inland, to the great chain of snow-capped mountains which divide it from
the sand plains of the interior. There are about twenty-one missions in
this province, most of which were established about fifty years since,
and are generally under the care of the Franciscans. These exert a
protecting sway over about thirty-five thousand Indian converts, who
reside on the lands around the mission houses. Each of these houses has
fifteen miles square of land allotted to it, subdivided into small lots,
proportioned to the number of Indian converts attached to the mission.
Some are enclosed with high walls; but in general they are open hamlets,
composed of rows of huts, built of sunburnt bricks; in some instances
whitewashed and roofed with tiles. Many of them are far in the interior,
beyond the reach of all military protection, and dependent entirely on
the good will of the natives, which never fails them. They have made
considerable progress in teaching the Indians the useful arts. There
are native tanners, shoemakers, weavers, blacksmiths, stonecutters,
and other artificers attached to each establishment. Others are taught
husbandry, and the rearing of cattle and horses; while the females card
and spin wool, weave, and perform the other duties allotted to their
sex in civilized life. No social intercourse is allowed between the
unmarried of the opposite sexes after working hours; and at night they
are locked up in separate apartments, and the keys delivered to the
priests.
The produce of the lands, and all the profits arising from sales, are
entirely at the disposal of the priests; whatever is not required for
the support of the missions, goes to augment a fund which is under
their control. Hides and tallow constitute the principal riches of the
missions, and, indeed, the main commerce of the country. Grain might
be produced to an unlimited extent at the establishments, were there
a sufficient market for it. Olives and grapes are also reared at the
missions.
Horses and horned cattle abound throughout all this region; the former
may be purchased at from three to five dollars, but they are of an
inferior breed. Mules, which are here of a large size and of valuable
qualities, cost from seven to ten dollars.
There are several excellent ports along this coast. San Diego, San
Barbara, Monterey, the bay of San Francisco, and the northern port of
Bondago; all afford anchorage for ships of the largest class. The port
of San Francisco is too well known to require much notice in this place.
The entrance from the sea is sixty-seven fathoms deep, and within, whole
navies might ride with perfect safety. Two large rivers, which take
their rise in mountains two or three hundred miles to the east, and run
through a country unsurpassed for soil and climate, empty themselves
into the harbor. The country around affords admirable timber for
ship-building. In a word, this favored port combines advantages which
not only fit it for a grand naval depot, but almost render it capable of
being made the dominant military post of these seas.
Such is a feeble outline of the Californian coast and country, the value
of which is more and more attracting the attention of naval powers. The
Russians have always a ship of war upon this station, and have already
encroached upon the Californian boundaries, by taking possession of the
port of Bondago, and fortifying it with several guns. Recent surveys
have likewise been made, both by the Russians and the English; and we
have little doubt, that, at no very distant day, this neglected, and,
until recently, almost unknown region, will be found to possess sources
of wealth sufficient to sustain a powerful and prosperous empire. Its
inhabitants, themselves, are but little aware of its real riches;
they have not enterprise sufficient to acquaint themselves with a vast
interior that lies almost a terra incognita; nor have they the skill and
industry to cultivate properly the fertile tracts along the coast; nor
to prosecute that foreign commerce which brings all the resources of a
country into profitable action.
39.
Gay life at Monterey--Mexican horsemen--A bold dragoon--Use
of the lasso--Vaqueros--Noosing a bear--Fight between a bull
and a bear--Departure from Monterey--Indian horse stealers--
Outrages committed by the travellers--Indignation of Captain
Bonneville
THE WANDERING BAND of trappers was well received at Monterey, the
inhabitants were desirous of retaining them among them, and offered
extravagant wages to such as were acquainted with any mechanic art. When
they went into the country, too, they were kindly treated by the priests
at the missions; who are always hospitable to strangers, whatever may be
their rank or religion. They had no lack of provisions; being permitted
to kill as many as they pleased of the vast herds of cattle that graze
the country, on condition, merely, of rendering the hides to the owners.
They attended bull-fights and horseraces; forgot all the purposes of
their expedition; squandered away freely the property that did not
belong to them; and, in a word, revelled in a perfect fool’s paradise.
What especially delighted them was the equestrian skill of the
Californians. The vast number and the cheapness of the horses in this
country makes every one a cavalier. The Mexicans and halfbreeds of
California spend the greater part of their time in the saddle. They are
fearless riders; and their daring feats upon unbroken colts and wild
horses, astonished our trappers; though accustomed to the bold riders of
the prairies.
A Mexican horseman has much resemblance, in many points, to the
equestrians of Old Spain; and especially to the vain-glorious caballero
of Andalusia. A Mexican dragoon, for instance, is represented as arrayed
in a round blue jacket, with red cuffs and collar; blue velvet breeches,
unbuttoned at the knees to show his white stockings; bottinas of deer
skin; a round-crowned Andalusian hat, and his hair cued. On the pommel
of his saddle, he carries balanced a long musket, with fox skin round
the lock. He is cased in a cuirass of double-fold deer skin, and carries
a bull’s hide shield; he is forked in a Moorish saddle, high before
and behind; his feet are thrust into wooden box stirrups, of Moorish
fashion, and a tremendous pair of iron spurs, fastened by chains, jingle
at his heels. Thus equipped, and suitably mounted, he considers himself
the glory of California, and the terror of the universe.
The Californian horsemen seldom ride out without the laso [sic]; that
is to say, a long coil of cord, with a slip noose; with which they are
expert, almost to a miracle. The laso, now almost entirely confined to
Spanish America, is said to be of great antiquity; and to have come,
originally, from the East. It was used, we are told, by a pastoral
people of Persian descent; of whom eight thousand accompanied the
army of Xerxes. By the Spanish Americans, it is used for a variety of
purposes; and among others, for hauling wood. Without dismounting,
they cast the noose around a log, and thus drag it to their houses. The
vaqueros, or Indian cattle drivers, have also learned the use of the
laso from the Spaniards; and employ it to catch the half-wild cattle by
throwing it round their horns.
The laso is also of great use in furnishing the public with a favorite,
though barbarous sport; the combat between a bear and a wild bull.
For this purpose, three or four horsemen sally forth to some wood,
frequented by bears, and, depositing the carcass of a bullock, hide
themselves in the vicinity. The bears are soon attracted by the bait. As
soon as one, fit for their purpose, makes his appearance, they run out,
and with the laso, dexterously noose him by either leg. After
dragging him at full speed until he is fatigued, they secure him more
effectually; and tying him on the carcass of the bullock, draw him in
triumph to the scene of action. By this time, he is exasperated to such
frenzy, that they are sometimes obliged to throw cold water on him, to
moderate his fury; and dangerous would it be, for horse and rider, were
he, while in this paroxysm, to break his bonds.
A wild bull, of the fiercest kind, which has been caught and exasperated
in the same manner, is now produced; and both animals are turned loose
in the arena of a small amphitheatre. The mortal fight begins instantly;
and always, at first, to the disadvantage of Bruin; fatigued, as he is,
by his previous rough riding. Roused, at length, by the repeated goring
of the bull, he seizes his muzzle with his sharp claws, and clinging to
this most sensitive part, causes him to bellow with rage and agony.
In his heat and fury, the bull lolls out his tongue; this is instantly
clutched by the bear; with a desperate effort he overturns his huge
antagonist; and then dispatches him without difficulty.
Beside this diversion, the travellers were likewise regaled with
bull-fights, in the genuine style of Old Spain; the Californians being
considered the best bull-fighters in the Mexican dominions.
After a considerable sojourn at Monterey, spent in these very edifying,
but not very profitable amusements, the leader of this vagabond party
set out with his comrades, on his return journey. Instead of retracing
their steps through the mountains, they passed round their southern
extremity, and, crossing a range of low hills, found themselves in the
sandy plains south of Ogden’s River; in traversing which, they again
suffered, grievously, for want of water.
In the course of their journey, they encountered a party of Mexicans in
pursuit of a gang of natives, who had been stealing horses. The savages
of this part of California are represented as extremely poor, and
armed only with stone-pointed arrows; it being the wise policy of the
Spaniards not to furnish them with firearms. As they find it difficult,
with their blunt shafts, to kill the wild game of the mountains, they
occasionally supply themselves with food, by entrapping the Spanish
horses. Driving them stealthily into fastnesses and ravines, they
slaughter them without difficulty, and dry their flesh for provisions.
Some they carry off to trade with distant tribes; and in this way, the
Spanish horses pass from hand to hand among the Indians, until they even
find their way across the Rocky Mountains.
The Mexicans are continually on the alert, to intercept these marauders;
but the Indians are apt to outwit them, and force them to make long and
wild expeditions in pursuit of their stolen horses.
Two of the Mexican party just mentioned joined the band of trappers,
and proved themselves worthy companions. In the course of their journey
through the country frequented by the poor Root Diggers, there seems to
have been an emulation between them, which could inflict the greatest
outrages upon the natives. The trappers still considered them in the
light of dangerous foes; and the Mexicans, very probably, charged them
with the sin of horse-stealing; we have no other mode of accounting for
the infamous barbarities of which, according to their own story, they
were guilty; hunting the poor Indians like wild beasts, and killing them
without mercy. The Mexicans excelled at this savage sport; chasing their
unfortunate victims at full speed; noosing them round the neck with
their lasos, and then dragging them to death!
Such are the scanty details of this most disgraceful expedition; at
least, such are all that Captain Bonneville had the patience to collect;
for he was so deeply grieved by the failure of his plans, and so
indignant at the atrocities related to him, that he turned, with disgust
and horror, from the narrators. Had he exerted a little of the Lynch
law of the wilderness, and hanged those dexterous horsemen in their
own lasos, it would but have been a well-merited and salutary act of
retributive justice. The failure of this expedition was a blow to his
pride, and a still greater blow to his purse. The Great Salt Lake
still remained unexplored; at the same time, the means which had been
furnished so liberally to fit out this favorite expedition, had all been
squandered at Monterey; and the peltries, also, which had been collected
on the way. He would have but scanty returns, therefore, to make this
year, to his associates in the United States; and there was great danger
of their becoming disheartened, and abandoning the enterprise.
40.
Traveller’s tales--Indian lurkers--Prognostics of Buckeye
Signs and portents--The medicine wolf--An alarm--An ambush
The captured provant--Triumph of Buckeye--Arrival of
supplies Grand carouse--Arrangements for the year--Mr. Wyeth
and his new-levied band.
THE horror and indignation felt by Captain Bonneville at the excesses
of the Californian adventurers were not participated by his men; on
the contrary, the events of that expedition were favorite themes in the
camp. The heroes of Monterey bore the palm in all the gossipings among
the hunters. Their glowing descriptions of Spanish bear-baits and
bull-fights especially, were listened to with intense delight; and had
another expedition to California been proposed, the difficulty would
have been to restrain a general eagerness to volunteer.
The captain had not long been at the rendezvous when he perceived, by
various signs, that Indians were lurking in the neighborhood. It was
evident that the Blackfoot band, which he had seen when on his march,
had dogged his party, and were intent on mischief. He endeavored to keep
his camp on the alert; but it is as difficult to maintain discipline
among trappers at a rendezvous as among sailors when in port.
Buckeye, the Delaware Indian, was scandalized at this heedlessness of
the hunters when an enemy was at hand, and was continually preaching up
caution. He was a little prone to play the prophet, and to deal in signs
and portents, which occasionally excited the merriment of his white
comrades. He was a great dreamer, and believed in charms and talismans,
or medicines, and could foretell the approach of strangers by the
howling or barking of the small prairie wolf. This animal, being driven
by the larger wolves from the carcasses left on the hunting grounds by
the hunters, follows the trail of the fresh meat carried to the camp.
Here the smell of the roast and broiled, mingling with every breeze,
keeps them hovering about the neighborhood; scenting every blast,
turning up their noses like hungry hounds, and testifying their
pinching hunger by long whining howls and impatient barkings. These are
interpreted by the superstitious Indians into warnings that strangers
are at hand; and one accidental coincidence, like the chance fulfillment
of an almanac prediction, is sufficient to cover a thousand failures.
This little, whining, feast-smelling animal is, therefore, called among
Indians the “medicine wolf;” and such was one of Buckeye’s infallible
oracles.
One morning early, the soothsaying Delaware appeared with a gloomy
countenance. His mind was full of dismal presentiments, whether from
mysterious dreams, or the intimations of the medicine wolf, does not
appear. “Danger,” he said, “was lurking in their path, and there would
be some fighting before sunset.” He was bantered for his prophecy, which
was attributed to his having supped too heartily, and been visited by
bad dreams. In the course of the morning a party of hunters set out in
pursuit of buffaloes, taking with them a mule, to bring home the meat
they should procure. They had been some few hours absent, when they came
clattering at full speed into camp, giving the war cry of Blackfeet!
Blackfeet! Every one seized his weapon and ran to learn the cause of the
alarm. It appeared that the hunters, as they were returning leisurely,
leading their mule well laden with prime pieces of buffalo meat, passed
close by a small stream overhung with trees, about two miles from
the camp. Suddenly a party of Blackfeet, who lay in ambush along the
thickets, sprang up with a fearful yell, and discharged a volley at the
hunters. The latter immediately threw themselves flat on their horses,
put them to their speed, and never paused to look behind, until they
found themselves in camp. Fortunately they had escaped without a wound;
but the mule, with all the “provant,” had fallen into the hands of the
enemy This was a loss, as well as an insult, not to be borne. Every
man sprang to horse, and with rifle in hand, galloped off to punish
the Blackfeet, and rescue the buffalo beef. They came too late; the
marauders were off, and all that they found of their mule was the dents
of his hoofs, as he had been conveyed off at a round trot, bearing his
savory cargo to the hills, to furnish the scampering savages with a
banquet of roast meat at the expense of the white men.
The party returned to camp, balked of their revenge, but still more
grievously balked of their supper. Buckeye, the Delaware, sat smoking by
his fire, perfectly composed. As the hunters related the particulars
of the attack, he listened in silence, with unruffled countenance, then
pointing to the west, “the sun has not yet set,” said he: “Buckeye did
not dream like a fool!”
All present now recollected the prediction of the Indian at daybreak,
and were struck with what appeared to be its fulfilment. They called to
mind, also, a long catalogue of foregone presentiments and predictions
made at various times by the Delaware, and, in their superstitious
credulity, began to consider him a veritable seer; without thinking how
natural it was to predict danger, and how likely to have the prediction
verified in the present instance, when various signs gave evidence of a
lurking foe.
The various bands of Captain Bonneville’s company had now been assembled
for some time at the rendezvous; they had had their fill of feasting,
and frolicking, and all the species of wild and often uncouth
merrymaking, which invariably take place on these occasions. Their
horses, as well as themselves, had recovered from past famine and
fatigue, and were again fit for active service; and an impatience began
to manifest itself among the men once more to take the field, and set
off on some wandering expedition.
At this juncture M. Cerre arrived at the rendezvous at the head of a
supply party, bringing goods and equipments from the States. This active
leader, it will be recollected, had embarked the year previously in
skin-boats on the Bighorn, freighted with the year’s collection of
peltries. He had met with misfortune in the course of his voyage: one of
his frail barks being upset, and part of the furs lost or damaged.
The arrival of the supplies gave the regular finish to the annual
revel. A grand outbreak of wild debauch ensued among the mountaineers;
drinking, dancing, swaggering, gambling, quarrelling, and fighting.
Alcohol, which, from its portable qualities, containing the greatest
quantity of fiery spirit in the smallest compass, is the only liquor
carried across the mountains, is the inflammatory beverage at these
carousals, and is dealt out to the trappers at four dollars a pint. When
inflamed by this fiery beverage, they cut all kinds of mad pranks
and gambols, and sometimes burn all their clothes in their drunken
bravadoes. A camp, recovering from one of these riotous revels, presents
a seriocomic spectacle; black eyes, broken heads, lack-lustre visages.
Many of the trappers have squandered in one drunken frolic the
hard-earned wages of a year; some have run in debt, and must toil on to
pay for past pleasure. All are sated with this deep draught of pleasure,
and eager to commence another trapping campaign; for hardship and hard
work, spiced with the stimulants of wild adventures, and topped off with
an annual frantic carousal, is the lot of the restless trapper.
The captain now made his arrangements for the current year. Cerre and
Walker, with a number of men who had been to California, were to proceed
to St. Louis with the packages of furs collected during the past year.
Another party, headed by a leader named Montero, was to proceed to the
Crow country, trap upon its various streams, and among the Black Hills,
and thence to proceed to the Arkansas, where he was to go into winter
quarters.
The captain marked out for himself a widely different course. He
intended to make another expedition, with twenty-three men to the
lower part of the Columbia River, and to proceed to the valley of the
Multnomah; after wintering in those parts, and establishing a trade with
those tribes, among whom he had sojourned on his first visit, he would
return in the spring, cross the Rocky Mountains, and join Montero and
his party in the month of July, at the rendezvous of the Arkansas; where
he expected to receive his annual supplies from the States.
If the reader will cast his eye upon a map, he may form an idea of the
contempt for distance which a man acquires in this vast wilderness, by
noticing the extent of country comprised in these projected wanderings.
Just as the different parties were about to set out on the 3d of July,
on their opposite routes, Captain Bonneville received intelligence that
Wyeth, the indefatigable leader of the salmon-fishing enterprise, who
had parted with him about a year previously on the banks of the Bighorn,
to descend that wild river in a bull boat, was near at hand, with a new
levied band of hunters and trappers, and was on his way once more to the
banks of the Columbia.
As we take much interest in the novel enterprise of this “eastern man,”
and are pleased with his pushing and persevering spirit; and as his
movements are characteristic of life in the wilderness, we will, with
the reader’s permission, while Captain Bonneville is breaking up his
camp and saddling his horses, step back a year in time, and a few
hundred miles in distance to the bank of the Bighorn, and launch
ourselves with Wyeth in his bull boat; and though his adventurous voyage
will take us many hundreds of miles further down wild and wandering
rivers; yet such is the magic power of the pen, that we promise to bring
the reader safe to Bear River Valley, by the time the last horse is
saddled.
41.
A voyage in a bull boat.
IT was about the middle of August (1833) that Mr. Nathaniel J. Wyeth,
as the reader may recollect, launched his bull boat at the foot of
the rapids of the Bighorn, and departed in advance of the parties of
Campbell and Captain Bonneville. His boat was made of three buffalo
skins, stretched on a light frame, stitched together, and the seams paid
with elk tallow and ashes. It was eighteen feet long, and about five
feet six inches wide, sharp at each end, with a round bottom, and drew
about a foot and a half of water-a depth too great for these upper
rivers, which abound with shallows and sand-bars. The crew consisted of
two half-breeds, who claimed to be white men, though a mixture of the
French creole and the Shawnee and Potawattomie. They claimed, moreover,
to be thorough mountaineers, and first-rate hunters--the common boast of
these vagabonds of the wilderness. Besides these, there was a Nez Perce
lad of eighteen years of age, a kind of servant of all work, whose great
aim, like all Indian servants, was to do as little work as possible;
there was, moreover, a half-breed boy, of thirteen, named Baptiste, son
of a Hudson’s Bay trader by a Flathead beauty; who was travelling with
Wyeth to see the world and complete his education. Add to these, Mr.
Milton Sublette, who went as passenger, and we have the crew of the
little bull boat complete.
It certainly was a slight armament with which to run the gauntlet
through countries swarming with hostile hordes, and a slight bark to
navigate these endless rivers, tossing and pitching down rapids, running
on snags and bumping on sand-bars; such, however, are the cockle-shells
with which these hardy rovers of the wilderness will attempt the wildest
streams; and it is surprising what rough shocks and thumps these
boats will endure, and what vicissitudes they will live through. Their
duration, however, is but limited; they require frequently to be
hauled out of the water and dried, to prevent the hides from becoming
water-soaked; and they eventually rot and go to pieces.
The course of the river was a little to the north of east; it ran about
five miles an hour, over a gravelly bottom. The banks were generally
alluvial, and thickly grown with cottonwood trees, intermingled
occasionally with ash and plum trees. Now and then limestone cliffs
and promontories advanced upon the river, making picturesque headlands.
Beyond the woody borders rose ranges of naked hills.