Exceeding fatigued with our useless promenade, we crossed the Missouri immediately from St. Charles to Chauvin’s ferry, where we had slept. We took our dinner here, and set out on the road to St. Louis in our little light carriage, about four o’clock. We got over the worst part of the road by daylight. We were surprised at the great numbers of partridges, upon which we came, and which were so tame, that they would hardly run out of our way: they remained sitting within ten paces of us. As the night overtook us, we reached the better part of the road. We passed a bivouack of an emigrant family, and arrived in St. Louis without accident, in a very cold night about ten o’clock.
The 9th of April found us plunged into the midst of winter. It never ceased snowing and freezing during the whole day. Except a slight fall of it that I had experienced at Harper’s ferry, in the month of November, 1825, this was the first snow that I happened to witness in America. We could not make up our minds to go abroad, but preferred sitting at the fire-side, and entertained ourselves with past happy days. Later, however, we paid Mrs. Clark a visit, and spent the evening at her house.
The steam-boat Mexico, Captain Clark, from the Prairie des Chiens on the upper Mississippi, arrived this day, in the afternoon, at St. Louis, fired a cannon to announce it, and intended to sail the next morning down the Mississippi, and up the Ohio to Louisville and Pittsburgh. I determined to embrace this opportunity to arrive in the Ohio, and then visit New Harmony on the Wabash. My design at first was to have gone by land through the state of Illinois, to Vincennes, and from there down the Wabash to New Harmony. From information since obtained, this road would be almost bottomless at this season of the year, several rivers were to be crossed, and those provided with miserable ferries. For these reasons, I declined the journey by land, in which, without such considerations, there was nothing interesting to attract attention.
I had also felt a desire to visit the lead-mines, of which the most important lie at Potosi, sixty miles from St. Louis, which are almost daily increasing in consequence. I declined to join in this excursion, since the journey there would take at least two days, the return as much, and besides the road was described as wretched in the highest degree. I was told, that the lead ore lies almost on the surface, and is so extensive, that it is not worth the trouble to dig for it deep. If therefore a shaft is pushed so deep as to strike water, this shaft is abandoned and another opened. This easy method of working will last until the owner has laboured over every part of his territory, then he will be obliged to have recourse to water-pumps, and steam-engines. On Fever river, on the upper Mississippi, are also very rich lead-works. These, united to the works at Potosi, have delivered, during nine months, eight hundred and eighty-seven thousand two hundred and ninety-eight pounds of lead; the amount of per centage which the United States receive from these works during that time, was a hundred and four thousand one hundred and thirteen pounds. It is supposed, that in the next year the mine-works will produce from three to four million pounds of lead, which must be three hundred and fifty thousand pounds for the share of the United States. It is but a few years since these mines were worked.
On the 10th of April, we paid yet some other visits, before our departure. First, to Major Biddle of the sixth regiment of infantry. He is a brother to Commodore Biddle, and also of the President of the United States Bank, in Philadelphia. His wife, educated in France, does not appear particularly delighted with these out posts of civilization. We then went to see Mrs. Clark, who, through the secretary of her husband, Mr. Alexander, exhibited to us the museum collected by the governor on his travels, and since considerably augmented. Mr. Alexander showed us articles of Indian clothing of different kinds, and various materials,—except the leather, the larger part of these materials were American, or rather entirely European in their origin. A single garment alone, was made by the Cherokees of cotton, which was pulled, spun, wove on a loom, made by an Indian, and even dyed blue by them. Besides, several weapons of different tribes, wooden tomahawks, or battle-axes, in one of them was a sharp piece of iron to strike into the skulls of their prisoners; another made of elks-horn, bows of elks-horn and of wood, spears, quivers with arrows, a spear head of an Indian of the Columbia river, hewed out of flint, a water-proof basket of the same people, in which cooking can be performed, several kinds of tobacco pipes, especially the calumet, or great pipe of peace. The heads of this pipe are cut out of a sort of argillaceous earth, or serpentine; in time of war the spot where this stone is dug out, is regarded as neutral, and hostile parties, who meet each other at that place, cannot engage in any thing inimical against each other. The pipe which the commissioners of the United States use at treaties with the Indians, has a heavy silver head, and a peculiarly handsome ornamented wooden stem. Farther: Mr. Alexander showed us the medals which the Indian chiefs have received at different periods from the Spanish, English and American governments, and the portraits of various chiefs, who have been at St. Louis to conclude treaties with the governor, who is also Indian agent. Among the remarkable things in natural history, we noticed an alligator, eight feet long; a pelican; the horns of a wild goat, shot by the governor in his tour among the rocky mountains; the horns of a mountain-ram, and those of an elk, several bearskins, among others, of the white bear; buffalo, elk, of the skunk, which were sowed together in a robe, skins of martins, ferrets, &c. &c. moreover, several petrifactions of wood, and animal subjects, among others, of elephants teeth, a piece of rock-salt, tolerably white, yet not shooting in crystals, as the English; various crystals; a large piece of rock crystal; very handsome small agates, which are here taken for cornelians, &c. Among the curiosities, the most remarkable were two canoes, the one of animal-hide, the other of tree-bark, a peace-belt, which consists of a white girdle, set with glass beads two hands breadth wide; farther, snow shoes, nets which are drawn over an oval frame, also the rackets, which they use in playing their game of ball, &c. &c.
After the examination of this interesting collection, we paid our visit to Mr. Choteau. This is a venerable old man of eighty years, a native of New Orleans. He told us that at the founding of St. Louis, he felled the first tree. His house resembling in architecture the old government-house in New Orleans, was the first substantial building erected here. The conversation with this aged man, who received us like a patriarch, surrounded by his descendants, was very interesting. He was of opinion that the people from whom the Indian antiquities have come down to us, either by a pestilential disease, or by an all-destroying war, must have been blotted from the earth. He believed that Behring’s Straits were more practicable formerly than at present, at least it must have been Asiatic hordes that came to America. How otherwise, (asked he,) could the elephants, since there have been none ever upon this continent, have reached the American bottom, where their bones are now found? This bottom is a very rich body of land, running south, opposite to St. Louis. Mounds and fortifications are found there, of the kind spoken of before. Here the elephants bones are not scattered about, but found laid in a long row near each other, as if they had been killed in a battle, or at the assault of some fortification. I gave him a description of the opening of a Roman mound, at which I was present with my father, in the year 1813, and he expressed his astonishment at the great similarity between these mounds, and those of the Indian grave-hills. Among the stone war-hatchets in the governor’s museum, there are several resembling the battle-axes which are found in Germany at these mounds.
In our inn there lodged merchants, who prepare caravans, with which they go in a space of from between forty and fifty days, to Santa Fé in New Mexico. The articles which they mostly carry there, consist of cotton fabrics, cloths, iron ware, &c. These goods they pack in four-horse wagons, covered over, in which they sleep at night. There are about one hundred men in such a caravan. From Santa Fé they bring back dollars and mules.
After dinner the worthy old gentleman, Mr. Choteau, surprised us by a visit, and brought his brother, his sons, and a Captain Smith, of the first regiment of infantry, who is here on recruiting duty, with him. He staid long with us and was very talkative. He related, for example, that at the commencement of the settlement of St. Louis, the Indians attacked the town, which was only defended by one hundred and fifty men, and that they were driven off. After this attack, the Spaniards had built the defensive towers, of which the remains stand yet around the city. They resemble the English Martello towers, and like them were of but little value.
