Departure from St. Louis—The Engagés, or Voyageurs—St. Charles—Gasconade River—Osage River—Jefferson City—Boonville and Franklin—Arrow Rock—Chariton—Grand River—Battle of the Missouri Indians—Fire Prairie—Dangerous place and situation of the vessel—Fort Osage—The Osages—Liberty—Quicksands—Konzas River—Boundary of the United States—The Konzas Indians—Pilcher's Expeditions—Little Platte River—Dwelling of the Joways—Diamond Island—Cantonment of Leavenworth.
On the 10th of April, at eleven o'clock, all our company having collected, the Yellow Stone left St. Louis; Mr. Pierre Chouteau, and several ladies of his family, accompanied us to St. Charles.[175] Some guns were fired, as a signal, on our departure, on which numbers of the inhabitants assembled on the shore, among them the Saukies and some half-civilized Kikapoo Indians. Mr. Bodmer made some interesting sketches of the former, of which the plate gives a specimen.[176] There were about 100 persons on board the Yellow Stone, most of whom were those called engagés, or voyageurs, who are the lowest class of servants of the Fur Company. Most of them are French Canadians, or descendants of the French settlers on the Mississippi and Missouri.
The appearance of the river above St. Louis did not differ from that already described. The red-bud (Cercis Canadensis) appeared as underwood in the forests, covered with dark red blossoms before the appearance of the leaves, which form red stripes along the shore, and make a pleasing contrast with the young, bright green leaves of the willows. At noon, Reaumur's thermometer on board was at +17½°. We had soon passed the 16½ miles to the mouth of the Missouri,[177] but before we entered it, we lay to, on the Illinois side, to take in wood. The Yellow Stone entered 113 the Missouri, which, at its mouth, is about the same breadth as the Mississippi at this place. In the afternoon we reached, on the S. W. side, Belle Fontaine, a rather decayed building belonging to the military station established, in 1803, against the Indians, but which was subsequently abandoned. The current of the river runs here at the rate of five miles an hour; on the left bank there is a chain of calcareous hills with the same singular forms of towers, &c. as on the Mississippi. The bushes of wild plums were covered with snow-white blossoms, and those of the Cercis Canadensis, with their red flowers; and I could not help remarking that, in this country, most of the trees and bushes have their flowers before their leaves. On the beach the inhabitants had fixed fishing rods, which they examined, from time to time, and we saw them take up a large cat-fish. Towards evening the lofty plane trees, with their white branches, were beautifully tinged with the setting sun. We passed several islands, which showed us the usual formation of these accumulations of sand, which arise rapidly, and are often as rapidly destroyed. Against the stream they generally have a naked, sandy point, with layers of thick, heavy timber; young willows grow first, then poplars, and, lastly, hard timber. In many places in the forests, and between the willows, we observed the high rushes (Equisetum hyemale) which are said to be injurious to the horses, unless salt is given them with it.
Next morning we reached St. Charles, on the N. E. shore, one of the oldest French settlements on the Missouri, consisting of about 300 houses, where the massive church, with its low tower, has a very good appearance. The environs of this scattered village are rather bare, but there were many European fruit trees in blossom. Most of the houses are built of wood, but a modern part of the place is of brick. On an eminence rising behind it, stands an old stone tower, which formerly served as a defence against the Indians. We lay to, opposite St. Charles, where Messrs. Mc Kenzie and Dougherty joined us, and M. Chouteau and his family took leave, and returned to St. Louis. After stopping a few hours, we continued our voyage till a storm of wind filled the air with sand, from the sand banks, and compelled us to stop after twelve o'clock, above the whirlpool, called Remoux á Baguette;[178] towards dark, however, we reached Isle au Bon Homme, in the vicinity of which we passed the night. On the 12th of April, the original forms of the calcareous rocks again appeared, with the red cedar, as usual, growing upon them. The hills were covered with forests, where many trees were putting forth leaves, especially the very delicate green foliage of the sugar maple. A cavern at this place is called the Tavern Rock (Taverne de Montardis), and on both sides of the river were numerous snags, which often prove dangerous to vessels. Near some habitations the European peach trees were in blossom; among the strange forms of the rocks, I saw one flattened at the top like a table, on a thin stem, and quite isolated. The country is here pretty well peopled, and game is rather rare in the forests, at least we were told that stags, bears, and wild turkeys were not often found there. The people settle on the eminences, rather than below on the bank of the river, where the air is 114 said to be less salubrious. The inundations of the river form marshes on the low grounds, which, being protected from the sun by the surrounding trees, produce fevers. Flint, in his History and Geography of the Mississippi Valley,[179] gives a very good account of the climate and diseases of this country. We passed Isle and Rivière au Bœuf, as well as the village of Pinkney;[180] observed very picturesque rocky scenes, climbing plants, which twined round overthrown broken trunks of trees, and gloomy ravines, which were now full of the bright green young leaves that were everywhere sprouting forth. The Yellow Stone had several times struck against submerged trunks of trees, but it was purposely built very strong, for such dangerous voyages. This was its third voyage up the Missouri. The Fur Company possess another steamer called the Assiniboin which had left St. Louis to go up the Missouri before us.[181] At night-fall we lay to on the right bank, where a cheerful fire of large logs was soon made, round which our engagés assembled and chatted incessantly in French. We spent part of the night with Messrs. Mc Kenzie, Dougherty, and Sanford, under the canopy of the starry heavens, while a couple of clarionets, on board the vessel, played Scotch airs and the famous "Yankee-doodle."
On the morning of the 13th of April, the weather was serene and cool, the thermometer, at eight in the morning, +5° Reaum., and at noon, +9°. We had lain to, for the night, near Otter Island,[182] and soon saw before us the country about Gasconade River. There were extensive sand banks on the left hand, picturesque hills, many pleasing gradations of tint in the forests; an island, on the surface of which we distinctly saw the layer of black mould, six feet thick, with sand beneath it; further from the left bank a chain of hills, valleys, and eminences, covered with high trees, which were just beginning to put forth leaves, all illumined by the beams of the brightest morning sun. Near the Gasconade, where we took in wood, many interesting plants were in blossom. The Gasconade, which is an inconsiderable river, and rises not far from the source of the Merrimack, in the State of Missouri, expands behind a high, bold eminence, the summit of which is covered with rocks and red cedars. The hills near it are frequently covered with the white and the yellow pine, which supply St. Louis with boards and timber for building. Its mouth, which is reckoned to be 100 miles from that of the Missouri, is picturesquely situated in a lofty forest. Near it, our hunters fired unsuccessfully at a flock of wild turkeys. We soon passed the village of Portland; then the mouth of Little-Au-Vase Creek, where we observed, in the woods, the young leaves of the buck-eye trees (Pavia) which grew in great abundance.[183] A little further on, the Osage River appears between wooded banks: it is a small stream, in which, according to Warden, many soft-shelled tortoises are found: we came then to Côte-Sans-Dessein, an old French settlement of six or eight houses, celebrated for the brave defence made by a few men against a numerous body of Indians. It must have been formerly much more considerable, since Brackenridge calls it a beautiful place.[184] The river has destroyed it, and it is now quite insignificant. Opposite to it, on the left bank, further up the country, there 115 are many originally French families, and half-breeds, descendants of the Osage Indians, who formerly dwelt in these parts. While Mr. Bennett, the master of our vessel, landed to visit his family, who lived here, we botanized on the opposite bank, where oaks of many kinds were in blossom, and where the Monocotyledonous plant is found, which is called here Adam and Eve. Its roots consist of two bulbs joined together, of which it is said that, when thrown into the water, one swims and the other sinks. It is held to be a good cure for wounds. The flower was just beginning to appear.
From Côte-Sans-Dessein, you soon come to Jefferson City, on the south bank of the Missouri, the capital, as it is called of the State of Missouri, where the governor resides.[185] It is at present only a village, with a couple of short streets, and some detached buildings on the bank of the river. The governor's house is in front, on the top of the bank, and is a plain brick building of moderate size. The gentle eminences, on which the place was built about ten years ago, are now traversed by fences, and the stumps of the felled trees are everywhere seen.
The morning of the 14th of April was clear but cool; at 8 o'clock +8°, a thick mist rising from the river. On a wooded eminence, on the left hand, at some distance from the bank, is a high, isolated rock, which stands like a tower in the forest. Major Dougherty, once passing this place with some Joway Indians, was told by them, that there was a tradition among their ancestors, that this rock was formed of the dung of a race of bisons, which lived in heaven, but they themselves no longer believed this fable. The Manito rocks, two isolated blocks, about fifty feet high, which have been mentioned by many travellers, appear below, on the bank of the river. They are mentioned in the account of Major Long's Expedition, which contains much information respecting the Missouri, as far as Council Bluff, to which I refer. We learn from that work, that almost all these calcareous rocks of the Missouri contain organic remains, encrinites, &c. On the rocks, which are divided by ravines into broad rounded shapes, like towers, the Virginia red cedar grows, and falcons build their nests. We see here on the rocky walls red spots, strokes and figures, remaining from the times when the Indians dwelt here: two towering overhanging rocks, in which there are several caves, put me in mind of the ruins of the castle of Heidelburg. Just before dinner we reached Rockport, a village founded two years ago, on the Manito River, six miles up which river Columbia is situated.[186] Near this place there are again many red figures on the rocky walls, among others that of a man with uplifted arms; not thirty years have elapsed since this whole country was in the possession of the Indians. After passing Manito and Bonne Femme Creek, we stopped at the village of Boonville on the left bank, opposite which is Old Franklin.[187] As this place was threatened by the river, and is besides in an unhealthy situation, the people founded New Franklin, rather further inland, now a thriving village, near which salt springs have been discovered. We afterwards passed the mouth of La Mine River, which is about equal to the Lahn, and lay to for the night at Arrow Rock (Pierre à flêche), a chain in which 116 flint is found, of which the Indians formerly made the heads of their arrows. In a ravine, before Arrow Rock Hill, there is a new village, which was called New Philadelphia, though the inhabitants did not approve of this name.[188]
On the following morning (April 15th), proceeding on our voyage, we passed little Arrow Rock, and found a very fertile and rather populous country. Near the mouth of Chariton River, there are several islands, covered with willows, poplar, and hard timber. The river here makes a considerable bend; the numerous sand banks did not permit us to proceed in a direct line, but compelled us to take the narrow channel, at the outer edge of the bend, and to take soundings continually, being in great danger of striking against the snags. Some parts of the banks were rent in a remarkable manner by the rapid stream, when the water was high. In many places, large masses, fifteen or eighteen feet in height, had sunk down, with poplars thirty or forty feet high, as well as entire fields of maize, and piles of timber, which form together a wild scene of devastation, to which the broken poplars not a little contributed.
The drift wood on the sand bank, consisting of the trunks of large timber trees, forms a scene characteristic of the North American rivers; at least I saw nothing like it in Brazil, where most of the rivers rise in the primeval mountains, or flow through more solid ground. On the banks which we now passed, the drifted trunks of trees were in many places already covered with sand; a border of willows and poplars was before the forest, and it is among these willow bushes that the Indians usually lie in ambush, when they intend to attack those who tow their vessels up the river by long ropes. At five o'clock in the afternoon we reached the mouth of Grand River, which was then very shallow, almost as broad as the Wabash. The Yellow Stone nearly run aground at the mouth of this river, and stirred up the sand so as to discolour the water. The Joway Indians dwelt on the Grand River till 1827, when they removed to Little Platte River.[189] They continue, however, like the Saukies and Foxes, to hunt in the prairies at its source, where buffaloes, elks, and stags, are said to be still pretty numerous. The first of these Indians called the Grand River, Nischna-Honja; and the Missouri, Nischna-Dja:—Ni, in their language, means water, and Nischna, the river.[190]
We lay to, for the night, beyond Waconda Creek.[191] Our hunters dispersed into the neighbouring woods and plantations, but they only shot some parrots. On the 16th, in the morning, we had, on the left bank, undulating hills, thinly covered with trees, and on the bank were strata of limestone. Here is the mouth of the stream, the Bonnet de Bœuf, which, doubtless, has its name from the caps, with ox horns, which the Indians, who formerly dwelt here, wore in their dances. Some highly dangerous submerged snags left only a very narrow channel open for our vessel. At ten 117 o'clock we came to some excessively dangerous parts, where our vessel frequently struck, and we were obliged to stop the engine, and to push by poles. The vessel stuck fast in the sand, and it was necessary to fasten it to the trees on the bank till it could be got afloat again. At this point the great forests begin to be interrupted by open places, or prairies, and we were at the part called Fox Prairie, where the Saukie and Fox Indians, and, perhaps, some other nations,[192] formerly attacked, and nearly extirpated the tribe of the Missouris. The remainder of the people saved themselves among the Otos, on the southwest banks, where their descendants still live, mingled with the natives. The Missouris came down the river in many canoes, and their enemies had concealed themselves in the willow thickets. After the Missouris, who suspected no evil, had been killed or wounded with arrows, the victors leaped into the water, and finished their bloody work with clubs and knives: very few of the Missouris escaped.[193]