"We are at the Glasgow Hotel, and will leave it the day after to-morrow, as it is too good for our purses. We intended to have gone twenty miles in Illinois to Edwardsville, but have changed our plans, and will go northwest sixteen miles to Florissant, where we are assured game is plenty, and the living quite cheap. We do not expect to leave this till the 20th or 22d of April, and should you feel inclined to write to me, do so by return of mail, if possible, and I may get your letter before I leave this for the Yellowstone.
"The markets here abound with all the good things of the land, and of nature's creation. To give you an idea of this, read the following items: Grouse, two for a York shilling; three chickens for the same; Turkeys, wild or tame, 25 cents; flour $2.00 a barrel; butter, sixpence for the best—fresh, and really good. Beef, 3 to 4 cents; veal, the same; pork, 2 cents; venison hams, large and dried, 15 cents each; potatoes, 10 cents a bushel; Ducks, three for a shilling; Wild Geese, 10 cents each; Canvas-back Ducks, a shilling a pair; vegetables for the asking, as it were; and only think, in the midst of this abundance and cheapness, we are paying at the rate of $9.00 per week at our hotel, the Glasgow, and at the Planters we were asked $10.00.
"I have been extremely kindly received and treated by Mr. Chouteau and partners. Mr. Sire, the gentleman who will command the steamer we go in, is one of the finest-looking men I have seen for many a day, and the accounts I hear of him correspond with his noble face and general appearance."
1843
I LEFT home at ten o'clock of the morning, on Saturday the 11th of March, 1843, accompanied by my son Victor. I left all well, and I trust in God for the privilege and happiness of rejoining them all some time next autumn, when I hope to return from the Yellowstone River, an expedition undertaken solely for the sake of our work on the Quadrupeds of North America. The day was cold, but the sun was shining, and after having visited a few friends in the city of New York, we departed for Philadelphia in the cars, and reached that place at eleven of the night. As I was about landing, I was touched on the shoulder by a tall, robust-looking man, whom I knew not to be a sheriff, but in fact my good friend Jediah Irish,[240] of the Great Pine Swamp. I also met my friend Edward Harris, who, with old John G. Bell,[241] Isaac Sprague, and young Lewis Squires, are to be my companions for this campaign. We all put up at Mr. Sanderson's. Sunday was spent in visits to Mr. Bowen,[242] Dr. Morton,[243] and others, and we had many calls made upon us at the hotel. On Monday morning we took the cars for Baltimore, and Victor returned home to Minniesland. The weather was rainy, blustery, cold, but we reached Baltimore in time to eat our dinner there, and we there spent the afternoon and the night. I saw Gideon B. Smith and a few other friends, and on the next morning we entered the cars for Cumberland, which we reached the same evening about six. Here we had all our effects weighed, and were charged thirty dollars additional weight—a first-rate piece of robbery. We went on now by coaches, entering the gap, and ascending the Alleghanies amid a storm of snow, which kept us company for about forty hours, when we reached Wheeling, which we left on the 16th of March, and went on board the steamer, that brought us to Cincinnati all safe.
We saw much game on our way, such as Geese, Ducks, etc., but no Turkeys as in times of yore. We left for Louisville in the U.S. mail steamer, and arrived there before daylight on the 19th inst. My companions went to the Scott House, and I to William G. Bakewell's, whose home I reached before the family were up. I remained there four days, and was, of course, most kindly treated; and, indeed, during my whole stay in this city of my youth I did enjoy myself famously well, with dancing, dinner-parties, etc. We left for St. Louis on board the ever-to-be-remembered steamer "Gallant," and after having been struck by a log which did not send us to the bottom, arrived on the 28th of March.
On the 4th of April, Harris went off to Edwardsville, with the rest of my companions, and I went to Nicholas Berthoud, who began housekeeping here that day, though Eliza was not yet arrived from Pittsburgh. My time at St. Louis would have been agreeable to any one fond of company, dinners, and parties; but of these matters I am not, though I did dine at three different houses, bon gré, mal gré. In fact, my time was spent procuring, arranging, and superintending the necessary objects for the comfort and utility of the party attached to my undertaking. The Chouteaux supplied us with most things, and, let it be said to their honor, at little or no profit. Captain Sire took me in a light wagon to see old Mr. Chouteau one afternoon, and I found the worthy old gentleman so kind and so full of information about the countries of the Indians that I returned to him a few days afterwards, not only for the sake of the pleasure I enjoyed in his conversation, but also with the view to procure, both dead and alive, a species of Pouched Rat (Pseudostoma bursarius)[244] wonderfully abundant in this section of country. One day our friend Harris came back, and brought with him the prepared skins of birds and quadrupeds they had collected, and informed me that they had removed their quarters to B——'s. He left the next day, after we had made an arrangement for the party to return the Friday following, which they did. I drew four figures of Pouched Rats, and outlined two figures of Sciurus capistratus,[245] which is here called "Fox Squirrel."
