[THE LATE GEORGE FREDERICK RUXTON.]
The readers of Blackwood's Magazine, who for six succeeding months have followed La Bonté and his mountain companions through the hardships, humours, and perils of "Life in the Far West," will surely not learn with indifference, that the gallant young author of those spirited sketches has prematurely departed to his long home, from that Transatlantic land whose prairies and forests he so well loved to tread, and the existence and eccentricities of whose wildest sons he so ably and pleasantly portrayed. Nearly a month has now elapsed since the London newspapers contained the mournful tidings of the death, at St Louis on the Mississippi, and at the early age of twenty-eight, of Lieutenant George Frederick Ruxton, formerly of her Majesty's 89th regiment, known to the reading world as the author of a volume of Mexican adventure, and of the above-named contributions to this Magazine. The former work has too completely gained the suffrages of the public to need commendation at our hands: it divides, with Madame Calderon de la Barca's well-known volumes, the merit of being the best narration extant of travel and general observation in modern Mexico.
Many individuals, even in the most enterprising periods of our history, have been made the subjects of elaborate biography, with far less title to the honour than our late departed friend. Time was not granted him to embody in a permanent shape more than a tithe of his personal experiences, and strange adventures, in three quarters of the globe; indeed, when we consider the amount of physical labour which he endured, and the extent of the fields over which his wanderings were spread, we are almost led to wonder how he could have found leisure even to have written so much. At the early age of seventeen, Mr Ruxton quitted Sandwich, to learn the practical part of a soldier's profession on the field of civil war then raging in the peninsula of Spain. He received a commission in a royal regiment of lancers, under the command of Don Diego Leon, and was actively engaged in several of the most important combats of the campaign. For his marked gallantry on these occasions, he received from Queen Isabella II. the cross of the first class of the order of St Fernando, an honour which has seldom been awarded to one so young. On his return from Spain he found himself gazetted to a commission in the 89th regiment; and it was while serving with that distinguished corps in Canada that he first became acquainted with the stirring scenes of Indian life, which he has since so graphically portrayed. His eager and enthusiastic spirit soon became wearied with the monotony of the barrack-room; and, yielding to that impulse which in him was irresistibly developed, he resigned his commission, and directed his steps towards the stupendous wilds, only tenanted by the red Indian, or the solitary American trapper.
Those who are familiar with his writings cannot fail to have remarked the singular delight with which the author dwells upon the recollections of this portion of his career, and the longing which he carried with him to the hour of death, for a return to those scenes of primitive freedom. "Although liable to an accusation of barbarism," he writes, "I must confess that the very happiest moments of my life have been spent in the wilderness of the Far West; and I never recall, but with pleasure, the remembrance of my solitary camp in the Bayou Salade, with no friend near me more faithful than my rifle, and no companions more sociable than my good horse and mules, or the attendant cayute which nightly serenaded us. With a plentiful supply of dry pine-logs on the fire, and its cheerful blaze streaming far up into the sky, illuminating the valley far and near, and exhibiting the animals, with well-filled bellies, standing contentedly at rest over their picket-fires, I would sit cross-legged enjoying the genial warmth, and, pipe in mouth, watch the blue smoke as it curled upwards, building castles in its vapoury wreaths, and, in the fantastic shapes it assumed, peopling the solitude with figures of those far away. Scarcely, however, did I ever wish to change such hours of freedom for all the luxuries of civilised life; and, unnatural and extraordinary as it may appear, yet such is the fascination of the life of the mountain hunter, that I believe not one instance could be adduced of even the most polished and civilised of men, who had once tasted the sweets of its attendant liberty, and freedom from every worldly care, not regretting the moment when he exchanged it for the monotonous life of the settlements, nor sighing and sighing again once more to partake of its pleasures and allurements."
On his return to Europe from the Far West, Mr Ruxton, animated with a spirit as enterprising and fearless as that of Raleigh, planned a scheme for the exploration of Central Africa, which was thus characterised by the president of the Royal Geographical Society, in his anniversary address for 1845:—"To my great surprise, I recently conversed with an ardent and accomplished youth, Lieutenant Ruxton, late of the 89th regiment, who had formed the daring project of traversing Africa in the parallel of the southern tropic, and has actually started for this purpose. Preparing himself by previous excursions on foot, in North Africa and Algeria, he sailed from Liverpool early in December last, in the Royalist, for Ichaboe. From that spot he was to repair to Walvish Bay, where we have already mercantile establishments. The intrepid traveller had received from their agents of the establishments such favourable account of the nations towards the interior, as also of the nature of the climate, that he has the most sanguine hopes of being able to penetrate to the central region, if not of traversing it to the Portuguese colonies of Mozambique. If this be accomplished, then indeed will Lieutenant Ruxton have acquired for himself a permanent name among British travellers, by making us acquainted with the nature of the axis of the great continent of which we possess the southern extremity."
In pursuance of this hazardous scheme, Ruxton, along with a single companion, landed on the coast of Africa, a little to the south of Ichaboe, and commenced his journey of exploration. But it seemed as if both nature and man had combined to baffle the execution of his design. The course of their travel lay along a desert of moving sand, where no water was to be found, and little herbage, save a coarse tufted grass, and twigs of the resinous myrrh. The immediate place of their destination was Angra Peguena, on the coast, described as a frequented station, but which in reality was deserted. One ship only was in the offing when the travellers arrived, and, to their inexpressible mortification, they discovered that she was outward bound. No trace was visible of the river or streams laid down in the maps as falling into the sea at this point, and no resource was left to the travellers save that of retracing their steps—a labour for which their strength was hardly adequate. But for the opportune assistance of a body of natives, who encountered them at the very moment when they were sinking from the influence of fatigue and thirst, Ruxton and his companion would have been added to the catalogue long of those whose lives have been sacrificed in the attempt to explore the interior of this fatal country.
The jealousy of the traders, and of the missionaries settled on the African coast, who constantly withheld or perverted that information which was absolutely necessary for the successful prosecution of the journey, induced Ruxton to abandon the attempt for the present. He made, however, several interesting excursions towards the interior, and more especially in the country of the Bosjesmans.
Finding that his own resources were inadequate for the accomplishment of his favourite project, Mr Ruxton, on his return to England, made application for Government assistance. But though this demand was not altogether refused, it having been referred to, and favourably reported on by, the Council of the Royal Geographical Society, so many delays were interposed that Ruxton, in disgust, resolved to withdraw from the scheme, and to abandon that field of African research which he had already contemplated from its borders. He next bent his steps to Mexico; and, fortunately, has presented to the world his reminiscences of that country, in one of the most fascinating volumes which, of late years, has issued from the press. It would, however, appear that the scheme of African research, the darling project of his life, had again recurred to him at a later period; for, in the course of the present spring, before setting out on that journey which was destined to be his last we find the following expressions in a letter addressed to us:—