W.T. SHERMAN.
Our next descent on Europe was made in the steamer Persian Monarch, which was again chartered. This time our destination was France. The Parisians received the show with as much favor as had the Londoners.
Everything American became the fad during our stay. Fashionable young men bought American and Mexican saddles for their rides in the Bois. Cowboy hats appeared everywhere on the street. There was a great cry for stories of the Plains and all the books that could be found that dealt with the West were translated into the French language. Relics from the Plains and mountains, bows, moccasins, and Indian baskets, sold like hot cakes in the souvenir stores.
While in the city I accepted an invitation from Rosa Bonheur to visit her at her superb château. In return I extended her the freedom of the show, and she made many studies from life of the fine animals I had brought over with me. She also painted a portrait of me on my favorite horse—a picture which I immediately sent home to my wife.
Our sojourn in Rome was lively with incident. The Prince of Simonetta, who visited the show, declared that he had some wild horses in his stable which no cowboy could ride. The challenge was promptly taken up by some of the dare-devils in my party. That the horses might not run amuck and injure anyone, special booths were erected in the show arena, where the trial was to be made.
The greatest enthusiasm was manifested by the Romans in the performance, and it was clear to me that most of them looked eagerly forward to the mortal injury of some of the members of my company. The Latin delight in sports like those of the old Roman arena had by no means died out.
When the horses were loosed in the ring they sprang into the air, snorted, kicked up their heels, and plainly defied any of the cowboys to do so much as to lay a hand on them. But in less time than I can tell it the plainsmen had sent their lassos hurtling through the air, and the horses discovered that they had met their masters. The audience, always strong for the winners, forgot their disappointment in the absence of fatalities, and howled with delight as the cowboys, one after another, mounted the fractious horses and trotted them submissively about the arena. We closed this tour of Europe, which was successful to the end, with a second visit to England.
I have now come to the end of my story. It is a story of "The Great West that Was," a West that is gone forever.
All my interests are still with the West—the modern West. I have a number of homes there, the one I love best being in the wonderful Big Horn Valley, which I hope one day to see one of the garden spots of the world.
In concluding, I want to express the hope that the dealings of this Government of ours with the Indians will always be just and fair. They were the inheritors of the land that we live in. They were not capable of developing it, or of really appreciating its possibilities, but they owned it when the White Man came, and the White Man took it away from them. It was natural that they should resist. It was natural that they employed the only means of warfare known to them against those whom they regarded as usurpers. It was our business, as scouts, to be continually on the warpath against them when they committed depredations. But no scout ever hated the Indians in general.