After arriving at this place, which is the wintering post of Colonel Kearney, with his three companies of dragoons, I seated my wife and two gentlemen of my intimate acquaintance, in my bark canoe, and paddled them through the Des Moine’s Rapids, a distance of fourteen miles, which we performed in a very short time; and at the foot of the Rapids, placed my wife on the steamer for St. Louis, in company with friends, when I had some weeks to return on my track, and revert back again to the wild and romantic life that I occasionally love to lead. I returned to Camp Des Moines, and in a few days joined General Street, the Indian Agent, in a Tour to Ke-o-kuck’s village of Sacs and Foxes.
Colonel Kearney gave us a corporal’s command of eight men, with horses, &c. for the journey; and we reached the village in two days’ travel, about sixty miles up the Des Moines. The whole country that we passed over was like a garden, wanting only cultivation, being mostly prairie, and we found their village beautifully situated on a large prairie, on the bank of the Des Moines River. They seemed to be well supplied with the necessaries of life, and with some of its luxuries. I found Ke-o-kuck to be a chief of fine and portly figure, with a good countenance, and great dignity and grace in his manners.
General Street had some documents from Washington, to read to him, which he and his chiefs listened to with great patience; after which he placed before us good brandy and good wine, and invited us to drink, and to lodge with him; he then called up five of his runners or criers, communicated to them in a low, but emphatic tone, the substance of the talk from the agent, and of the letters read to him, and they started at full gallop— one of them proclaiming it through his village, and the others sent express to the other villages, comprising the whole nation. Ke-o-kuck came in with us, with about twenty of his principal men—he brought in all his costly wardrobe, that I might select for his portrait such as suited me best; but at once named (of his own accord) the one that was purely Indian. In that he paraded for several days, and in it I painted him at full length. He is a man of a great deal of pride, and makes truly a splendid appearance on his black horse. He owns the finest horse in the country, and is excessively vain of his appearance when mounted, and arrayed, himself and horse, in all their gear and trappings. He expressed a wish to see himself represented on horseback, and I painted him in that light. He rode and nettled his prancing steed in front of my door, until its sides were in a gore of blood. I succeeded to his satisfaction, and his vanity is increased, no doubt, by seeing himself immortalized in that way. After finishing him, I painted his favourite wife (the favoured one of seven), his favourite boy, and eight or ten of his principal men and women; after which, he and all his men shook hands with me, wishing me well, and leaving, as tokens of regard, the most valued article of his dress, and a beautiful string of wampum, which he took from his wife’s neck.
They then departed for their village in good spirits, to prepare for their fall hunt.
Of this interesting interview and its incidents, and of these people, I shall soon give the reader a further account, and therefore close my note-book for the present. Adieu.
[20] This man died of the small-pox the next summer after this portrait was painted. Whilst the small-pox was raging so bad at the Prairie, he took the disease, and in a rage plunged into the river, and swam across to the island where he dragged his body out upon the beach, and there died, and his bones were picked by dogs, without any friend to give him burial.
LETTER—No. 53.
SAINT LOUIS.
It will be seen by the heading of this Letter that I am back again to “head-quarters,” where I have joined my wife, and being seated down by a comfortable fire, am to take a little retrospect of my rambles, from the time of my last epistle.