FOOTNOTES:
[132] This was the upper stretch of Blue River. Rising in the continental divide, it flows in three branches which unite at Dillon, Summit County, thence continuing in a north-westerly course, into Grand River, on the south-western border of Middle Park.—Ed.
[133] The present Holy Cross Mountain is a high peak (14,176 feet) north-west of Leadville and forming the end of the great Sawatch range. Its cross is formed by longitudinal and transverse chasms generally filled with snow. The mountain described by Farnham was on the eastern slopes of the Blue range, in Summit County.—Ed.
[134] Farnham was travelling through one of the richest mineral districts in Colorado. Gold was discovered on the upper tributaries of the Blue—the Snake, Swan, and Ten Mile creeks—as early as 1859. Silver and carbonates were later found in the vicinity of Breckenridge. The entire region is rich in minerals, and there is also considerable arable land in Blue River valley.—Ed.
[135] These were the Williams River Mountains that bound Blue River valley on the north-east, separating it from Williams Fork, a parallel tributary of Grand River.—Ed.
[136] "Old Park" is that now known as Middle Park—a broad valley fifty by seventy miles, the source of Grand River, and now embraced in Grand County, Colorado. Its name "Old Park" is said to have arisen from the fact that after being persistently worked by hunters the game was driven into North Park, which was then termed "New Park," whereupon Middle became "Old Park." See Chittenden, Fur-Trade, ii, p. 750.—Ed.
[137] See Coues's edition of Pike's Expeditions, pp. 430, 431.—Ed.
[138] For the South Pass, or "Great Gap," see Wyeth's Oregon, in our volume xxi, p. 58, note 37. Wind River Mountains are noted in Townsend's Narrative in the same volume, p. 184, note 35.—Ed.
[139] Grand River, the eastern tributary of the Colorado, rises in two branches in Middle Park, flows west, and thence on a long, south-westward (not north-west) course nearly three hundred and fifty miles until it unites with the Green, in south-eastern Utah, to form the Colorado.—Ed.
[140] From the place where it leaves Middle Park, to its union with the Gunnison, Grand River is practically a series of cañons. What is locally known as Grand River Cañon is a stretch about sixteen miles in length, above Glenwood Springs, through which runs the Denver and Rio Grande Railway; it is thought by many to surpass in majesty the Royal Gorge of the Arkansas.—Ed.
[141] This should be three hundred miles, not thirty. For the great Cañon of the Colorado, see Pattie's Narrative in our volume xviii, p. 137, note 67, and the references therein cited.—Ed.
[142] There is apparently no other record of this disaster unless it may be an imperfect reminiscence of the explorations of the friar Francisco Garcés, who was murdered (1781) at his mission, not lost on the river. See Elliott Coues, On the Trail of a Spanish Pioneer (New York, 1900).—Ed.
[143] In 1869, Major J. W. Powell found some wreckage in Lodore Cañon, on Green River, which Frederick S. Dellenbaugh, Romance of the Colorado River (New York, 1902), pp. 112, 131, thinks may have belonged to the party of trappers whose adventures are cited by Farnham.—Ed.
[144] It is difficult to know what stream Farnham intends by the "great north fork" of the Grand, which has almost no northern tributaries of any size. Probably the course followed was up Muddy River, a considerable stream rising in the divide between North and Middle Parks and for about forty miles flowing south into the Grand, nearly opposite the mouth of Blue River.—Ed.
[145] This must be some pass in Park range, which here forms the watershed between the Grand and Green systems.—Ed.
[146] North (or New) Park was frequently called by trappers the Bull Pen. It is the source of the North Platte, which rises therein in many branches, uniting near the north or upper end of the park.—Ed.
[147] Probably this is the plateau now known as Egeria Park, at the upper waters of Little Bear (or Yampah) River.—Ed.
[148] Little Bear (more frequently known as Yampah) River rises in the south-eastern corner of Routt County, flows in a northerly direction for thirty miles, then bends abruptly westward, and for a hundred miles drains the north-western corner of Colorado; it enters Green River just below Lodore Cañon, on the boundary between Colorado and Utah.—Ed.
[149] The Three Tetons were sometimes spoken of as Pilot Knobs or Buttes. See Townsend's Narrative in our volume xxi, p. 209, note 49.—Ed.
[150] The forks of the Little Bear are the junction of Elk Head Creek with the former, not far from the modern town of Craig. The more usual route to Brown's Hole came over the South Fork of the North Platte, which heads with Elk Head Creek.—Ed.
CHAPTER VI {I}[151]
Bear Hunt—Sulphur Puddle—The River—Wolves and their Fare—Dog Eating—Little Snake River—Thirst—Deserts—Mountains—Mountain Hottentots—Brown's Hole—Fort David Crockett—Traders—Winter and its Hilarities—Love—The Way to get a Wife—A Recommendation to Civilized People—The Colorado of the West—Club Indians—The Shoshonies—An Indian Temperance Society—The Crows—The Blackfeet—Unburied Skeletons—The Arrapahoes, and Citizenship among them—War Parties—Lodge of the Great Spirit—Religious Ceremonies—The Vow and an Incident—The First Shoshonie who saw a White Man.
6th August. Eighteen miles to-day over the barren intervales of the river. The wild wormwood and prickly pear were almost the only evidences of vegetative powers which the soil presented. A rugged desolation {2} of loam and sand bluffs, barren vales of red earth, and an occasional solitary boulder of granite; no mountains even, to relieve the dreary monotony of the sickening sight. About twelve o'clock it was pleasant to see a small band of antelopes show themselves on the brink of a bluff.
We halted, and attempted to approach them; but they had been hunted a few days before by the French trappers, whom we had met, and by no means relished our companionship. Away they ran like the wind. Our hopes of finding game were at an end; the French trappers had seen, on all their way out, no other game than this band of antelopes. Our faithful greyhound could be eaten as a last resource, and we travelled on. Our excellent guide insisted upon walking nearly all the way that I might ride. This was inestimably kind in him. The act flowed from his own goodness; for, during our long journey together, he had never failed to take every opportunity to make me comfortable. We arranged our camp to-night with unusual care. The Sioux were among the hills on the right, and every preparation was therefore made to receive an attack from them. But like many other expectations of the {3} kind, this vanished as the beautiful mountain morn dawned upon the silent desert.
7th. To-day we travelled across a great southward bend in the river.[152] The face of the country a desert—neither tree nor shrub, nor grass, nor water in sight. During the afternoon we fell in with an old grisly bear and two cubs. It was a dangerous business, but starvation knows no fear.
Kelly and Smith, having horses that could run, determined to give chase and shoot one cub, while the greyhound should have the honour of a battle with the other. Under this arrangement the chase commenced. The old bear, unfaithful to her young, ran ahead of them in her fright, and showed no other affection for them than to stop occasionally, raise herself on her hind feet, and utter a most piteous scream. The horses soon ran down one cub, and the greyhound the other, so that in half an hour we were on the route again with the certain prospect of a supper when we should encamp. Had we found water and wood where we killed our meat, we should have believed it impossible to have proceeded further without food; but as necessity seldom deals in mercy, she {4} compelled us in this case, to travel till dark, before we found wood enough to cook our food, and water enough to quench our parching thirst. At last, turning from our track and following down a deep ravine that ran toward the river, we came upon a filthy, oozing sulphurous puddle which our horses, though they had had no water the entire day, refused to drink. There was no alternative, however, between drinking this and thirsting still, and we submitted to the lesser of two evils. We drank it; and with the aid of dry wormwood for fuel, boiled our meat in it. These cubs were each of about twelve pounds weight. The livers, hearts, heads, and the fore quarters of one of them, made us a filthy supper. It, however, served the purpose of better food as it prevented starvation. We had travelled eighteen miles.
8th. The morning being clear and excessively warm, we thought it prudent to seek the river again, that we might obtain water for ourselves and animals. They had had no grass for the last twenty-four hours; and the prospect of finding some for the poor animals upon the intervales, was an additional inducement to adopt this course. We accordingly wound down the ravine two {5} or three miles, struck the river at a point where its banks were productive, and unpacked to feed them, and treat ourselves to a breakfast of cub meat. Boiled or roasted, it was miserable food. To eat it, however, or not to eat at all, was the alternative. Furthermore, in a region where lizards grow poor, and wolves lean against sand banks to howl, cub soup, without salt, pepper, &c., must be acknowledged to be quite in style.
Having become somewhat comfortable by feasting thus, we travelled on down this river of deserts twenty miles, and encamped again on its banks. At this encampment we ate the last of our meat; and broke the bones with our hatchet for the oily marrow in them. The prospect of suffering from hunger before we could arrive at Brown's Hole, became every hour more and more certain. The country between us and that point was known to be so sterile, that not even a grisly bear was to be hoped for in it. It was a desert of black flint, sand and marl, rendered barren by perpetual drought.
9th. Travelled twenty-three miles along the river—nothing to eat, not even a thistle stalk. At night we tried to take {6} some fish; the stream proved as ungenerous as the soil on its banks.
10th. Made fifteen miles to-day; country covered with wild wormwood; at intervals a little bunch grass—dry and dead; face of the country formerly a plain, now washed into hills. Our dog was frantic with hunger; and although he had treated us to a cub, and served us with all the fidelity of his race, we determined in full council to-night, if our hooks took no fish, to breakfast on his faithful heart in the morning. A horrid night we passed: forty-eight hours without a morsel of food! Our camp was eight miles above the junction of Little Bear and Little Snake Rivers.
11th. This morning we tried our utmost skill at fishing. Patience often cried 'hold' but the appearance of our poor dog would admonish us to continue our efforts to obtain a breakfast from the stream. Thus we fished and fasted till eight o'clock. A small fish or two were caught—three or four ounces of food for seven starving men! Our guide declared the noble dog must die! He was accordingly shot, his hair burnt off, and his fore quarters boiled and eaten! Some of the men declared that dogs made excellent mutton; but on this point, there {7} existed among us what politicians term an honest difference of opinion. To me, it tasted like the flesh of a dog, a singed dog; and appetite keen though it was, and edged by a fast of fifty hours, could not but be sensibly alive to the fact that, whether cooked or barking, a dog is still a dog, every where. After our repast was finished, we saddled and rode over the plains in a northerly direction for Brown's Hole. We had been travelling the last five days, in a westerly course; and as the river continued in that direction, we left it to see it no more, I would humbly hope, till the dews of Heaven shall cause its deserts to blossom and ripen into something more nutritive than wild wormwood and gravel.
We crossed Little Snake River about ten o'clock. This stream is similar in size to that we had just left.[153] The water was clear and warm; the channel rocky and bordered by barren bluffs. No trees grew upon its banks where we struck it; though I was informed that higher up, it was skirted with pretty groves of cotton wood. But as the Sioux war party which had attacked the French trappers in this neighbourhood, was probably not far from our trail, perhaps on it, and near us, we spent little time in examining either groves or deserts; for {8} we were vain enough to suppose that the mere incident of being scalped here would not be so interesting, to ourselves at least, as would be our speedy arrival at Craig and Thomson's post—where we might eat Christian food and rest from the fatigues of our journey. For these, and several other palpable reasons, we drove on speedily and silently, with every eye watchful, every gun well primed, every animal close to his fellows, till ten o'clock at night. We then halted near a place where we had been told by the French trappers, we could find a spring of water. The day had been excessively warm, and our thirst was well nigh insufferable. Hence the long search for the cooling spring to slake its burnings. It was in vain. Near midnight therefore it was abandoned by all, and we wrapped ourselves in our blankets, hungry, thirsty, and weary, and sunk to rest upon the sand. Another dreadful night! Thirst, burning thirst! The glands cease to moisten the mouth, the throat becomes dry and feverish, the lungs cease to be satisfied with the air they inhale, the heart is sick and faint; and the nerves preternaturally active, do violence to every vital organ. It is an incipient throe of death.
12th. We arose at break of day, and {9} pursued our journey over the grey, barren wastes. This region is doomed to perpetual sterility. In many portions of it there appears to be a fine soil. But the trappers say that very little rain or snow falls upon it; hence its unproductiveness. And thus it is said to be with the whole country lying to the distance of hundreds of miles on each side of the whole course of the Colorado of the West. Vast plateaux of desolation, yielding only the wild wormwood and prickly pear! So barren, so hot, so destitute is it of water that can be obtained and drunk, that the mountain sheep, and hare even, animals which drink less than any others that inhabit these regions, do not venture there. Travellers along that stream are said to be compelled to carry it long distances upon animals, and draw it where it is possible so to do, with a rope and skin bucket from the chasm of the stream. And yet their animals frequently die of thirst and hunger; and men often save their lives by eating the carcasses of the dead, and by drinking the blood which they from time to time draw from the veins of the living.
Between this river and the Great Salt Lake, there is a stream called Severe River, which rises in the high plateaux to the S. E. {10} of the lake, and running some considerable distance in a westerly course, terminates in its own lakes. On the banks of this river there is said to be some vegetation, as grasses, trees, and edible roots. Here live the "Piutes" and "Land Pitches," the most degraded and least intellectual Indians known to the trappers. They wear no clothing of any description—build no shelters. They eat roots, lizards, and snails. Their persons are more disgusting than those of the Hottentots.[154]
They provide nothing for future wants. And when the lizard and snail and wild roots are buried in the snows of winter, they are said to retire to the vicinity of timber, dig holes in the form of ovens in the steep sides of the sand hills, and, having heated them to a certain degree, deposit themselves in them, and sleep and fast till the weather permits them to go abroad again for food. Persons who have visited their haunts after a severe winter, have found the ground around these family ovens strewn with the unburied bodies of the dead, and others crawling among them, who had various degrees of strength, from a bare sufficiency to gasp in death, to those that crawled upon their hands and feet, {11} eating grass like cattle. It is said that they have no weapons of defence except the club, and that in the use of that they are very unskilful. These poor creatures are hunted in the spring of the year, when weak and helpless, by a certain class of men, and when taken, are fattened, carried to Santa Fé and sold as slaves during their minority. "A likely girl" in her teens brings oftentimes £60 or £80. The males are valued less.
At about eleven o'clock we came to a stream of good water and halted to slake our thirst and cook the remainder of our dog mutton. Our animals' sufferings had nearly equalled our own. And while we ate and rested under the shade of a tree, it added much to our enjoyment to see the famished beasts regale themselves upon a plat of short wiry grass beside the stream. Some marks of dragging lodge poles along the now well defined trail, indicated to us that a portion of the Shoshonie or Snake tribe had lately left Brown's Hole. From this circumstance we began to fear what afterwards proved true, that our hopes of finding the Snakes at that post and of getting meat from them would prove fallacious. Our filthy meal being finished, we gathered {12} up our little caravan and moved forward at a round pace for three hours, when the bluffs opened before us the beautiful plain of Brown's Hole.[155] As we entered it we crossed two cool streams that tumbled down from the stratified cliffs near at hand on the right; and a few rods beyond, the whole area became visible. The Fort, as it is called, peered up in the centre, upon the winding bank of the Sheetskadee. The dark mountains rose around it sublimely, and the green fields swept away into the deep precipitous gorges more beautifully than I can describe.
How glad is man to see his home again after a weary absence! Every step becomes quicker as he approaches its sacred portals; and kind smiles greet him; and leaping hearts beat upon his; and warm lips press his own. It is the holy sacrament of friendship. Yet there is another class of these emotions that appears to be not less holy. They arise when, after having been long cut off from every habit and sympathy of civilized life, long wandering among the deep and silent temples of the eternal mountains, long and hourly exposed to the scalping knife of savages and the agonies of {13} starvation, one beholds the dwellings of civilized men—kindred of the old Patriot blood, rearing their hospitable roofs among those heights, inviting the houseless, wayworn wanderer to rest; to relax the tension of his energies, close his long watching eyes, and repose the heart awhile among generous spirits of his own race. Is not the hand that grasps yours then, an honest hand? Does it not distil, by its sacred warmth and hearty embrace, some of the dearest emotions of which the soul is capable; friendship unalloyed, warm, holy, and heavenly?
Thus it seemed to me, at all events, as we rode into the hollow square and received from St. Clair, the person in charge, the hearty welcome of an old hunter to "Fort David Crockett."[156] A room was appropriated immediately for our reception, our horses were given to the care of his horse guard, and every other arrangement within his means, was made, to make us feel that within that little nest of fertility, amid the barrenness of the great Stony Range—far from the institutions of law and religion—far from the sweet ties of family relations, and all those nameless endearing influences that shed their rich {14} fragrance over human nature in its cultivated abiding places—that there even could be given us the fruits of the sincerest friendship. Such kindness can be appreciated fully by those only who have enjoyed it in such places; who have seen it manifested in its own way; by those only, who have starved and thirsted in these deserts and been welcomed, and made thrice welcome, after months of weary wandering, to "Fort David Crockett."
After partaking of the hospitality of Mr. St. Clair, I strolled out to examine more minutely this wonderful little valley. It is situated in or about latitude 42° north; one hundred miles south of Wind River mountains, on the Sheetskadee (Prairie Cock) River. Its elevation is something more than eight thousand feet above the level of the sea. It appeared to be about six miles in diameter; shut in, in all directions, by dark frowning mountains, rising one thousand five hundred feet above the plain. The Sheetskadee, or Green River, runs through it, sweeping in a beautiful curve from the north-west to the south-west part of it, where it breaks its way through the encircling mountains, between cliffs, one thousand feet in height, broken and hanging as {15} if poised on the air. The area of the plain is thickly set with the rich mountain grasses, and dotted with little copses of cotton wood and willow trees. The soil is alluvial, and capable of producing abundantly all kinds of small grains, vegetables, &c., that are raised in the northern States. Its climate is very remarkable. Although in all the country, within a hundred miles of it, the winter months bring snows, and the severe cold that we should expect in such a latitude, and at such an elevation above the level of the sea, yet in this little nook, the grass grows all the winter; so that, while the storm rages on the mountains in sight, and the drifting snows mingle in the blasts of December, the old hunters here heed it not. Their horses are cropping the green grass on the banks of the Sheetskadee, while they themselves are roasting the fat loins of the mountain sheep, and laughing at the merry tale and song.
The Fort is a hollow square of one story log cabins, with roofs and floors of mud, constructed in the same manner as those of Fort William. Around these we found the conical skin lodges of the squaws of the white trappers, who were away on their "fall hunt," and also the lodges of a few {16} Snake Indians, who had preceded their tribe to this, their winter haunt. Here also were the lodges of Mr. Robinson, a trader, who usually stations himself here to traffic with the Indians and white trappers. His skin lodge was his warehouse; and buffalo robes were spread upon the ground and counter, on which he displayed his butcher knives, hatchets, powder, lead, fish-hooks, and whisky. In exchange for these articles he receives beaver skins from trappers, money from travellers, and horses from the Indians. Thus, as one would believe, Mr. Robinson drives a very snug little business. And indeed, when all the "independent trappers" are driven by approaching winter into this delightful retreat, and the whole Snake village, two or three thousand strong, impelled by the same necessity, pitch their lodges around the Fort, and the dances and merry makings of a long winter are thoroughly commenced, there is no want of customers.
These winters in Brown's hole are somewhat like winters among the mountains of New England, in the effects they produce on the rise and progress of the art of all arts—the art of love. For, as among the good old hills of my native clime, quiltings, {17} and singing-schools, and evening dances, when the stars are shining brightly on the snow crust, do soften the heart of the mountain lad and lassie, and cause the sigh and blush to triumph over all the counsels of maiden aunts and fortune-tellers; so here in this beautiful valley, and in the skin lodge village of the Snakes, there are bright evenings, beaming stars, and mellow moons, and social circles for singing the wild ditties of their tribe, and for sewing with the sinews of the deer, their leggings, moccasins and buffalo robes, and for being bewitched with the tender passion.
The dance, too, enlivens the village. The musician chants the wild song, and marks the time by regular beatings with a stick upon a sounding board; and light heels, and sturdy frames, and buxom forms respond to his call. To these, and other gatherings, the young go, to see who are the fairest, and best, and most loved of the throng. Our friend Cupid goes there too. Yes, Cupid at an Indian dance! And there measuring bow and arrow with those who invented them, he often lays at his feet, I am told, the proudest hawk's feather that adorns the brow of Chief or Chiefess. For, on the {18} morning after the dance, it not unfrequently happens that he of the beard is compelled, by force of certain uneasy sensations about the heart, to apply to some beardless one for the balm of sweet smiles for his relief.
He does not wait for the calm hour of a Sunday night. Nor does he delay putting the question by poetical allusions to the violet and firmament. No! Calm hours and the poetry of nature have no charms for him. He wants none of these. Our friend Cupid has cast an arrow into his heart, bearded with the stings of irresistible emotion; and he seeks that mischievous fair one, her alone who selected the arrow and the victim; her alone who was a "particeps criminis" in the loss of that great central organ of his life, called in the annals of Christian countries, "the heart." No! his course is vastly more philosophical and single-minded, (I mean no offence to my countrymen—none to you, ye Britons over the waters,) than the ginger-bread, sugar-candy courtships of Christian people. He first pays his addresses to his band of horses; selects the most beautiful and valuable of them all, and then goes with his chosen horse to the lodge of his chosen {19} girl's father or mother, or if both these be dead, to the lodge of her eldest sister, ties the animal to the tent pole, and goes away. After his departure, the inmates of the lodge issue from it, and in due form examine the horse, and if it appears to be worth as much as the girl whom the owner seeks, an interview is had, the horse taken by the parents, or sister, as the case may be, and the lover takes the girl. A fair business transaction, you perceive, my readers—"a quid pro quo"—a compensation in kind.
The girl, received in exchange for the horse, becomes the absolute personal property of the enamoured jockey, subject to be re-sold whenever the state of the market and his own affection will allow. But if those, whose right it is to judge in the matter, are of opinion that the girl is worth more than the horse, another is brought; and if these are not enough, he of the beard may bring another, or get Cupid to shoot his heart in another direction.
There are many benefits in this mode of obtaining that description of legal chattels called a wife, over the mode usually adopted among us. As for example: by this mode there is a price given for a valuable article. Now to my apprehension, this is an improvement upon our plan; for it {20} removes entirely from certain old daddies, the necessity of disposing of their daughters by gift, to certain worthless, portionless young men, who are merely virtuous, talented, honest and industrious; an evil of no small magnitude, as may be learned by inquiry in the proper quarter. But the Indian system of matrimony extirpates it. Wealth measures off affection and property by the peck, yard or dollar's worth, as circumstances require; and no young lady of real genuine property, respectability and standing, and family, will think of placing her affections upon a talented, virtuous and industrious, promising and prosperous coxcomb of poverty; nor, vice versâ, will a young man of these vulgar qualities have unfathomable barefacedness to propose himself to a young lady of real genuine property respectability, property form, property face, property virtue, property modesty, and property intelligence.
No, bless the day! such impudence will cease to interfere with the legitimate pretensions of those who are able—while they declare their passion mighty, unalterable and pure—to place in the hands from which they receive the dear object of their property love, the last quoted prices of the family stock.
{21} But I pass to the consideration of another view of this matter which I deem, if possible, of still greater importance. As, if in disposing of young ladies in marriage, a valuation in money should be made of their property beauty, property modesty, property intelligence, &c., and required to be paid before marriage, the false opinion that honesty, probity, intelligence, integrity, virtue and respectability can exist without a property basis, would gradually fade away before the influence of our rich daddies' daughters. Oh the age that would then bless our earth! The piety of the church would fan itself in the property pew. The forum of jurisprudence would then echo to the lofty strains of property eloquence. The groves of Academus would breathe the wisdom of property philosophy. The easel of the artist would cast upon the canvas the inspirations of property genius. And music, and sculpture, and poetry, born in garrets, would give place to another race of these arts—a property race, that could be kept in one's apartments without compelling one to blush for their origin. We should then have a property fitness of things, that would place our property selves in a state of exalted property beatitude. {22} It is hoped that the Legislators of the world will bestow upon this matter their most serious attention, and from time to time pass such laws as will aid mankind in attaining this splendid and brilliant exaltation of our nature, when the precious metals shall be a universal measure of value.
This is diverging. But after my reader is informed that the only distinct aim I proposed to myself in writing my journal, was to keep the day of the month correctly, and in other respects "keep a blotter," the transition from this strain of true philosophy, to a notice of the white men and their squaws, will be thought easy and natural.
If, then, a white man is disposed to take unto himself a squaw among the Snakes, he must conform to the laws and customs of the tribe, which have been ordained and established for the regulation of all such matters. And, whether the colour in any individual case be of black or white, does not seem to be a question ever raised to take it out of the rules. The only difference is, that the property, beauty, &c. of the whites frequently give them the preference on 'change, and enable them to {23} obtain the best squaws of the nation. These connexions between the white trappers and squaws I am told, are the cause of so many of the former remaining during life in these valleys of blood.—They seem to love them as ardently as they would females of their own colour.
A trader is living there with a young Eutaw squaw, through whose charms he has forsaken friends, wealth and ease, and civilization, for an Indian lodge among all the dangers and wants of a wilderness. This gentleman is said to have a standing offer of £140 for his dear one, whenever, in the course of a limited time, he will sell her graces. But it is believed that his heart has so much to do with his estimation of her value, that no consideration could induce him voluntarily to deprive himself of her society.
The above anecdotes were related to me during the first evening I spent at Fort David Crockett. It was a bright ethereal night. The Fort stood in the shade of the wild and dark cliffs, while the light of the moon shone on the western peaks, and cast a deeper darkness into the inaccessible gorges on the face of the mountains. The Sheetskadee flowed silently among the alders {24}—the fires in the Indian lodges were smouldering; sleep had gathered every animate thing in its embrace. It was a night of deep solitude. I enjoyed the lovely scene till near midnight in company with Mr. St. Clair; and when at last its excitements and the thrilling pleasure of being relieved from the prospect of death by hunger allowed me to slumber, that gentleman conducted me to his own room and bed, and bade me occupy both while I should remain with him. He expressed regret that he had so little provisions in the Fort;—a small quantity of old jerked meat; a little tea and sugar.
"But," said he, "share it with me as long as it lasts. I have hunters out; they will be here in ten or twelve days; you have been starving; eat while there is any thing left, and when all is gone we'll have a mountain sheep, or a dog to keep off starvation till the hunters come in."
My companions and guide were less fortunate. We purchased all the meat which either money or goods could induce the Indians to sell. It amounted to one day's supply for the company. And as there was supposed to be no game within a circuit of one hundred miles, it became {25} matter of serious inquiry whether we should seek it in the direction of Fort Hall, or on the head waters of Little Snake River, one hundred miles off our proper route to Oregon.
In the latter place there were plenty of fine, fat buffalo; but on the way to the other point there was nothing but antelope, difficult to kill, and poor. A collateral circumstance turned the scale of our deliberations. That circumstance was dog meat. We could get a supply of these delectable animals from the Indians; they would keep life in us till we could reach Fort Hall; and by aid thereof we could immediately proceed on our journey, cross the Blue Mountains before the snow should render them impassable, and reach Vancouver, on the lower Columbia, during the autumn. On the contrary, if we sought meat on the waters of Little Snake River, it would be so late before we should be prepared to resume our journey, that we could not pass those mountains until May or June of the following spring.
The dogs, therefore, were purchased; and preparations were made for our departure to Fort Hall, as soon as ourselves and our animals were sufficiently {26} recruited for the undertaking. Meanwhile my companions ate upon our stock of barking mutton. And thus we spent seven days—delightful days; for although our fare was humble and scanty, yet the flesh began to creep upon our skeletons, our minds to resume their usual vivacity, and our hearts to warm again with the ordinary emotions of human existence.
The trials of a journey in the western wilderness can never be detailed in words. To be understood, they must be endured. Their effects upon the physical and mental system are equally prostrating. The desolation of one kind and another which meets the eye every where; the sense of vastness associated with dearth and barrenness, and of sublimity connected with eternal, killing frost;—of loneliness coupled with a thousand natural causes of one's destruction; perpetual journeyings over endless declivities, among tempests, through freezing torrents; one half the time on foot, with nothing but moccasins to protect the feet from the flinty gravel and the thorns of the prickly pear along the unbeaten way; and the starvings and thirstings wilt the muscles, send preternatural activity into the nervous system, and through the whole {27} animal and mental economy a feebleness, an irritability altogether indescribable.
At Fort David Crockett there were rest, and food, and safety; and old Father Time, as he mowed away the passing moments and gathered them into the great garner of the Past, cast upon the Future a few blossoms of hope, and sweetened the hours, now and then, with a bit of information about this portion of his ancient dominion. I heard from various persons, more or less acquainted with the Colorado of the West, a confirmation of the account of that river given in the journals of previous days; and also that there resides at the lower end of its great kenyon, a band of the Club Indians—very many of whom are seven feet high, and well proportioned; that these Indians raise large quantities of black beans upon the sandy intervales on the stream; that the oval-leaf prickly-pear grows there from fifteen to twenty feet in height; that these Indians make molasses from its fruit; that their principal weapon of warfare is the club, which they wield with amazing dexterity and force; that they inhabit a wide extent of country north-west, and south-east of this lower part of the river; that they have never been subdued by the {28} Spaniards, and are inimical to all white people.[157] Subsequent inquiry in California satisfied me that this river is navigable only thirty or forty miles from its mouth, and that the Indians who live upon its barren banks near the Gulf, are such as I have described.
The Snakes, or Shoshonies, are a wandering tribe of Indians who inhabit that part of the Rocky Mountains which lies on the Grand and Green River branches of the Colorado of the West, the valley of Great Bear River, the habitable shores of the Great Salt Lake, a considerable portion of country on Snake River above and below Fort Hall, and a tract extending two or three hundred miles to the west of that post. Those who reside in the place last named, are said to subsist principally on roots; they, however, kill a few deer, and clothe themselves with their skins. The band living on Snake River subsist on the fish of the stream, buffalo, deer, and other game. Those residing on the branches of the Colorado, live on roots, buffalo, elk, deer, the mountain-sheep, and antelope. The Snakes own many horses. These, with their thousands of dogs, constitute all the domestic animals among them. They have {29} conical skin-lodges, a few camp-kettles, butcher-knives and guns. Many of them, however, still use the bow and arrow. In dress, they follow the universal Indian costume—moccasins, leggings, and the hunting-shirt. Nothing but the hair covers the head; and this, indeed, would seem sufficient, if certain statements made in relation to it be true; as that it frequently grows four and five feet in length, and in one case eleven feet. In these instances, it is braided and wound round the head in the form of a Turkish turban. If only two or three feet in length, it is braided on the female head in two queues, which hang down the back: on the male, it is only combed behind the ears, and lies dishevelled around the shoulders. The female dress differs from that of the male in no other respect than this: the shirt or chemise of the former extends down to the feet. Beaver, otter, bear and buffalo skins, and horses are exchanged by them with the Arrapahoes, and the Americans, and British traders, for some few articles of wearing apparel; such as woollen blankets and hats. But as their stock of skins is always very limited, they find it necessary to husband it with much care, to obtain therewith a supply of tobacco, arms and ammunition.
{30} From the first acquaintance of the whites with them, these people have been remarkable for their aversion to war, and those cruelties generally practised by their race. If permitted to live in peace among their mountains, and allowed to hunt the buffalo—that wandering patrimony of all the tribes—when necessity requires, they make war upon none, and turn none hungry away from their humble abodes. But these peaceable dispositions in the wilderness, where men are left to the protection of their impulses and physical energies, have yielded them little protection. The Blackfeet, Crows, Sioux and Eutaws have alternately fought them for the better right to the Old Park, and portions of their Territory, with varied success; and, at the present time, do those tribes yearly send predatory parties into their borders to rob them of their horses. But as the passes through which they enter the Snake country are becoming more and more destitute of game on which to subsist, their visits are less frequent, and their number less formidable. For several years, they have been in a great measure relieved from these annoyances.
From the time they met Lewis and Clark on the head-waters of the Missouri[158] to the {31} present day, the Snakes have opened their lodges to whites, with the most friendly feelings. And many are the citizens of the States, and the subjects of Britain, who have sought their villages, and by their hospitality have been saved from death among those awful solitudes. A guest among them is a sacred deposit of the Great Spirit. His property, when once arrived within their camp, is under the protection of their honour and religious principle; and should want, cupidity, or any other motive, tempt any individual to disregard these laws of hospitality, the property which may have been stolen, or its equivalent, is returned, and the offender punished. The Snakes are a very intelligent race. This appears in the comforts of their homes, their well-constructed lodges, the elegance and useful form of their wardrobes, their horse-gear, &c.
But more especially does it exhibit itself in their views of sensual excesses and other immoralities. These are inhibited by immemorial usages of the tribe. Nor does their code of customs operate upon those wrong doings only which originate among a savage people. Whatever indecency is offered them by their intercourse with the {32} whites, they avoid. Civilized vice is quite as offensive as that which grows up in their own untrained natures. The non-use of intoxicating liquor is an example of this kind. They abjured it from the commencement of its introduction among them. And they give the best of reasons for this custom:—"It unmans us for the hunt, and for defending ourselves against our enemies; it causes unnatural dissensions among ourselves; it makes the Chief less than his Indian; and by its use, imbecility and ruin would come upon the Shoshonie tribe."
Whatever difference of opinion may exist among civilized men on this matter, these Indians certainly reason well for themselves, and, I am inclined to think, for all others. A voice from the depth of the mountains—from the lips of a savage—sends to our ears the startling rebuke—"Make not, vend not, give not to us the strong water. It prostrates your superior knowledge, your enlarged capacities for happiness, your cultivated understandings. It breaks your strong laws; it rots down your strong houses; it buries you in the filthiest ditch of sin. Send it not to us; we would rather die by the arrows of the Blackfeet."
The Crows[159] are a wandering tribe, and {33} usually found in the upper plains around the head-waters of the north fork of Great Platte, Snake, and Yellowstone rivers. Their number is estimated to be about five thousand. They are represented as the most arrant rascals among the mountains. The traders say of them that "they have never been known to keep a promise or do an honourable act." No white man or Indian trusts them. Murder and robbery are their principal employments. Much of their country is well watered, timbered, and capable of yielding an abundant reward to the husbandman.
The Blackfeet Indians reside on the Marias and other branches of the Missouri above the Great Falls. In 1828 they numbered about two thousand five hundred lodges or families. During that year they stole a blanket from the American Fur Company's steamboat on the Yellowstone, which had belonged to a man who had died of the small-pox on the passage up the Missouri. The infected article being carried to their encampment upon the "left hand fork of the Missouri," spread the dreadful infection among the whole tribe. They were amazed at the appearance of the disease. The red blotch, the bile, congestion of the lungs, {34} liver, and brain, were all new to their medicine-men; and the rotten corpse falling in pieces while they buried it, struck horror into every heart. In their frenzy and ignorance they increased the number of their sweat ovens upon the banks of the stream, and whether the burning fever or the want of nervous action prevailed; whether frantic with pain, or tottering in death, they were placed in them, sweated profusely and plunged into the snowy waters of the river. The mortality which followed this treatment was a parallel of the Plague in London. They endeavoured for a time to bury the dead, but these were soon more numerous than the living. The evil-minded medicine-men of all ages had come in a body from the world of spirits, had entered into them, and were working the annihilation of the Blackfeet race.
The Great Spirit had also placed the floods of his displeasure between himself and them. He had cast a mist over the eyes of their conjurors, that they might not know the remedial incantation. Their hunts were ended; their bows were broken; the fire in the Great Pipe was extinguished for ever; their graves called for them; and the call was now answered by a thousand dying {35} groans. Mad with superstition and fear, brother forsook sister; father his son; and mother her sucking child; and fled to the elevated vales among the western heights, where the influences of the climate, operating upon the already well-spent energies of the disease, restored the remainder of the tribe again to health. Of the two thousand five hundred families existing at the time the pestilence commenced, one or more members of eight hundred only survived its ravages; and even to this hour do the bones of seven or eight thousand Blackfeet lie unburied among the decaying lodges of their deserted village, on the banks of the Yellowstone. But this infliction has in no wise humanized their blood-thirsty nature. As ever before, they wage exterminating war upon the traders and trappers, and the Oregon Indians.[160]
The Arrapahoes reside south of the Snakes.[161] They wander in the winter season over the country about the head of the Great Kenyon of the Colorado of the West, and to a considerable distance down that river; and in summer hunt the buffalo in the New Park, or "Bull Pen," in the "Old Park" on Grand River, and in "Boyou Salade," on the south fork of the Platte. Their {36} number is not well ascertained. Some estimate it at three thousand, others more, and others still less. They are said to be a brave, fearless, thrifty, ingenious, and hospitable people. They own large numbers of horses, mules, dogs, and sheep. The dogs they fatten and eat. Hence the name Arrapahoes—dog eaters. They manufacture the wool of their sheep into blankets of a very superior quality. I saw many of them; possessed one; and believe them to be made with something in the form of a darning-needle. They appeared to be wrought, in the first time, like a fishing-net; and on this, as a foundation, darned so densely that the rain will not penetrate them. They are usually striped or checked with yellow and red.
There is in this tribe a very curious law of naturalization; it is based upon property. Any one, whether red or white, may avail himself of it. One horse, which can run with sufficient speed to overtake a buffalo cow, and another horse or mule, capable of bearing a pack of two hundred pounds, must be possessed by the applicant.
These being delivered to the principal chief of the tribe, and his intentions being made known, he is declared a citizen of the {37} Arrapahoe tribe, and entitled to a wife and other high privileges thereunto appertaining. Thus recognized, he enters upon a life of savage independence. His wife takes care of his horses, manufactures his saddles and bridles, and leash ropes and whips, his moccasins, leggings, and hunting-shirts, from leather and other materials prepared by her own hands; beats with a wooden adze his buffalo robes, till they are soft and pleasant for his couch; tans hides for his tent covering, and drags from the distant hills the clean white-pine poles to support it; cooks his daily food and places it before him. And should sickness overtake him, and death rap at the door of his lodge, his squaw watches kindly the last yearnings of the departing spirit. His sole duty, as her lord in life, and as a citizen of the Arrapahoe tribe, is to ride the horse which she saddles and brings to his tent, kill the game which she dresses and cures; sit and slumber on the couch which she spreads; and fight the enemies of the tribe. Their language is said to be essentially the same as that spoken by the Snakes and Cumanches.[162]
This, and other tribes in the mountains, and in the upper plains, have a custom, the {38} same in its objects as was the ceremony of the "toga virilis" among the Romans.
When ripened into manhood, every young man of the tribe is expected to do some act of bravery that will give promise of his disposition and ability to defend the rights of his tribe and family. Nor can this expectation be disregarded. So, in the spring of the year, those of the age alluded to, associate themselves forty or fifty in a band, and devote themselves to the duties of man's estate in the following manner:—They take leave of their friends, and depart to some secret place near the woodlands; collect poles twenty or thirty feet in length, and raise them in the form of a cone; and cover the structure so thickly with leaves and boughs as to secure the interior from the gaze of persons outside. They then hang a fresh buffalo's head inside, near the top of the lodge where the poles meet; and below this, around the sides, suspend camp-kettles, scalps, and blankets, and the skin of a white buffalo, as offerings to the Great Spirit. After the lodge is thus arranged, they enter it with much solemnity, and commence the ceremonies which are to consecrate themselves to war, and the destruction of their own enemies, and those of the tribe. The {39} first act, is to seat themselves in a circle round a fire built in the centre of the lodge, and "make medicine;" that is,—invoke the presence and aid of protecting spirits, by smoking the great mystic pipe.
One of their number fills it with tobacco and herbs, places upon the bowl a bright coal from the fire within the lodge, draws the smoke into his lungs, and blows it thence through his nostrils. He then seizes the stem with both hands, and leaning forward, touches the ground between his feet with the lower part of the bowl, and smokes again as before. The feet, and arms, and breast, are successively touched in a similar way; and after each touching, the sacred smoke is inhaled as before. The pipe is then passed to the one on his right, who smokes as his fellow has done. And thus the Great Pipe goes round, and the smoke rises and mingles with the votive offerings to the Great Spirit which are suspended above their heads. Immediately after this smoking is believed to be a favoured time for offering prayer to the Great Spirit. They pray for courage, and victory over their foes in the campaign they are about to undertake; and that they may be protected from the spirits of evil-minded medicine men. They then make a solemn and irrevocable vow, that if {40} these medicine men do not make them sick—do not enter into their bosoms and destroy their strength and courage, they will never again see their relatives and tribe, unless they do so in garments stained with the blood of their enemies.
Having passed through these ceremonies, they rise and dance to the music of a war chant, till they are exhausted and swoon. In this state of insensibility, they imagine that the spirits of the brave dead visit them and teach them their duty, and inform them of the events that will transpire during the campaign. Three days and nights are passed in performing these ceremonies; during which time, they neither eat nor drink, nor leave the lodge. At early dawn of the fourth day they select a leader from their number, appoint a distant place of meeting; and emerging from the lodge, each walks away from it alone to the place of rendezvous. Having arrived there, they determine whose horses are to be stolen, whose scalps taken, and commence their march. They always go out on foot, wholly dependent upon their own energies for food and every other necessary. Among other things, it is considered a great disgrace to be long without meat and the means of riding.
It sometimes happens that these parties {41} are unable to satisfy the conditions of their consecration during the first season; and therefore are compelled to resort to some ingenious and satisfactory evasion of the obligations of their vow, or to go into winter quarters till another opening spring allows them to prosecute their designs. The trappers relate a case of this kind, which led to a curious incident. A war party of Blackfeet had spent the season in seeking for their enemies without success. The storms of approaching winter had begun to howl around, and a wish to return to the log fires and buffalo meat, and hilarities and friendships of the camp of the tribe in the high vales of the Upper Missouri, had become ardent, when a forlorn, solitary trapper who had long resided among them, entered their camp. Affectionate and sincere greetings passed at the moment of meeting.
The trapper, as is the custom, was invited to eat; and all appeared friendly and glad. But soon the Indians became reserved, and whispered ominously among themselves. At length came to the ear of the trapper high words of debate in regard to his life. They all agreed that his white skin indubitably indicated that he belonged to the "Great Tribe" of their natural enemies, and that {42} with the blood of a white upon their garments, they would have fulfilled the terms of their vow, and could return to their friends and tribe. A part of them seriously questioned whether the sacred names of friend and brother, which they had for years applied to him, had not so changed his natural relationship to them, that the Great Spirit, to whom they had made their vow, had sent him among them in the character which they themselves had given him—as a friend and brother. If so, they reasoned that the sacrifice of his life would only anger Him, and by no means relieve them from the obligations of their vow.
Another party reasoned that the Great Spirit had sent this victim among them to test their fidelity to Him. He had indeed been their friend; they had called him brother, but he was also their natural enemy; and that the Great One to whom they had made their vow, would not release them at all from its obligations, if they allowed this factitious relation of friendship to interfere with obedience to Himself. The other party rejoined, that although the trapper was their natural enemy, he was not one within the meaning of their vow; that the taking of his life would be an evasion of its sacred {43} obligations, a blot upon their courage, and an outrage upon the laws of friendship; that they could find other victims, but that their friend could not find another life. The other party rebutted, that the trapper was confessedly their natural enemy; that the conditions of their vow required the blood of their natural enemy; and that the Great Spirit had sufficiently shown His views of the relative obligations of friendship and obedience to Himself in sending the trapper to their camp.
The trapper's friends perceiving that the obstinacy of their opponents was unlikely to yield to reason, proposed as a compromise, that, since, if they should adjudge the trapper their enemy within the requirements of their vow, his blood only would be needed to stain their garments, they would agree to take from him so much as might be necessary for that purpose; and that in consideration of being a brother, he should retain enough to keep his heart alive. As their return to their tribe would be secured by this measure, little objection was raised to it. The flint lancet was applied to the veins of the white man; their garments were dyed with his blood; they departed for their nation's village, and the poor trapper for the beaver among the hills.
{44} My worthy old guide, Kelly, had often seen these medicine lodges. He informed me that many of the votive offerings, before mentioned, are permitted to decay with the lodge in which they are hung; that the penalty to any mortal who should dare appropriate them to his use was death. A certain white man, however, who had been robbed of his blanket at the setting in of winter, came upon one of these sacred lodges, erected by the young Arrapahoes which contained, among other things, a blanket that seemed well calculated to shield him from the cold. He spread it over his shivering frame, and very unadvisedly went into the Arrapahoe village. The Indians knew the sacred deposit, held a council, called the culprit before them, and demanded why he had stolen from the Great Spirit? In exculpation, he stated that he had been robbed; that the Great Spirit saw him naked in the wintry wind; pitied him; showed him the sacred lodge, and bade him take the blanket. "That seems to be well," said the principal chief to his fellow-counsellors. "The Great Spirit has an undoubted right to give away his own property;" and the trader was released.
Among the several personages whom I {45} chanced to meet at Brown's Hole, was an old Snake Indian, who saw Messrs. Lewis and Clark on the head-waters of the Missouri in 1805. He is the individual of his tribe, who first saw the explorers' cavalcade. He appears to have been galloping from place to place in the office of sentinel to the Shoshonie camp, when he suddenly found himself in the very presence of the whites. Astonishment fixed him to the spot. Men with faces pale as ashes, had never been seen by himself or nation. "The head rose high and round, the top flat; it jutted over the eyes in a thin rim; their skin was loose and flowing, and of various colours." His fears at length overcoming his curiosity, he fled in the direction of the Indian encampment; but being seen by the whites, they pursued and brought him to their camp; exhibited to him the effects of their fire-arms, loaded him with presents, and let him go. Having arrived among his own people, he told them he had seen men with faces pale as ashes, who were makers of thunder, lightning, etc. This information astounded the whole tribe. They had lived many years, and their ancestors had lived many more, and there were many legends which spoke of many wonderful {46} things; but a tale like this they never had heard.
A council was, therefore, assembled to consider the matter. The man of strange words was summoned before it, and he rehearsed, in substance, what he had before told to others, but was not believed. "All men were red, and therefore he could not have seen men as pale as ashes." "The Great Spirit made the thunder and the lightning; he therefore could not have seen men of any colour that could produce these. He had seen nothing; he had lied to his chief, and should die."
At this stage of the proceedings, the culprit produced some of the presents which he had received from the pale men. These being quite as new to them as pale faces were, it was determined "that he should have the privilege of leading his judges to the place where he declared he had seen these strange people; and if such were found there, he should be exculpated; if not, these presents were to be considered as conclusive evidence against him, that he dealt with evil spirits, and that he was worthy of death by the arrows of his kinsfolks." The pale men, the thunder-makers, were found, and were witnesses of {47} the poor fellow's story. He was released; and has ever since been much honoured and loved by his tribe, and every white man in the mountains.[163] He is now about eighty years old, and poor. But as he is always about Fort David Crockett, he is never permitted to want.