The remove of an Indian village presented an interesting sight. The animated and shifting scene of bucks and braves, squaws and papooses, ponies dwarfed by bad breeding and hard living, dogs and puppies—all straggled over the plains westward. In front, singly or in pairs, rode the men, as if born upon, and bred to become part of, the animal; some went bare-backed, others rode upon a saddle tree. In some cases the saddle was trimmed with bead hangings. Their long, lank, thick, brownish-black
hair, ruddy from the effects of the weather, was worn parted in the middle. This parting in men, as well as in women, was generally coloured with vermilion, and plates of brass or tin were inserted into the front hair. They wore many ornaments, and the body dress was a tight-sleeved waistcoat over an American cotton shirt, scarlet and blue being the colours preferred. The garb ended with buckskin leggings and moccasins. The braves were armed with small tomahawks, or iron hatchets, which they carried with the powder horn in the belt on the right side. Their nags were lean and ungroomed. They treat them as cruelly as do the Somali, yet nothing—short of whiskey—could persuade an Indian warrior to part with his favourite steed. Behind the warriors and the braves followed the baggage of the village. The rich squaws rode in litters, the poorer followed their pack-horses on foot. Their garb did not a little resemble their lords, and I saw no great beauty among them, young or old, rich or poor. La belle savage of the party had large and languishing eyes, dentists’ teeth that glittered, and silky, long, black hair like the ears of a Blenheim spaniel. Her ears and neck were laden with tinsel ornaments, and she was very finely dressed. There was with the cavalcade a great company of boys and girls.
On the sixth day we crossed the Platte. We had spent most of the night in the waggon, most uncomfortably. At 3.15 a.m., hungry and thirsty, and by no means in the best of humours, we heard with joy the
savage “Yep, yep, yep,” with which the driver was wont to announce our approach to a station. Presently the plank lodging appeared through the darkness. We sprang out of the ambulance; but all was dark and silent as the grave: the station was asleep. A heavy kick opened the door of the restaurant, when a wheezy, drowsy voice from an inner room asked us in German-English, “And how ze komen in?” Without waiting to answer we pulled the owner of it out of bed, and ordered supper, refreshment, and repose. But he raised all sorts of difficulties, and it ended with our sitting down and staring at the fire and waiting for the vile food which he provided for our breakfast. I should like here to describe an ordinary prairie breakfast, the one which greeted us nearly all through our journey. First, the coffee, three parts burnt beans, which had been duly ground to a fine powder and exposed to the air lest the aroma should prove too strong for us. It was placed on the stove to simmer, till every noxious principle was duly extracted from it. Then the rusty bacon, cut into thick slices, was thrust into the frying-pan; here the gridiron was unknown. Thirdly, antelope steak, cut off a carcase suspended for the benefit of flies outside was placed to stew within influence of the bacon’s aroma. Lastly came the bread, which, of course, should have been cooked first. The meal was kneaded with water and a pinch of salt; the raising was done by means of a little sour malt, or more generally by the deleterious yeast powders of the trade. The dough, after having
been sufficiently manipulated, was divided into doughnuts, or biscuits, and finally it was placed to be half-cooked under the immediate influence of the rusty bacon and rancid antelope. Uncle Sam’s stove was a triumph of convenience, cheapness, unwholesomeness, and nastiness. It made everything taste like its neighbour; by virtue of it mutton borrowed the flavour of fish, and tomatoes resolved themselves into the flavour of greens.
One of the most notable points of our journey was Scott’s Bluffs, the last of the great marl formations which break the dull uniformity of the prairies. Before we came to them we passed the far-famed Chimney Rock, which lies two and a half miles from the south bank of the Platte. Viewed from the south-east, it was not unlike a gigantic jack-boot poised on a high pyramidal mound; I took a sketch of it. Scott’s Bluffs are far more striking and attractive objects; indeed, they excel the Castle Craig of Drachenfels or any of the beauties of the romantic Rhine. From the distance of a day’s march they appeared in the shape of a large blue mound. As you approached within four or five miles, a massive mediæval city gradually defined itself, clustering with wonderful fulness of detail round a colossal fortress, and crowned with a royal castle. It was indeed a beautiful castle on the rock, and that nothing may be wanting to the resemblance, the dashing rains and angry winds have cut the old line of road at its base into a regular moat with a semicircular sweep, which the mirage fills with
a mimic river. Quaint figures develop themselves, guards and sentinels in dark armour keep watch and ward upon the slopes, the lion of Bastia crouched unmistakably overlooking the road, and, as the shades of evening closed in, so weird was its aspect that one might almost expect to see some spectral horseman go his rounds about the broken walls. At a nearer aspect the quaint illusion vanished, the lines of masonry became great layers of boulder, curtains and angles changed to the gnashing rents of ages, and the warriors were transformed into dwarf cedars and dense shrubs. Travellers have compared Scott’s Bluffs to Gibraltar, to the Capitol at Washington, and to Stirling Castle; I could think of nothing in its presence but the Arabs’ “City of Brass,” that mysterious abode of bewitched infidels, which often appears to the wayfarer toiling under the sun, but which for ever eludes his nearer search.
On our last day in the Platte Valley, just before we entered the Sioux territory, we came to Horseshoe station, which was impressed upon my memory by one thing, which I shall presently explain. We were struck by the aspect of the buildings, which were on an extensive scale; in fact, got up regardless of expense. An immense silence, however, reigned. At last, by hard knocking, we were admitted into a house with a Floridan verandah. By the pretensions of the room we were at once threatened with a “lady.” Our mishap was really worse than we expected, for in reality we were exposed to two “ladies,” and one of
these was a Bloomer. This, it is fair to state, was the only hermaphrodite of the kind that ever met my eyes in the States; the great founder of the Bloomer order has long since subsided into her original obscurity, and her acolytes have relapsed into petticoats. The Bloomer was an uncouth being, her hair, cut level with her eyes, depended with the graceful curl of a drake’s tail around a fat and flabby countenance, whose only expression was sullen insolence. Her body-dress, glazed brown calico, fitted her somewhat like a soldier’s tunic, developing haunches which would be admired only in venison; and—curious inconsequence of woman’s nature!—all this sacrifice of appearance upon the shrine of comfort did not prevent her wearing that kind of crinoline depicted by Mr. Punch around “our Mary Hanne.” The pantolettes of glazed brown calico, like the vest, tunic, blouse, shirt, or whatever they may call it, were in peg-top style, admirably setting off a pair of thin-soled, Frenchified, patent-leather bottines, with elastic sides, which contained feet as large, broad, and flat as a negro’s in Africa. The dear creature had a husband: it was hardly safe to look at her, and as for sketching her, I avoided it. The other “lady,” though more decently attired, was like women in this wild part of the world generally—cold and disagreeable, with a touch-me-not air, which reminded me of a certain
Miss Baxter,