Wild Sports in the Far West

by Friedrich Gerstäcker

I looked about for work; every tavern in the place was crammed full of Germans, ready to do any thing for bare food: whole families were in a helpless state. Fine stories had been told them that they could gain a dollar a day for every sort of work, and when they arrived, farmers were paying only five or six dollars a month, and could not employ four fifths of the applicants. I pitied the poor creatures, though no better off myself. I took many a long walk in vain, looking for employment, when Vogel offered me an occupation I should never have thought of myself, viz., making pill-boxes. Vogel thought he would try “Emperor’s Pills,” of which he had the prescription. He was very clever in such matters, but he required little round boxes, resembling the original as imported. We set to work with a will; a carpenter was found to plane the chips, we formed the tops and bottoms with a stamp, and I colored the sides with logwood. The pill-box manufacture was soon in full play, and I made them as if I had done nothing else all my life. But all things must have an end, even the manufacture of pill-boxes, and my genius was again left fallow. Vogel came once more to my assistance, and I became a chocolate maker, gaining a dollar a day by pounding it in an iron mortar.

Shortly afterwards I heard of a dealer in tobacco who was out of pipe-stems. These pipe-stems are made from the reeds or canes growing on the banks of rivers, and other moist places in the Southern States, and as all the rivers had risen very high, he could find no one to venture among the snakes and mosquitoes. This was something more in my way than sitting behind a pestle and mortar.

I bargained with a companion, and, with a few dollars in our pockets to cover the most necessary expenses, we started off for Tennessee, by the “Algonquin.” There were plenty of canes at one of the places where the vessel stopped for wood; I jumped on shore, and the owner of the wood, who dwelt in a small house close at hand, agreed to board and lodge us at two dollars a head per week. We at once landed our baggage, and set to work next morning.

These reeds grow in immense thickets on the banks of the Mississippi; but we only cut the smallest for pipe-stems. They were about the thickness of a large quill just above the root, from four to six feet long, the joints being from eight to sixteen inches. The leaves are green in summer and winter, and serve as fodder for cattle. We stripped off the leaves, and bound the reeds in bundles of 500, which make a good armful, and rather a heavy one when green. We sold them in Cincinnati for two and a half dollars a bundle.

The man on whom we had so summarily quartered ourselves was very civil and obliging, and we were soon good friends. To enliven the long evenings, he luckily happened to have a pack of cards, and a relation of his, who lived at some distance, used to come in and play whist. I often wished that our friends at home could have seen us, so as to have an idea of the difference of a whist party in Germany and one near a cane-brake in Tennessee: ours had at least the advantage of simplicity. A very roughly hewn table was placed in the middle of the room, the seats were chairs or boxes. It happened that the mosquitoes were more formidable here than I ever found them anywhere else; and as it would have been quite impossible to sit still under the constant attacks of these tormentors, an iron pot with glowing charcoal was placed under the table; a negro boy from time to time fed it with rotten wood, in order to keep up a thick smoke, which rose up all round the table, and was by no means beneficial to the eyes.

Instead of wax candles, a long stick was jammed between two of the boards of the floor; pork fat was then cut in long strips, wound round with cotton rags, tied to the stick at a moderate height, and lighted. It burnt rather dim, but gave light enough to show whether the colors were red or black, when the card was not dirtier than usual, and the smoke was not so strong as to draw tears.

We had also great fun in harpooning buffalo-fish, which make for the swamps when the river is high. The land here, at 100 to 150 paces from the river, is lower than the bank; it is covered with water in winter and spring, and dries up in summer, generating fever and disease, besides myriads of mosquitoes and other insects. One afternoon, in the space of two hours and a half, I caught fifteen fish, of which the smallest weighed about ten pounds.

Towards the end of April, having cut 18,000 canes, we hailed the next boat that passed, embarked our cargo, and landed at Cincinnati on the 30th. Our canes were soon sold, and they were still in demand. I had a great mind to make another voyage, but resolved next time to go alone; for though I found my companion very willing to share the gains, he was by no means so ready to share the pains. For the present, however, I preferred staying a short time at Cincinnati and amusing myself.

I happened to fall in with some of my Jewish fellow passengers on board the “Constitution.” Acting on the instructions of their friends and countrymen at New York, they had begun to trade in a small way; all had gained something, and some few had become comparatively rich. They generally begin as peddlers, stopping at every farmhouse, and the farmer is obliged to buy something to get rid of them.

As the rivers were still rising, I made a second trip to the canes. I had paid all my debts, and had something in hand. Towards the end of May, I embarked on board the “Mediator,” with the intention of going further south than before, as the canes there are larger, and I could cut some for fishing rods, from thirty to forty feet long, and 1½ to two inches thick.