to the destruction of their race with all the feelings of despair with which the civilized man would contemplate the extinction of his nationality. How indeed, poor devils, are they to live when the pale face comes with his pestilent fire-water and small-pox, followed up with paper and pen work, to be interpreted under the gentle auspices of fire and steel?

The advance of the settlements is universally acknowledged by the people of the United States to be a political necessity in the national development, and on that ground only is the displacement of the rightful owners of the soil justifiable. But the government, instead of preparing the way for settlements by wise and just purchases from those in possession, and proper support and protection for the indigent and improvident race thus dispossessed, is sometimes behind its obligations. There are instances of Congress refusing or delaying to ratify the treaties made by its duly authorized agents. The settler and pioneer are thus precipitated into the Indian country, without the savage having received the promised consideration, and he often, in a manner that enlists the sympathies of mankind, takes up the tomahawk and perishes in the attempt. It frequently happens that the Western settlers are charged with bringing about these wars; they are now, however, fighting the battles of civilization exactly as they were fought three centuries ago upon the Atlantic shore, under circumstances that command equal admiration and approval. While, therefore, we sympathize with the savage, we can not but feel for the unhappy squatter, whose life is sacrificed to the Indian’s vengeance by the errors or dilatoriness of those whose duty it is to protect him.

The people of the United States, of course, know themselves to be invincible by the hands of these half-naked savages. But the Indians, who on their own ground still outnumber the whites, are by no means so convinced of the fact. Until the army of Utah moved westward, many of them had never seen a soldier. At a grand council of the Dakotah, in the summer of 1857, on the North Fork of the Platte River, they solemnly pledged themselves to resist the encroachments of the whites, and, if necessary, to “whip” them out of the country. The appearance of the troops has undoubtedly produced a highly beneficial effect; still,[102] something more is wanted. Similarly in Hindostan, though the natives knew that the British army numbered hundreds of thousands, every petty independent prince thought himself fit to take the field against the intruder, till the failure of the attempt suggested to him some respect for les gros bataillons.

The Sioux differ greatly in their habits from the Atlantic tribes of times gone by. The latter lived in wigwams or villages of more stable construction than the lodge; they cultivated the soil, never wandered far from home, made their expeditions on foot, having no horses, and rarely came into action unless they could “tree” themselves. They inflicted horrid tortures on their prisoners, as every English child has read; but, Arab-like, they respected the honor of their female captives. The Prairie tribes are untamed and untamable savages, superior only to the “Arab” hordes of great cities, who appear destined to play in the history of future ages the part of Goth and Vandal, Scythian, Bedouin, and Turk. Hitherto the rôle which these hunters have sustained in the economy of nature has been to prepare, by thinning off its wild animals, a noble portion of the world for the higher race about to succeed them. Captain Mayne Reid somewhere derides the idea of the Indian’s progress toward extinction. A cloud of authorities bear witness against him. East of the Mississippi the savage has virtually died out, and few men allow him two prospective centuries of existence in the West, unless he be left, which he will not be, to himself.

“Wolves of women born,” the Prairie Indians despise agriculture as the Bedouin does. Merciless freebooters, they delight in roaming; like all equestrian and uncivilized people, they are perfect horsemen, but poor fighters when dismounted, and they are nothing without their weapons. As a rule they rarely torture their prisoners, except when an old man or woman is handed over to the squaws and pappooses “pour les amuser,” as a Canadian expressed it. Near and west of the Rocky Mountains, however, the Shoshonees and the Yutas (Utahs) are as cruel as their limited intellects allow them to be. Moreover, all the Prairie tribes never fail to subject women to an ordeal worse than death. The best character given of late years to the Sioux was by a traveler in 1845, who writes that “their freedom and power have imparted to their warriors some gentlemanly qualities; they are cleanly, dignified and graceful in manners, brave, proud, and independent in bearing and deed.”

THE SIOUX CHARACTER.The qualities of the Sioux, and of the Prairie tribes generally, are little prized by those who have seen much of them. They ignore the very existence of gratitude; the benefits of years can not win their affections. After boarding and lodging with a white for any length of time, they will steal his clothes; and, after receiving any number of gifts, they will haggle for the value of the merest trifle. They are inveterate thieves and beggars;[103] the Western settlers often pretend not to understand their tongue for fear of exposing themselves to perpetual pilfering and persecution; and even the squaws, who live with the pale faces, annoy their husbands by daily applications for beads and other coveted objects; they are cruel to one another as children. The obstinate revengefulness of their vendetta is proverbial; they hate with the “hate of Hell;” and, like the Highlanders of old, if the author of an injury escape them, they vent their rage upon the innocent, because he is of the same clan or color. If struck by a white man, they must either kill him or receive damages in the shape of a horse; and after the most trivial injury they can never be trusted. Their punishments are Draconic; for all things death, either by shooting or burning. Their religion is a low form of fetichism. They place their women in the most degraded position. The squaw is a mere slave, living a life of utter drudgery; and when the poor creature wishes, according to the fashion of her sex, to relieve her feelings by a domestic “scene,” followed by a “good cry,” or to use her knife upon a sister squaw, as the Trasteverina mother uses her bodkin, the husband, after squatting muffled up, in hope that the breeze will blow over, enforces silence with a cudgel. The warrior, considering the chase an ample share of the labor-curse, is so lazy that he will not rise to saddle or unsaddle his pony; he will sit down and ask a white man to fetch him water, and only laugh if reproved. Like a wild beast, he can not be broken to work; he would rather die than employ himself in honest industry—a mighty contrast to the negro, whose only happiness is in serving. He invariably attributes an act of kindness, charity, or forbearance to fear. Ungenerous, he extols, like the Bedouin, generosity to the skies. He never makes a present except for the purpose of receiving more than its equivalent; and an “Indian gift” has come to be a proverb, meaning any thing reclaimed after being given away. Impulsive as the African, his mind is blown about by storms of unaccountable contradictions. Many a white has suddenly seen the scalping-knife restored to its sheath instead of being buried in his flesh, while others have been as unexpectedly assaulted and slain by those from whom they expected kindness and hospitality. The women are mostly cold and chaste. The men have vices which can not be named: their redeeming points are fortitude and endurance of hardship; moreover, though they care little for their wives, they are inordinately fond of their children. Of their bravery Indian fighters do not speak highly: they are notoriously deficient in the civilized quality called moral courage, and, though a brave will fight single-handed stoutly enough, they rarely stand up long in action. They are great at surprises, ambuscades, and night attacks: as with the Arabs and Africans, their favorite hour for onslaught is that before dawn, when the enemy is most easily terrified—they know that there is nothing which[104] tries man’s nerve so much, as an unexpected night attack—and when the cattle can be driven off to advantage. In some points their characters have been, it is now granted, greatly misunderstood. Their forced gravity and calmness—purely “company manners”—were not suspected to cloak merriment, sociability, and a general fondness of feasts and fun. Their apathy and sternness, which were meant for reserve and dignity among strangers, gave them an air of ungeniality which does not belong to their mental constitutions. Their fortitude and endurance of pain is the result, as in the prize-fighter, of undeveloped brain.

The Sioux are tall men, straight, and well made: they are never deformed, and are rarely crippled, simply because none but the able-bodied can live. The shoulders are high and somewhat straight; the figure is the reverse of the sailor’s, that is to say, while the arms are smooth, feeble, and etiolated, the legs are tolerably muscular; the bones are often crooked or bowed in the equestrian tribes; they walk as if they wanted the ligamentum teres; there is a general looseness of limb, which promises, however, lightness, endurance, and agility, and which, contrasted with the Caucasian race, suggests the gait of a wild compared with that of a tame animal. Like all savages, they are deficient in corporeal strength: a civilized man finds no difficulty in handling them: on this road there is only one Indian (a Shoshonee) who can whip a white in a “rough and tumble.” The temperament is usually bilious-nervous; the sanguine is rare, the lymphatic rarer, and I never knew or heard of an albino. The hands, especially in the higher tribes, are decidedly delicate, but this is more observable in the male than in the female; the type is rather that of the Hindoo than of the African or the European. The feet, being more used than the other extremities, and unconfined by boot or shoe, are somewhat splay, spreading out immediately behind the toes, while the heel is remarkably narrow. In consequence of being carried straight to the fore—the only easy position for walking through grass—they tread, like the ant-eater, more heavily on the outer than on the inner edge. The sign of the Indian is readily recognized by the least experienced tracker.

It is erroneously said that he who has seen a single Indian has seen them all. Of course there is a great similarity among savages and barbarians of the same race and climate. The same pursuits, habits, and customs naturally produce an identity of expression which, as in the case of husband and wife, parent and child, moulds the features into more or less of likeness. On the other hand, a practiced eye will distinguish the Indian individually or by bands as easily as the shepherd, by marks invisible to others, can swear to his sheep. I have little doubt that to the savages all white men look alike.

The Prairie Indian’s hair and complexion have already been described. According to some savages the build of the former[105] differs materially from that of the European and the Asiatic. THE INDIAN CONSTITUTION.The animal development varies in the several races: the Pawnee’s and Yuta’s scalp-lock rarely exceeds eighteen inches in length, while that of the Crow, like the East Indian Jatawala’s, often sweeps the ground. There are salient characteristics in the cranium which bear testimony to many phrenological theories. The transverse diameter of the rounded skull between the parietal bones, where destructiveness and secretiveness are placed, is enormous, sometimes exceeding the longitudinal line from sinciput to occiput, the direct opposite of the African negro’s organization. The region of the cerebellum is deficient and shrunken, as with the European in his second childhood: it sensibly denotes that the subject wants “vim.” The coronal region, where the sentiments are supposed to lie, is rather flat than arched; in extreme cases the face seems to occupy two thirds instead of half the space between poll and chin. The low conical forehead recedes, as in Robespierre’s head, from the region of benevolence, and rises high at the apex, where firmness and self-esteem reside: a common formation among wild tribes, as every traveler in Asia and Africa has remarked. The facial angle of Camper varies, according to phrenologists, between 70° and 80°. The projecting lower brow is strong, broad, and massive, showing that development of the perceptions which is produced by the constant and minute observation of a limited number of objects. The well-known Indian art of following the trail is one result of this property. The nose is at once salient and dilated—in fact, partaking of the Caucasian and African types. The nostrils are broad and deeply whorled; the nasal orifice is wide, and, according to osteologists, the bones that protect it are arched and expanded; the eyebrows are removed, like the beard and mustache, by vellication, giving a dull and bald look to the face; the lashes, however, grow so thickly that they often show a sooty black line, suggesting the presence of the Oriental kohl or surma. The orbits are large and square: largeness and squareness are, in fact, the general character of the features: it doubtless produces that peculiar besotted look which belongs to the Indian as to the Mongolian family. The conjunctival membrane has the whiteness and clearness of the European and the Asiatic; it is not, as in the African, brown, yellow, or red. The pupil, like the hair, is of different shades between black and brown: when the organ is blue—an accident which leads to a suspicion of mixed blood—the owner generally receives a name from the peculiarity. Travelers, for the most part, describe the organ as “black and piercing, snaky and venomous;” others as “dull and sleepy;” while some detect in its color a mingling of black and gray. The only peculiarity which I observed in the pupil was its similarity to that of the gipsy. The Indian first fixes upon you a piercing glance, which seems to look below the surface. After a few seconds, however, the eye glazes as though a film passed over it, and[106] gazes, as it were, on vacancy. The look would at once convict him of Jattatura and Molocchio in Italy, and of El Ayn, or the Evil Eye, in the East. The mouth is at once full and compressed; it opens widely; the lips are generally bordés or everted—decidedly the most unpleasant fault which that feature can have—the corners are drawn down as if by ill temper, and the two seams which spring from the alæ of the nostrils are deeply traced. This formation of the oral, combined with the fullness of the circumoral regions, and the length and fleshiness of the naked upper lip, communicates a peculiar animality to the countenance. The cheek-bones are high and bony; they are not, however, expanded or spread backward, nor do they, as in the Chinese, alter the appearance of the eyes by making them oblique. The cheeks are rather lank and falling in than full or oval. The whole maxillary organ is projecting and ponderous. The wide condyles of the lower jaw give a remarkable massiveness to the jowl, while the chin—perhaps the most characteristic feature—is long, bony, large, and often parted in the centre. The teeth are faultless, full-sized and white, even and regular, strong and lasting; and they are vertical, not sloping forward like the African’s. To sum up, the evanishing of the forehead, the compression of the lips, the breadth and squareness of the jaw, and the massiveness of the chin, combine to produce a normal expression of harshness and cruelty, which, heightened by red and black war-paint, locks like horsehair, plumes, and other savage decorations, form a “rouge dragon” whose tout ensemble is truly revolting.

The women when in their teens have often that beauté du diable, which may be found even among the African negresses; nothing, however, can be more evanescent. When full grown the figure becomes dumpy and trapu; and the face, though sometimes not without a certain comeliness, has a Turanian breadth and flatness. The best portrait of a sightly Indian woman is that of Pocahontas, the Princess, published by Mr. Schoolcraft. The drudgery of the tent and field renders the squaw cold and unimpassioned; and, like the coarsest-minded women in civilized races, her eye and her heart mean one and the same thing. She will administer “squaw medicine,” a love philter, to her husband, but rather for the purpose of retaining his protection than his love. She has all the modesty of a savage, and is not deficient in sense of honor. She has no objection to a white man, but, Affghan-like, she usually changes her name to “John” or some other alias. Her demerits are a habit of dunning for presents, and a dislike to the virtue that ranks next to godliness, which nothing but the fear of the rod will subdue. She has literally no belief, not even in the rude fetichism of her husband, and consequently she has no religious exercises. As she advances in years she rapidly descends in physique and morale: there is nothing on earth more fiendlike than the vengeance of a cretin-like old squaw.

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The ancient Persians taught their progeny archery, riding, and truth-telling; the Prairie Indian’s curriculum is much the same, only the last of the trio is carefully omitted. The Indian, like other savages, never tells the truth; verity is indeed rather an intellectual than an instinctive virtue, which, as children prove, must be taught and made intelligible; except when “counting his coups,” in other words, recounting his triumphs, his life is therefore one system of deceit, the strength of the weak. Another essential part of education is to close the mouth during sleep: the Indian has a superstition that all disease is produced by inhalation. The children, “born like the wild ass’s colts,” are systematically spoiled with the view of fostering their audacity; the celebrated apophthegm of the Wise King—to judge from his notable failure at home, he probably did not practice what he preached—which has caused such an expenditure of birch and cane in higher races, would be treated with contempt by the Indians. The fond mother, when chastening her child, never goes beyond dashing a little cold water in its face—for which reason to besprinkle a man is a mortal insult—a system which, perhaps, might be naturalized with advantage in some parts of Europe. The son is taught to make his mother toil for him, and openly to disobey his sire; at seven years of age he has thrown off all parental restraint; nothing keeps him in order but the fear of the young warriors. At ten or twelve he openly rebels against all domestic rule, and does not hesitate to strike his father; the parent then goes off rubbing his hurt, and boasting to his neighbors of the brave boy whom he has begotten.

THE INDIAN’S RELIGION.The religion of the North American Indians has long been a subject of debate. Some see in it traces of Judaism, others of Sabæanism; Mr. Schoolcraft detects a degradation of Guebrism. His faith has, it is true, a suspicion of duality; Hormuzd and Ahriman are recognizable in Gitche Manitou and Mujhe Manitou, and the latter, the Bad god, is naturally more worshiped, because more feared, than the Good god. Moreover, some tribes show respect for and swear by the sun, and others for fire: there is a north god and a south god, a wood god, a prairie god, an air god, and a water god; but—they have not risen to monotheism—there is not one God. None, however, appear to have that reverence for the elements which is the first article of the Zoroastrian creed; the points of difference are many, while those of resemblance are few and feeble, and it is hard to doubt that the instincts of mankind have been pressed by controversialists into the service of argument as traditional tenets.

To judge from books and the conversation of those who best know the Indians, he is distinctly a Fetichist like the African negro, and, indeed, like all the child-like races of mankind.[66] The[108] medicine-man is his mganga, angekok, sorcerer, prophet, physician, exorciser, priest, and rain-doctor; only, as he is rarely a cultivator of the soil, instead of heavy showers and copious crops, he is promised scalps, salmon trout, and buffalo beef in plenty. He has the true Fetichist’s belief—invariably found in tribes who live dependent upon the powers of Nature—in the younger brothers of the human family, the bestial creation: he holds to a metamorphosis like that of Abyssinia, and to speaking animals. Every warrior chooses a totem, some quadruped, bird, or fish, to which he prays, and which he will on no account kill or eat. Dr. Livingstone shows (chap. i.) that the same custom prevails in its entirety among the Kaffir Bakwaina, and opines that it shows traces of addiction to animal worship, like the ancient Egyptians; in the prophecies of Israel the tribes are compared with animals, a true totemic practice. The word totem also signifies a sub-clan or sub-tribe; and some nations, like the African Somal, will not allow marriage in the same totem. The medicine-men give away young children as an atonement when calamities impend: they go clothed, not in sackcloth and ashes, but in coats of mire, and their macerations and self-inflicted tortures rival those of the Hindoos: a fanatic has been known to drag about a buffalo skull with a string cut from his own skin till it is torn away. In spring-time, the braves, and even the boys, repairing to lonely places and hill-tops, their faces and bodies being masked, as if in mourning, with mud, fast and pray, and sing rude chants to propitiate the ghosts for days consecutively. The Fetichist is ever grossly superstitious; and the Indians, as might be expected, abound in local rites. Some tribes, as the Cheyennes, will not go to war without a medicine-man, others without sacred war-gourds[67] containing the tooth of the drum-head fish. Children born with teeth are looked upon as portents, and when gray at birth the phenomenon is attributed to evil ghosts.

I can not but think that the two main articles of belief which have been set down to the credit of the Indian, namely, the Great Spirit or Creator, and the Happy Hunting-grounds in a future world, are the results of missionary teaching, the work of Fathers Hennepin, Marquette, and their noble army of martyred Jesuit followers. In later days they served chiefly to inspire the Anglo-American muse, e. g.:

My conviction is, that the English and American’s popular ideas upon the subject are unreliable, and that their embodiment, beautiful poetry, “Lo the poor Indian,” down to “his faithful dog shall bear him company,” are but a splendid myth. The North American aborigine believed, it is true, in an unseen power, the Manitou, or, as we are obliged to translate it, “Spirit,” residing in every heavenly body, animal, plant, or other natural object. This is the very essence of that form of Fetichism which leads to Pantheism and Polytheism. There was a Manitou, as he conceived, which gave the spark from the flint, lived in every blade of grass, flowed in the streams, shone in the stars, and thundered in the waterfall; but in each example—a notable instance of the want of abstractive and generalizing power—the idea of the Deity was particular and concrete. When the Jesuit fathers suggested the unity of the Great Spirit pervading all beings, it was very readily recognized; but the generalization was not worked out by the Indian mind. He was, therefore, like all savages, atheistic in the literal sense of the word. He had not arrived at the first step, Pantheism, which is so far an improvement that it opens out a grand idea, the omnipresence, and consequently the omnipotence, of the Deity. In most North American languages the Theos is known, not as the “Great Spirit,” but as the “Great Father,” a title also applied to the President of the United States, who is, I believe, though sometimes a step-father, rather the more reverenced of the twain. With respect to the happy hunting-grounds, it is a mere corollary of the monotheistic theorem above proved. It is doubtful whether these savages ever grasped the idea of a human soul. The Chicury of New England, indeed, and other native words so anglicized, appear distinctly to mean the African Pepo—ghost or larva.

Certain missionaries have left us grotesque accounts of the simple good sense with which the Indians of old received the Glad Tidings. The strangers were courteously received, the calumet was passed round, and they were invited to make known their wants in a “big talk.” They did so by producing a synopsis of their faith, beginning at Adam’s apple and ending at the Savior’s cross. The patience of the Indian in enduring long speeches, sermons, and harangues has ever been exemplary and peculiar, as his fortitude in suffering lingering physical tortures. The audience listened with a solemn demeanor, not once interrupting what must have appeared to them a very wild and curious story. Called upon to make some remark, these antipomologists simply ejaculated,

“Apples are not wholesome, and those who crucified Christ were bad men!”

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In their turn, some display of oratory was required. They avoided the tedious, long-drawn style of argument, and spoke, as was their wont, briefly to the point. “It is good of you,” said they, “to cross the big water, and to follow the Indian’s trail, that ye may relate to us what ye have related. Now listen to what our mothers told us. Our first father, after killing a beast, was roasting a rib before the fire, when a spirit, descending from the skies, sat upon a neighboring bluff. She was asked to eat. She ate fat meat. Then she arose and silently went her way. From the place where she rested her two hands grew corn and pumpkin; and from the place where she sat sprang tobacco!”

The missionaries listened to the savage tradition with an excusable disrespect, and, not unnaturally, often interrupted it. This want of patience and dignity, however, drew upon them severe remarks. “Pooh!” observed the Indians. “When you told us what your mothers told you, we gave ear in silence like men. When we tell you what our mothers told us, ye give tongue like squaws. Go to! Ye are no medicine-men, but silly fellows!”

Besides their superstitious belief in ghosts, spirits, or familiars, and the practice of spells and charms, love-philters, dreams and visions, war-medicine, hunting-medicine, self-torture, and incantations, the Indians had, it appears to me, but three religious observances, viz., dancing, smoking, and scalping.

The war-dances, the corn-dances, the buffalo-dances, the scalp-dances, and the other multiform and solemn saltations of these savages, have been minutely depicted and described by many competent observers. The theme also is beyond the limits of an essay like this.

Smoking is a boon which the Old owes to the New World. It is a heavy call upon our gratitude, for which we have naturally been very ungrateful.

THE SMOKING RITE.We began by calling our new gift the “holy herb;” it is now, like the Balm of Gilead, entitled, I believe, a weed. Among the North American Indians even the spirits smoke; the “Indian summer” is supposed to arise from the puffs that proceed from the pipe of Nanabozhoo, the Ojibwa Noah. The pipe may have been used in the East before the days of tobacco, but if so it was probably applied to the inhalation of cannabis and other intoxicants.[68] On the other hand, the Indian had no stimulants. He never invented the beer of Osiris, though maize grew abundantly around him;[69] the koumiss of the Tartar was beyond his mental[111] reach; and though “Jimsen weed”[70] overruns the land, he neglected its valuable intoxicating properties. His is almost the only race that has ever existed wholly without a stimulant; the fact is a strong proof of its autochthonic origin. It is indeed incredible that man, having once learned, should ever forget the means of getting drunk. Instead of the social cup the Indian smoked. As tobacco does not grow throughout the continent, he invented kinnikinik. This Indian word has many meanings. By the hunters and settlers it is applied to a mixture of half and half, or two thirds tobacco and one of red willow bark; others use it for a mixture of tobacco, sumach leaves, and willow rind; others, like Ruxton (“Life in the Far West,” p. 116), for the cortex of the willow only. This tree grows abundantly in copses near the streams and water-courses. For smoking, the twigs are cut when the leaves begin to redden. Some tribes, like the Sioux, remove the outer and use only the highly-colored inner bark; others again, like the Shoshonees, employ the external as well as the internal cuticle. It is scraped down the twig in curling ringlets, without, however, stripping it off; the stick is then planted in the ground before the fire, and, when sufficiently parched, the material is bruised, comminuted, and made ready for use. The taste is pleasant and aromatic, but the effect is that of the puerile ratan rather than the manly tobacco. The Indian, be it observed, smokes like all savages by inhaling the fumes into the lungs, and returning them through the nostrils; he finds pure tobacco, therefore, too strong and pungent. As has been said, he is catholic in his habits of smoking; he employs indifferently rose-bark (Rosa blanda?)[71] and the cuticle of a cornus, the lobelia,[72] the larb, a vaccinium, a Daphne-like plant, and many others. The Indian smokes incessantly, and the “calumet”[73] is an important part of his household goods.[112] He has many superstitions about the practice. It is a sacred instrument, and its red color typifies the smoker’s flesh. The Western travelers mention offerings of tobacco to, and smoking of pipes in honor of, the Great Spirit. Some men will vow never to use the pipe in public, others to abstain on particular days. Some will not smoke with their moccasins on, others with steel about their persons; some are pledged to abstain inside, others outside the wigwam, and many scatter buffalo chip over their tobacco. When beginning to smoke there are certain observances; some, exempli gratiâ, direct, after the fashion of Gitche Manitou, the first puff upward or heavenward, the second earthward, and the third and fourth over the right and left shoulders, probably in propitiation of the ghosts, who are being smoked for in proxy; others, before the process of inhaling, touch the ground with the heel of the pipe-bowl, and turn the stem upward and averted.

According to those who, like Pennant, derive the North American from the Scythians, THE SCALPING RITE.scalping is a practice that originated in High and Northeastern Asia. The words of the Father of History are as follows: “Of the first enemy a Scythian sends down, he quaffs the blood; he carries the heads of all that he has slain in battle to the king; for when he has brought a head, he is entitled to a share of the booty that may be taken—not otherwise; to skin the head, he makes a circular incision from ear to ear, and then, laying hold of the crown, shakes out the skull; after scraping off the flesh with an ox’s rib, he rumples it between his hands, and having thus softened the skin, makes use of it as a napkin; he appends it to the bridle of the horse he rides, and prides himself on this, for the Scythian that has most of these skin napkins is adjudged the best man, etc., etc. They also use the entire skins as horse-cloths, also the skulls for drinking-cups.”—(“Melpomene,” iv., 64, Laurent’s trans.) The underlying idea is doubtless the natural wish to preserve a memorial of a foeman done to death, and at the same time to dishonor his hateful corpse by mutilation. Fashion and tradition regulate the portions of the human frame preferred.

Scalping is generally, but falsely, supposed to be a peculiarly American practice. The Abbé Em. Domenech (“Seven Years’ Residence in the Great Deserts of North America,” chap. xxxix.) quotes the decalvare of the ancient Germans, the capillos et cutem detrahere of the code of the Visigoths, and the annals of Flude, which prove that the “Anglo-Saxons” and the Franks still scalped about A.D. 879. And as the modern American practice is traceable to Europe and Asia, so it may be found in Africa, where aught of ferocity is rarely wanting. “In a short time after our[113] return,” says Mr. Duncan (“Travels in Western Africa in 1845 and 1846”), “the Apadomey regiment passed, on their return, in single file, each leading in a string a young male or female slave, carrying also the dried scalp of one man supposed to have been killed in the attack. On all such occasions, when a person is killed in battle, the skin is taken from the head and kept as a trophy of valor. It must not be supposed that these female warriors kill according to the number of scalps presented; the scalps are the accumulation of many years. If six or seven men are killed during one year’s war it is deemed a great thing; one party always run away in these slave-hunts; but where armies meet the slaughter is great. I counted 700 scalps pass in this manner.” But mutilation, like cannibalism, tattooing, and burying in barrows, is so natural under certain circumstances to man’s mind that we distinctly require no traditional derivation.

Scalp-taking is a solemn rite. In the good old times braves scrupulously awaited the wounded man’s death before they “raised his hair;” in the laxity of modern days, however, this humane custom is too often disregarded. Properly speaking, the trophy should be taken after fair fight with a hostile warrior; this also is now neglected. When the Indian sees his enemy fall he draws his scalp-knife—the modern is of iron, formerly it was of flint, obsidian, or other hard stone—and twisting the scalp-lock, which is left long for that purpose, and boastfully braided or decorated with some gaudy ribbon or with the war-eagle’s plume, round his left hand, makes with the right two semicircular incisions, with and against the sun, about the part to be removed. The skin is next loosened with the knife-point, if there be time to spare and if there be much scalp to be taken. The operator then sits on the ground, places his feet against the subject’s shoulders by way of leverage, and, holding the scalp-lock with both hands, he applies a strain which soon brings off the spoils with a sound which, I am told, is not unlike “flop.” Without the long lock it would be difficult to remove the scalp; prudent white travelers, therefore, are careful, before setting out through an Indian country, to “shingle off” their hair as closely as possible; the Indian, moreover, hardly cares for a half-fledged scalp. To judge from the long love-locks affected by the hunter and mountaineer, he seems to think lightly of this precaution; to hold it, in fact, a point of honor that the savage should have a fair chance. A few cunning men have surprised their adversaries with wigs. The operation of scalping must be exceedingly painful; the sufferer turns, wriggles, and “squirms” upon the ground like a scotched snake. It is supposed to induce brain fever; many instances, however, are known of men and even women recovering from it, as the former do from a more dreadful infliction in Abyssinia and Galla-land; cases are of course rare, as a disabling wound is generally inflicted before the bloodier work is done.

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After taking the scalp, the Indian warrior—proud as if he had won a médaille de sauvetage—prepares for return to his village. He lingers outside for a few days, and then, after painting his hands and face with lampblack, appears slowly and silently before his lodge. There he squats for a while; his relatives and friends, accompanied by the elders of the tribe, sit with him dumb as himself. Presently the question is put; it is answered with truth, although these warriors at other times will lie like Cretans. The “coup” is recounted, however, with abundant glorification; the Indians, like the Greek and Arab of their classical ages, are allowed to vent their self-esteem on such occasions without blame, and to enjoy a treat for which the civilized modern hero longs ardently, but in vain. Finally the “green scalp,” after being dried and mounted, is consecrated by the solemn dance, and becomes then fit for public exhibition. Some tribes attach it to a long pole used as a standard, and others to their horses’ bridles, others to their targes, while others ornament with its fringes the outer seams of their leggins; in fact, its uses are many. The more scalps the more honor; the young man who can not boast of a single murder or show the coveted trophy is held in such scant esteem as the English gentleman who contents himself with being passing rich on a hundred pounds a year. Some great war-chiefs have collected a heap of these honorable spoils. It must be remembered by “curio” hunters that only one scalp can come off one head; namely, the centre lock or long tuft growing upon the coronal apex, with about three inches in diameter of skin. This knowledge is the more needful, as the Western men are in the habit of manufacturing half a dozen cut from different parts of the same head; they sell readily for $50 each, but the transaction is not considered reputable. The connoisseur, however, readily distinguishes the real article from “false scalping” by the unusual thickness of the cutis, which is more like that of a donkey than of a man. Set in a plain gold circlet it makes a very pretty brooch. Moreover, each tribe has its own fashion of scalping derived from its forefathers. The Sioux, for instance, when they have leisure to perform the operation, remove the whole headskin, including a portion of the ears; they then sit down and dispose the ears upon the horns of a buffalo skull, and a bit of the flesh upon little heaps of earth or clay, disposed in quincunx, apparently as an offering to the manes of their ancestors, and they smoke ceremoniously, begging the manitou to send them plenty more. The trophy is then stretched upon a willow twig bent into an oval shape, and lined with two semi-ovals of black or blue and scarlet cloth. The Yutas and the Prairie tribes generally, when pressed for time, merely take off the poll skin that grows the long tuft of hair, while the Chyuagara or Nez Percés prefer a long strip about two inches wide, extending from the nape to the commissure of the hair and forehead. The fingers of the slain[115] are often reserved for sévignés and necklaces. Indians are aware of the aversion with which the pale faces regard this barbarity. Near Alkali Lake, where there was a large Dakotah “tipi” or encampment of Sioux, I tried to induce a tribesman to go through the imitative process before me; he refused with a gesture indignantly repudiating the practice. A glass of whisky would doubtless have changed his mind, but I was unwilling to break through the wholesome law that prohibits it.

It is not wonderful that the modern missionary should be unable to influence such a brain as the Prairie Indian’s. The old propagandists, Jesuits and Franciscans, became medicine-men: like the great fraternity in India, they succeeded by the points of resemblance which the savages remarked in their observances, such as their images and rosaries, which would be regarded as totems, and their fastings and prayers, which were of course supposed to be spells and charms. Their successors have succeeded about as well with the Indian as with the African; the settled tribes have given ear to them, the Prairie wanderers have not; and the Europeanization of the Indian generally is hopeless as the Christianization of the Hindoo. The missionaries usually live under the shadow of the different agencies, and even they own that nothing can be done with the children unless removed from the parental influence. I do not believe that an Indian of the plains ever became a Christian. He must first be humanized, then civilized, and lastly Christianized; and, as has been said before, I doubt his surviving the operation.

As might be expected of the Indian’s creed, it has few rites and ceremonies; circumcision is unknown, and it ignores the complicated observances which, in the case of the Hindoo Pantheist, and in many African tribes, wait upon gestation, parturition, and allactation. INDIAN NAMES.The child is seldom named.[74] There are but five words given in regular order to distinguish one from another. There are no family names. The men, after notable exploits, are entitled by their tribes to assume the titles of the distinguished dead, and each fresh deed brings a new distinction. Some of the names are poetical enough: the “Black Night,” for instance, the “Breaker of Arrows,” or the “War Eagle’s Wing;” others are coarse and ridiculous, such as “Squash-head,” “Bull’s-tail,” “Dirty Saddle,” and “Steam from a Cow’s Belly;” not a few bear a whimsical likeness to those of the African negroes, as “His Great Fire,” “The Water goes in the Path,” and “Buffalo Chips”—the “Mavi yá Gnombe” of Unyamwezi. The son of a chief succeeding his father usually assumes his name, so that the little dynasty, like that of the Pharaohs, the Romuli, or the Numas, is perpetuated. The women are not unfrequently called after the parts and properties of some admired or valued animal, as the White Martin,[116] the Young Mink,[75] or the Muskrat’s Paw. In the north there have been men with as many as seven wives, all “Martins.” The Prairie Indians form the names of the women like those of men, adding the feminine suffix, as Cloud-woman, Red-earth-woman, Black-day-woman. The white stranger is ever offending Indian etiquette by asking the savage “What’s your name?” The person asked looks aside for a friend to assist him; he has learned in boyhood that some misfortune will happen to him if he discloses his name. Even husbands and wives never mention each other’s names. The same practice prevails in many parts of Asia.

Marriage is a simple affair with them. In some tribes the bride, as among the Australians, is carried off by force. In others the man who wants a wife courts her with a little present, and pickets near the father’s lodge the number of horses which he supposes to be her equivalent. As among all savage tribes, the daughter is a chattel, an item of her father’s goods, and he will not part with her except for a consideration. The men are of course polygamists; they prefer to marry sisters, because the tent is more quiet, and much upon the principle with which marriage with a deceased wife’s sister is advocated in England. The women, like FEMALE CONDUCT the Africans, are not a little addicted to suicide. Before espousal the conduct of the weaker sex in many tribes is far from irreproachable. The “bundling” of Wales and of New England in a former day[76] is not unknown to them, and many think little of that prœgustatio matrimonii which, in the eastern parts of the New World, goes by the name of Fanny Wrightism and Free-loveism. Several tribes make trial, like the Highlanders before the reign of James the Fifth, of their wives for a certain time—a kind of “hand-fasting,” which is to morality what fetichism is to faith. There are few nations in the world among whom this practice, originating in a natural desire not to “make a leap in the dark,” can not be traced. Yet after marriage they will live, like the Spartan matrons, a life of austerity in relation to the other sex. In cases of divorce, the children, being property, are divided, and in most tribes the wife claims the odd one. If the mother takes any care to preserve her daughter’s virtue, it is only out of regard[117] to its market value. In some tribes the injured husband displays all the philosophy of Cato and Socrates. In others the wife is punished, like the native of Hindostan, by cutting, or, more generally, by biting off the nose-tip. Some slay the wife’s lover; others accept a pecuniary compensation for their dishonor, and take as damages skins or horses. Elopement, as among the Arabs, prevails in places. The difference of conduct on the part of the women of course depends upon the bearing of the men. “There is no adulteress without an adulterer”—meaning that the husband is ever the first to be unfaithful—is a saying as old as the days of Mohammed. Among the Arapahoes, for instance, there is great looseness; the Cheyennes, on the contrary, are notably correct. Truth demands one unpleasant confession, viz., on the whole, chastity is little esteemed among those Indians who have been corrupted by intercourse with whites.

CHIEFS.The dignity of chief denotes in the Indian language a royal title. It is hereditary as a rule, but men of low birth sometimes attain it by winning a name as warriors or medicine-men. When there are many sons it often happens that each takes command of a small clan. Personal prowess is a necessity in sagamore and sachem: an old man, therefore, often abdicates in favor of his more vigorous son, to whom he acts as guide and counselor. There is one chief to every band, with several sub-chiefs. The power possessed by the ruler depends upon his individual character, and the greater or lesser capacity for discipline in his subjects. Some are obeyed grudgingly, as the Sheikh of a Bedouin tribe. Others are absolute monarchs, who dispose of the lives and properties of their followers without exciting a murmur. The counteracting element to despotism resides in the sub-chief and in the council of warriors, who obstinately insist upon having a voice in making laws, raising subsidies, declaring wars, and ratifying peace.

MODE OF LIFE. Their life is of course simple; they have no regular hours for meals or sleep. Before eating they sometimes make a heave-offering of a bit of food toward the heavens, where their forefathers are, and a second toward the earth, the mother of all things: the pieces are then burned. They are not cannibals, except when a warrior, after slaying a foe, eats, porcupine-like, the heart or liver, with the idea of increasing his own courage. The women rarely sit at meals with the men. In savage and semi-barbarous societies the separation of the sexes is the general rule, because, as they have no ideas in common, each prefers the society of its own. They are fond of adoption and of making brotherhoods, like the Africans; and so strong is the tie, that marriage with the sister of an adopted brother is within the prohibited degrees. Gambling is a passion with them: they play at cards, an art probably learned from the Canadians, and the game is that called in the States “matching,” on the principle of dominoes or beggar-my-neighbor.[118] When excited they ejaculate Will! Will!—sharp and staccato—it is possibly a conception of the English well. But it often comes out in the place of bad, as the Sepoy orderly in India reports to his captain, “Ramnak Jamnak dead, Joti Prasad very sick—all vell!” The savages win and lose with the stoicism habitual to them, rarely drawing the “navajon,” like the Mexican “lepero,” over a disputed point; and when a man has lost his last rag, he rises in nude dignity and goes home. Their language ignores the violent and offensive abuse of parents and female relatives, which distinguishes the Asiatic and the African from the European Billingsgate: the worst epithets that can be applied to a man are miser, coward, dog, woman. With them good temper is good breeding—a mark of gentle blood. A brave will stand up and harangue his enemies, exulting how he scalped their sires, and squaws, and sons, without calling forth a grunt of irritation. Ceremony and manners, in our sense of the word, they have none, and they lack the profusion of salutations which usually distinguishes barbarians. An Indian appearing at your door rarely has the civility to wait till beckoned in; he enters the house, with his quiet catlike gait and his imperturbable countenance, saying, if a Sioux, “How!” or “How! How!” meaning Well? shakes hands, to which he expects the same reply, if he has learned “paddling with the palms” from the whites—this, however, is only expected by the chiefs and braves—and squats upon his hams in the Eastern way, I had almost said the natural way, but to man, unlike all other animals, every way is equally natural, the chair or the seat upon the ground. He accepts a pipe if offered to him, devours what you set before him—those best acquainted with the savage, however, avoid all unnecessary civility or generosity: Milesian-like, he considers a benefit his due, and if withheld, he looks upon his benefactor as a “mean man”—talks or smokes as long as he pleases, and then rising, stalks off without a word. His ideas of time are primitive. The hour is denoted by pointing out the position of the sun; the days, or rather the nights, are reckoned by sleeps; there are no weeks; the moons, which are literally new, the old being nibbled away by mice, form the months, and suns do duty for years. He has, like the Bedouin and the Esquimaux, sufficient knowledge of the heavenly bodies to steer his course over the pathless sage-sea. Night-work, however, is no favorite with him except in cases of absolute necessity. Counting is done upon man’s first abacus, the fingers, and it rarely extends beyond ten. The value of an article was formerly determined by beads and buffaloes; dollars, however, are now beginning to be generally known.

The only arts of the Indians are medicine and the use of arms. They are great in the knowledge of simples and tisanes. The leaves of the white willow are the favorite emetic; wounds are dressed with astringent herbs, and inflammations are reduced by[119] scarification and the actual cautery. Among some tribes, the hammam, or Turkish bath, is invariably the appendage to a village. It is an oven sunk in the earth, with room for about a score of persons, and a domed roof of tamped and timber-propped earth—often mistaken for a bulge in the ground—pierced with a little square window for ventilation when not in use. A fire is kindled in the centre, and the patient, after excluding the air, sits quietly in this rude calidarium till half roasted and stifled by the heat and smoke. Finally, like the Russian peasant, he plunges into the burn that runs hard by, and feels his ailments dropping off him with the dead cuticle. The Indians associating with the horse have learned a rude farriery which often succeeds where politer practice would fail. I heard of one who cured the bites of rattlesnakes and copperheads by scarifying the wounded beast’s face, plastering the place with damped gunpowder paste and setting it on fire.

Among the Prairie tribes are now to be found individuals provided not only with the old muskets formerly supplied to them, FIRE-ARMS.—BOWS AND ARROWS.but with yägers,[77] Sharp’s breech-loaders, alias “Beecher’s Bibles,” Colt’s revolvers, and other really good fire-arms. Their shooting has improved with their tools: many of them are now able to “draw a bead” with coolness and certainty. Those who can not afford shooting-irons content themselves with their ancient weapons, the lance and bow. The former is a poor affair, a mere iron spike from two to three inches long, inserted into the end of a staff about as thick as a Hindostanee’s bamboo lance; it is whipped round with sinew for strength, decorated with a few bunches of gaudy feathers, and defended with the usual medicine-bag. The bow varies in dimensions with the different tribes. On the prairies, for convenient use on horseback, it seldom exceeds three feet in length; among the Southern Indians its size doubles, and in parts of South America it is like that of the Andamans, a gigantic weapon with an arrow six feet long, and drawn by bringing the aid of the feet to the hands. The best bows among the Sioux and Yutas are of horn, hickory being unprocurable; an inferior sort is made of a reddish wood, in hue and grain not unlike that called “mountain mahogany.” A strip of raw-hide is fitted to the back for increase of elasticity, and the string is a line of twisted sinew. When not wanted for use the weapon is carried in a skin case slung over the shoulder. It is drawn with the two forefingers—not with the forefinger and thumb, as in the East—and generally the third or ring-finger is extended along the string to give additional purchase. Savage tribes do little in the way of handicraft, but that little they do patiently, slowly, and therefore well. The bow and arrow are admirably adapted to their purpose. The latter is either a reed or a bit of arrow-wood (Viburnum dentatum), whose long, straight, and tough stems are used[120] by the fletcher from the Mississippi to the Pacific. The piles are triangles of iron, agate, flint, chalcedony, opal, or other hard stone: for war purposes they are barbed, and bird-bolts tipped with hard wood are used for killing small game. Some tribes poison their shafts: the material is the juice of a buffalo’s or an antelope’s liver when it has become green and decomposed after the bite of a rattlesnake; at least this is the account which all the hunters and mountaineers give of it. They have also, I believe, vegetable poisons. The feathers are three in number; those preferred are the hawk’s and the raven’s; and some tribes glue, while others whip them on with tendon-thread. The stele is invariably indented from the feathers to the tip with a shallow spiral furrow: this vermiculation is intended, according to the traders, to hasten death by letting air into or letting blood out of the wound. It is probably the remnant of some superstition now obsolete, for every man does it, while no man explains why or wherefore. If the Indian works well, he does not work quickly; he will expend upon half a dozen arrows as many months. Each tribe has its own mark; the Pawnees, for instance, make a bulge below the notch. Individuals also have private signs which enable them to claim a disputed scalp or buffalo robe. In battle or chase the arrows are held in the left hand, and are served out to the right with such rapidity that one long string of them seems to be cleaving the air. A good Sioux archer will, it is said, discharge nine arrows upward before the first has fallen to the ground. He will transfix a bison and find his shaft upon the earth on the other side; and he shows his dexterity by discharging the arrow up to its middle in the quarry and by withdrawing it before the animal falls. Tales are told of a single warrior killing several soldiers; and as a rule, at short distances, the bow is considered by the whites a more effectual weapon than the gun. It is related that when the Sioux first felt the effects of Colt’s revolver, the weapon, after two shots, happened to slip from the owner’s grasp; when he recovered it and fired a third time all fled, declaring that a white was shooting them with buffalo chips. Wonderful tales are told of the Indians’ accuracy with the bow: they hold it no great feat to put the arrow into a keyhole at the distance of forty paces. It is true that I never saw any thing surprising in their performances, but the savage will not take the trouble to waste his skill without an object.

THE SIOUX LANGUAGE.The Sioux tongue, like the Pawnee, is easily learned; government officials and settlers acquire it as the Anglo-Indian does Hindostanee. They are assisted by the excellent grammar and dictionary of the Dakotah language, collated by the members of the Dakotah Mission, edited by the Rev. S. R. Riggs, M.A., and accepted for publication by the Smithsonian Institution, December, 1851. The Dakotah-English part contains about 16,000 words, and the bibliography (spelling-books, tracts, and translations)[121] numbered ten years ago eighteen small volumes. The work is compiled in a scholar-like manner. The orthography, though rather complicated, is intelligible, and is a great improvement upon the old and unartistic way of writing the polysynthetic Indian tongues, syllable by syllable, as though they were monosyllabic Chinese; the superfluous h (as Dakotah for Dakota), by which the broad sound of the terminal a is denoted, has been justly cast out. The peculiar letters ch, p, and t, are denoted by a dot beneath the simple sound; similarly the k (or Arabic kaf), the gh (the Semitic ghain) and the kh (khá), which, as has happened in Franco-Arabic grammars, was usually expressed by an R. An apostrophe (s’a) denotes the hiatus, which is similar to the Arab’s hamzah.

Vater long ago remarked that the only languages which had a character, if not similar, at any rate analogous to the American, are the Basque and the Congo, that is, the South African or Kaffir family. This is the case in many points: in Dakotah, for instance, as in Kisawahili, almost every word ends in a pure or a nasalized vowel. But the striking novelty of the African tongues, the inflexion of words by an initial, not, as with us, by a terminal change and the complex system of euphony, does not appear in the American, which in its turn possesses a dual unknown to the African. The Dakotah, like the Kaffir, has no gender; it uses the personal and impersonal, which is an older distinction in language. It follows the primitive and natural arrangement of speech: it says, for instance, “aguyapi maku ye,” bread to me give; as in Hindostanee, to quote no other, “roti hamko do.” So in logical argument it begins with the conclusion and proceeds to the premisses, which renders it difficult for a European to think in Dakotah. Like other American tongues, it is polysynthetic, which appears to be the effect of arrested development. Human speech begins with inorganic sounds, which represent symbolism by means of arrows pointed in a certain direction, bent trees, crossed rods, and other similar contrivances. Its first step is monosyllabic, which corresponds with the pictograph, the earliest attempt at writing among the uncivilized.[78] The next advance is polysynthesis, which is apparently built upon monosyllabism, as the idiograph of the Chinese upon a picture or glyph. The last step is the syllabic and inflected, corresponding with the Phœnico-Arabian alphabet, which gave rise to the Greek, the Latin, and their descendants. The complexity of Dakotah grammar is another illustration of the phenomenon that man in most things, in language especially, begins with the most difficult and works on toward the facile. Savages, who have no mental exercise but the cultivation of speech, and semi-barbarous people, who still retain[122] the habit, employ complicated and highly elaborate tongues, e. g., Arabic, Sanscrit, Latin, Greek, Kaffir, and Anglo-Saxon. With time these become more simple; the modus operandi appears to be admixture of race.

The Dakotahs have a sacred language, used by medicine-men, and rendered unintelligible to the vulgar by words borrowed from other Indian dialects, and by synonyms, e. g., biped for man, quadruped for wolf. A chief, asking for an ox or cow, calls it a dog, and a horse, moccasins: possibly, like Orientals, he superstitiously avoids direct mention, and speaks of the object wanted by a humbler name. Poetry is hardly required in a language so highly figurative: a hi-hi-hi-hi-hi, occasionally interrupted by a few words, composes their songs. The Rev. Mr. Pond gives the following specimen of “Blackboy’s” Mourning Song for his Grandson, addressed to those of Ghostland:

Their speech is sometimes metaphorical to an extent which conveys an opposite meaning: “Friend, thou art a fool; thou hast let the Ojibwa strike thee,” is the highest form of eulogy to a brave who has killed and scalped a foe; possibly a Malocchio-like fear, the dread of praise, which, according to Pliny, kills in India, underlies the habit.

The funerals differ in every tribe; the Sioux expose their dead, wrapped in blankets or buffalo robes, upon tall poles—a custom that reminds us of the Parsee’s “Tower of Silence.” The Yutas make their graves high up the kanyons, usually in clefts of rock. Some bury the dead at full length; others sitting or doubled up; others on horseback, with a barrow or tumulus of earth heaped up over their remains. The absence of grave-yards in an Indian country is as remarkable as in the African interior; thinness of population and the savage’s instinctive dislike to any memento mori are the causes. After deaths the “keening” is long, loud, and lasting: the women, and often the men, cut their hair close, not allowing it to fall below the shoulders, and not unfrequently gash themselves, and amputate one or more fingers. The dead man, especiallly a chief, is in almost all tribes provided with a viaticum, dead or alive, of squaws and boys—generally those taken from another tribe—horses and dogs; his lodge is burned, his arms, cooking utensils, saddles, and other accoutrements are buried with him, and a goodly store of buffalo meat or other provision is placed by his side, that his ghost may want nothing which it enjoyed in the flesh. Like all savages, the Indian is unable to separate the idea of man’s immaterial spirit from man’s material wants: an impalpable and invisible form of matter—called “spirit”[123] because it is not cognizable to the senses, which are the only avenues of all knowledge—is as unintelligible to them as to a Latter-Day Saint, or, indeed, as to the mind of man generally. Hence the Indian’s smoking and offerings over the graves of friends. Some tribes mourn on the same day of each moon till grief is satisfied; others for a week after the death.

A remarkable characteristic of the Prairie Indian is his habit of speaking, like the deaf and dumb, with his fingers. The pantomimeTHE INDIAN PANTOMIME. is a system of signs, some conventional, others instinctive or imitative, which enables tribes who have no acquaintance with each other’s customs and tongues to hold limited but sufficient communication. An interpreter who knows all the signs, which, however, are so numerous and complicated that to acquire them is the labor of years, is preferred by the whites even to a good speaker. Some writers, as Captain H. Stansbury, consider the system purely arbitrary; others, Captain Marcy, for instance, hold it to be a natural language similar to the gestures which surd-mutes use spontaneously. Both views are true, but not wholly true; as the following pages will, I believe, prove, the pantomimic vocabulary is neither quite conventional nor the reverse.

The sign-system doubtless arose from the necessity of a communicating medium between races speaking many different dialects, and debarred by circumstances from social intercourse. Its area is extensive: it prevails among many of the Prairie tribes, as the Hapsaroke, or Crows, the Dakotah, the Cheyenne, and the Shoshonee; the Pawnees, Yutas, and Shoshoko, or Diggers, being vagrants and outcasts, have lost or never had the habit. Those natives who, like the Arapahoes, possess a very scanty vocabulary, pronounced in a quasi-unintelligible way, can hardly converse with one another in the dark: to make a stranger understand them they must always repair to the camp fire for “powwow.” A story is told of a man who, being sent among the Cheyennes to qualify himself for interpreting, returned in a week, and proved his competence: all that he did, however, was to go through the usual pantomime with a running accompaniment of grunts. I have attempted to describe a few of the simpler signs: the reader, however, will readily perceive that without diagrams the explanation is very imperfect, and that in half an hour, with an Indian or an interpreter, he would learn more than by a hundred pages of print.

The first lesson is to distinguish the signs of the different tribes, and it will be observed that the French voyageurs and traders have often named the Indian nations from their totemic or masonic gestures.

The Pawnees (Les Loups) imitate a wolf’s ears with the two forefingers—the right hand is always understood unless otherwise specified[79]—extended together, upright, on the left side of the head.

The Arapahoes, or Dirty Noses, rub the right side of that organ[124] with the forefinger: some call this bad tribe the Smellers, and make their sign to consist of seizing the nose with the thumb and forefinger.

The Comanches (Les Serpents) imitate, by the waving of the hand or forefinger, the forward crawling motion of a snake.

The Cheyennes, Paikanavos, or Cut-Wrists, draw the lower edge of the hand across the left arm as if gashing it with a knife.

The Sioux (Les Coupe-gorges), by drawing the lower edge of the hand across the throat: it is a gesture not unknown to us, but forms a truly ominous salutation considering those by whom it is practiced; hence the Sioux are called by the Yutas Pámpe Chyimina, or Hand-cutters.

The Hapsaroke (Les Corbeaux), by imitating the flapping of the birds’ wings with the two hands—palms downward—brought close to the shoulders.

The Kiowas, or Prairie-men, make the signs of the prairie and of drinking water. These will presently be described.

The Yutas, “they who live on mountains,” have a complicated sign which denotes “living in mountains;” these will be explained under “sit” and “mountains.”

The Blackfeet, called by the Yutas Paike or Goers, pass the right hand, bent spoon-fashion, from the heel to the little toe of the right foot.

The following are a few preliminaries indispensable to the prairie traveler:

These signs will be found useful upon the prairie in case of meeting a suspected band. The Indians, like the Bedouin and N. African Moslem, do honor to strangers and guests by putting their horses to speed, couching their lances, and other peculiarities which would readily be dispensed with by gentlemen of peaceful pursuits and shaky nerves. If friendly, the band will halt when the hint is given and return the salute; if surly, they will disregard the command to stop, and probably will make the sign of anger. Then—ware scalp!

Colors are expressed by a comparison with some object in sight. Many things, as the blowing of wind, the cries of beasts and birds, and the roaring of the sea, are imitated by sound.

To show that fighting is actually taking place, make the gestures as above described; tap the lips with the palm like an Oriental woman when “keening,” screaming the while O-a! O-a! to imitate the war-song.

This sign also denotes the Americans, and, indeed, any white men, who are generically called by the Indians west of the Rocky Mountains “Shwop,” from our swap or swop, an English Romany word for barter or exchange.

The pronouns are expressed by pointing to the person designated. For “I,” touch the nose-tip, or otherwise indicate self with the index. The second and third persons are similarly made known.

Every animal has its precise sign, and the choice of gesture is sometimes very ingenious. If the symbol be not known, the form may be drawn on the ground, and the strong perceptive faculties of the savage enable him easily to recognize even rough draughts. A cow or a sheep denotes white men, as if they were their totems. The Indian’s high development of locality also enables him to map the features of a country readily and correctly upon the sand. Moreover, almost every grand feature has a highly significant name, Flintwater, for instance, and nothing is easier than to combine the signs.

The bear is expressed by passing the hand before the face to mean ugliness, at the same time grinning and extending the fingers like claws.

The buffalo is known by raising the forefingers crooked inward, in the semblance of horns on both sides of the head.

The elk is signified by simultaneously raising both hands with the fingers extended on both sides of the head to imitate palmated horns.

For the deer, extend the thumbs and the two forefingers of each hand on each side of the head.

For the antelope, extend the thumbs and forefingers along the sides of the head, to simulate ears and horns.

Mountain sheep are denoted by placing the hands on a level with the ears, the palms facing backward and the fingers slightly reversed, to imitate the ammonite-shaped horns.

For the beaver, describe a parenthesis, e. g. ( ), with the thumb and index of both hands, and then with the dexter index imitate the wagging of the tail.

The dog is shown by drawing the two forefingers slightly opened horizontally across the breast from right to left. This is a highly, appropriate and traditional gesture: before the introduction of horses, the dog was taught to carry the tent poles, and the motion expressed the lodge trail.

To denote the mule or ass, the long ears are imitated by the indices on both sides and above the head.

[127]

For the crow, and, indeed, any bird, the hands are flapped near the shoulders. If specification be required, the cry is imitated or some peculiarity is introduced. The following will show the ingenuity with which the Indian can convey his meaning under difficulties. A Yuta wishing to explain that the torpedo or gymnotus eel is found in Cotton-wood Kanyon Lake, took to it thus: he made the body by extending his sinister index to the fore, touched it with the dexter index at two points on both sides to show legs, and finally sharply withdrew his right forefinger to convey the idea of an electric shock.

Some of the symbols of relationship are highly appropriate, and not ungraceful or unpicturesque. Man is denoted by a sign which will not admit of description; woman, by passing the hand down both sides of the head as if smoothing or stroking the long hair. A son or daughter is expressed by making with the hand a movement denoting issue from the loins: if the child be small, a bit of the index held between the antagonized thumb and medius is shown. The same sign of issue expresses both parents, with additional explanations: To say, for instance, “my mother,” you would first pantomime “I,” or, which is the same thing, “my;” then “woman;” and, finally, the symbol of parentage. “My grandmother” would be conveyed in the same way, adding to the end clasped hands, closed eyes, and like an old woman’s bent back. The sign for brother and sister is perhaps the prettiest: the two first finger-tips are put into the mouth, denoting that they fed from the same breast. For the wife—squaw is now becoming a word of reproach among the Indians—the dexter forefinger is passed between the extended thumb and index of the left.

Of course there is a sign for every weapon. The knife—scalp or other—is shown by cutting the sinister palm with the dexter ferient downward and toward one’s self: if the cuts be made upward with the palm downward, meat is understood. The tomahawk, hatchet, or axe is denoted by chopping the left hand with the right; the sword by the motion of drawing it; the bow by the movement of bending it; and a spear or lance by an imitation of darting it. For the gun, the dexter thumb and fingers are flashed or scattered, i. e., thrown outward or upward to denote fire. The same movement made lower down expresses a pistol. The arrow is expressed by nocking it upon an imaginary bow, and by “snapping” with the index and medius. The shield is shown by pointing with the index over the left shoulder, where it is slung ready to be brought over the breast when required.

The following are the most useful words:

Many Indians ignore the quadripartite division of the seasons, which seems to be an invention of European latitudes; the Persians, for instance, know it, but the Hindoos do not. They have, however, distinct terms for the month, all of which are pretty and descriptive, appropriate and poetical; e. g., the moon of light nights, the moon of leaves, the moon of strawberries, for April, May, and June. The Ojibwa have a queer quaternal division, called Of sap, Of abundance, Of fading, and Of freezing. The Dakotah reckon five moons to winter and five to summer, leaving one to spring and one to autumn; the year is lunar, and as the change of season is denoted by the appearance of sore eyes and of raccoons, any irregularity throws the people out.

Among the Dakotahs, when they have gone over the fingers and thumbs of both hands, one is temporarily turned down for one ten; at the end of another ten a second finger is turned down, and so on, as among children who are learning to count. “Opawinge,” one hundred, is derived from “pawinga,” to go round in circles, as the fingers have all been gone over again for their respective tens; “kektopawinge” is from “ake” and “opawinge”—“hundred again”—being about to recommence the circle of their[129] fingers already completed in hundreds. For numerals above a thousand there is no method of computing. There is a sign and word for one half of a thing, but none to denote any smaller aliquot part.

The pantomime, as may be seen, is capable of expressing detailed narratives. For instance, supposing an Indian would tell the following tale—“Early this morning I mounted my horse, rode off at a gallop, traversed a kanyon or ravine, then over a mountain to a plain where there was no water, sighted bison, followed them, killed three of them, skinned them, packed the flesh upon my pony, remounted, and returned home”—he would symbolize it thus:

To conclude, I can hardly flatter myself that these descriptions have been made quite intelligible to the reader. They may, however, serve to prepare his mind for a vivâ voce lesson upon the prairies, should fate have such thing in store for him.

After this digression I return to my prosaic Diary.

Along the Black Hills to Box-Elder. 15th August.

SUNRISE.I arose “between two days,” a little before 4 A.M., and watched the dawn, and found in its beauties a soothing influence, which acted upon stiff limbs and discontented spirit as if it had been a spell.

The stars of the Great Bear—the prairie night-clock—first began to pale without any seeming cause, till presently a faint streak of pale light—dum i gurg, or the wolf’s tail, as it is called by the Persian—began to shimmer upon the eastern verge of heaven. It grew and grew through the dark blue air: one unaccustomed to the study of the “gray-eyed morn” would have expected it to usher in the day, when, gradually as it had struggled into existence, it faded, and a deeper darkness than before once more invaded the infinitude above. But now the unrisen sun is more rapidly climbing the gloomy walls of Koh i Kaf—the mountain rim which encircles the world, and through whose lower gap the false dawn had found its way—preceded by a warm flush of light, which chases the shades till, though loth to depart, they find neither on earth nor in the firmament a place where they can linger. Warmer and warmer waxes the heavenly radiance, gliding up to the keystone of the vault above; fainter and fainter grows the darkness, till the last stain disappears behind the Black Hills to the west, and the stars one by one, like glow-worms, “pale their ineffectual fires”—the “Pointers” are the longest to resist—retreat backward, as it were, and fade away into endless space. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the marvelous hues of “glorious morn,” here truly a fresh “birth of heaven and earth,” all gold and sapphire, acquire depth and distinctness, till at last a fiery flush ushers from beneath the horizon the source of all these splendors,

and another day, with its little life of joys and sorrows, of hopes and fears, is born to the world.

Though we all rose up early, packed, and were ready to proceed, there was an unusual vis inertiæ on the part of the driver: Indians were about; the mules, of course, had bolted; but that did not suffice as explanation. Presently the “wonder leaked out:” our companions were transferred from their comfortable vehicle to a real “shandridan,” a Rocky-Mountain bone-setter. They were civil enough to the exceedingly drunken youth—a runaway New Yorker—who did us the honor of driving us; for[132] quand on a besoin du diable on lui dit, “Monsieur.” One can not expect, however, the diable to be equally civil: when we asked him to tidy our vehicle a little, he simply replied that he’d be darned if he did. Long may be the darning-needle and sharp to him! But tempers seriously soured must blow up or burst, and a very pretty little quarrel was the result: it was settled bloodlessly, because one gentleman, who, to do him justice, showed every disposition to convert himself into a target, displayed such perfect unacquaintance with the weapons—revolvers—usually used on similar occasions, that it would have been mere murder to have taken pistol in hand against him.

As we sat very disconsolate in the open veranda, five Indians stalked in, and the biggest and burliest of the party, a middle-aged man, with the long, straight Indian hair, high, harsh features, and face bald of eyebrows and beard, after offering his paw to Mrs. Dana and the rest of the party, sat down with a manner of natural dignity somewhat trenching upon the impertinent. Presently, diving his hand into his breast, the old rat pulled out a thick fold of leather, and, after much manipulation, disclosed a dirty brown, ragged-edged sheet of paper, certifying him to be “Little Thunder,” and signed by “General Harney.” This, then, was the chief who showed the white feather at Ash Hollow, and of whom some military poet sang:

Little Thunder did not look quite rubbed out; but for poesy fiction is, of course, an element far more appropriate than fact. I remember a similar effusion of the Anglo-Indian muse, which consigned “Akbar Khan the Yaghi” to the tune and fate of the King of the Cannibal Isles, with a contempt of actualities quite as refreshing. The Western Indians are as fond of these testimonials as the East Indians: they preserve them with care as guarantees of their good conduct, and sometimes, as may be expected, carry about certificates in the style of Bellerophons’ letters. Little Thunder was en route to Fort Laramie, where he intended to lay a complaint against the Indian agent, who embezzled, he said, half the rations and presents intended for his tribe. Even the whites owned that the “Maje’s” bear got more sugar than all the Indians put together.

Nothing can be worse, if the vox populi occidentalis be taken as the vox Dei, than the modern management of the Indian Bureau at Washington. In former times the agencies were in the hands of the military authorities, and the officer commanding the department was responsible for malversation of office. This was found to work well; the papers signed were signed on honor. But in the United States, the federal army, though well paid, is never allowed to keep any appointment that can safely be taken away[133] from it. THE INDIAN DEPARTMENT.The Indian Department is now divided into six superintendencies, viz., Northern, Central, Southern, Utah, New Mexico, Washington and Oregon Territories, who report to the Indian Office or Bureau of the Commissioners of Indian Affairs at Washington, under the charge of the Department of the Interior. The bond varies from $50,000 to $75,000, and the salary from $2000 to $2500 per annum. The northern superintendency contains four agencies, the central fourteen, the southern five, the Utah three, New Mexico six, and the miscellaneous, including Washington, eight. The grand total of agents, including two specials for Indians in Texas, is forty-two. Their bond is between $5000 and $75,000, and the salary between $1000 and $1550. There are also various sub-agencies, with pay of $1000 each, and giving in bonds $2000. There ought to be no perquisites; an unscrupulous man, however, finds many opportunities of making free with the presents; and the reflection that his office tenure shall expire after the fourth year must make him but the more reckless. As fifty or sixty appointments = 50 or 60 votes, × 20 in President electioneering, fitness for the task often becomes quite a subordinate consideration; the result is, necessarily, peculation producing discontent among the Indians, and the finale, death to the whites. To become a good Indian agent, a man requires the variety of qualifications which would fit him for the guardianship of children, experience and ability, benevolence and philanthropy: it would be difficult to secure such phœnix for $200 per annum, and it is found easier not to look for it. The remedy of these evils is not far from the surface—the restoration of the office into the hands of the responsible military servant of the state, who would keep it quamdiu se benè gesserit, and become better capable of serving his masters, the American people, by the importance which the office would give him in the eyes of his protégés. This is the system of the French Bureau Arabe, which, with its faults, I love still. But the political mind would doubtless determine the cure to be worse than the disease. After venting his grievances, Little Thunder arose, and, accompanied by his braves, remounted and rode off toward the east.

While delayed by the mules and their masters, we may amuse ourselves and divert our thoughts from the battle, and, perhaps, murder and sudden death, which may happen this evening, by studying the geography of the Black Hills. The range forms nearly a right angle, the larger limb—ninety miles—running east to west with a little southing along the Platte, the shorter leg—sixty miles—trending from north to south with a few degrees of easting and westing. Forming the easternmost part of the great trans-Mississippian mountain region, in the 44th parallel and between the 103d and 105th meridians, these masses cover an area of 6000 square miles. They are supposed to have received their last violent upheaval at the close of the cretaceous period; their[134] bases are elevated from 2500 to 3500 feet—the highest peaks attaining 6700 feet—above river level, while their eastern is from 2000 to 3000 feet below the western foundation. Their materials, as determined by Lieutenant Warren’s exploration, are successively metamorphosed azoic rock, including granite, lower Silurian (Potsdam sandstone), Devonian (?), carboniferous, Permian, Jurassic, and cretaceous. Like Ida, they are abundant in springs and flowing streams, which shed mainly to the northeast and the southeast, supplying the Indians with trout and salmon trout, catfish (Prinelodus), and pickerel. They abound in small rich valleys, well grown with grass, and wild fruits, choke-cherries (P. Virginiana), currants, sand-buttes fruit (C. pumila?), and buffalo berries (Shepherdia argentea, or grains de bœuf). When irrigated, the bottoms are capable of high cultivation. They excel in fine timber for fuel and lumber, covering an area of 1500 square miles; in carboniferous rock of the true coal measures; and in other good building material. As in most of the hill ranges which are offsets from the Rocky Mountains, they contain gold in valuable quantities, and doubtless a minute examination will lead to the discovery of many other useful minerals. The Black Hills are appropriately named: a cloak of gloomy forest, pine and juniper, apparently springing from a rock denuded of less hardy vegetation, seems to invest them from head to foot. The Laramie Hills are sub-ranges of the higher ridge, and the well-known peak, the Pharos of the prairie mariner, rises about 1° due west of Fort Laramie to the height of 6500 feet above sea level. Beyond the meridian of Laramie the country totally changes. The broad prairie lands, unencumbered by timber, and covered with a rich pasturage, which highly adapts them for grazing, are now left behind. We are about to enter a dry, sandy, and sterile waste of sage, and presently of salt, where rare spots are fitted for rearing stock, and this formation will continue till we reach the shadow of the Rocky Mountains.

At length, the mules coming about 10 45 A.M., we hitched up, and, nothing loth, bade adieu to Horseshoe Creek and the “ladies.” The driver sentimentally informed us that we were to see no more specimens of ladyhood for many days—gladdest tidings to one of the party, at least. The road, which ran out of sight of the river, was broken and jagged; a little labor would have made it tolerable, but what could the good pastor of Oberlin do with a folk whose only thought in life is dram-drinking, tobacco-chewing, trading, and swapping?[80] The country was cut with creeks[135] and arroyos, which separated the several bulges of ground, and the earth’s surface was of a dull brick-dust red, thinly scrubbed over with coarse grass, ragged sage, and shrublets fit only for the fire. After a desolate drive, we sighted below us the creekLA BONTÉ. La Bonté—so called from a French voyageur—green and bisected by a clear mountain stream whose banks were thick with self-planted trees. In the labyrinth of paths we chose the wrong one: presently we came to a sheer descent of four or five feet, and after deliberation as to whether the vehicle would “take it” or not, we came to the conclusion that we had better turn the restive mules to the right-about. Then, cheered by the sight of our consort, the other wagon, which stood temptingly shaded by the grove of cotton-wood, willows, box elder (Negundo aceroides), and wild cherry, at the distance of about half a mile, we sought manfully the right track, and the way in which the driver charged the minor obstacles was “a caution to mules.” We ought to have arrived at 2 45 P.M.; we were about an hour later. The station had yet to be built; the whole road was in a transition state at the time of our travel; there was, however, a new corral for “forting” against Indians, and a kind of leafy arbor, which the officials had converted into a “cottage near a wood.”

A little after 4 P.M. we forded the creek painfully with our new cattle—three rats and a slug. The latter was pronounced by our driver, when he condescended to use other language than anathemata, “the meanest cuss he ever seed.” We were careful, however, to supply him at the shortest intervals with whisky-drams, which stimulated him, after breaking his whip, to perform a tattoo with clods and stones, kicks and stamps, upon the recreant animals’ haunches, and by virtue of these we accomplished our twenty-five miles in tolerable time. For want of other pleasantries to contemplate, we busied ourselves in admiring the regularity and accuracy with which our consort wagon secured for herself all the best teams. The land was a THE RED REGION.red waste, such as travelers find in Eastern Africa, which after rains sheds streams like blood. The soil was a decomposition of ferruginous rock, here broken with rugged hills, precipices of ruddy sandstone 200 feet high, shaded or dotted with black-green cedars, there cumbered by huge boulders; the ravine-like water-courses which cut the road showed that after heavy rains a net-work of torrents must add to the pleasures of traveling, and the vegetation was reduced to the dull green artemisia, the azalia, and the jaundiced potentilla.[136] After six miles we saw on the left of the path a huge natural pile or burrow of primitive boulders, about 200 feet high, and called “Brigham’s Peak,” because, according to Jehu’s whiskyfied story, the prophet, revelator, and seer of the Latter-Day Saints had there, in 1857 (!), pronounced a 4th of July oration in the presence of 200 or 300 fair devotees.

Presently we emerged from the red region into the normal brown clay, garnished with sage as moors are with heather, over a road which might have suggested the nursery rhyme,

At last it improved, and once more, as if we never were to leave it, we fell into the Valley of the Platte. About eight miles from our destination we crossed the sandy bed of the La Prêle River, an arroyo of twenty feet wide, which, like its brethren, brims in spring with its freight of melted snow. In the clear shade of evening we traversed the “timber,” or well-wooded lands lying upon Box-Elder Creek—a beautiful little stream some eight feet broad, and at 9 P.M. arrived at the station. The master, Mr. Wheeler, was exceptionably civil and communicative; he lent us buffalo robes for the night, and sent us to bed after the best supper the house could afford. We were not, however, to be balked of our proper pleasure, a “good grumble,” so we hooked it on to another peg. One of the road-agents had just arrived from Great Salt Lake City in a neat private ambulance after a journey of three days, while we could hardly expect to make it under treble that time. It was agreed on all sides that such conduct was outrageous; that Messrs. Russell and Co. amply deserved to have their contract taken from them, and—on these occasions your citizen looks portentous, and deals darkly in threatenings, as if his single vote could shake the spheres—we came to a mutual understanding that that firm should never enjoy our countenance or support. We were unanimous; all, even the mortal quarrel, was “made up” in the presence of the general foe, the Mail Company. Briefly we retired to rest, a miserable Public, and, soothed by the rough lullaby of the coyote, whose shrieks and screams perfectly reproduced the Indian jackal, we passed into the world of dreams.

To Platte Bridge. August 16th.

At 8 30 A.M. we were once more under way along the valley of Father Platte, whose physiognomy had now notably changed for the better. Instead of the dull, dark, silent stream of the lower course, whose muddy monotonous aspect made it a grievance to behold, we descried with astonishment a bright little river, hardly a hundred yards wide—one’s ideas of potamology are enlarged with a witness by American travel! a mirrory surface, and waters clear and limpid as the ether above them. The limestones and marls which destroy the beauty of the Lower Platte do not[137] extend to the upper course. CLIMATE.The climate now became truly delicious. The height above sea-level—5000 feet—subjects the land to the wholesome action of gentle winds, which, about 10-11 A.M., when the earth has had time to air, set in regularly as the sea-breezes of tropical climes, and temper the keen shine of day. These higher grounds, where the soil is barren rather for want of water than from the character of its constituents, are undoubtedly the healthiest part of the plains: no noxious malaria is evolved from the sparse growth of tree and shrub upon the banks of the river; and beyond them the plague of brûlés (sand-flies) and musquetoes is unknown; the narrowness of the bed also prevents the shrinking of the stream in autumn, at which season the Lower Platte exposes two broad margins of black infected mire. The three great elements of unhealthiness, heavy and clammy dews, moisture exhaled from the earth’s surface, and the overcrowding of population—which appears to generate as many artificial diseases as artificial wants—are here unknown: the soil is never turned up, and even if it were, it probably would not have the deleterious effect which climatologists have remarked in the damp hot regions near the equator. The formation of the land begins to change from the tertiary and cretaceous to the primary—granites and porphyries—warning us that we are approaching the Rocky Mountains.

THE FIRST MORMONS.On the road we saw for the first time a train of Mormon wagons, twenty-four in number, slowly wending their way toward the Promised Land. The “Captain”—those who fill the dignified office of guides are so designated, and once a captain always a captain is the Far Western rule—was young Brigham Young, a nephew of the Prophet; a blondin, with yellow hair and beard, an intelligent countenance, a six-shooter by his right, and a bowie-knife by his left side. It was impossible to mistake, even through the veil of freckles and sun-burn with which a two months’ journey had invested them, the nationality of the emigrants; “British-English” was written in capital letters upon the white eyelashes and tow-colored curls of the children, and upon the sandy brown hair and staring eyes, heavy bodies, and ample extremities of the adults. One young person concealed her facial attractions under a manner of mask. I thought that perhaps she might be a sultana, reserved for the establishment of some very magnificent Mormon bashaw; but the driver, when appealed to, responded with contempt, “’Guess old Briggy wont stampede many o’ that ’ere lot!” Though thus homely in appearance, few showed any symptoms of sickness or starvation; in fact, their condition first impressed us most favorably with the excellence of the Perpetual Emigration Funds’ traveling arrangements.

The Mormons who can afford such luxury generally purchase for the transit of the plains an emigrant’s wagon, which in the West seldom costs more than $185. They take a full week before[138] well en route, and endeavor to leave the Mississippi in early May, when “long forage” is plentiful upon the prairies. Those prospecting parties who are bound for California set out in March or April, feeding their animals with grain till the new grass appears; after November the road over the Sierra Nevada being almost impassable to way-worn oxen. The ground in the low parts of the Mississippi Valley becomes heavy and muddy after the first spring rains, and by starting in good time the worst parts of the country will be passed before the travel becomes very laborious. Moreover, grass soon disappears from the higher and less productive tracts; between Scott’s Bluffs and Great Salt Lake City we were seldom out of sight of starved cattle, and on one spot I counted fifteen skeletons. Travelers, however, should not push forward early, unless their animals are in good condition and are well supplied with grain; the last year’s grass is not quite useless, but cattle can not thrive upon it as they will upon the grammas, festucas, and buffalo clover (Trifolium reflexum) of Utah and New Mexico. The journey between St. Jo and the Mormon capital usually occupies from two to three months. The Latter-Day Saints march with a quasi-military organization. Other emigrants form companies of fifty to seventy armed men—a single wagon would be in imminent danger from rascals like the Pawnees, who, though fonder of bullying than of fighting, are ever ready to cut off a straggler—elect their “Cap.,” who holds the office only during good conduct, sign and seal themselves to certain obligations, and bind themselves to stated penalties in case of disobedience or defection. The “Prairie Traveler” strongly recommends this systematic organization, without which, indeed, no expedition, whether emigrant, commercial, or exploratory, ought ever or in any part of the world to begin its labors; justly observing that, without it, discords and dissensions sooner or later arise which invariably result in breaking up the company.

MORMON OUTFIT.In this train I looked to no purpose for the hand-carts with which the poorer Saints add to the toils of earthly travel a semi-devotional work of supererogation expected to win a proportionate reward in heaven.[81]

After ten miles of the usual number of creeks, “Deep,” “Small,” “Snow,” “Muddy,” etc., and heavy descents, we reached at 10 A.M. Deer Creek, a stream about thirty feet wide, said to abound in fish. The station boasts of an Indian agent, Major Twiss, a[139] post-office, a store, and of course a grog-shop. M. Bissonette, the owner of the two latter and an old Indian trader, was the usual Creole, speaking a French not unlike that of the Channel Islands, and wide awake to the advantages derivable from travelers: the large straggling establishment seemed to produce in abundance large squaws and little half-breeds. Fortunately stimulants are not much required on the plains: I wish my enemy no more terrible fate than to drink excessively with M. Bissonette of M. Bissonette’s liquor. The good Creole, when asked to join us, naïvely refused: he reminded me of certain wine-merchants in more civilized lands, who, when dining with their pratique, sensibly prefer small-beer to their own concoctions.

A delay of fifteen minutes, and then we were hurried forward. The ravines deepened; we were about entering the region of kanyons.[82] Already we began to descry BUNCH-GRASS.bunch-grass clothing the hills. This invaluable and anomalous provision of nature is first found, I believe, about fifty miles westward of the meridian of Fort Laramie, and it extends to the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada. On the Pacific water-shed it gives way to the wild oats (Avena fatua), which are supposed to have been introduced into California by the Spaniards. The festuca is a real boon to the land, which, without it, could hardly be traversed by cattle. It grows by clumps, as its name denotes, upon the most unlikely ground, the thirsty sand, and the stony hills; in fact, it thrives best upon the poorest soil. In autumn, about September, when all other grasses turn to hay, and their nutriment is washed out by the autumnal rains, the bunch-grass, after shedding its seed, begins to put forth a green shoot within the apparently withered sheath. It remains juicy and nutritious, like winter wheat in April, under the snows, and, contrary to the rule of the gramineæ,[140] it pays the debt of nature, drying and dying about May; yet, even when in its corpse-like state, a light yellow straw, it contains abundant and highly-flavored nutriment; it lasts through the summer, retiring up the mountains, again becomes grass in January, thus feeding cattle all the year round. The small dark pyriform seed, about half the size of an oat, is greedily devoured by stock, and has been found to give an excellent flavor to beef and mutton. It is curious how little food will fatten animals upon the elevated portions of the prairies and in the valleys of the Rocky Mountains. I remarked the same thing in Somaliland, where, while far as the eye could see the country wore the semblance of one vast limestone ledge, white with desolation, the sheep and bullocks were round and plump as stall-fed animals. The idea forces itself upon one’s mind that the exceeding purity and limpidity of the air, by perfecting the processes of digestion and assimilation, must stand in lieu of quantity. I brought back with me a small packet of the bunch-grass seed, in the hope that it may be acclimatized: the sandy lands about Aldershott, for instance, would be admirably fitted for the growth.

We arrived at a station, called the “Little Muddy Creek,” after a hot drive of twenty miles. It was a wretched place, built of “dry stones,” viz., slabs without mortar, and the interior was garnished with certain efforts of pictorial art, which were rather lestes than otherwise. The furniture was composed of a box and a trunk, and the negative catalogue of its supplies was extensive—whisky forming the only positive item.

We were not sorry to resume our journey at 1 15 P.M. After eight miles we crossed the vile bridge which spans “Snow Creek,” a deep water, and hardly six feet wide. According to the station-men, water here was once perennial, though now reduced to an occasional freshet after rain: this phenomenon, they say, is common in the country, and they attribute it to the sinking of the stream in the upper parts of the bed, which have become porous, or have given way. It is certain that in the Sinaitic regions many springs, which within a comparatively few years supplied whole families of Bedouins, have unaccountably dried up; perhaps the same thing happens in the Rocky Mountains.

After about two hours of hot sun, we debouched upon the bank of the Platte at a spot where once was the Lower Ferry.[83] The river bed is here so full of holes and quicksands, and the stream is so cold and swift, that many have been drowned when bathing, more when attempting to save time by fording it. A wooden bridge was built at this point some years ago, at an expense of $26,000, by one Regshaw, who, if report does not belie him, has gained and lost more fortunes than a Wall Street professional[141] “lame duck.” We halted for a few minutes at the indispensable store—the tête de pont—and drank our whisky with ice, which, after so long a disuse, felt unenjoyably cold. Remounting, we passed a deserted camp, where in times gone by two companies of infantry had been stationed: a few stumps of crumbling wall, broken floorings, and depressions in the ground, were the only remnants which the winds and rains had left. The banks of the Platte were stained with coal: it has been known to exist for some years, but has only lately been worked. Should the supply prove sufficient for the wants of the settlers, it will do more toward the civilization of these regions than the discovery of gold.

The lignite tertiary of Nebraska extends north and west to the British line; the beds are found throughout this formation sometimes six and seven feet thick, and the article would make good fuel. The true COAL-BEDS.coal-measures have been discovered in the southeastern portion of the Nebraska prairies, and several small seams at different points of the Platte Valley. Dr. F. V. Hayden, who accompanied Lieutenant Warren as geologist, appears to think that the limestones which contain the supplies, though belonging to the true coal-measures, hold a position above the workable beds of coal, and deems it improbable that mines of any importance will be found north of the southern line of Nebraska. But, as his examination of the ground was somewhat hurried, there is room to hope that this unfavorable verdict will be canceled. The coal as yet discovered is all, I believe, bituminous. That dug out of the Platte bank runs in a vein about six feet thick, and is as hard as cannel coal: the texture of the rock is a white limestone. The banks of the Deer and other neighboring creeks are said also to contain the requisites for fuel.

Our station lay near the upper crossing or second bridge, a short distance from the town. It was also built of timber at an expense of $40,000, about a year ago, by Louis Guenot, a Quebecquois, who has passed the last twelve years upon the plains. He appeared very downcast about his temporal prospects, and handed us over, with the insouciance of his race, to the tender mercies of his venerable squaw. TOLL-BRIDGE.The usual toll is 50 cents, but from trains, especially of Mormons, the owner will claim $5; in fact, as much as he can get without driving them to the opposition lower bridge, or to the ferry-boat. It was impossible to touch the squaw’s supper; the tin cans that contained the coffee were slippery with grease, and the bacon looked as if it had been dressed side by side with “boyaux.” I lighted my pipe, and, air-cane in hand, sallied forth to look at the country.

The heights behind the station were our old friends the Black Hills, which, according to the Canadian, extend with few breaks as far as Denver City. They are covered with dark green pine; at a distance it looks black, and the woods shelter a variety of[142] wild beasts, the grizzly bear among the number. In the more grassy spaces mustangs, sure-footed as mountain goats, roam uncaught; and at the foot of the hills the slopes are well stocked with antelope, deer, and hares, here called rabbits. The principal birds are the sage-hen (Tetrao urophasianus) and the prairie-hen (T. pratensis). The former, also called the cock of the plains, is a fine, strong-flying grouse, about the size of a full-grown barn-door fowl, or, when younger, of a European pheasant, which, indeed, the form of the tail, as the name denotes, greatly resembles, and the neck is smooth like the partridge of the Old World.[84] Birds of the year are considered good eating: after their first winter the flesh is so impregnated with the intolerable odor of wild sage that none but a starving man can touch it. The prairie-hen, also called the “heath-hen” and the “pinnated grouse,” affects the plains of Illinois and Missouri, and is rarely found so far west as the Black Hills: it is not a migratory bird. The pinnæ from which it derives its name are little wing-like tufts on both sides of the neck, small in the female, large in the male. The cock, moreover, has a stripe of skin running down the neck, which changes its natural color toward pairing-time, and becomes of a reddish yellow: it swells like a turkey-cock’s wattles, till the head seems buried between two monstrous protuberances, the owner spreading out its tail, sweeping the ground with its wings, and booming somewhat like a bittern. Both of these birds, which are strong on the wing, and give good sport, might probably be naturalized in Europe, and the “Société d’Acclimatisation” would do well to think of it.

THE WAR-PARTY.Returning to the station, I found that a war-party of Arapahoes had just alighted in a thin copse hard by. They looked less like warriors than like a band of horse-stealers; and, though they had set out with the determination of bringing back some Yuta scalps and fingers,[85] they had not succeeded. On these occasions the young braves are generally very sulky—a fact which they take care to show by short speech and rude gestures, throwing about and roughly handling, like spoiled children, whatever comes in their way. At such times one must always be prepared for a word and a blow; and, indeed, most Indian fighters justify themselves in taking the initiative, as, of course, it is a great thing to secure first chance. However we may yearn toward our “poor black brother,” it is hard not to sympathize with the white in[143] many aggressions against the ferocious and capricious so-called Red Man. The war-party consisted of about a dozen warriors, with a few limber, lither-looking lads. They had sundry lean, sore-backed nags, which were presently turned out to graze. Dirty rags formed the dress of the band; their arms were the usual light lances, garnished with leather at the handles, with two cropped tufts and a long loose feather dangling from them. They had bows shaped like the Grecian Cupid’s, strengthened with sinews and tipped with wire, and arrows of light wood, with three feathers—Captain Marcy says, two intersecting at right angles; but I have never seen this arrangement—and small triangular iron piles. Their shields were plain targes—double folds of raw buffalo hide, apparently unstuffed, and quite unadorned. They carried mangy buffalo robes; and scattered upon the ground was a variety of belts, baldricks, and pouches, with split porcupine quills dyed a saffron yellow.

The Arapahoes, generally pronounced ’Rapahoes—called by their Shoshonee neighbors Sháretikeh, or Dog-eaters, and by the French Gros Ventres—are a tribe of thieves living between the South Fork of the Platte and the Arkansas Rivers. They are bounded north by the Sioux, and hunt in the same grounds with the Cheyennes. This breed is considered fierce, treacherous, and unfriendly to the whites, who have debauched and diseased them, while the Cheyennes are comparatively chaste and uninfected. The Arapaho is distinguished from the Dakotah by the superior gauntness of his person, and the boldness of his look; there are also minor points of difference in the moccasins, arrow-marks, and weapons. His language, like that of the Cheyennes, has never, I am told, been thoroughly learned by a stranger: it is said to contain but a few hundred words, and these, being almost all explosive growls or guttural grants, are with difficulty acquired by the civilized ear. Like the Cheyennes, the Arapahoes have been somewhat tamed of late by the transit of the United States army in 1857.

Among the Prairie Indians, when a war-chief has matured the plans for an expedition, he habits himself in the garb of battle. Then, mounting his steed, and carrying a lance adorned with a flag and eagle’s feathers, he rides about the camp chanting his war-song. Those disposed to volunteer join the parade, also on horseback, and, after sufficiently exhibiting themselves to the admiration of the village, return home. This ceremony continues till the requisite number is collected. The war-dance, and the rites of the medicine-man, together with perhaps private penances and propitiations, are the next step. There are also copious powwows, in which, as in the African parlance, the chiefs, elders, and warriors sit for hours in grim debate, solemn as if the fate of empires hung upon their words, to decide the momentous question whether Jack shall have half a pound more meat than Jim. Neither the chief[144] nor the warriors are finally committed by the procession to the expedition; they are all volunteers, at liberty to retire; and jealousy, disappointment, and superstition often interpose between themselves and glory.

The war-party, when gone, is thoroughly gone; once absent, they love to work in mystery, and look forward mainly to the pleasure of surprising their friends. After an absence which may extend for months, a loud, piercing, peculiar cry suddenly announces the vanguard courier of the returning braves. The camp is thrown at once from the depths of apathy to the height of excitement, which is also the acmé of enjoyment for those whose lives must be spent in forced inaction. The warriors enter with their faces painted black, and their steeds decorated in the most fantastic style; the women scream and howl their exultation, and feasting and merriment follow with the ceremonious scalp-dance. The braves are received with various degrees of honor according to their deeds. The highest merit is to ride single-handed into the enemy’s camp, and to smite a lodge with lance or bow. The second is to take a warrior prisoner. The third is to strike a dead or fallen man—an idea somewhat contrary to the Englishman’s fancies of fair play, but intelligible enough where it is the custom, as in Hindostan, to lie upon the ground “playing ’possum,” and waiting the opportunity to hamstring or otherwise disable the opponent. The least of great achievements is to slay an enemy in hand-to-hand fight. A Pyrrhic victory, won even at an inconsiderable loss, is treated as a defeat; the object of the Indian guerrilla chief is to destroy the foe with as little risk to himself and his men as possible; this is his highest boast, and in this are all his hopes of fame. Should any of the party fall in battle, the relatives mourn by cutting off their hair and the manes and tails of their horses, and the lugubrious lamentations of the women introduce an ugly element into the triumphal procession.

In the evening, as Mrs. Dana, her husband, and I were sitting outside the station, two of the warriors came and placed themselves without ceremony upon the nearest stones. They were exceedingly unprepossessing with their small gipsy eyes, high, rugged cheek-bones, broad flat faces, coarse sensual mouths everted as to the lips, and long heavy chins; they had removed every sign of manhood from their faces, and their complexions were a dull oily red, the result of vermilion, ochre, or some such pigment, of which they are as fond as Hindoos, grimed in for years. They watched every gesture, and at times communicated their opinions to each other in undistinguishable gruntings, with curious attempts at cachinnation. It is said that the wild dog is unable to bark, and that the tame variety has acquired the faculty by attempting to imitate the human voice; it is certain that, as a rule, only the civilized man can laugh loudly and heartily. I happened to mention to my fellow-travelers the universal dislike of savages to any[145] thing like a sketch of their physiognomies; they expressed a doubt that the Indians were subject to the rule. Pencil and paper were at hand, so we proceeded to proof. The savage at first seemed uneasy under the operation, as the Asiatic or African will do, averting his face at times, and shifting position to defeat my purpose. When I passed the caricature round it excited some merriment; the subject, forthwith rising from his seat, made a sign that he also wished to see it. At the sight, however, he screwed up his features with an expression of intense disgust, and managing to “smudge” over the sketch with his dirty thumb, he left us with a “pooh!” that told all his outraged feelings.

Presently the warriors entered the station to smokeSMOKING. and tacitly beg for broken victuals. They squatted in a circle, and passed round the red sandstone calumet with great gravity, puffing like steam-tugs, inhaling slowly and lingeringly, swallowing the fumes, and with upturned faces exhaling them through the nostrils. They made no objection to being joined by us, and always before handing the pipe to a neighbor, they wiped the reed mouth-piece with the cushion of the thumb. The contents of their calumet were kinnikinik, and, though they accepted tobacco, they preferred replenishing with their own mixture. They received a small present of provisions, and when the station-people went to supper they were shut out.

MORMONLAND NEAR.We are now slipping into Mormonland; one of the station-keepers belonged to the new religion. The “madam,” on entering the room, had requested him to depose a cigar which tainted the air with a perfume like that of greens’-water; he took the matter so coolly that I determined he was not an American, and, true enough, he proved to be a cabinet-maker from Birmingham. I spent the evening reading poor Albert Smith’s “Story of Mont Blanc”—Mont Blanc in sight of the Rocky Mountains!—and admiring how the prince of entertainers led up the reader to what he called the crowning glory of his life, the unperilous ascent of that monarch of the Alps, much in the spirit with which one would have addressed the free and independent voters of some well-bribed English borough.

We are now about to quit the region which Nature has prepared, by ready-made roads and embankments, for a railway; all beyond this point difficulties are so heaped upon difficulties—as the sequel will prove—that we must hope against hope to see the “iron horse” (I believe he is so called) holding his way over the mountains.

17th August. To the Valley of the Sweetwater.

The morning was bright and clear, cool and pleasant. The last night’s abstinence had told upon our squeamishness: we managed to secure a fowl, and with its aid we overcame our repugnance to the massive slices of eggless bacon. At 6 30 A.M. we hitched up, crossed the rickety bridge at a slow pace, and proceeded[146] for the first time to ascend the left bank of the Platte. The valley was grassy; the eternal sage, however, haunted us; the grouse ran before us, and the prairie-dogs squatted upon their house-tops, enjoying the genial morning rays. After ten miles of severe ups and downs, which, by-the-by, nearly brought our consort, the official’s wagon, to grief, we halted for a few minutes at an old-established trading-post called “Red Buttes.”[86] The feature from which it derives its name lies on the right bank of, and about five miles distant from the river, which here cuts its way through a ridge. These bluffs are a fine bold formation, escarpments of ruddy argillaceous sandstones and shells, which dip toward the west: they are the eastern wall of the mass that hems in the stream, and rear high above it their conical heads and fantastic figures. The ranch was on the margin of a cold, clear spring, of which we vainly attempted to drink. The banks were white, as though by hoar-frost, with nitrate and carbonate of soda efflorescing from the dark mould. Near Red Buttes the water is said to have a chalybeate flavor, but of that we were unable to judge.

Having allowed the squaws and half-breeds a few minutes to gaze, we resumed our way, taking off our caps in token of adieu to old Father Platte, our companion for many a weary mile. We had traced his course upward, through its various phases and vicissitudes, from the dignity and portliness of his later career as a full-grown river to his small and humble youth as a mountain rivulet, and—interest, either in man or stream, often results from the trouble we take about them—I looked upon him for the last time with a feeling akin to regret. Moreover, we had been warned that from the crossing of the North Platte to the Sweetwater all is a dry, and dreary, and desolate waste.

On the way we met a mounted Indian, armed with a rifle, and habited in the most grotesque costume. “Jack”—he was recognized by the driver—wore a suit of buckskin, and a fool’s cap made out of an old blanket, with a pair of ass-ear appendages that hung backward viciously like a mule’s; his mouth grinned from ear to ear, and his eyes were protected by glass and wire goggles, which gave them the appearance of being mounted on stalks like a crustacean’s. He followed us for some distance, honoring us by riding close to the carriage, in hopes of a little black-mail; but we were not generous, and we afterward heard something which made us glad that we had not been tempted to liberality. He was followed[147] by an ill-favored squaw, dressed in a kind of cotton gown, remarkable only for the shoulders being considerably narrower than the waist. She sat her bare nag cavalierly, and eyed us as we passed with that peculiarly unpleasant glance which plain women are so fond of bestowing.

After eighteen miles’ drive we descended a steep hill, and were shown the THE DEVIL’S BACKBONE.Devil’s Backbone. It is a jagged, broken ridge of huge sandstone boulders, tilted up edgeways, and running in a line over the crest of a long roll of land: the tout ensemble looks like the vertebræ of some great sea-serpent or other long crawling animal; and, on a nearer view, the several pieces resolve themselves into sphinxes, veiled nuns, Lot’s pillars, and other freakish objects. I may here remark that the aut Cæsar aut diabolus of the medieval European antiquary, when accounting for the architecture of strange places, is in the Far West consigned without partnership to the genius loci, the fiend who, here as in Europe, has monopolized all the finest features of scenery. We shall pass successively the Devil’s Gate, the Devil’s Post-office, and the Devil’s Hole—in fact, we shall not be thoroughly rid of his Satanic majesty’s appurtenances till Monte Diablo, the highest of the Californian coast-range, dips slowly and unwillingly behind the Pacific’s tepid wave.

We nooned at WILLOW SPRINGS.Willow Springs, a little doggery boasting of a shed and a bunk, but no corral; and we soothed, with a drink of our whisky, the excited feelings of the rancheros. The poor fellows had been plundered of their bread and dried meat by some petty thief, who had burrowed under the wall, and they sorely suspected our goggled friend, Jack the Arapaho. Master Jack’s hair might have found itself suspended near the fireplace if he had then been within rifle-shot; as it was, the two victims could only indulge in consolatory threats about wreaking their vengeance upon the first “doggond red-bellied crittur” whom good fortune might send in their way. The water was unusually good at Willow Springs; unfortunately, however, there was nothing else.

At 2 30 P.M. we resumed our way through the yellow-flowered rabbit-bush—it not a little resembled wild mustard—and a thick sage-heath, which was here and there spangled with the bright blossoms of the wilderness. After about twenty miles we passed, to the west of the road, a curious feature, to which the Mormon exodists first, on dit, gave the name of Saleratus Lake.[148][87] It lies to the west of the road, and is only one of a chain of alkaline waters and springs whose fetor, without exaggeration, taints the land. Cattle drinking of the fluid are nearly sure to die; even those that eat of the herbe salée, or salt grass growing upon its borders, and known by its reddish-yellow and sometimes bluish tinge, will suffer from a disease called the “Alkali,” which not unfrequently kills them. The appearance of the Saleratus Lake startles the traveler who, in the full blaze of midday upon this arid waste, where mirage mocks him at every turn, suddenly sees outstretched before his eyes a kind of Wenham Lake solidly overfrozen. The illusion is so perfect that I was completely deceived, nor could the loud guffaws of the driver bring me at once to the conclusion that seeing in this case is not believing. On a near inspection, the icy surface turns out to be a dust of carbonate of soda, concealing beneath it masses of the same material, washed out of the adjacent soil, and solidified by evaporation. The Latter-Day Saints were charmed with their trouvaille, and laid in stores of the fetid alkaline matter, as though it had been manna, for their bread and pastry. It is still transported westward, and declared to be purer than the saleratus of the shops. Near the lake is a deserted ranch, which once enjoyed the title of “Sweetwater Station.”

Four miles beyond this “Waterless Lake”—Bahr bila Ma as the Bedouin would call it—we arrived at Rock Independence,ROCK INDEPENDENCE. and felt ourselves in a new region, totally distinct from the clay formation of the mauvaises terres over which we have traveled for the last five days. Again I was startled by its surprising likeness to the scenery of Eastern Africa: a sketch of Jiwe la Mkoa, the Round Rock in eastern Unyamwezi,[88] would be mistaken, even by those who had seen both, for this grand échantillon of the Rocky Mountains. It crops out of an open plain, not far from the river bed, in dome shape wholly isolated, about 1000 feet in length by 400-500 in breadth; it is 60 to 100 feet in height,[89] and in circumference 1¹⁄₂ to 2 miles. Except upon the summit, where it has been weathered into a feldspathic soil, it is bare and bald; a scanty growth of shrubs protrudes, however, from its poll. The material of the stern-looking dome is granite, in enormous slabs and boulders, cracked, flaked, seared, and cloven, as if by igneous pressure from below. The prevailing tradition in the West is, that the mass derived its name from the fact that Colonel Frémont there delivered an Independence-day oration; but read a little farther. It is easily ascended at the northern side and the southeastern corner, and many climb its rugged flanks for a peculiarly Anglo-American purpose—Smith and Brown have held[149] high jinks here. In Colonel Frémont’s time (1842), every where within six or eight feet of the ground, where the surface is sufficiently smooth, and in some places sixty or eighty feet above, the rock was inscribed with the names of travelers. Hence the Indians have named it Timpe Nabor, or the Painted Rock, corresponding with the Sinaitic “Wady Mukattab.” In the present day, though much of the writing has been washed away by rain, 40,000-50,000 souls are calculated to have left their dates and marks from the coping of the wall to the loose stones below this huge sign-post. There is, however, some reason in the proceeding; it does not in these lands begin and end with the silly purpose, as among climbers of the Pyramids, and fouilleurs of the sarcophagi of Apis, to bequeath one’s few poor letters to a little athanasia. Prairie travelers and emigrants expect to be followed by their friends, and leave, in their vermilion outfit, or their white house-paint, or their brownish-black tar—a useful article for wagons—a homely but hearty word of love or direction upon any conspicuous object. Even a bull or a buffalo’s skull, which, lying upon the road, will attract attention, is made to do duty at this Poste Restante.

I will here take the liberty of digressing a little, with the charitable purpose of admiring the serious turn with which the United States explorers perform their explorations.

Colonel Frémont[90] thus calls to mind the earnest deeds of a bygone day. “One George Weymouth was sent out to Maine by the Earl of Southampton, Lord Arundel, and others, and in the narrative of their discoveries he says, ‘The next day we ascended in our pinnace that part of the river which lies more to the westward, carrying with us a cross—a thing never omitted by any Christian traveler—which we erected at the ultimate end of our route.’ This was in the year 1605, and in 1842 I obeyed the feeling of early travelers, and left the impressions of the cross deeply engraved on the vast rock, one thousand miles beyond the Mississippi, to which discoverers have given the national name of Rock Independence.”

Captain Stansbury[91] is not less scrupulous upon the subject of traveling proprieties. One of his entries is couched as follows: “Sunday, June 10, barometer 28·82, thermometer 70°. The camp rested: it had been determined, from the commencement of the expedition, to devote this day, whenever practicable, to its legitimate purpose, as an interval of rest for man and beast. I here beg to record, as the result of my experience, derived not only from the present journey, but from the observations of many years spent in the performance of similar duties, that, as a mere matter of pecuniary consideration, apart from all higher obligations, it is wise to keep the Sabbath.”

[150]

Lieutenant W. F. Lynch, United States Navy, who in 1857 commanded the United States Expedition to the River Jordan and the Dead Sea,[92] and published a narrative not deficient in interest, thus describes his proceedings at El Meshra, the bathing-place of the Christian pilgrims:

“This ground is consecrated by tradition as the place where the Israelites passed over with the ark of the covenant, and where the blessed Savior was baptized by John. Feeling that it would be desecration to moor the boats at a place so sacred, we passed it, and with some difficulty found a landing below.

“My first act was to bathe in the consecrated stream, thanking God, first, for the precious favor of being permitted to visit such a spot; and, secondly, for his protecting care throughout our perilous passage. For a long time after I sat upon the bank, my mind oppressed with awe, as I mused upon the great and wondrous events which had here occurred.” In strange contrast with these passages stands the characteristic prophecy, “The time is coming—the beginning is come now—when the whole worthless list of kings, with all their myrmidons, will be swept from their places, and made to bear a part in the toils and sufferings of the great human family,” etc., etc.

I would not willingly make light in others of certain finer sentiments—veneration, for instance, and conscientiousness—which Nature has perhaps debarred me from overenjoying; nor is it in my mind to console myself for the privation by debasing the gift in those gifted with it. But—the but, I fear, will, unlike “if,” be any thing rather than a great peacemaker in this case—there are feelings which, when strongly felt, when they well from the bottom of the heart, man conceals in the privacy of his own bosom; and which, if published to the world, are apt to remind the world that it has heard of a form of speech, as well as of argument, ranking under the category of ad captandum vulgus.

About a mile beyond Independence Rock we forded the Sweetwater. We had crossed the divide between this stream and the Platte, and were now to ascend our fourth river valley, the three others being the Missouri, the Big Blue, and the Nebraska. The Canadian voyageurs have translated the name Sweetwater from the Indian Pina Pa; but the term is here more applicable in a metaphorical than in a literal point of view. The water of the lower bed is rather hard than otherwise, and some travelers have detected brackishness in it, yet the banks are free from the saline hoar, which deters the thirstiest from touching many streams on this line. The Sweetwater, in its calmer course, is a perfect Naiad of the mountains; presently it will be an Undine hurried by that terrible Anagké, to which Jove himself must bend his omniscient head, into the grisly marital embrace of the gloomy old Platte.[151] Passing pleasant, after the surly ungenial silence of the Shallow River, is the merry prattle with which she answers the whisperings of those fickle flatterers, the winds, before that wedding-day when silence shall become her doom. There is a something in the Sweetwater which appeals to the feelings of rugged men: even the drivers and the station-keepers speak of “her” with a bearish affection.

After fording the swift Pina Pa, at that point about seventy feet wide and deep to the axles, we ran along its valley about six miles, and reached at 9 15 P.M. the muddy station kept by M. Planté, the usual Canadian. En route we had passed by the THE DEVIL’S GATE.Devil’s Gate, one of the great curiosities of this line of travel. It is the beau ideal of a kanyon, our portal opening upon the threshold of the Rocky Mountains: I can compare its form from afar only with the Brêche de Roland in the Pyrenees. The main pass of Aden magnified twenty fold is something of the same kind, but the simile is too unsavory. The height of the gorge is from 300 to 400 feet perpendicular, and on the south side threatening to fall: it has already done so in parts, as the masses which cumber the stream-bed show. The breadth varies from a minimum of 40 to a maximum of 105 feet, where the fissure yawns out, and the total length of the cleft is about 250 yards. The material of the walls is a gray granite, traversed by dikes of trap; and the rock in which the deep narrow crevasse has been made runs right through the extreme southern shoulder of a ridge, which bears appropriately enough the name of RATTLESNAKE HILLS.“Rattlesnake Hills.” Through this wild gorge the bright stream frets and forces her way, singing, unlike Liris, with a feminine untaciturnity, that awakes the echoes of the pent-up channel—tumbling and gurgling, dashing and foaming over the snags, blocks, and boulders, which, fallen from the cliffs above, obstruct the way, and bedewing the cedars and bright shrubs which fringe the ragged staples of the gate. Why she should not have promenaded gently and quietly round, instead of through, this grisly barrier of rock, goodness only knows: however, willful and womanlike, she has set her heart upon an apparent impossibility, and, as usual with her sex under the circumstances, she has had her way. Sermons in stones—I would humbly suggest to my gender.

Procrastination once more stole my chance; I had reserved myself for sketching the Devil’s Gate from the southwest, but the station proved too distant to convey a just idea of it. For the truest representation of the gate, the curious reader will refer to the artistic work of Mr. Frederick Piercy;[93] that published in Captain Marcy’s “List of Itineraries” is like any thing but the Devil’s Gate; even the rough lithograph in Colonel Frémont’s report is more truthful.

We supped badly as mankind well could at the cabaret, where[152] a very plain young person, and no neat-handed Phyllis withal, supplied us with a cock whose toughness claimed for it the honors of grandpaternity. Chickens and eggs there were none; butcher’s meat, of course, was unknown, and our hosts ignored the name of tea; their salt was a kind of saleratus, and their sugar at least half Indian-meal. When asked about fish, they said that the Sweetwater contained nothing but suckers,[94] and that these, though good eating, can not be caught with a hook. They are a queer lot, these French Canadians, who have “located” themselves in the Far West. Travelers who have hunted with them speak highly of them as a patient, submissive, and obedient race, inured to privations, and gifted with the reckless abandon—no despicable quality in prairie traveling—of the old Gascon adventurer; armed and ever vigilant, hardy, handy, and hearty children of Nature, combining with the sagacity and the instinctive qualities all the superstitions of the Indians; enduring as mountain goats; satisfied with a diet of wild meat, happiest when it could be followed by a cup of strong milkless coffee, a “chasse café” and a “brule-gueule;” invariably and contagiously merry; generous as courageous; handsome, active, and athletic; sashed, knived, and dressed in buckskin, to the envy of every Indian “brave,” and the admiration of every Indian belle, upon whom, if the adventurer’s heart had not fallen into the snares of the more attractive half-breed, he would spend what remained of his $10 a month, after coffee, alcohol, and tobacco had been extravagantly paid for, in presents of the gaudiest trash. Such is the voyageur of books: I can only speak of him as I found him, a lazy dog, somewhat shy and proud, much addicted to loafing and to keeping cabarets, because, as the old phrase is, the cabarets keep him—in idleness too. Probably his good qualities lie below the surface: those who hide a farthing rush-light under a bushel can hardly expect us, in this railway age, to take the trouble of finding it. I will answer, however, for the fact, that the bad points are painfully prominent. By virtue of speaking French and knowing something of Canada, I obtained some buffalo robes, and after a look at the supper, which had all the effect of a copious feed, I found a kind of out-house, and smoked till sleep weighed down my eyelids.

Up the Sweetwater. 19th August.

We arose at 6 A.M., before the rest of the household, who, when aroused, “hifered” and sauntered about all desœuvrés till their wool-gathering wits had returned. The breakfast was a little picture of the supper; for watered milk, half-baked bread, and unrecognizable butter, we paid the somewhat “steep” sum of 75 cents; we privily had our grumble, and set out at 7 A.M. to ascend[153] the Valley of the Sweetwater. The river-plain is bounded by two parallel lines of hills, or rather rocks, running nearly due east and west. Those to the north are about a hundred miles in extreme length, and, rising from a great plateau, lie perpendicular to the direction of the real Rocky Mountains toward which they lead: half the course of the Pina Pa subtends their southern base. The Western men know them as the Rattlesnake Hills, while the southern are called after the river. The former—a continuation of the ridge in which the Sweetwater has burst a gap—is one of those long lines of lumpy, misshapen, barren rock, that suggested to the Canadians for the whole region the name of Les Montagnes Rocheuses. In parts they are primary, principally syenite and granite, with a little gneiss, but they have often so regular a line of cleavage, perpendicular as well as horizontal, that they may readily be mistaken for stratifications. The stratified are slaty micaceous shale and red sandstone, dipping northward, and cut by quartz veins and trap dikes. The remarkable feature in both formations is the rounding of the ridges or blocks of smooth naked granite: hardly any angles appeared; the general effect was, that they had been water-washed immediately after birth. The upper portions of this range shelter the bighorn, or American moufflon, and the cougar,[95] the grizzly bear, and the wolf. The southern or Sweetwater range is vulgarly known as the Green-River Mountains: seen from the road, their naked, barren, and sandy flanks appear within cannon shot, but they are distant seven miles.

After a four-miles’ drive up the pleasant valley of the little river-nymph, to whom the grisly hills formed an effective foil, we saw on the south of the road “ALKALI LAKE.”“Alkali Lake,” another of the Trona formations with which we were about to become familiar; in the full glare of burning day it was undistinguishable as to the surface from the round pond in Hyde Park. Presently ascending a little rise, we were shown for the first time a real bit of the far-famed Rocky Mountains, which was hardly to be distinguished from, except by a shade of solidity, the fleecy sunlit clouds resting upon the horizon: it was Frémont’s Peak, the sharp, snow-clad apex of the Wind River range. Behind us and afar rose the distant heads of black hills. The valley was charming with its bright glad green, a tapestry of flowery grass, willow copses where the grouse ran in and out, and long lines of aspen, beech, and cotton-wood, while pine and cedar, cypress and scattered evergreens, crept up the cranks and crannies of the rocks. In the midst of this Firdaus—so it appeared to us after the horrid unwithering artemisia Jehennum of last week—flowed the lovely[154] little stream, transparent as crystal, and coquettishly changing from side to side in her bed of golden sand. To see her tamely submit to being confined within those dwarf earthen cliffs, you would not have known her to be the same that had made that terrible breach in the rock-wall below. “Varium et mutabile semper,” etc.: I will not conclude the quotation, but simply remark that the voyageurs have called her “She.” And every where, in contrast with the deep verdure and the bright flowers of the valley, rose the stern forms of the frowning rocks, some apparently hanging as though threatening a fall, others balanced upon the slenderest foundations, all split and broken as though earthquake-riven, loosely piled into strange figures, the lion couchant, sugar-loaf, tortoise, and armadillo—not a mile, in fact, was without its totem.

The road was good, especially when hardened by frost. We are now in altitudes where, as in Tibet, parts of the country for long centuries never thaw. After passing a singular stone bluff on the left of the road, we met a party of discharged soldiers, who were traveling eastward comfortably enough in government wagons drawn by six mules. Not a man saluted Lieutenant Dana, though he was in uniform, and all looked surly as Indians after a scalpless raid. Speeding merrily along, we were shown on the right of the road a ranch belonging to a Canadian, a “mighty mean man,” said the driver, “who onst gin me ole mare’s meat for b’ar.” We were much shocked by this instance of the awful depravity of the unregenerate human heart, but our melancholy musings were presently interrupted by the same youth, who pointed out on the other side of the path a mass of clay (conglomerate, I presume), called the Devil’s Post-office. It has been lately washed with rains so copious that half the edifice lies at the base of that which is standing. The structure is not large: it is highly satisfactory—especially to a man who in this life has suffered severely, as the Anglo-Indian ever must from endless official and semi-official correspondence—to remark that the London Post-office is about double its size.

Beyond the Post-office was another ranch belonging to a Portuguese named Luis Silva, married to an Englishwoman who had deserted the Salt Lake Saints. We “staid a piece” there, but found few inducements to waste our time. MISS MOORE AND HER HUSBAND.Moreover, we had heard from afar of an “ole ’ooman,” an Englishwoman, a Miss Moore—Miss is still used for Mrs. by Western men and negroes—celebrated for cleanliness, tidiness, civility, and housewifery in general, and we were anxious to get rid of the evil flavor of Canadians, squaws, and “ladies.”

At 11 A.M. we reached “Three Crossings,” when we found the “miss” a stout, active, middle-aged matron, deserving of all the praises that had so liberally been bestowed upon her. The little ranch was neatly swept and garnished, papered and ornamented.[155] The skull of a full-grown bighorn hanging over the doorway represented the spoils of a stag of twelve. The table-cloth was clean, so was the cooking, so were the children; and I was reminded of Europe by the way in which she insisted upon washing my shirt, an operation which, after leaving the Missouri, ça va sans dire, had fallen to my own lot. In fact, this day introduced me to the third novel sensation experienced on the western side of the Atlantic. The first is to feel (practically) that all men are equal; that you are no man’s superior, and that no man is yours. The second—this is spoken as an African wanderer—to see one’s quondam acquaintance, the Kaffir, laying by his grass kilt and coat of grease, invest himself in broadcloth, part his wool on one side, shave what pile nature has scattered upon his upper lip, chin, and cheeks below a line drawn from the ear to the mouth-corner after the fashion of the times when George the Third was king, and call himself, not Sambo, but Mr. Scott. The third was my meeting in the Rocky Mountains with this refreshing specimen of that far Old World, where, on the whole, society still lies in strata, as originally deposited, distinct, sharply defined, and rarely displaced, except by some violent upheaval from below, which, however, never succeeds long in producing total inversion. Miss Moore’s husband, a decent appendage, had transferred his belief from the Church of England to the Church of Utah, and the good wife, as in duty bound, had followed in his wake whom she was bound to love, honor, and obey. But when the serpent came and whispered in Miss Moore’s modest, respectable, one-idea’d ear that the Abrahams of Great Salt Lake City are mere “sham Abrams”—that, not content with Sarahs, they add to them an unlimited supply of Hagars, then did our stout Englishwoman’s power of endurance break down never to rise again. “Not an inch would she budge;” not a step toward Utah Territory would she take. She fought pluckily against the impending misfortune, and—à quelque chose malheur est bon!—she succeeded in reducing her husband to that state which is typified by the wife using certain portions of the opposite sex’s wardrobe, and in making him make a good livelihood as station-master on the wagon-line.

After a copious breakfast, which broke the fast of the four days that had dragged on since our civilized refection at Fort Laramie, we spread our buffalos and water-proofs under the ample eaves of the ranch, and spent the day in taking time with the sextant—every watch being wrong—in snoozing, dozing, chatting, smoking, and contemplating the novel view. Straight before us rose the Rattlesnake Hills, a nude and grim horizon, frowning over the soft and placid scene below, while at their feet flowed the little river—splendidior vitro—purling over its pebbly bed with graceful meanderings through clover prairillons and garden-spots full of wild currants, strawberries, gooseberries, and[156] rattlesnakes; while, contrasting with the green River Valley and the scorched and tawny rock-wall, patches of sand-hill, raised by the winds, here and there cumbered the ground. The variety of the scene was much enhanced by the changeful skies. The fine breeze which had set in at 8 A.M. had died in the attempt to thread these heat-refracting ridges, and vapory clouds, sublimated by the burning sun, floated lazily in the empyrean, casting fitful shadows that now intercepted, then admitted, a blinding glare upon the mazy stream and its rough cradle.

In the evening we bathed in the shallow bed of the Sweetwater. It is vain to caution travelers against this imprudence. Video meliora proboque—it is doubtless unwise—but it is also mera stultitia to say to men who have not enjoyed ablutions for a week or ten days, “If you do take that delicious dip you may possibly catch fever.” Deteriora sequor—bathed. Miss Moore warned us strongly against the rattlesnakes, and during our walk we carefully observed the Indian rule, to tread upon the log and not to overstep it. The crotalus, I need hardly say, like other snakes, is fond of lurking under the shade of fallen or felled trunks, and when a heel or a leg is temptingly set before it, it is not the beast to refuse a bite. Accidents are very common, despite all precautions, upon this line, but they seldom, I believe, prove fatal. The remedies are almost endless: e. g., hartshorn, used externally and drunk in dilution; scarification and irrumation of the part, preceded, of course, by a ligature between the limb and the heart; application of the incised breast of a live fowl or frog to the wound; the dried and powdered blood of turtle, of this two pinches to be swallowed and a little dropped upon the place bitten; a plaster of chewed or washed plantain-leaves—it is cooling enough, but can do little more—bound upon the puncture, peppered with a little finely-powdered tobacco; pulverized indigo made into a poultice with water; cauterization by gunpowder, hot iron, or lunar caustic; cedron, a nut growing on the Isthmus of Panama—of this remedy I heard, in loco, the most wonderful accounts, dying men being restored, as if by magic, after a bit about the size of a bean had been placed in their mouths. As will be seen below, the land is rich in snakeroots, but the superstitious snakestone of Hindostan—which acts, if it does act, as an absorbent of the virus by capillary attraction—is apparently unknown. The favorite remedy now in the United States is the “whisky cure,” which, under the form of arrack, combined in the case of a scorpion-sting with a poultice of chewed tobacco, was known for the last fifty years to the British soldier in India. It has the advantage of being a palatable medicine; it must also be taken in large quantities, a couple of bottles sometimes producing little effect. With the lighted end of a cigar applied as moxa to the wound, a quantum sufficit of ardent spirits, a couple of men to make me walk about when drowsy by the application of a stick, and, above[157] all, with the serious resolution not to do any thing so mean as to “leap the twig,” I should not be afraid of any snake yet created. The only proviso is that our old enemy must not touch an artery, and that the remedies must be at hand. Fifteen minutes lost, you are “down among the dead men.” The history of fatal cases always shows some delay.[96]

We supped in the evening merrily. It was the best coffee we had tasted since leaving New Orleans; the cream was excellent, so was the cheese. But an antelope had unfortunately been brought in; we had insisted upon a fry of newly-killed flesh, which was repeated in the morning, and we had bitterly to regret it. While I was amusing myself by attempting to observe an immersion of Jupiter’s satellites with a notable failure in the shape of that snare and delusion, a portable telescope, suddenly there arose a terrible hubbub.A HUBBUB. For a moment it was believed that the crotalus horridus had been taking liberties with one of Miss Moore’s progeny. The seat of pain, however, soon removed the alarming suspicion, and—the rattlesnake seldom does damage at night—we soon came to the conclusion that the dear little fellow who boo-hoo’d for forty had been bitten by a musqueto somewhat bigger than its fellows. The poor mother soon was restored to her habits of happiness and hard labor. Not contented with supporting her own family, she was doing supererogation by feeding a little rat-eyed, snub-nosed, shark-mouthed half-breed girl, who was, I believe, in the market as a “chattel.” Mrs. Dana pointed out to me one sign of demoralization on the part of Miss Moore.“YES, SURR!” It was so microscopic that only a woman’s acute eye could detect it. Miss Moore was teaching her children to say “Yes, surr!” to every driver.

To the Foot of South Pass. 19th August.

With renewed spirit, despite a somewhat hard struggle with the musquetoes, we set out at the respectable hour of 5 45 A.M. We had breakfasted comfortably, and an interesting country lay before us. The mules seemed to share in our gayety. Despite a long ringing, the amiable animals kicked and bit, bucked and backed, till their recalcitrances had almost deposited us in the first ford of the Sweetwater. For this, however, we were amply consoled by the greater misfortunes of our consort, the official wagon. After long luxuriating in the pick of the teams, they were to-day so thoroughly badly “muled” that they were compelled to apply for our assistance.

We forded the river twice within fifty yards, and we recognized with sensible pleasure a homely-looking magpie (Pica Hudsonica),[158] and a rattlesnake, not inappropriately, considering where we were, crossed the road. Our path lay between two rocky ridges, which gradually closed inward, forming a regular kanyon, quite shutting out the view. On both sides white and micaceous granite towered to the height of 300 or 400 feet, terminating in jagged and pointed peaks, whose partial disruption covered the angle at their base. Arrived at Ford No. 5, we began an ascent, and reaching the summit, halted to enjoy the fine back view of the split and crevassed mountains.

A waterless and grassless track of fifteen to sixteen miles led us to a well-known place—the Ice Springs—of which, somewhat unnecessarily, a marvel is made. The ground, which lies on the right of the road, is a long and swampy trough between two waves of land which permit the humidity to drain down, and the grass is discolored, suggesting the presence of alkali. After digging about two feet, ice is found in small fragments. Its presence, even in the hottest seasons, may be readily accounted for by the fact that hereabouts water will freeze in a tent during July, and by the depth to which the wintry frost extends. Upon the same principle, snow gathering in mountain ravines and hollows long outlasts the shallower deposits. A little beyond Ice Springs, on the opposite side of, and about a quarter of a mile distant from the road, lie the Warm Springs, one of the many alkaline pans which lie scattered over the face of the country. From the road nothing is to be seen but a deep cunette full of percolated water.

Beyond the Warm Springs lay a hopeless-looking land, a vast slope, barren and desolate as Nature could well make it. The loose sands and the granite masses of the valley had disappeared; the surface was a thin coat of hard gravelly soil. Some mosses, a scanty yellow grass, and the dark gray artemisia, now stunted and shrunk, were sparsely scattered about. It had already begun to give way before an even hardier creation, the rabbit-bush and the greasewood. The former, which seems to thrive under the wintry snow, is a favorite food with hares, which abound in this region; the latter (Obione, or Atriplex canescens, the chamizo of the Mexicans) derives its name from the oleaginous matter abundant in its wood, and is always a sign of a poor and sterile soil. Avoiding a steep descent by a shorter road, called “Landers’ Cut-off,” we again came upon the Sweetwater, which was here somewhat broader than below, and lighted upon good grass and underbrush, willow copses, and a fair halting-place. At Ford No. 6—three followed one another in rapid succession—we found the cattle of a traveling trader scattered over the pasture-grounds, He proved to be an Italian driven from the low country by a band of Sioux, who had slain his Shoshonee wife, and at one time had thought of adding his scalp to his squaw’s. After Ford No. 8, we came upon a camping-ground, usually called in guide-books “River Bank and Stream.” The Sweetwater is here twenty-five[159] feet wide. About three miles beyond it lay the “Foot of Ridge Station,” near a willowy creek, called from its principal inhabitants the Muskrat.[97] The ridge from which it derives its name is a band of stone that will cross the road during to-morrow’s ascent. Being a frontier place, it is a favorite camping-ground with Indians. To-day a war party of Sioux rode in, en route to provide themselves with a few Shoshonee scalps.

We made a decided rise to-day, and stood at least 6000 feet above the level of the sea. The altitude of St. Louis being in round numbers 500 feet, and reckoning the diminution of temperatureTEMPERATURE. at 1° F. = 100 yards, we are already 19° to 20° F. colder than before. The severity of the atmosphere and the rapid evaporation from the earth cause an increase of frigidity, to which the salts and nitrates upon the surface of the soil, by absorbing the hydrogen of the atmosphere—as is shown by the dampness of the ground and the absence of dust around the Saleratus Lakes—greatly add. Another remark made by every traveler in these regions is the marked influence upon the temperature caused by the presence and the absence of the sun. The day will be sultry and oppressive, and a fire will be required at night. In the morning, about 11 A.M., the thermometer showed 80° Fahrenheit; at 4 P.M., the sky being clouded over, it fell 25°; before dawn, affected by the cold north wind from the snows about the Pass, it stood at 40°.

The lowering firmament threatened rain, of which, however, the thirsty land was disappointed. Moreover, all were agreed that snow was to be expected in another fortnight, if not sooner. Glacial storms occasionally occur in July and August, so that in some years the land may be said to have no summer. In winter the sharpness of the cold is such that it can be kept out only by clothes of the closest texture; the mountain-men, like the Esquimaux, prefer to clothe themselves cap-a-piè in the prepared skins of animals. We were all animated with a nervous desire for travel, but there was the rub. The station-master declared that he had no driver, no authority to forward two wagonsful, and no cattle; consequently, that the last comers must be last served, and wait patiently at Rocky Ridge till they could be sent on. They would find antelopes in plenty, perhaps a grizzly, and plenty of plover, crows, and delicate little ground-squirrels[98] by the burrowful, to “keep their hands in.” FIRST COME, FIRST SERVED.We being the first comers, a title to preference rarely disputed in this law-and-rule-abiding land, prudently held ourselves aloof. The Judiciary, however, was[160] sorely “exercised.” Being a “professor,” that is, a serious person, he could not relieve his mind by certain little moyens which naturally occurred to the rest of the party. Many and protracted were the powwows that took place on this momentous occasion. Sometimes our quondam companions—we now looked upon them as friends lost to us—would mysteriously disappear as though the earth had opened and swallowed them, and presently they would return with woe-begone step and the wrinkled brow of care, simulating an ease which they were far from feeling.

The station rather added to than took from our discomfort: it was a terrible unclean hole; milk was not procurable within thirty-five miles; one of the officials was suffering sorely from a stomach-ache; there was no sugar, and the cooking was atrocious. With a stray title-pageless volume of some natural history of America, and another of agricultural reports—in those days, before reform came, these scientific and highly elaborate compositions, neatly printed and expensively got up at the public expense, were apparently distributed to every ranch and station in the line of road—I worked through the long and tedious afternoon. We were not sorry when the night came, but then the floor was knobby, the musquetoes seemed rather to enjoy the cold, and the banks swarmed with “chinches.”[99] The coyotes and wolves made night vocal with their choruses, and had nearly caused an accident. One of the station-men arose, and, having a bone to pick with the animals for having robbed his beef-barrel, cocked his revolver, and was upon the point of firing, when the object aimed at started up and cried out in the nick of time that he was a federal marshal, not a wolf.

To the South Pass. August 20th.

We rose with the daybreak; we did not start till nearly 8 A.M., the interim having been consumed by the tenants of our late consort in a vain palaver. We bade adieu to them and mounted at last, loudly pitying their miseries as they disappeared from our ken. But the driver bade us reserve our sympathy and humane expressions for a more fitting occasion, and declared—it was probably a little effort of his own imagination—that those faithless friends had spent all their spare time in persuading him to take them on and to leave us behind. I, for one, will never believe that any thing of the kind had been attempted; a man must be created with a total absence of the bowels of compassion who would leave a woman and a young child for days together at the foot of Ridge Station.

The road at once struck away from the Sweetwater, winding up and down rugged hills and broken hollows. From Fort Laramie[161] the land is all a sandy and hilly desert where one can easily starve, but here it shows its worst features. During a steep descent a mule fell, and was not made to regain its footing without difficulty. Signs of wolves, coyotes, and badgers were abundant, and the coqs de prairie (sage-chickens), still young and toothsome at this season, were at no pains to get out of shot. After about five miles we passed by “Three Lakes,” dirty little ponds north of the road, two near it and one distant, all about a quarter of a mile apart, and said by those fond of tasting strange things to have somewhat the flavor, as they certainly have the semblance, of soapsuds. Beyond this point we crossed a number of influents of the pretty Sweetwater, some dry, others full: the most interesting was Strawberry Creek: it supplies plenty of the fragrant wild fruit, and white and red willows fringe the bed as long as it retains its individuality. To the north a mass of purple nimbus obscured the mountains—on Frémont’s Peak it is said always to rain or snow—and left no visible line between earth and sky. Quaking-Asp Creek was bone dry. At MacAchran’s Branch of the Sweetwater we found, pitched upon a sward near a willow copse, a Provençal Frenchman—by what “hasard que les sceptiques appellent l’homme d’affaires du bon Dieu” did he come here?—who begged us to stop and give him the news, especially about the Indians: we could say little that was reassuring. WILLOW CREEK.Another spell of rough, steep ground placed us at Willow Creek, a pretty little prairillon, with verdure, water, and an abundance of the larger vegetation, upon which our eyes, long accustomed to artemisia and rabbit-bush, dwelt with a compound sense of surprise and pleasure. In a well-built ranch at this place of plenty were two Canadian traders, apparently settled for life; they supplied us, as we found it necessary to “liquor up,” with a whisky which did not poison us, and that is about all that I can say for it. At Ford No. 9, we bade adieu to the Sweetwater with that natural regret which one feels when losing sight of the only pretty face and pleasant person in the neighborhood; and we heard with a melancholy satisfaction the driver’s tribute to departing worth, viz., that its upper course is the “healthiest water in the world.” SOUTH-PASS CITY.Near this spot, since my departure, has been founded “South-Pass City,” one of the many mushroom growths which the presence of gold in the Rocky Mountains has caused to spring up.

Ten miles beyond Ford No. 9, hilly miles, ending in a long champaign having some of the characteristics of a rolling prairie, with scatters of white, rose, and smoky quartz, granite, hornblende, porphyry, marble-like lime, sandstone, and mica slate—the two latter cropping out of the ground and forming rocky ridges—led us to the South Pass, the great Wassersheide between the Atlantic and the Pacific, and the frontier points between the territory of Nebraska and the State of Oregon. From the mouth of the Sweetwater, about 120 miles, we have been rising so gradually, almost[162] imperceptibly, that now we unexpectedly find ourselves upon the summit. The distance from Fort Laramie is 320 miles, from St. Louis 1580, and from the mouth of the Oregon about 1400: it is therefore nearly midway between the Mississippi and the Pacific. The dimensions of this memorial spot are 7490 feet above sea-level, and 20 miles in breadth. The last part of the ascent is so gentle that it is difficult to distinguish the exact point where the versant lies: a stony band crossing the road on the ridge of the table-land is pointed out as the place, and the position has been fixed at N. lat. 48° 19′, and W. long. 108° 40′.[100] The northern limit is the noble chain of Les Montagnes Rocheuses, which goes by the name of the Wind River; the southern is called Table Mountain, an insignificant mass of low hills.

A pass it is not: it has some of the features of Thermopylæ or the Gorge of Killiecrankie; of the European St. Bernard or Simplon; of the Alleghany Passes or of the Mexican Barrancas. It is not, as it sounds, a ghaut between lofty mountains, or, as the traveler may expect, a giant gateway, opening through Cyclopean walls of beetling rocks that rise in forbidding grandeur as he passes onward to the Western continent. And yet the word “Pass” has its significancy. In that New World where Nature has worked upon the largest scale, where every feature of scenery, river and lake, swamp and forest, prairie and mountain, dwarf their congeners in the old hemisphere, this majestic level-topped bluff, the highest steppe of the continent, upon whose iron surface there is space enough for the armies of the globe to march over, is the grandest and the most appropriate of avenues.

A water-shed is always exciting to the traveler. What shall I say of this, where, on the topmost point of American travel, you drink within a hundred yards of the waters of the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans—that divides the “doorways of the west wind” from the “portals of the sunrise?” On the other side of yon throne of storms, within sight, did not the Sierra interpose, lie separated by a trivial space the fountain-heads that give birth to the noblest rivers of the continent, the Columbia, the Colorado, and the Yellow Stone, which is to the Missouri what the Missouri is to the Mississippi, whence the waters trend to four opposite directions: the Wind River to the northeast; to the southeast the Sweetwater and the Platte; the various branches of the Snake River to the northeast; and to the southwest the Green River, that finds its way into the Californian Gulf.[101] It is a suggestive[163] spot, this “divortia aquarum:” it compels Memory to revive past scenes before plunging into the mysterious “Lands of the Hereafter,” which lie before and beneath the feet. The Great Ferry, which steam has now bridged, the palisaded banks of the Hudson, the soft and sunny scenery of the Ohio, and the kingly course of the Upper Mississippi, the terrible beauty of Niagara, and the marvels of that chain of inland seas which winds its watery way from Ontario to Superior; the rich pasture-lands of the North, the plantations of the semi-tropical South, and the broad corn-fields of the West; finally, the vast meadow-land and the gloomy desert-waste of sage and saleratus, of clay and mauvaise terre, of red butte and tawny rock, all pass before the mind in rapid array ere they are thrust into oblivion by the excitement of a new departure.

But we have not yet reached our destination, which is two miles below the South Pass.THE SOUTH PASS. Pacific Springs is our station; it lies a little down the hill, and we can sight it from the road. The springs are a pond of pure, hard, and very cold water, surrounded by a strip of shaking bog, which must be boarded over before it will bear a man. The hut would be a right melancholy abode were it not for the wooded ground on one hand, and the glorious snow-peaks on the other side of the “Pass.” We reached Pacific Springs at 3 P.M., and dined without delay, the material being bouilli and potatoes—unusual luxuries. About an hour afterward the west wind, here almost invariable, brought up a shower of rain, and swept a vast veil over the forms of the Wind-River Mountains. Toward sunset it cleared away, and the departing luminary poured a flood of gold upon the majestic pile—I have seldom seen a view more beautiful.

From the south, the barren rolling table-land that forms the Pass trends northward till it sinks apparently below a ridge of offsets from the main body, black with timber—cedar, cypress, fir, and balsam pine. The hand of Nature has marked, as though by line and level, the place where vegetation shall go and no farther. Below the waist the mountains are robed in evergreens; above it, to the shoulders, they would be entirely bare but for the atmosphere, which has thrown a thin veil of light blue over their tawny gray, while their majestic heads are covered with ice and snow, or are hidden from sight by thunder-cloud or the morning mist. From the south, on clear days, the cold and glittering radiance[164] may be seen at a distance of a hundred miles. The monarch of these mountains is “Frémont’s Peak;” its height is laid down at 13,570 feet above sea level; and second to it is a hoary cone called by the station-people Snowy Peak.

That evening the Wind-River Mountains appeared in marvelous majesty. The huge purple hangings of rain-cloud in the northern sky set off their huge proportions, and gave prominence, as in a stereoscope, to their gigantic forms, and their upper heights, hoar with the frosts of ages. The mellow radiance of the setting sun diffused a charming softness over their more rugged features, defining the folds and ravines with a distinctness which deceived every idea of distance. And as the light sank behind the far western horizon, it traveled slowly up the mountain side, till, reaching the summit, it mingled its splendors with the snow—flashing and flickering for a few brief moments, then wasting them in the dark depths of the upper air. Nor was the scene less lovely in the morning hour, as the first effulgence of day fell upon the masses of dew-cloud—at this time mist always settles upon their brows—lit up the peaks, which gleamed like silver, and poured its streams of light and warmth over the broad skirts reposing upon the plain.

This unknown region was explored in August, 1842, by Colonel, then Brevet Captain, J. C. Frémont, of the United States Topographical Engineers; and his eloquent descriptions of the magnificent scenery that rewarded his energy and enterprise prove how easily men write well when they have a great subject to write upon. The concourse of small green tarns, rushing waters, and lofty cascades, with the gigantic disorder of enormous masses, the savage sublimity of the naked rock, broken, jagged cones, slender minarets, needles, and columns, and serrated walls, 2000 to 3000 feet high, all naked and destitute of vegetable earth; the vertical precipices, chasms, and fissures, insecure icy passages, long moraines, and sloping glaciers—which had nearly proved fatal to some of the party; the stern recesses, shutting out from the world dells and ravines of exquisite beauty, smoothly carpeted with soft grass, kept green and fresh by the moisture of the atmosphere, and sown with gay groups of brilliant flowers, of which yellow was the predominant color: all this glory and grandeur seems to be placed like a picture before our eyes. The reader enjoys, like the explorer, the fragrant odor of the pines, and the pleasure of breathing, in the bright, clear morning, that “mountain air which makes a constant theme of the hunter’s praise,” and which causes man to feel as if he had been inhaling some exhilarating gas. We sympathize with his joy in having hit upon “such a beautiful entrance to the mountains,” in his sorrow, caused by accidents to barometer and thermometer, and in the honest pride with which, fixing a ramrod in the crevice of “an unstable and precarious slab, which it seemed a breath would hurl[165] into the abyss below,” he unfurled the Stars and the Stripes, to wave in the breeze where flag never waved before—over the topmost crest of the Rocky Mountains. And every driver upon the road now can tell how, in the profound silence and terrible stillness and solitude that affect the mind as the great features of the scene, while sitting on a rock at the very summit, where the silence was absolute, unbroken by any sound, and the stillness and solitude were completest, a solitary “humble-bee”[102] winging through the black-blue air his flight from the eastern valley, alit upon the knee of one of the men, and, helas! “found a grave in the leaves of the large book, among the flowers collected on the way.”

The Wind-River Range has other qualities than mere formal beauty to recommend it. At Horseshoe Creek I was shown a quill full of large gold-grainsGOLD. from a new digging. Probably all the primitive masses of the Rocky Mountains will be found to contain the precious metal. The wooded heights are said to be a very paradise of sport, GAME.full of elk and every kind of deer; pumas; bears, brown[103] as well as grizzly; the wolverine;[104] in parts the mountain buffalo—briefly, all the noble game of the Continent. The Indian tribes, Shoshonees and Blackfeet, are not deadly to whites. Washiki, the chief of the former, had, during the time of our visit, retired to hilly ground, about forty miles north of the Foot of Ridge Station. This chief—a fine, manly fellow, equal in point of physical strength to the higher race—had been a firm friend, from the beginning, to emigrant and settler; but he was complaining, according to the road officials, that the small amount of inducement prevented his affording good conduct any longer—that he must rob, like the rest of the tribe. Game, indeed, is not unfrequently found near the Pacific Springs; they are visited, later in the year, by swans, geese, and flights of ducks. At this season they seem principally to attract coyotes—five mules have lately been worried by the little villains—huge cranes, chicken-hawks, a large species of trochilus, and clouds of musquetoes,MUSQUETOES. which neither the altitude, the cold, nor the eternal wind-storm that howls through the Pass can drive from their favorite breeding-bed. Near nightfall a flock of wild geese passed over us, audibly threatening an early winter. We were obliged, before resting, to insist upon a A “SMUDGE.”smudge,[105] without which fumigation sleep would have been impossible.

[166]

The shanty was perhaps a trifle more uncomfortable than the average; our only seat was a kind of trestled plank, which suggested a certain obsolete military punishment called riding on a rail. The station-master was a bon enfant; but his help, a Mormon lad, still in his teens, had been trained to go in a “sorter” jibbing and somewhat uncomfortable “argufying,” “highfalutin’” way. He had the furor for fire-arms that characterizes the ingenuous youth of Great Salt Lake City, and his old rattletrap of a revolver, which always reposed by his side at night, was as dangerous to his friends as to himself. His vernacular was peculiar; like Mr. Boatswain Chucks (Mr. D——s), he could begin a sentence with polished and elaborate diction, but it always ended, like the wicked, badly. He described himself, for instance, as having lately been “slightly inebriated;” but the euphuistic periphrasis concluded with an asseveration that he would be “Gord domned” if he did it again.

The night was, like the day, loud and windy, the log hut being somewhat crannied and creviced, and the door had a porcelain handle, and a shocking bad fit—a characteristic combination. We had some trouble to keep ourselves warm. At sunrise the thermometer showed 35° Fahrenheit.

To Green River. August 21st.

We rose early, despite the cold, to enjoy once more the lovely aspect of the Wind-River Mountains, upon whose walls of snow the rays of the unrisen sun broke with a splendid effect; breakfasted, and found ourselves en route at 8 A.M. The day did not begin well: Mrs. Dana was suffering severely from fatigue, and the rapid transitions from heat to cold; Miss May, poor child! was but little better, and the team was re-enforced by an extra mule returning to its proper station: this four-footed Xantippe caused us, without speaking of the dust from her hoofs, an immensity of trouble.

At the Pacific Creek, two miles below the springs, we began the descent of the Western water-shed, and the increase of temperature soon suggested a lower level. We were at once convinced that those who expect any change for the better on the counterslope of the mountains labor under a vulgar error. The land was desolate, a red waste, dotted with sage and greasebush, and in places pitted with large rain-drops. But, looking backward, we could admire the Sweetwater’s Gap heading far away, and the glorious pile of mountains which, disposed in crescent shape, curtained the horizon; their southern and western bases wanted, however, one of the principal charms of the upper view: the snow had well-nigh been melted off. Yet, according to the explorer, they supply within the space of a few miles the Green River with a[167] number of tributaries, which are all called the New Forks. We kept them in sight till they mingled with the upper air like immense masses of thunder-cloud gathering for a storm.

From Pacific Creek the road is not bad, but at this season the emigrant parties are sorely tried by drought, and when water is found it is often fetid or brackish. After seventeen miles we passed the junction of the Great Salt Lake and Fort Hall roads. Near Little Sandy Creek—a feeder of its larger namesake—which after rains is about 2·5 feet deep, we found nothing but sand, caked clay, sage, thistles, and the scattered fragments of camp-fires, with large ravens picking at the bleaching skeletons, and other indications of a halting-ground, an eddy in the great current of mankind, which, ceaseless as the Gulf Stream, ever courses from east to west. After a long stage of twenty-nine miles we made Big Sandy Creek, an important influent of the Green River; the stream, then shrunken, was in breadth not less than five rods, each = 16·5 feet, running with a clear, swift current through a pretty little prairillon, bright with the blue lupine, the delicate pink malvacea, the golden helianthus, purple aster acting daisy, the white mountain heath, and the green Asclepias tuberosa,[106] a weed common throughout Utah Territory. The Indians, in their picturesque way, term this stream Wágáhongopá, or the THE GLISTENING GRAVEL WATER.Glistening Gravel Water.[107] We halted for an hour to rest and dine; the people of the station, man and wife, the latter very young, were both English, and of course Mormons; they had but lately become tenants of the ranch, but already they were thinking, as the Old Country people will, of making their surroundings “nice and tidy.”

Beyond the Glistening Gravel Water lies a mauvaise terre, sometimes called the First Desert, and upon the old road water is not found in the dry season within forty-nine miles—a terrible jornada[108] for laden wagons with tired cattle. We prepared for drought by replenishing all our canteens—one of them especially, a tin flask, covered outside with thick cloth, kept the fluid deliciously cold—and we amused ourselves by the pleasant prospect of seeing wild mules taught to bear harness. The tricks of equine viciousness and asinine obstinacy played by the mongrels were so distinct, that we had no pains in determining what was inherited from the father and what from the other side of the house. Before they could be hitched up they were severally hustled into something[168] like a parallel line with the pole, and were then forced into their places by a rope attached to the fore wheel, and hauled at the other end by two or three men. Each of these pleasant animals had a bell: it is sure, unless corraled, to run away, and at night sound is necessary to guide the pursuer. At last, being “all aboord,” we made a start, dashed over the Big Sandy, charged the high stiff bank with an impetus that might have carried us up an otter-slide or a Montagne Russe, and took the right side of the valley, leaving the stream at some distance.

Rain-clouds appeared from the direction of the hills: apparently they had many centres, as the distant sheet was rent into a succession of distinct streamers. A few drops fell upon us as we advanced. Then the fiery sun “ate up” the clouds, or raised them so high that they became playthings in the hands of the strong and steady western gale. The thermometer showed 95° in the carriage, and 111° exposed to the reflected heat upon the black leather cushions. It was observable, however, that the sensation was not what might have been expected from the height of the mercury, and perspiration was unknown except during severe exercise; this proves the purity and salubrity of the air. In St. Jo and New Orleans the effect would have been that of India or of a Turkish steam-bath. The heat, however, brought with it one evil—a green-headed horsefly, that stung like a wasp, and from which cattle must be protected with a coating of grease and tar. Whenever wind blew, tourbillons of dust coursed over the different parts of the plain, showing a highly electrical state of the atmosphere. When the air was unmoved the mirage was perfect as the sarab in Sindh or Southern Persia; earth and air were both so dry that the refraction of the sunbeams elevated the objects acted upon more than I had ever seen before. A sea lay constantly before our eyes, receding of course as we advanced, but in all other points a complete lusus naturæ. The color of the water was a dull cool sky-blue, not white, as the “looming” generally is; the broad expanse had none of that tremulous upward motion which is its general concomitant; it lay placid, still, and perfectly reflecting in its azure depths—here and there broken by projecting capes and bluff headlands—the forms of the higher grounds bordering the horizon.

After twelve miles’ driving we passed through a depression called Simpson’s Hollow, and somewhat celebrated in local story. Two semicircles of black still charred the ground; on a cursory view they might have been mistaken for burnt-out lignite. Here, in 1857, the Mormons fell upon a corraled train of twenty-three wagons, laden with provisions and other necessaries for the federal troops, then halted at Camp Scott awaiting orders to advance. The wagoners, suddenly attacked, and, as usual, unarmed—their weapons being fastened inside their awnings—could offer no resistance, and the whole convoy was set on fire except two conveyances,[169] which were left to carry back supplies for the drivers till they could reach their homes. On this occasion the dux facti was Lot Smith, a man of reputation for hard riding and general gallantry. The old Saint is always spoken of as a good man who lives by “Mormon rule of wisdom.” As at Fort Sumter, no blood was spilled. So far the Mormons behaved with temper and prudence; but this their first open act of rebellion against, or secession from, the federal authority nearly proved fatal to them; had the helm of government been held by a firmer hand than poor Mr. Buchanan’s, the scenes of Nauvoo would have been acted again at Great Salt Lake City. As it was, all turned out à merveille for the saints militant. They still boast loudly of the achievement, and on the marked spot where it was performed the juvenile emigrants of the creed erect dwarf graves and nameless “wooden” tomb-“stones” in derision of their enemies.

As sunset drew near we approached the banks of the Big Sandy River. The bottom through which it flowed was several yards in breadth, bright green with grass, and thickly feathered with willows and cotton-wood. It showed no sign of cultivation; the absence of cereals may be accounted for by its extreme cold; it freezes there every night, and none but the hardiest grains, oats and rye, which here are little appreciated, could be made to grow. We are now approaching the valley of the VALLEY OF THE GREEN RIVER.Green River, which, like many of the rivers in the Eastern States, appears formerly to have filled a far larger channel. Flat tables and elevated terraces of horizontal strata—showing that the deposit was made in still waters—with layers varying from a few lines to a foot in thickness, composed of hard clay, green and other sandstones, and agglutinated conglomerates, rise like islands from barren plains, or form escarpments that buttress alternately either bank of the winding stream. Such, according to Captain Stansbury, is the general formation of the land between the South Pass and the “Rim” of the Utah Basin.

Advancing over a soil alternately sandy and rocky—an iron flat that could not boast of a spear of grass—we sighted a number of coyotes, fittest inhabitants of such a waste, and a long, distant line of dust, like the smoke of a locomotive, raised by a herd of mules which were being driven to the corral. We were presently met by the Pony Express rider; he reined in to exchange news, which de part et d’autre were simply nil. As he pricked onward over the plain, the driver informed us, with a portentous rolling of the head, that Ichabod was an a’mighty fine “shyoot.” Within five or six miles of Green River we passed the boundary stone which bears Oregon on one side and Utah on the other. We had now traversed the southeastern corner of the country of Long-eared men,[109] and were entering Deserét, the Land of the Honey-bee.

[170]

At 6 30 P.M. we debouched upon the bank of the Green River. The station was the home of Mr. Macarthy, our driver. The son of a Scotchman who had settled in the United States, he retained many signs of his origin, especially freckles, and hair which one might almost venture to describe as sandy; perhaps also, at times, he was rather o’er fond of draining “a cup o’ kindness yet.” He had lately taken to himself an English wife, the daughter of a Birmingham mechanic, who, before the end of her pilgrimage to “Zion on the tops of the mountains,” had fallen considerably away from grace, and had incurred the risk of being buffeted by Satan for a thousand years—a common form of commination in the New Faith—by marrying a Gentile husband.[110] The station had the indescribable scent of a Hindoo village, which appears to result from the burning of bois de vache and the presence of cattle: there were sheep, horses, mules, and a few cows, the latter so lively that it was impossible to milk them. The ground about had the effect of an oasis in the sterile waste, with grass and shrubs, willows and flowers, wild geraniums, asters, and various cruciferæ. A few trees, chiefly quaking asp, lingered near the station, but dead stumps were far more numerous than live trunks. In any other country their rare and precious shade would have endeared them to the whole settlement; here they were never safe when a log was wanted. The Western man is bred and perhaps born—I believe devoutly in transmitted and hereditary qualities—with an instinctive dislike to timber in general. He fells a tree naturally as a bull-terrier worries a cat, and the admirable woodsman’s axe which he has invented only serves to whet his desire to try conclusions with every more venerable patriarch of the forest.[111] Civilized Americans, of course, lament the destructive mania, and the Latter-Day Saints have learned by hard experience the inveterate evils that may arise in such a country from disforesting the ground. We supped comfortably at Green-River Station, the stream supplying excellent salmon trout. The kichimichi, or buffalo berry,[112] makes tolerable jelly, and alongside of the station is a store where Mr. Burton (of Maine) sells “Valley Tan” whisky.[113]

[171]

The Green River is the Rio Verde of the Spaniards, who named it from its timbered shores and grassy islets: it is called by the Yuta Indians Piya Ogwe, or the Great Water; by the other tribes Sitskidiágí, or “Prairie-grouse River.” It was nearly at its lowest when we saw it; the breadth was not more than 330 feet. In the flood-time it widens to 800 feet, and the depth increases from three to six. During the inundation season a ferry is necessary, and when transit is certain the owner sometimes nets $500 a week, which is not unfrequently squandered in a day. The banks are in places thirty feet high, and the bottom may average three miles from side to side. It is a swift-flowing stream, running as if it had no time to lose, and truly it has a long way to go. Its length, volume, and direction entitle it to the honor of being called the head water of the great Rio Colorado, or Colored River, a larger and more important stream than even the Columbia. EXPLORATION YET TO BE DONE.There is some grand exploration still to be done upon the line of the Upper Colorado, especially the divides which lie between it and its various influents, the Grand River and the Yaquisilla, of which the wild trapper brings home many a marvelous tale of beauty and grandeur. Captain T. A. Gove, of the 10th Regiment of Infantry, then stationed at Camp Floyd, told me that an expedition had often been projected: a party of twenty-five to thirty men, well armed and provided with inflatable boats, might pass without unwarrantable risk through the sparsely populated Indian country: a true report concerning regions of which there are so many false reports, all wearing more or less the garb of fable—beautiful valleys inclosed in inaccessible rocks, Indian cities and golden treasures—would be equally interesting and important. I can not recommend the undertaking to the European adventurer: the United States have long since organized and perfected what was proposed in England during the Crimean war, and which fell, as other projects then did, to the ground, namely, a corps of Topographical Engineers, a body of well-trained and scientific explorers, to whose hands the task may safely be committed.[114]

[172]

We passed a social evening at Green-River Station. It boasted of no less than three Englishwomen, two married, and one, the help, still single. Not having the Mormonite retenue, the dames were by no means sorry to talk about Birmingham and Yorkshire, their birthplaces. At 9 P.M. arrived one of the road-agents, Mr. Cloete, from whom I gathered that the mail-wagon which once ran from Great Salt Lake City had lately been taken off the road. The intelligence was by no means consolatory, but a course of meditation upon the saying of the sage, “in for a penny, in for a pound,” followed by another visit to my namesake’s grog-shop, induced a highly philosophical turn, which enabled me—with the aid of a buffalo—to pass a comfortable night in the store.

22d August. To Ham’s Fork and Millersville.

We were not under way before 8 A.M. Macarthy was again to take the lines, and a Giovinetto returning after a temporary absence to a young wife is not usually rejoiced to run his course. Indeed, he felt the inconveniences of a semi-bachelor life so severely, that he often threatened in my private ear, chemin faisant, to throw up the whole concern.

After the preliminary squabble with the mules, we forded the pebbly and gravelly bed of the river—in parts it looks like a lake exhausted by drainage—whose swift surging waters wetted the upper spokes of the wheels, and gurgled pleasantly around the bags which contained the mail for Great Salt Lake City.[173][115] We then ran down the river valley, which was here about one mile in breadth, in a smooth flooring of clay, sprinkled with water-rolled pebbles, overgrown in parts with willow, wild cherry, buffalo berries, and quaking asp. Macarthy pointed out in the road-side a rough grave, furnished with the normal tomb-stone, two pieces of wagon-board: it was occupied by one Farren, who had fallen by the revolver of the redoubtable Slade. MICHAEL MARTIN’S STORE.Presently we came to the store of Michael Martin, an honest Creole, who vended the staple of prairie goods, Champagne, bottled cocktail, “eye-opener,” and other liquors, dry goods—linen drapery—a few fancy goods, ribbons, and finery; brandied fruits, jams and jellies, potted provisions, buckskins, moccasins, and so forth. Hearing that Lieutenant Dana was en route for Camp Floyd, he requested him to take charge of $500, to be paid to Mr. Livingston, the sutler, and my companion, with the obligingness that marked his every action, agreed to deliver the dollars, sauve the judgment of God in the shape of Indians, or “White Indians.”[116] At the store we noticed a paralytic man. AN ORIGINAL.This original lived under the delusion that it was impossible to pass the Devil’s Gate: his sister had sent for him to St. Louis, and his friends tried to transport him eastward in chairs; the only result was that he ran away before reaching the Gate, and after some time was brought back by Indians.

Resuming our journey, we passed two places where trains of fifty-one wagons were burned in 1857 by the Mormon Rangers: the black stains had bitten into the ground like the blood-marks[174] in the palace of Holyrood—a neat foundation for a structure of superstition. Not far from it was a deep hole, in which the plunderers had “cached” the iron-work which they were unable to carry away. Emerging from the river plain we entered upon another mauvaise terre, with knobs and elevations of clay and green gault, striped and banded with lines of stone and pebbles: it was a barren, desolate spot, the divide between the Green River and its western influent, the shallow and somewhat sluggish Black’s Fork. The name is derived from an old trader: it is called by the Snakes Ongo Ogwe Pa, or “Pine-tree Stream;” it rises in the Bear-River Mountains, drains the swamps and lakelets on the way, and bifurcates in its upper bed, forming two principal branches, Ham’s Fork and Muddy Fork.

Near the Pine-tree Stream we met a horse-thief driving four bullocks: he was known to Macarthy, and did not look over comfortable. We had now fallen into the regular track of Mormon emigration, and saw the wayfarers in their worst plight, near the end of the journey. We passed several families, and parties of women and children trudging wearily along: most of the children were in rags or half nude, and all showed gratitude when we threw them provisions. The greater part of the men were armed, but their weapons were far more dangerous to themselves and their fellows than to the enemy. There is not on earth a race of men more ignorant of arms as a rule than the lower grades of English; becoming an emigrant, the mechanic hears that it may be necessary to beat off Indians, so he buys the first old fire-arm he sees, and probably does damage with it. Only last night a father crossed Green River to beg for a piece of cloth; it was intended to shroud the body of his child, which during the evening had been accidentally shot, and the station people seemed to think nothing of the accident, as if it were of daily recurrence. I was told of three, more or less severe, that happened in the course of a month. The Western Americans, who are mostly accustomed to the use of weapons, look upon these awkwardnesses with a profound contempt. We were now in a region of graves, and their presence in this wild was not a little suggestive.

Presently we entered a valley in which green grass, low and dense willows, and small but shady trees, an unusually vigorous vegetation, refreshed, as though with living water, our eyes, parched and dazed by the burning glare. Stock strayed over the pasture, and a few Indian tents rose at the farther side; the view was probably pas grand’ chose, but we thought it splendidly beautiful. At midday we reached Ham’s Fork, the northwestern influent of Green River, and there we found a station. The pleasant little stream is called by the Indians Turugempa, the “Blackfoot Water.”

The station was kept by an Irishman and a Scotchman—“Dawvid Lewis:” it was a disgrace; the squalor and filth were worse[175] almost than the two—Cold Springs and Rock Creek—which we called our horrors, and which had always seemed to be the ne plus ultra of Western discomfort. THE DIRTY HOUSE.The shanty was made of dry stone piled up against a dwarf cliff to save back wall, and ignored doors and windows. The flies—unequivocal sign of unclean living!—darkened the table and covered every thing put upon it; the furniture, which mainly consisted of the different parts of wagons, was broken, and all in disorder; the walls were impure, the floor filthy. The reason was at once apparent. Two Irishwomen, sisters,[117] were married to Mr. Dawvid, and the house was full of “childer,” the noisiest and most rampageous of their kind. I could hardly look upon the scene without disgust. The fair ones had the porcine Irish face—I need hardly tell the reader that there are three orders of physiognomy in that branch of the Keltic family, viz., porcine, equine, and simian—the pig-faced, the horse-faced, and the monkey-faced. Describing one I describe both sisters; her nose was “pugged,” apparently by gnawing hard potatoes before that member had acquired firmness and consistency; her face was powdered with freckles; her hair, and, indeed, her general costume, looked, to quote Mr. Dow’s sermon, as though she had been rammed through a bush fence into a world of wretchedness and woe. Her dress was unwashed and in tatters, and her feet were bare; she would not even take the trouble to make for herself moccasins. Moreover, I could not but notice that, though the house contained two wives, it boasted only of one cubile, and had only one cubiculum. Such things would excite no surprise in London or Naples, or even in many of the country parts of Europe; but here, where ground is worthless, where building material is abundant, and where a few hours of daily labor would have made the house look at least respectable, I could not but wonder at it. My first impulse was to attribute the evil, uncharitably enough, to Mormonism; to renew, in fact, the stock-complaint of nineteen centuries’ standing—

A more extended acquaintance with the regions west of the Wasach taught me that the dirt and discomfort were the growth of the land. To give the poor devils their due, Dawvid was civil and intelligent, though a noted dawdler, as that rare phenomenon, a A SCOTCH IDLER.Scotch idler, generally is. Moreover, his wives were not deficient in charity; several Indians came to the door, and none went away without a “bit” and a “sup.” During the process of sketching one of these men, a Snake, distinguished by his vermilion’d hair-parting, eyes blackened, as if by lines of soot or surma, and delicate Hindoo-like hands, my eye fell upon the German-silver[176] handle of a Colt’s revolver, which had been stowed away under the blankets, and a revolver in the Lamanite’s hands breeds evil suspicions.

Again we advanced. The air was like the breath of a furnace; the sun was a blaze of fire—accounting, by-the-by, for the fact that the human nose in these parts seems invariably to become cherry-red—all the nullahs were dried up, and the dust-pillars and mirage were the only moving objects on the plain. Three times we forded Black’s Fork, and then debouched once more upon a long flat. The ground was scattered over with pebbles of granite, obsidian, flint, and white, yellow, and smoky quartz, all water-rolled. After twelve miles we passed Church Butte, one of many curious formations lying to the left hand or south of the road. This isolated mass of stiff clay has been cut and ground by wind and rain into folds and hollow channels which from a distance perfectly simulate the pillars, groins, and massive buttresses of a ruinous Gothic cathedral. The foundation is level, except where masses have been swept down by the rain, and not a blade of grass grows upon any part. An architect of genius might profitably study this work of Nature: upon that subject, however, I shall presently have more to say. The Butte is highly interesting in a geological point of view; it shows the elevation of the adjoining plains in past ages, before partial deluges and the rains of centuries had effected the great work of degradation.

Again we sighted the pretty valley of Black’s Fork, whose cool clear stream flowed merrily over its pebbly bed. The road was now populous with Mormon emigrants; some had good teams, others hand-carts, which looked like a cross between a wheel-barrow and a tax-cart. There was nothing repugnant in the demeanor of the party; they had been civilized by traveling, and the younger women, who walked together and apart from the men, were not too surly to exchange a greeting. The excessive barrenness of the land presently diminished; gentian and other odoriferous herbs appeared, and the greasewood, which somewhat reminded me of the Sindhian camel-thorn, was of a lighter green than elsewhere, and presented a favorable contrast with the dull glaucous hues of the eternal prairie sage. We passed a dwarf copse so strewed with the bones of cattle as to excite our astonishment: Macarthy told us that it was the place where the 2d Dragoons encamped in 1857, and lost a number of their horses by cold and starvation. The wolves and coyotes seemed to have retained a predilection for the spot; we saw troops of them in their favorite “location”—the crest of some little rise, whence they could keep a sharp look-out upon any likely addition to their scanty larder.

After sundry steep inclines we forded another little stream, with a muddy bed, shallow, and about thirty feet wide: it is called Smith’s Fork, rises in the “Bridger Range” of the Uinta Hills,[177] and sheds into Black’s Fork, the main drain of these parts. On the other side stood Millersville, a large ranch with a whole row of unused and condemned wagons drawn up on one side. We arrived at 5 15 P.M., having taken three hours and fifteen minutes to get over twenty miles. The tenement was made of the component parts of vehicles, the chairs had backs of yoke-bows, and the fences which surrounded the corral were of the same material. The station was kept by one Holmes, an American Mormon,THE UNGENIAL MAN. and an individual completely the reverse of genial; he dispensed his words as if shelling out coin, and he was never—by us at least—seen to smile. His wife was a pretty young Englishwoman, who had spent the best part of her life between London and Portsmouth; when alone with me she took the opportunity of asking some few questions about old places, but this most innocent tête-à-tête was presently interrupted by the protrusion through the open door of a tête de mari au naturel, with a truly renfrogné and vinegarish aspect, which made him look like a calamity. After supplying us with a supper which was clean and neatly served, the pair set out for an evening ride, and toward night we heard the scraping of a violin, which reminded me of Tommaso Scarafaggio:

The “fiddle” was a favorite instrument with Mr. Joseph Smith, as the harp with David; the Mormons, therefore, at the instance of their prophet, are not a little addicted to the use of the bow. We spent a comfortable night at Millersville. After watching the young moon as she sailed through the depths of a firmament unstained by the least fleck of mist, we found some scattered volumes which rendered us independent of our unsocial Yankee host.

23d August. Fort Bridger.

We breakfasted early the next morning, and gladly settled accounts with the surly Holmes, who had infected—probably by following the example of Mr. Caudle in later life—his pretty wife with his own surliness. Shortly after starting—at 8 30 A.M.—we saw a little clump of seven Indian lodges, which our experience soon taught us were the property of a white; the proprietor met us on the road, and was introduced with due ceremony by Mr. Macarthy. “UNCLE JACK.”“Uncle Jack” (Robinson, really) is a well-known name between South Pass and Great Salt Lake City; he has spent thirty-four years in the mountains, and has saved some $75,000, which have been properly invested at St. Louis; as might be expected, he prefers the home of his adoption and his Indian spouse, who has made him the happy father of I know not how many children, to good society and bad air farther east.

Our road lay along the valley of Black’s Fork, which here flows from the southwest to the northeast; the bottom produced in[178] plenty luxuriant grass, the dandelion, and the purple aster, thickets of a shrub-like hawthorn (cratægus), black and white currants, the willow and the cotton-wood. When almost in sight of the military post we were addressed by two young officers, one of them an assistant surgeon, who had been engaged in the healthful and exciting pursuit of a badger, whose markings, by-the-by, greatly differ from the European; they recognized the uniform, and accompanied us to the station.

Fort Bridger lies 124 miles from Great Salt Lake City; according to the drivers, however, the road might be considerably shortened. The position is a fertile basin cut into a number of bits by Black’s Fork, which disperses itself into four channels about 1·5 mile above the station, and forms again a single bed about two miles below. The fort is situated upon the westernmost islet. It is, as usual, a mere cantonment, without any attempt at fortification, and at the time of my visit was garrisoned by two companies of foot, under the command of Captain F. Gardner, of the 10th Regiment. The material of the houses is pine and cedar brought from the Uinta Hills, whose black flanks supporting snowy cones rise at the distance of about thirty-five miles. They are a sanitarium, except in winter, when under their influence the mercury sinks to -20° F., not much less rigorous than Minnesota, and they are said to shelter grizzly bears and an abundance of smaller game.

The fort was built by Colonel James Bridger, now the oldest trapper on the Rocky Mountains, of whom Messrs. Frémont and Stansbury have both spoken in the highest terms. He divides with Christopher Carson, the Kit Carson of the Wind River and the Sierra Nevada explorations, the honor of being the best guide and interpreter in the Indian country: the palm for prudence is generally given to the former; for dash and hard fighting to the latter, although, it is said, the mildest mannered of men. Colonel Bridger, when an Indian trader, placed this post upon a kind of neutral ground between the Snakes and Crows (Hapsaroke) on the north, the Ogalalas and other Sioux to the east, the Arapahoes and Cheyennes on the south, and the various tribes of Yutas (Utahs) on the southwest. He had some difficulties with the Mormons, and Mrs. Mary Ettie Smith, in a volume concerning which something will be said at a future opportunity, veraciously reports his barbarous murder, some years ago, by the Danite band. He was at the time of my visit absent on an exploratory expedition with Captain Raynolds.

Arrived at Fort Bridger, our first thought was to replenish our whisky-keg: its emptiness was probably due to the “rapid evaporation in such an elevated region imperfectly protected by timber;” but, however that may be, I never saw liquor disappear at such a rate before. Par parenthèse, our late friends the officials had scarcely been more fortunate: they had watched their whisky[179] with the eyes of Argus, yet, as the driver facetiously remarked, though the quantity did not diminish too rapidly, the quality lost strength every day. We were conducted by Judge Carter to a building which combined the function of post-office and sutler’s store, the judge being also sutler, and performing both parts, I believe, to the satisfaction of every one. After laying in an ample provision of biscuits for Miss May and korn-schnapps for ourselves, we called upon the commanding officer, who introduced us to his officers, and were led by Captain Cumming to his quarters, where, by means of chat, “solace-tobacco,” and toddy—which in these regions signifies “cold with”—we soon worked our way through the short three quarters of an hour allowed us. The officers complained very naturally of their isolation and unpleasant duty, which principally consists in keeping the roads open for, and the Indians from cutting off, parties of unmanageable emigrants, who look upon the federal army as their humblest servants. A SORE SUBJECT.At Camp Scott, near Bridger, the army of the federal government halted under canvas during the severe winter of 1857-1858, and the subject is still sore to military ears.

We left Bridger at 10 A.M. Macarthy explained away the disregard for the comfort of the public on the part of the contractors in not having a station at the fort by declaring that they could obtain no land in a government reservation; moreover, that forage there would be scarce and dear, while the continual influx of Indians would occasion heavy losses in cattle. At Bridger the road forks: the northern line leads to Soda or BEER SPRINGS.Beer Springs,[118] the southern to Great Salt Lake City. Following the latter, we crossed the rough timber bridges that spanned the net-work of streams, and entered upon another expanse of degraded ground, covered as usual with water-rolled pebbles of granite and porphyry, flint and greenstone. On the left was a butte with steep bluff sides, called the Race-course: the summit, a perfect mesa, is said to be quite level, and to measure exactly a mile round—the rule of the American hippodrome. Like these earth formations generally, it points out the ancient level of the land before water had washed away the outer film of earth’s crust. The climate in this part, as indeed every where between the South Pass and the Great Salt[180] Lake Valley, was an exaggeration of the Italian, with hot days, cool nights, and an incomparable purity and tenuity of atmosphere. We passed on the way a party of emigrants, numbering 359 souls and driving 39 wagons. They were commanded by the patriarch of Mormondom, otherwise Captain John Smith, the eldest son of Hyrum Smith, a brother of Mr. Joseph Smith the Prophet, and who, being a child at the time of the murderous affair at Carthage, escaped being coiffe’d with the crown of martyrdom. He rose to the patriarchate on the 18th of February, 1855; his predecessor was “old John Smith”—uncle to Mr. Joseph, and successor to Mr. Hyrum Smith—who died the 23d of May, 1854. He was a fair-complexioned man, with light hair. His followers accepted gratefully some provisions with which we could afford to part.

After passing the Mormons we came upon a descent which appeared little removed from an angle of 35°, and suggested the propriety of walking down. There was an attempt at a zigzag, and, for the benefit of wagons, a rough wall of stones had been run along the sharper corners. At the foot of the hill we remounted, and, passing through a wooded bottom, reached at 12 15 P.M.—after fording the Big Muddy—Little Muddy Creek, upon whose banks stood the station. Both these streams are branches of the Ham’s Fork of Green River; and, according to the well-known “rule of contrairy,” their waters are clear as crystal, showing every pebble in their beds.

Little Muddy was kept by a Canadian, a chatty, lively, good-humored fellow blessed with a sour English wife. Possibly the heat—the thermometer showed 95° F. in the shade—had turned her temper; fortunately, it had not similarly affected the milk and cream, which were both unusually good. Jean-Baptiste, having mistaken me for a Française de France, a being which he seemed to regard as little lower than the angels—I was at no pains to disabuse him—was profuse in his questionings concerning his imperial majesty, the emperor, carefully confounding him with the first of the family; and so pleased was he with my responses, that for the first time on that route I found a man ready to spurn cet animal féroce qu’on appelle la pièce de cinq francs—in other words, the “almighty dollar.”

We bade adieu to Little Muddy at noon, and entered a new country, a broken land of spurs and hollows, in parts absolutely bare, in others clothed with a thick vegetation. Curiously shaped hills, and bluffs of red earth capped with a clay which much resembled snow, bore a thick growth of tall firs and pines whose sombre uniform contrasted strangely with the brilliant leek-like, excessive green foliage, and the tall, note-paper-colored trunks of the ravine-loving quaking asp (Populus tremuloides). The mixture of colors was bizarre in the extreme, and the lay of the land, an uncouth system of converging, diverging, and parallel ridges, with deep divisions—in one of these ravines, which is unusually[181] broad and grassy, rise the so-called Copperas Springs—was hardly less striking. We ran winding along a crest of rising ground, passing rapidly, by way of farther comparison, two wretched Mormons, man and woman, who were driving, at a snail’s pace, a permanently lamed ox, and after a long ascent stood upon the summit of Quaking-Asp Hill.

QUAKING-ASP HILL.Quaking-Asp Hill, according to the drivers, is 1000 feet higher than the South Pass, which would exalt its station to 8400 feet; other authorities, however, reduce it to 7900. The descent was long and rapid—so rapid, indeed, that oftentimes when the block of wood which formed our brake dropped a bit of the old shoe-sole nailed upon it to prevent ignition, I felt, as man may be excused for feeling, that catching of the breath that precedes the first five-barred gate after a night of “heavy wet.” The sides of the road were rich in vegetation, stunted oak, black-jack, and box elder of the stateliest stature; above rose the wild cherry, and the service-tree formed the bushes below. The descent, besides being decidedly sharp, was exceedingly devious, and our frequent “shaves”—a train of Mormon wagons was crawling down at the same time—made us feel somewhat thankful that we reached the bottom without broken bones.

The train was commanded by a Captain Murphy, who, as one might expect from the name, had hoisted the Stars and Stripes—it was the only instance of such loyalty seen by us on the Plains. The emigrants had left Council Bluffs on the 20th of June, an unusually late date, and, though weather-beaten, all looked well. Inspirited by our success in surmounting the various difficulties of the way, we “poked fun” at an old Yorkshireman, who was assumed, by way of mirth, to be a Cœlebs in search of polygamy at an epoch of life when perhaps the blessing might come too late; and at an exceedingly plain middle-aged and full-blooded negro woman, who was fairly warned—the children of Ham are not admitted to the communion of the Saints, and consequently to the forgiveness of sins and a free seat in Paradise—that she was “carrying coals to Newcastle.”

As the rays of the sun began to slant we made Sulphur Creek;SULPHUR CREEK. it lies at the foot of a mountain called Rim Base, because it is the eastern wall of the great inland basin; westward of this point the waters can no longer reach the Atlantic or the Pacific; each is destined to feed the lakes,

Beyond Sulphur Creek, too, the face of the country changes; the sedimentary deposits are no longer seen; the land is broken and confused, upheaved into huge masses of rock and mountains broken by deep kanyons, ravines, and water-gaps, and drained by innumerable streamlets. The exceedingly irregular lay of the land makes the road devious, and the want of level ground, which is found only in dwarf parks and prairillons, would greatly add to[182] the expense of a railway. We crossed the creek, a fetid stagnant water, about ten feet wide, lying in a bed of black infected mud: during the spring rains, when flowing, it is said to be wholesome enough. On the southern side of the valley there are some fine fountains, and on the eastern are others strongly redolent of sulphur; broad seams of coal crop out from the northern bluffs, and about a mile distant in the opposite direction are the Tar Springs, useful for greasing wagon-wheels and curing galled-backed horses.

Following the valley, which was rough and broken as it well could be, we crossed a small divide, and came upon the plain of the Bear River, a translation of the Indian Kuiyápá. It is one of the most important tributaries of the Great Salt Lake. Heading in the Uinta Range to the east of Kamas Prairie,[119] it flows with a tortuous course to the northwest, till, reaching Beer Springs, it turns sharply round with a horseshoe bend, and sets to the southwest, falling into the general reservoir at a bight called Bear-River Bay. According to the mountaineers, it springs not far from the sources of the Weber River and of the Timpanogos Water. Coal was found some years ago upon the banks of the Bear River, and more lately near Weber River and Silver Creek. It is the easternmost point to which Mormonism can extend main forte; for fugitives from justice “over Bear River” is like “over Jordan.” The aspect of the valley, here half a mile broad, was prepossessing. Beyond a steep terrace, or step which compelled us all to dismount, the clear stream, about 400 feet in width, flowed through narrow lines of willows, cotton-wood, and large trees, which waved in the cool refreshing western wind; grass carpeted the middle levels, and above all rose red cliffs and buttresses of frowning rock.

We reached the station at 5 30 P.M. The valley was dotted with the tents of the Mormon emigrants, and we received sundry visits of curiosity; the visitors, mostly of the sex conventionally termed the fair, contented themselves with entering, sitting down, looking hard, tittering to one another, and departing with Parthian glances that had little power to hurt. From the men we heard tidings of “a massacree” of emigrants in the north, and a defeat of Indians in the west. Mr. Myers, the station-master, was an English Saint, who had lately taken to himself a fifth wife, after severally divorcing the others; his last choice was not without comeliness, but her reserve was extreme; she could hardly be coaxed out of a “Yes, sir.” I found Mr. Myers diligently perusing a translation of “Volney’s Ruins of Empire;” we had a chat about the Old and the New Country, which led us to sleeping-teme. I had here a curious instance of the effect of the association[183] of words, in hearing a by-stander apply to the Founder of Christianity the “Mr.” which is the “Kyrios” of the West, and is always prefixed to “Joseph Smith:” he stated that the mission of the latter was “far ahead of” that of the former prophet, which, by-the-by, is not the strict Mormon doctrine. My companion and his family preferred as usual the interior of the mail-wagon, and it was well that they did so; after a couple of hours entered Mr. Macarthy, very drunk and “fighting mad.” He called for supper, but supper was past and gone, so he supped upon “fids” of raw meat. Excited by this lively food, he began a series of caprioles, which ended, as might be expected, in a rough-and-tumbleROUGH-AND-TUMBLE.—MR. MACARTHY. with the other three youths who occupied the hard floor of the ranch. To Mr. Macarthy’s language on that occasion horresco referens; every word was apparently English, but so perverted, misused, and mangled, that the home reader would hardly have distinguished it from High-Dutch: e. g., “I’m intire mad as a meat-axe; now du don’t, I tell ye; say, you, shut up in a winkin’, or I’ll be chawed up if I don’t run over you; ’can’t come that ’ere tarnal carryin’ on over me,” and—O si sic omnia! As no weapons, revolvers, or bowie-knives were to the fore, I thought the best thing was to lie still and let the storm blow over, which it did in a quarter of an hour. Then, all serene, Mr. Macarthy called for a pipe, excused himself ceremoniously to himself for taking the liberty with the “Cap’s.” meerschaum solely upon the grounds that it was the only article of the kind to be found at so late an hour, and presently fell into a deep slumber upon a sleeping contrivance composed of a table for the upper and a chair for the lower portion of his person. I envied him the favors of Morpheus: the fire soon died out, the cold wind whistled through the crannies, and the floor was knotty and uneven.

Echo Kanyon. August 24th.

At 8 15 A.M. we were once more en voyage. Mr. Macarthy was very red-eyed as he sat on the stool of penitence: what seemed to vex him most was having lost certain newspapers directed to a friend and committed to his private trust, a mode of insuring their safe arrival concerning which he had the day before expressed the highest opinion. After fording Bear River—this part of the land was quite a grave-yard—we passed over rough ground, and, descending into a bush, were shown on a ridge to the right a huge Stonehenge, a crown of broken and somewhat lanceolate perpendicular conglomerates or cemented pudding-stones called not inappropriately Needle Rocks. At Egan’s Creek, a tributary of the Yellow Creek, the wild geraniums and the willows flourished despite the six feet of snow which sometimes lies in these bottoms. We then crossed Yellow Creek, a water trending northeastward, and feeding, like those hitherto forded, Bear River: the bottom, a fine broad meadow, was a favorite camping-ground, as[184] the many fire-places proved. Beyond the stream we ascended Yellow-Creek Hill, a steep chain which divides the versant of the Bear River eastward from that of Weber River to the west. The ascent might be avoided, but the view from the summit is a fine panorama. The horizon behind us is girt by a mob of hills, Bridger’s Range, silver-veined upon a dark blue ground; nearer, mountains and rocks, cones and hog-backs, are scattered about in admirable confusion, divided by shaggy rollers and dark ravines, each with its own little water-course. In front the eye runs down the long bright red line of Echo Kanyon, and rests with astonishment upon its novel and curious features, the sublimity of its broken and jagged peaks, divided by dark abysses, and based upon huge piles of disjointed and scattered rock. On the right, about half a mile north of the road, and near the head of the kanyon, is a place that adds human interest to the scene. Cache Cave is a dark, deep, natural tunnel in the rock, which has sheltered many a hunter and trader from wild weather and wilder men: the wall is probably of marl and earthy limestone, whose whiteness is set off by the ochrish brick-red of the ravine below.

ECHO KANYON.Echo Kanyon has a total length of twenty-five to thirty miles, and runs in a southeasterly direction to the Weber River. Near the head it is from half to three quarters of a mile wide, but its irregularity is such that no average breadth can be assigned to it. The height of the buttresses on the right or northern side varies from 300 to 500 feet; they are denuded and water-washed by the storms that break upon them under the influence of southerly gales; their strata here are almost horizontal; they are inclined at an angle of 45°, and the strike is northeast and southwest. The opposite or southern flank, being protected from the dashing and weathering of rain and wind, is a mass of rounded soil-clad hills, or sloping slabs of rock, earth-veiled, and growing tussocks of grass. Between them runs the clear, swift, bubbling stream, in a pebbly bed now hugging one, then the other side of the chasm: it has cut its way deeply below the surface; the banks or benches of stiff alluvium are not unfrequently twenty feet high; in places it is partially dammed by the hand of Nature, and every where the watery margin is of the brightest green, and overgrown with grass, nettles, willow thickets, in which the hop is conspicuous, quaking asp, and other taller trees. Echo Kanyon has but one fault: its sublimity will make all similar features look tame.

We entered the kanyon in somewhat a serious frame of mind; our team was headed by a pair of exceedingly restive mules; we had remonstrated against the experimental driving being done upon our vile bodies, but the reply was that the animals must be harnessed at some time. We could not, however, but remark the wonderful picturesqueness of a scene—of a nature which in parts seemed lately to have undergone some grand catastrophe. The gigantic red wall on our right was divided into distinct blocks or[185] quarries by a multitude of minor lateral kanyons, which, after rains, add their tribute to the main artery, and each block was subdivided by the crumbling of the softer and the resistance of the harder material—a clay conglomerate. The color varied in places from white and green to yellow, but for the most part it was a dull ochrish red, that brightened up almost to a straw tint where the sunbeams fell slantingly upon it from the strip of blue above. All served to set off the curious architecture of the smaller masses. A whole Petra was there, a system of projecting prisms, pyramids, and pagoda towers, a variety of form that enabled you to see whatever your peculiar vanity might be—columns, porticoes, façades, and pedestals. Twin lines of bluffs, a succession of buttresses all fretted and honeycombed, a double row of steeples slipped from perpendicularity, frowned at each other across the gorge. And the wondrous variety was yet more varied by the kaleidoscopic transformation caused by change of position: at every different point the same object bore a different aspect.

And now, while we are dashing over the bouldered crossings; while our naughty mules, as they tear down the short steep pitches, swing the wheels of the mail-wagon within half a foot of the high bank’s crumbling edge; while poor Mrs. Dana closes her eyes and clasps her husband’s hand, and Miss May, happily unconscious of all peril, amuses herself by perseveringly perching upon the last toe that I should have been inclined to offer, the monotony of the risk may be relieved by diverting our thoughts to the lessons taught by the scenery around.

ART IN AMERICA.An American artist might extract from such scenery as Church Butte and Echo Kanyon a system of architecture as original and national as Egypt ever borrowed from her sandstone ledges, or the North of Europe from the solemn depths of her fir forests. But Art does not at present exist in America; as among their forefathers farther east, of artists they have plenty, of Art nothing. We can explain the presence of the phenomenon in England, where that grotesqueness and bizarrerie of taste which is observable in the uneducated, and which, despite collections and art-missions, hardly disappears in those who have studied the purest models, is the natural growth of man’s senses and perceptions exposed for generation after generation to the unseen, unceasing, ever-active effect of homely objects, the desolate aspects of the long and dreary winters, and the humidity which shrouds the visible world with its dull gray coloring. Should any one question the fact that Art is not yet English, let him but place himself in the centre of the noblest site in Europe, Trafalgar Square, and own that no city in the civilized world ever presented such a perfect sample of barbarous incongruity, from mast-headed Nelson with his coil behind him, the work of the Satirist’s “one man and small boy,” to the two contemptible squirting things that throw[186] water upon the pavement at his feet. Mildly has the “Thunderer” described it as the “chosen home of exquisite dullness and stilted mediocrity.” The cause above assigned to the fact is at least reasonable. Every traveler, who, after passing through the fruitful but unpicturesque orchard grounds lying between La Manche and Paris, and the dull flats, with their melancholy poplar lines, between Paris and Lyons, arrives at Avignon, and observes the picturesqueness which every object, natural or artificial, begins to assume, the grace and beauty which appear even in the humblest details of scenery, must instinctively feel that he is entering the land of Art. Not of that Art which depends for development upon the efforts of a few exceptional individuals, but the living Art which the constant contemplation of a glorious nature,

makes part of a people’s organization and development. Art, heavenly maid, is not easily seduced to wander far from her place of birth. Born and cradled upon the all-lovely shores of that inland sea, so choicely formed by Nature’s hand to become the source and centre of mankind’s civilization, she loses health and spirits in the frigid snowy north, while in the tropical regions—Nubia and India—her mind is vitiated by the rank and luxuriant scenery around her. A “pretty bit of home scenery,” with dumpy church tower—battlemented as the house of worship ought not to be—on the humble hill, red brick cottages, with straight tiled roofs and parallelogramic casements, and dwelling-houses all stiff-ruled lines and hard sharp angles, the straight road and the trimmed hedgerow—such scenery, I assert, never can make an artistic people; it can only lead, in fact, to a nation’s last phase of artistic bathos—a Trafalgar Square.

The Anglo-Americans have other excuses, but not this. Their broad lands teem with varied beauties of the highest order, which it would be tedious to enumerate. They have used, for instance, the Indian corn for the acanthus in their details of architecture—why can not they try a higher flight? Man may not, we readily grant, expect to be a great poet because Niagara is a great cataract; yet the presence of such objects must quicken the imagination of the civilized as of the savage race that preceded him. It is true that in America the class that can devote itself exclusively to the cultivation and the study of refinement and art is still, comparatively speaking, small; that the care of politics, the culture of science, mechanical and theoretic, and the pursuit of cash, have at present more hold upon the national mind than what it is disposed to consider the effeminating influences of the humanizing studies; that, moreover, the efforts of youthful genius in the body corporate, as in the individual, are invariably imitative, leading through the progressive degrees of reflection and reproduction to originality. But, valid as they are, these[187] reasons will not long justify such freaks as the Americo-Grecian capitol at Richmond, a barn with the tritest of all exordiums, a portico which is original in one point only, viz., that it wants the portico’s only justification—steps; or the various domes originally borrowed from that bulb which has been demolished at Washington, scattered over the country, and suggesting the idea that the shape has been borrowed from the butt end of a sliced cucumber. Better far the warehouses of Boston, with their monoliths and frontages of rough Quincy granite; they, at least, are unpretending, and of native growth: no bad test of the native mind.

After a total of eighteen miles we passed ECHO STATION.Echo Station, a half-built ranch, flanked by well-piled haystacks for future mules. The ravine narrowed as we advanced to a mere gorge, and the meanderings of the stream contracted the road and raised the banks to a more perilous height. A thicker vegetation occupied the bottom, wild roses and dwarfish oaks contending for the mastery of the ground. About four miles from the station we were shown a defile where the Latter-Day Saints, in 1857, headed by General D. H. Wells, now the third member of the Presidency, had prepared modern Caudine Forks for the attacking army of the United States. Little breastworks of loose stones, very like the “sangahs” of the Affghan Ghauts, had been thrown up where the precipices commanded the road, and there were four or five remains of dams intended to raise the water above the height of the soldiers’ ammunition pouches. The situation did not appear to me well chosen. Although the fortified side of the bluff could not be crowned on account of deep chasms that separated the various blocks, the southern acclivities might have been occupied by sharpshooters so effectually that the fire from the breastworks would soon have been silenced; moreover, the defenders would have risked being taken in rear by a party creeping through the chapparal[120] in the sole of the kanyon. AN EXPERIMENT.Mr. Macarthy related a characteristic trait concerning two warriors of the Nauvoo Legion. Unaccustomed to perpendicular fire, one proposed that his comrade should stand upon the crest of the precipice and see if the bullet reached him or not; the comrade, thinking the request highly reasonable, complied with it, and received a yäger-ball through his forehead.

Traces of beaver were frequent in the torrent-bed; the “broad-tailed animal” is now molested by the Indians rather than by the whites. On this stage magpies and ravens were unusually numerous; foxes slunk away from us, and on one of the highest[188] bluffs a coyote stood as on a pedestal; as near Baffin Sea, these craggy peaks are their favorite howling-places during the severe snowy winters. We longed for a thunder-storm: flashing lightnings, roaring thunders, stormy winds, and dashing rains—in fact, a tornado—would be the fittest setting for such a picture, so wild, so sublime as Echo Kanyon. But we longed in vain. The day was persistently beautiful, calm and mild as a May forenoon in the Grecian Archipelago. We were also disappointed in our natural desire to hold some converse with the nymph who had lent her name to the ravine—the reverberation is said to be remarkably fine—but the temper of our animals would not have endured it, and the place was not one that admitted experiments. Rain had lately fallen, as we saw from the mud-puddles in the upper course of the kanyon, and the road was in places pitted with drops which were not frequent enough to allay the choking dust. A fresh yet familiar feature now appeared. The dews, whose existence we had forgotten on the prairies, were cold and clammy in the early mornings; the moist air, condensed by contact with the cooler substances on the surface of the ground, stood in large drops upon the leaves and grasses. As we advanced the bed of the ravine began to open out, the angle of descent became more obtuse; a stretch of level ground appeared in front, where for some hours the windings of the kanyon had walled us in, and at 2 30 P.M. we debouched upon the Weber-River Station. It lies at the very mouth of the ravine, almost under the shadow of lofty red bluffs, called “The Obelisks;” and the green and sunny landscape, contrasting with the sterile grandeur behind, is exceedingly pleasing.

After the emotions of the drive, a little rest was by no means unpleasant. The station was tolerably comfortable, and the welcome addition of potatoes and onions to our usual fare was not to be despised. The tenants of the ranch were Mormons, civil and communicative. They complained sadly of the furious rain-storms, which the funnel-like gorge brings down upon them, and the cold draughts from five feet deep of snow which pour down upon the milder valley.

At 4 30 we resumed our journey along the plain of the Weber or Webber River. It is second in importance only to the Bear River: it heads near the latter, and, flowing in a devious course toward the northwest, falls into the Great Salt Lake a few miles south of its sister stream, and nearly opposite Frémont’s Island. The valley resembles that described in yesterday’s diary; it is, however, narrower, and the steep borders, which, if water-washed, would be red like the kanyon rocks, are well clothed with grass and herbages. In some places the land is defended by snake-fences in zigzags,[121] to oppose the depredations of emigrants’ cattle[189] upon the wheat, barley, and stunted straggling corn within. After fording the river and crossing the bottom, we ascended steep banks, passed over a spring of salt water five miles from the station, and halted for a few minutes to exchange news with the mail-wagon that had left Great Salt Lake City this (Friday) morning. Followed a rough and rugged tract of land apparently very trying to the way-worn cattle; many deaths had taken place at this point, and the dead lay well preserved as the monks of St. Bernard. After a succession of chuck-holes, rises, and falls, we fell into the valley of Bauchmin’s Creek.BAUCHMIN’S CREEK. It is a picturesque hollow; at the head is a gateway of red clay, through which the stream passes; the sides also are red, and as the glow and glory of the departing day lingered upon the heights, even artemisia put on airs of bloom and beauty, blushing in contrast with the sharp metallic green of the quaking asp and the duller verdure of the elder (Alnus viridis). As the evening closed in, the bottom-land became more broken, the path less certain, and the vegetation thicker: the light of the moon, already diminished by the narrowness of the valley, seemed almost to be absorbed by the dark masses of copse and bush. We were not sorry to make, at 7 45 P.M., the CARSON-HOUSE STATION.“Carson-House Station” at Bauchmin’s Fork—the traveling had been fast, seven miles an hour—where we found a log hut, a roaring fire, two civil Mormon lads, and some few “fixins” in the way of food. We sat for a time talking about matters of local importance, the number of emigrants, and horse-thieves, the prospects of the road, and the lay of the land. Bauchmin’s Fork, we learned, is a branch of East Kanyon Creek, itself a tributary of the Weber River;[122] from the station an Indian trail leads over the mountains to Provo City. I slept comfortably enough upon the boards of an inner room, not, however, without some apprehensions of accidentally offending a certain skunk (Mephitis mephitica), which was in the habit of making regular nocturnal visits. I heard its puppy-like bark during the night, but escaped what otherwise might have happened.

And why, naturally asks the reader, did you not shut the door? Because there was none.

The End—Hurrah! August 25th.

To-day we are to pass over the Wasach,[123] the last and highest chain of the mountain mass between Fort Bridger and the Great[190] Salt Lake Valley, and—by the aid of St. James of Compostella, who is, I believe, bound over to be the patron of pilgrims in general—to arrive at our destination, New Hierosolyma, or Jerusalem, alias Zion on the tops of the mountains, the future city of Christ, where the Lord is to reign over the Saints, as a temporal king, in power and great glory.

So we girt our loins, and started, after a cup of tea and a biscuit, at 7 A.M., under the good guidance of Mr. Macarthy, who, after a whiskyless night, looked forward not less than ourselves to the run in. Following the course of Bauchmin’s Creek, we completed the total number of fordings to thirteen in eight miles. The next two miles were along the bed of a water-course, a complete fiumara, through a bush full of tribulus, which accompanied us to the end of the journey. Presently the ground became rougher and steeper: we alighted, and set our beasts manfully against “Big Mountain,” which lies about four miles from the station. The road bordered upon the wide arroyo, a tumbled bed of block and boulder, with water in places oozing and trickling from the clay walls, from the sandy soil, and from beneath the heaps of rock—living fountains these, most grateful to the parched traveler. The synclinal slopes of the chasm were grandly wooded with hemlocks, firs, balsam-pines, and other varieties of abies, some tapering up to the height of ninety feet, with an admirable regularity of form, color, and foliage. The varied hues of the quaking asp were there; the beech, the dwarf oak, and a thicket of elders and wild roses; while over all the warm autumnal tints already mingled with the bright green of summer. The ascent became more and more rugged: this steep pitch, at the end of a thousand miles of hard work and semi-starvation, causes the death of many a wretched animal, and we remarked that the bodies are not inodorous among the mountains as on the prairies. In the most fatiguing part we saw a hand-cart halted, while the owners, a man, a woman, and a boy, took breath. We exchanged a few consolatory words with them and hurried on. The only animal seen on the line, except the grasshopper, whose creaking wings gave forth an ominous note, was the pretty little chirping squirrel. The trees, however, in places bore the marks of huge talons, which were easily distinguished as the sign of bears. The grizzly does not climb except when young: this was probably the common brown variety. At half way the gorge opened out, assuming more the appearance of a valley; and in places, for a few rods, were dwarf stretches of almost level ground. Toward the Pass-summit the rise is sharpest: here we again descended from the wagon, which the four mules had work enough to draw, and the total length of its eastern rise was five miles. Big Mountain lies eighteen miles from the city. The top is a narrow crest, suddenly forming an acute based upon an obtuse angle.

From that eyrie, 8000 feet above sea level, the weary pilgrim[191] first sights his shrine, the object of his long wanderings, hardships, and perils, the Happy Valley of the Great Salt Lake. The western horizon, when visible, is bounded by a broken wall of light blue mountain, the Oquirrh, whose northernmost bluff buttresses the southern end of the lake, and whose eastern flank sinks in steps and terraces into a river basin, yellow with the sunlit golden corn, and somewhat pink with its carpeting of heath-like moss. In the foreground a semicircular sweep of hill-top and an inverted arch of rocky wall shuts out all but a few spans of the valley. These heights are rough with a shaggy forest, in some places black-green, in others of brownish-red, in others of the lightest ash-color, based upon a ruddy soil; while a few silvery veins of snow still streak the bare gray rocky flanks of the loftiest peak.

After a few minutes’ delay to stand and gaze, we resumed the footpath way, while the mail-wagon, with wheels rough-locked, descended what appeared to be an impracticable slope. The summit of the Pass was well-nigh cleared of timber; the woodman’s song informed us that the evil work was still going on, and that we are nearly approaching a large settlement. Thus stripped of their protecting fringes, the mountains are exposed to the heat of summer, that sends forth countless swarms of devastating crickets, grasshoppers, and blue-worms; and to the wintry cold, that piles up, four to six feet high—the mountain-men speak of thirty and forty—the snows drifted by the unbroken force of the winds. The Pass from November to February can be traversed by nothing heavier than “sleighs,” and during the snow-storms even these are stopped. Falling into the gorge of Big Kanyon Creek,BIG KANYON CREEK. after a total of twelve hard miles from Bauchmin’s Fork, we reached at 11 30 the station that bears the name of the water near which it is built. We were received by the wife of the proprietor, who was absent at the time of our arrival; and half stifled by the thick dust and the sun, which had raised the glass to 103°, we enjoyed copious draughts—tant soit peu qualified—of the cool but rather hard water that trickled down the hill into a trough by the house side. Presently the station-master, springing from his light “sulky,” entered, and was formally introduced to us by Mr. Macarthy as Mr. Ephe Hanks. I had often heard of this individual as one of the old triumvirate of Mormon desperadoes, the other two being Orrin Porter Rockwell and Bill Hickman—as the leader of the dreaded Danite bandTHE DANITE., and, in short, as a model ruffian. The ear often teaches the eye to form its pictures: I had eliminated a kind of mental sketch of those assassin faces which one sees on the Apennines and Pyrenees, and was struck by what met the eye of sense. The “vile villain,” as he has been called by anti-Mormon writers, who verily do not try to ménager their epithets, was a middle-sized, light-haired, good-looking man, with regular features, a pleasant and humorous countenance, and the manly manner of his early sailor life, touched with the rough cordiality of[192] the mountaineer. “Frank as a bear-hunter” is a proverb in these lands. He had, like the rest of the triumvirate, and like most men (Anglo-Americans) of desperate courage and fiery, excitable temper, a clear, pale blue eye, verging upon gray, and looking as if it wanted nothing better than to light up, together with a cool and quiet glance that seemed to shun neither friend nor foe.

The terrible Ephe began with a facetious allusion to all our new dangers under the roof of a Danite, to which, in similar strain, I made answer that Danite or Damnite was pretty much the same to me. After dining, we proceeded to make trial of the air-cane, to which he took, as I could see by the way he handled it, and by the nod with which he acknowledged the observation, “almighty convenient sometimes not to make a noise, Mister,” a great fancy. He asked me whether I had a mind to “have a slap” at his namesake,[124] an offer which was gratefully accepted, under the promise that “cuffy” should previously be marked down so as to save a long ride and a troublesome trudge over the mountains. His battery of “killb’ars” was heavy and in good order, so that on this score there would have been no trouble, and the only tool he bade me bring was a Colt’s revolver, dragoon size. He told me that he was likely to be in England next year, when he had set the “ole woman” to her work. I suppose my look was somewhat puzzled, for Mrs. Dana graciously explained that every Western wife, even when still, as Mrs. Ephe was, in her teens, commands that venerable title, venerable, though somehow not generally coveted.

From Big Kanyon Creek Station to the city, the driver “reckoned,” was a distance of seventeen miles. We waited till the bright and glaring day had somewhat burned itself out; at noon heavy clouds came up from the south and southwest, casting a grateful shade and shedding a few drops of rain. After taking friendly leave of the “Danite” chief—whose cordiality of manner had prepossessed me strongly in his favor—we entered the mail-wagon, and prepared ourselves for the finale over the westernmost ridge of the stern Wasach.

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After two miles of comparatively level ground we came to the foot of “Little Mountain,” and descended from the wagon to relieve the poor devils of mules. The near slope was much shorter, but also it was steeper far than “Big Mountain.” The counterslope was easier, though by no means pleasant to contemplate with the chance of an accident to the brake, which in all inconvenient places would part with the protecting shoe-sole. Beyond the eastern foot, which was ten miles distant from our destination, we were miserably bumped and jolted over the broken ground at the head of Big Kanyon. Down this pass, whose name is a translation of the Yuta name Obitkokichi, a turbulent little mountain stream tumbles over its boulder-bed, girt with the usual sunflower, vines of wild hops, red and white willows, cotton-wood, quaking asp, and various bushes near its cool watery margin, and upon the easier slopes of the ravine, with the shin or dwarf oak (Quercus nana), mountain mahogany, balsam, and other firs, pines, and cedars. A TICKLISH ROAD.The road was a narrow shelf along the broader of the two spaces between the stream and the rock, and frequent fordings were rendered necessary by the capricious wanderings of the torrent. I could not but think how horrid must have been its appearance when the stout-hearted Mormon pioneers first ventured to thread the defile, breaking their way through the dense bush, creeping and clinging like flies to the sides of the hills. Even now accidents often occur; here, as in Echo Kanyon, we saw in more than one place unmistakable signs of upsets in the shape of broken spokes and yoke-bows. At one of the most ticklish turns Macarthy kindly pointed out a little precipice where four of the mail passengers fell and broke their necks, a pure invention on his part, I believe, which fortunately, at that moment, did not reach Mrs. Dana’s ears. He also entertained us with many a tale, of which the hero was the redoubtable Hanks: how he had slain a buffalo bull single-handed with a bowie-knife; and how, on one occasion, when refused hospitality by his Lamanite brethren, he had sworn to have the whole village to himself, and had redeemed his vow by reappearing in cuerpo, with gestures so maniacal that the sulky Indians all fled, declaring him to be “bad medicine.” The stories had at least local coloring.

In due time, emerging from the gates, and portals, and deep serrations of the upper course, we descended into a lower level: here Big, now called Emigration Kanyon,EMIGRATION KANYON. gradually bulges out, and its steep slopes of grass and fern, shrubbery and stunted brush, fall imperceptibly into the plain. The valley presently lay full before our sight. At this place the pilgrim emigrants, like the hajjis of Mecca and Jerusalem, give vent to the emotions long pent up within their bosoms by sobs and tears, laughter and congratulations, psalms and hysterics. It is indeed no wonder that the children dance, that strong men cheer and shout, and that nervous women, broken with fatigue and hope deferred, scream and faint; that the ignorant should fondly believe that the “Spirit of God pervades the very atmosphere,” and that Zion on the tops of the mountains is nearer heaven than other parts of earth. In good sooth, though uninfluenced by religious fervor—beyond the natural satisfaction of seeing a bran-new Holy City—even I could not, after nineteen days in a mail-wagon, gaze upon the scene without emotion.

The sublime and the beautiful were in present contrast. Switzerland and Italy lay side by side. The magnificent scenery of the past mountains and ravines still floated before the retina, as emerging from the gloomy depths of the Golden Pass—the mouth of Emigration Kanyon is more poetically so called—we came suddenly in view of the Holy Valley of the West.

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The hour was about 6 P.M.; the atmosphere was touched with a dreamy haze, as it generally is in the vicinity of the lake; a little bank of rose-colored clouds, edged with flames of purple and gold, floated in the upper air, while the mellow radiance of an American autumn, that bright interlude between the extremes of heat and cold, diffused its mild soft lustre over the face of earth.

The sun, whose slanting rays shone full in our eyes, was setting in a flood of heavenly light behind the bold, jagged outline of “Antelope Island,” which, though distant twenty miles to the northwest, hardly appeared to be ten. At its feet, and then bounding the far horizon, lay, like a band of burnished silver, the Great Salt Lake, that still innocent Dead Sea. Southwestward also, and equally deceptive as regards distance, rose the boundary of the valley plain, the Oquirrh Range, sharply silhouetted by a sweep of sunshine over its summits, against the depths of an evening sky, in that direction so pure, so clear, that vision, one might fancy, could penetrate behind the curtain into regions beyond the confines of man’s ken. In the brilliant reflected light, which softened off into a glow of delicate pink, we could distinguish the lines of Brigham’s, Coon’s, and other kanyons, which water has traced through the wooded flanks of the Oquirrh down to the shadows already purpling the misty benches at their base. Three distinct and several shades, light azure, blue, and brown-blue, graduated the distances, which extended at least thirty miles.

The undulating valley-plain between us and the Oquirrh Range is 12·15 miles broad, and markedly concave, dipping in the centre like the section of a tunnel, and swelling at both edges into bench-lands, which mark the ancient bed of the lake. In some parts the valley was green; in others, where the sun shot its oblique beams, it was of a tawny yellowish-red, like the sands of the Arabian desert, with scatters of trees, where the Jordan of the West rolls its opaline wave through pasture-lands of dried grass dotted with flocks and herds, and fields of ripening yellow corn. Every thing bears the impress of handiwork, from the bleak benches behind to what was once a barren valley in front. Truly the Mormon prophecy had been fulfilled: already the howling wilderness—in which twelve years ago a few miserable savages, the half-naked Digger Indians, gathered their grass-seed, grasshoppers, and black crickets to keep life and soul together, and awoke with their war-cries the echo of the mountains, and the bear, the wolf, and the fox prowled over the site of a now populous city—“has blossomed like the rose.”

This valley—this lovely panorama of green, and azure, and gold—this land, fresh, as it were, from the hands of God, is apparently girt on all sides by hills: the highest peaks, raised 7000 to 8000 feet above the plain of their bases, show by gulches veined with lines of snow that even in this season winter frowns upon the last smile of summer.

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Advancing, we exchanged the rough cahues and the frequent fords of the ravine for a broad smooth highway, spanning the easternmost valley-bench—a terrace that drops like a Titanic step from the midst of the surrounding mountains to the level of the present valley-plain. From a distance—the mouth of Emigration Kanyon is about 4·30 miles from the city—Zion, which is not on a hill, but, on the contrary, lies almost in the lowest part of the river-plain, is completely hid from sight, as if no such thing existed. Mr. Macarthy, on application, pointed out the notabilia of the scene.

Northward, curls of vapor ascending from a gleaming sheet—the Lake of the Hot Springs—set in a bezel of emerald green, and bordered by another lake-bench upon which the glooms of evening were rapidly gathering, hung like a veil of gauze around the waist of the mountains. Southward for twenty-five miles stretched the length of the valley, with the little river winding its way like a silver thread in a brocade of green and gold. The view in this direction was closed by “Mountain Point,”MOUNTAIN POINT. another formation of terraced range, which forms the water-gate of Jordan, and which conceals and separates the fresh water that feeds the Salt Lake—the Sea of Tiberias from the Dead Sea.

As we descend the Wasach Mountains, we could look back and enjoy the view of the eastern wall of the Happy Valley.THE HAPPY VALLEY. A little to the north of Emigration Kanyon, and about one mile nearer the settlement, is the Red Butte, a deep ravine, whose quarried sides show mottlings of the light ferruginous sandstone which was chosen for building the Temple wall.[125] A little beyond it lies the single City of the Dead, decently removed three miles from the habitations of the living, and farther to the north is City-Creek Kanyon, which supplies the Saints with water for drinking and for irrigation. Southeast of Emigration Kanyon are other ravines, Parley’s, Mill Creek, Great Cotton-wood, and Little Cotton-wood, deep lines winding down the timbered flanks of the mountains, and thrown into relief by the darker and more misty shading of the farther flank-wall.

The “Twin Peaks,” the highest points of the Wasach Mountains, are the first to be powdered over with the autumnal snow. When a black nimbus throws out these piles, with their tilted-up rock strata, jagged edges, black flanks, rugged brows, and bald heads gilt by a gleam of sunset, the whole stands boldly out with that phase of sublimity of which the sense of immensity is the principal element. Even in the clearest of weather they are rarely free from a fleecy cloud, the condensation of cold and humid air rolling up the heights and vanishing only to be renewed.

The bench-land then attracted our attention. The soil is poor,[196] sprinkled with thin grass, in places showing a suspicious whiteness, with few flowers, and chiefly producing a salsolaceous plant like the English samphire. In many places lay long rows of bare circlets, like deserted tent-floors; they proved to be ant-hills, on which light ginger-colored swarms were working hard to throw up the sand and gravel that every where in this valley underlie the surface. The eastern valley-bench, upon whose western declivity the city lies, may be traced on a clear day along the base of the mountains for a distance of twenty miles: its average breadth is about eight miles.

After advancing about 1·50 mile over the bench ground, the city by slow degrees broke upon our sight. It showed, one may readily believe, to special advantage after the succession of Indian lodges, Canadian ranchos, and log-hut mail-stations of the prairies and the mountains. The site has been admirably chosen for drainage and irrigation—so well, indeed, that a “Deus ex machinâ” must be brought to account for it.[126] About two miles north, and overlooking the settlements from a height of 400 feet, a detached cone, called Ensign Peak or Ensign Mount, rises at the end of a chain which, projected westward from the main range of the heights, overhangs and shelters the northeastern corner of the valley. Upon this “big toe of the Wasach range,” as it is called by a local writer, the spirit of the martyred prophet, Mr. Joseph Smith, appeared to his successor, Mr. Brigham Young, and pointed out to him the position of the New Temple, which, after Zion had “got up into the high mountain,” was to console the Saints for the loss of Nauvoo the Beautiful. The city—it is about two miles broad—runs parallel with the right bank of the Jordan, which forms its western limit. It is twelve to fifteen miles distant from the western range, ten from the debouchure of the river, and eight to nine from the nearest point of the lake—a respectful distance, which is not the least of the position’s merits. It occupies the rolling brow of a slight decline at the western base of the Wasach—in fact, the lower, but not the lowest level of the eastern valley-bench; it has thus a compound slope from north to south, on the line of its water supplies, and from east to west, thus enabling it to drain off into the river.

The city revealed itself, as we approached, from behind its screen, the inclined terraces of the upper table-land, and at last it lay stretched before us as upon a map. At a little distance the[197] aspect was somewhat Oriental, and in some points it reminded me of modern Athens without the Acropolis. None of the buildings, except the Prophet’s house, were whitewashed. The material—the thick, sun-dried adobe, common to all parts of the Eastern world[127]—was of a dull leaden blue, deepened by the atmosphere to a gray, like the shingles of the roofs. The number of gardens and compounds—each tenement within the walls originally received 1·50 square acre, and those outside from five to ten acres, according to their distance—the dark clumps and lines of bitter cotton-wood, locust, or acacia, poplars and fruit-trees, apples, peaches, and vines—how lovely they appeared, after the baldness of the prairies!—and, finally, the fields of long-eared maize and sweet sorghum strengthened the similarity to an Asiatic rather than to an American settlement. The differences presently became as salient. The farm-houses, with their stacks and stock, strongly suggested the Old Country. Moreover, domes and minarets—even churches and steeples—were wholly wanting, an omission that somewhat surprised me. The only building conspicuous from afar was the block occupied by the present Head of the Church. The court-house, with its tinned Muscovian dome, at the west end of the city; the arsenal, a barn-like structure, on a bench below the Jebel Nur of the valley—Ensign Peak; and a saw-mill, built beyond the southern boundary, were the next in importance.

On our way we passed the vestiges of an old moat, from which was taken the earth for the bulwarks of Zion.BULWARKS OF ZION. A Romulian wall, of puddle, mud, clay, and pebbles, six miles—others say 2600 acres—in length, twelve feet high, six feet broad at the base, and two and three quarters at the top, with embrasures five to six feet above the ground, and semi-bastions at half musket range, was decided, in 1853-54, to be necessary, as a defense against the Lamanites, whose name in the vulgar is Yuta Indians. Gentiles declare that the bulwarks were erected because the people wanting work were likely to “strike” faith, and that the amount of labor expended upon this folly would have irrigated as many thousand acres. Anti-Mormons have, of course, detected in the proceeding treacherous and treasonable intentions. Parenthetically, I must here warn the reader that in Great Salt Lake City there are three distinct opinions concerning, three several reasons for, and three diametrically different accounts of, every thing that happens, viz., that of the Mormons, which is invariably one-sided; that of the Gentiles, which is sometimes fair and just; and that of the anti-Mormons, which is always prejudiced and violent. A glance will show that this much-talked-of fortification is utterly harmless; it is commanded in half a dozen places; it could not[198] keep out half a dozen sappers for a quarter of an hour; and now, as it has done its work, its foundations are allowed to become salt, and to crumble away.

The road ran through the Big Field, southeast of the city, six miles square, and laid off in five-acre lots. Presently, passing the precincts of habitation, we entered, at a slapping pace, the second ward, called Denmark, from its tenants, who mostly herd together. The disposition of the settlement is like that of the nineteenth century New-World cities—from Washington to the future metropolis of the great Terra Australis—a system of right angles, the roads, streets, and lanes, if they can be called so, intersecting one another. The advantages or disadvantages of the rectangular plan have been exhausted in argument; the new style is best suited, I believe, for the New, as the old must, perforce, remain in the Old World. The suburbs are thinly settled; the mass of habitations lie around and south of Temple Block. The streets of the suburbs are mere roads, cut by deep ups and downs, and by gutters on both sides, which, though full of pure water, have no bridge save a plank at the trottoirs. In summer the thoroughfares are dusty, in wet weather deep with viscid mud.

The houses are almost all of one pattern—a barn shape, with wings and lean-tos, generally facing, sometimes turned endways to the street, which gives a suburban look to the settlement; and the diminutive casements show that window-glass is not yet made in the Valley. In the best abodes the adobe rests upon a few courses of sandstone, which prevent undermining by water or ground-damp, and it must always be protected by a coping from the rain and snow. The poorer are small, low, and hut-like; others are long single-storied buildings, somewhat like stables, with many entrances. The best houses resemble East Indian bungalows, with flat roofs, and low, shady verandas, well trellised, and supported by posts or pillars. All are provided with chimneys, and substantial doors to keep out the piercing cold. The offices are always placed, for hygienic reasons, outside; and some have a story and a half—the latter intended for lumber and other stores. I looked in vain for the out-house harems, in which certain romancers concerning things Mormon had informed me that wives are kept, like any other stock. I presently found this but one of a multitude of delusions. Upon the whole, the Mormon settlement was a vast improvement upon its contemporaries in the valleys of the Mississippi and the Missouri.

The road through the faubourg was marked by posts and rails, which, as we advanced toward the heart of the city, were replaced by neat palings. The garden-plots were small,GARDENS. as sweet earth must be brought down from the mountains; and the flowers were principally those of the Old Country—the red French bean, the rose, the geranium, and the single pink; the ground or winter cherry was common; so were nasturtiums; and we saw tansy, but[199]
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[201] not that plant for which our souls, well-nigh weary of hopes of juleps long deferred, chiefly lusted—mint. The fields were large and numerous, but the Saints have too many and various occupations to keep them, Moravian-like, neat and trim; weeds overspread the ground; often the wild sunflower-tops outnumbered the heads of maize. The fruit had suffered from an unusually nipping frost in May; the peach-trees were barren; the vines bore no produce; only a few good apples were in Mr. Brigham Young’s garden, and the watermelons were poor, yellow, and tasteless, like the African. On the other hand, potatoes, onions, cabbages, and cucumbers were good and plentiful, the tomato was ripening every where, fat full-eared wheat rose in stacks, and crops of excellent hay were scattered about near the houses. The people came to their doors to see the mail-coach, as if it were the “Derby dilly” of old, go by. I could not but be struck by the modified English appearance of the colony, and by the prodigious numbers of the white-headed children.

Presently we debouched upon the main thoroughfare, the centre of population and business, where the houses of the principal Mormon dignitaries and the stores of the Gentile merchants combine to form the city’s only street which can be properly so called. It is, indeed, both street and market, for, curious to say, New Zion has not yet built for herself a bazar or market-place. Nearly opposite the Post-office, in a block on the eastern side, with a long veranda, supported by trimmed and painted posts, was a two-storied, pent-roofed building,THE HOTEL IN NEW ZION. whose sign-board, swinging to a tall, gibbet-like flag-staff, dressed for the occasion, announced it to be the Salt Lake House, the principal, if not the only establishment of the kind in New Zion. In the Far West, one learns not to expect much of the hostelry;[128] I had not seen aught so grand for many a day. Its depth is greater than its frontage, and behind it, secured by a porte cochère, is a large yard for corraling cattle. A rough-looking crowd of drivers, drivers’ friends, and idlers, almost every man openly armed with revolver and bowie-knife, gathered round the doorway to greet Jim, and “prospect” the “new lot;” and the host came out to assist us in transporting our scattered effects. We looked vainly for a bar on the ground floor; a bureau for registering names was there, but (temperance, in public at least, being the order of the day) the usual tempting array of bottles and decanters was not forthcoming; up stairs we found a Gentile ballroom, a tolerably furnished sitting-room, and bedchambers, apparently made out of a single apartment by partitions too thin to be strictly agreeable. The household had its deficiencies; blacking, for instance, had run out, and servants[202] could not be engaged till the expected arrival of the hand-cart train. However, the proprietor, Mr. Townsend, a Mormon, from the State of Maine—when expelled from Nauvoo, he had parted with land, house, and furniture for $50—who had married an Englishwoman, was in the highest degree civil and obliging, and he attended personally to our wants, offered his wife’s services to Mrs. Dana, and put us all in the best of humors, despite the closeness of the atmosphere, the sadness ever attending one’s first entrance into a new place, the swarms of “emigration flies”—so called because they appear in September with the emigrants, and, after living for a month, die off with the first snow—and a certain populousness of bedstead, concerning which the less said the better. Such, gentle reader, are the results of my first glance at Zion on the tops of the mountains, in the Holy City of the Far West.

Our journey had occupied nineteen days, from the 7th to the 25th of August, both included; and in that time we had accomplished not less than 1136 statute miles.

Before entering upon the subject of the Mormons I would fain offer to the reader a few words of warning. During my twenty-four days at head-quarters, ample opportunities of surface observation were afforded me. I saw, as will presently appear, specimens of every class, from the Head of the Church down to the field-hand, and, being a stranger in the land, could ask questions and receive replies upon subjects which would have been forbidden to an American of the States, more especially to an official. But there is in Mormondom, as in all other exclusive faiths, whether Jewish, Hindoo, or other, an inner life into which I can not flatter myself or deceive the reader with the idea of my having penetrated. At the same time, it is only fair to state that no Gentile, even the unprejudiced, who are raræ aves, however long he may live or intimately he may be connected with Mormons, can expect to see any thing but the superficies. The writings of the Faithful are necessarily wholly presumed. And, finally, the accounts of Life in the City of the Saints published by anti-Mormons and apostates are venomous, and, as their serious discrepancies prove, thoroughly untrustworthy. I may therefore still hope, by recounting honestly and truthfully as lies in my power what I heard, and felt, and saw, and by allowing readers to draw their own conclusions, to take new ground.

The Mormons have been represented, and are generally believed to be, an intolerant race; I found the reverse far nearer the fact. The best proof of this is that there is hardly one anti-Mormon publication, however untruthful, violent, or scandalous, which I did not find in Great Salt Lake City.[129] The extent of the subjoined[204] bibliographical listBIBLIOLOGY. would deter me from a theme so used up by friend and foe, were it not for these considerations. In the[205] first place, I have found, since my return to England, a prodigious general ignorance of the “Mormon rule;” the mass of the public has heard of the Saints, but even well-educated men hold theirs [206]
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[213]
[214] to be a kind of socialistic or communist concern, where, as in the world to come, there is no marrying nor giving in marriage. Even where this is not the case, the reader of travels will not dislike to peruse something more of a theme with which he is already perhaps familiar; for in this department of literature, as in history and biography, the more we know of a subject, the more we want to know. Moreover, since 1857, no book of general interest has appeared, and the Mormons are a progressive people, whose “go-a-headitiveness” in social growth is only to be compared with their obstinate conservatism in adhering to institutions that date from the days of Abraham. Secondly, the natural history of the New Faith—for such it is—through the several periods of conception, birth, and growth to vigorous youth, with fair promise of stalwart manhood, is a subject of general and no small importance. It interests the religionist, who looks upon it as the “scourge of corrupted Christianity,” as much as the skeptic, that admires how, in these days of steam-traveling, printing, and telegramming, when “many run to and fro,” and when “knowledge” has been “increased,” human credulity will display itself in the same glaring colors which it wore ere the diffusion of knowledge became a part of social labor. The philosophic observer will detect in it a notable example of how mens agitat molem, the “powerful personal influence of personal character,” and the “effect that may be produced by a single mind inflexibly applied to the pursuit of a single object;” and another proof that “it is easier to extend the belief of the multitude than to contract it—a circumstance which proceeds from the false but prevalent notion that too much belief is at least an error on the right side.” The statist will consider it in its aspect as a new system of colonization. In America the politician will look with curiosity at a despotism thriving in the centre of a democracy, and perhaps with apprehension at its future efforts, in case of war or other troubles, upon the destinies of the whilom Great Republic. In England, which principally supplies this number of souls, men, instead of regarding it as one of many safety-valves, will be reminded of their obligations toward the classes by which Mormonism is fed, and urged to the improvement of education, religion, and justice. And I hope to make it appear that the highly-colored social peculiarities of the New Faith have been used as a tool by designing men to raise up enmity against a peaceful, industrious, and law-abiding people, whose whole history has been a course of cruel persecution, which, if man really believed in his own improvement, would be a disgrace to a self-styled enlightened age. The prejudice has naturally enough extended from America to England. In 1845, when the Mormons petitioned for permission to retire to Vancouver’s Island, they met with[215] nothing but discouragement. And even in 1860, I am told, when a report was raised that Mr. Brigham Young would willingly have taken refuge with his adherents in the valley of the Saskatchawan, the British minister was instructed to oppose the useful emigration to the utmost of his power.