Since the date of my former Letter, I have been so much engaged in
the amusements of the country, and the use of my brush, that I have
scarcely been able to drop you a line until the present moment.
Before I let you into the amusements and customs of this delightful
country however, (and which, as yet, are secrets to most of the world),
I must hastily travel with you over the tedious journey of 2000 miles,
from St. Louis to this place; over which distance one is obliged to
pass, before he can reach this wild and lovely spot.
The Missouri is, perhaps, different in appearance and character
from all other rivers in the world; there is a terror in its manner
which is sensibly felt, the moment we enter its muddy waters from
the Mississippi. From the mouth of the Yellow Stone River, which is
the place from whence I am now writing, to its junction with the
Mississippi, a distance of 2000 miles, the Missouri, with its boiling,
turbid waters, sweeps off, in one unceasing current; and in the whole
distance there is scarcely an eddy or resting-place for a canoe. Owing
to the continual falling in of its rich alluvial banks, its water is
always turbid and opaque; having, at all seasons of the year, the
colour of a cup of chocolate or coffee, with sugar and cream stirred
into it. To give a better definition of its density and opacity, I
have tried a number of simple experiments with it at this place, and
at other points below, at the results of which I was exceedingly
surprised. By placing a piece of silver (and afterwards a piece of
shell, which is a much whiter substance) in a tumbler of its water,
and looking through the side of the glass, I ascertained that those
substances could not be seen through the eighth part of an inch; this,
however, is in the spring of the year, when the freshet is upon the
river, rendering the water, undoubtedly, much more turbid than it would
be at other seasons; though it is always muddy and yellow, and from its
boiling and wild character and uncommon colour, a stranger would think,
even in its lowest state, that there was a freshet upon it.
For the distance of 1000 miles above St. Louis, the shores of this
river (and, in many places, the whole bed of the stream) are filled
with snags and raft, formed of trees of the largest size, which have
been undermined by the falling banks and cast into the stream;
their roots becoming fastened in the bottom of the river, with their
tops floating on the surface of the water, and pointing down the
stream, forming the most frightful and discouraging prospect for the
adventurous voyageur. (See +plate+ 4.)
Almost every island and sand-bar is covered with huge piles of these
floating trees, and when the river is flooded, its surface is almost
literally covered with floating raft and drift wood which bid positive
defiance to keel-boats and steamers, on their way up the river.
With what propriety this “Hell of waters” might he denominated the
“River Styx,” I will not undertake to decide; but nothing could be more
appropriate or innocent than to call it the River _of Sticks_.
The scene is not, however, all so dreary; there is a redeeming beauty
in the green and carpeted shores, which hem in this huge and terrible
deformity of waters. There is much of the way though, where the mighty
forests of stately cotton wood stand, and frown in horrid dark and
coolness over the filthy abyss below; into which they are ready to
plunge headlong, when the mud and soil in which they were germed and
reared have been washed out from underneath them, and with the rolling
current are mixed, and on their way to the ocean.
The greater part of the shores of this river, however, are without
timber, where the eye is delightfully relieved by wandering over the
beautiful prairies; most of the way gracefully sloping down to the
water’s edge, carpeted with the deepest green, and, in distance,
softening into velvet of the richest hues, entirely beyond the reach
of the artist’s pencil. Such is the character of the upper part of the
river especially; and as one advances towards its source, and through
its upper half, it becomes more pleasing to the eye, for snags and raft
are no longer to be seen; yet the current holds its stiff and onward
turbid character.
It has been, heretofore, very erroneously represented to the world,
that the scenery on this river was monotonous, and wanting in
picturesque beauty. This intelligence is surely incorrect, and that
because it has been brought perhaps, by men who are not the best
judges in the world, of Nature’s beautiful works; and if they were,
they always pass them by, in pain or desperate distress, in toil and
trembling fear for the safety of their furs and peltries, or for their
lives, which are at the mercy of the yelling savages who inhabit this
delightful country.
One thousand miles or more of the upper part of the river, was, to
my eye, like fairy-land; and during our transit through that part of
our voyage, I was most of the time rivetted to the deck of the boat,
indulging my eyes in the boundless and tireless pleasure of roaming
over the thousand hills, and bluffs, and dales, and ravines; where the
astonished herds of buffaloes, of elks, and antelopes, and sneaking
wolves, and mountain-goats, were to be seen bounding up and down and
over the green fields; each one and each tribe, band, and gang, taking
their own way, and using their own means to the greatest advantage
possible, to leave the sight and sound of the puffing of our boat;
which was, for the first time, saluting the green and wild shores of
the Missouri with the din of mighty steam.
From St. Louis to the falls of the Missouri, a distance of 2600 miles,
is one continued prairie; with the exception of a few of the bottoms
formed along the bank of the river, and the streams which are falling
into it, which are often covered with the most luxuriant growth of
forest timber.
The summit level of the great prairies stretching off to the west and
the east from the river, to an almost boundless extent, is from two to
three hundred feet above the level of the river; which has formed a bed
or valley for its course, varying in width from two to twenty miles.
This channel or valley has been evidently produced by the force of the
current, which has gradually excavated, in its floods and gorges, this
immense space, and sent its débris into the ocean. By the continual
overflowing of the river, its deposits have been lodged and left with a
horizontal surface, spreading the deepest and richest alluvion over the
surface of its meadows on either side; through which the river winds
its serpentine course, alternately running from one bluff to the other,
which present themselves to its shores in all the most picturesque
and beautiful shapes and colours imaginable—some with their green
sides gracefully slope down in the most lovely groups to the water’s
edge (+plate+ 5); whilst others, divested of their verdure, present
themselves in immense masses of clay of different colours, which arrest
the eye of the traveller, with the most curious views in the world.
These strange and picturesque appearances have been produced by the
rains and frosts, which are continually changing the dimensions, and
varying the thousand shapes of these denuded hills, by washing down
their sides and carrying them into the river.
Amongst these groups may be seen tens and hundreds of thousands of
different forms and figures, of the sublime and the picturesque; in
many places for miles together, as the boat glides along, there is
one continued appearance, before and behind us, of some ancient and
boundless city in ruins—ramparts, terraces, domes, towers, citadels and
castles may be seen,—cupolas, and magnificent porticos, and here and
there a solitary column and crumbling pedestal, and even spires of clay
which stand alone—and glistening in distance, as the sun’s rays are
refracted back by the thousand crystals of gypsum which are imbedded in
the clay of which they are formed (+plate+ 6). Over and through these
groups of domes and battlements (as one is compelled to imagine them),
the sun sends his long and gilding rays, at morn or in the evening;
giving life and light, by aid of shadows cast, to the different glowing
colours of these clay-built ruins; shedding a glory over the solitude
of this wild and pictured country, which no one can realize unless he
travels here and looks upon it.
It is amidst these wild and quiet haunts that the mountain-sheep, and
the fleet-bounding antelope sport and live in herds, secure from their
enemies, to whom the sides and slopes of these bluffs (around which
they fearlessly bound) are nearly inaccessible.
The grizzly bear also has chosen these places for his abode; he
sullenly sneaks through the gulphs and chasms, and ravines, and frowns
away the lurking Indian; whilst the mountain-sheep and antelope are
bounding over and around the hill tops, safe and free from harm of man
and beast.
Such is a hasty sketch of the river scenes and scenery for 2000 miles,
over which we tugged, and puffed, and blowed, and toiled for three
months, before we reached this place. Since we arrived here, the
steamer has returned and left me here to explore the country and visit
the tribes in this vicinity, and then descend the river from this place
to St. Louis; which Tour, if I live through it, will furnish material
for many a story and curious incident, which I may give you in detail
in future epistles, and when I have more leisure than I have at the
present moment. I will then undertake to tell how we astonished the
natives, in many an instance, which I can in this Letter but just
hint at and say adieu. If anything did ever literally and completely
“astonish (and astound) the natives,” it was the appearance of our
steamer, puffing and blowing, and paddling and rushing by their
villages which were on the banks of the river.
These poor and ignorant people for the distance of 2000 miles, had
never before seen or heard of a steam-boat, and in some places they
seemed at a loss to know what to do, or how to act; they could not,
as the Dutch did at Newburgh, on the Hudson River, take it to be a
“_floating saw-mill_”—and they had no name for it—so it was, like
every thing else (with them), which is mysterious and unaccountable,
called _medicine_ (mystery). We had on board one twelve-pound cannon
and three or four eight-pound swivels, which we were taking up to
arm the Fur Company’s Fort at the mouth of Yellow Stone, and at the
approach to every village they were all discharged several times in
rapid succession, which threw the inhabitants into utter confusion and
amazement—some of them laid their faces to the ground, and cried to
the Great Spirit—some shot their horses and dogs, and sacrificed them
to appease the Great Spirit, whom they conceived was offended—some
deserted their villages and ran to the tops of the bluffs some miles
distant; and others, in some places, as the boat landed in front of
their villages, came with great caution, and peeped over the bank of
the river to see the fate of their chiefs whose duty it was (from the
nature of their office) to approach us, whether friends or foes, and
to go on board. Sometimes, in this plight, they were instantly thrown
‘neck and heels’ over each other’s heads and shoulders—men, women
and children, and dogs—sage, sachem, old and young—all in a mass, at
the frightful discharge of the steam from the escape-pipe, which the
captain of the boat let loose upon them for his own fun and amusement.
There were many curious conjectures amongst their wise men, with regard
to the nature and powers of the steam-boat. Amongst the Mandans, some
called it the “big thunder canoe;” for when in distance below the
village, they saw the lightning flash from its sides, and heard the
thunder come from it; others called it the “big medicine canoe with
eyes;” it was _medicine_ (mystery) because they could not understand
it; and it must have eyes, for said they, “it sees its own way, and
takes the deep water in the middle of the channel.”
[Illustration: 5]
[Illustration: 6]
They had no idea of the boat being steered by the man at the wheel, and
well they might have been astonished at its taking the deepest water. I
may (if I do not forget it) hereafter give you an account of some other
curious incidents of this kind, which we met with in this voyage; for
we met many, and some of them were really laughable.
The Fort in which I am residing was built by Mr. M‘Kenzie, who now
occupies it. It is the largest and best-built establishment of the kind
on the river, being the great or principal head-quarters and depôt
of the Fur Company’s business in this region. A vast stock of goods
is kept on hand at this place; and at certain times of the year the
numerous out-posts concentrate here with the returns of their season’s
trade, and refit out with a fresh supply of goods to trade with the
Indians.
The site for the Fort is well selected, being a beautiful prairie
on the bank near the junction of the Missouri with the Yellow Stone
rivers; and its inmates and its stores well protected from Indian
assaults.
Mr. M‘Kenzie is a kind-hearted and high-minded Scotchman; and seems to
have charge of all the Fur Companies’ business in this region, and from
this to the Rocky Mountains. He lives in good and comfortable style,
inside of the Fort, which contains some eight or ten log-houses and
stores, and has generally forty or fifty men, and one hundred and fifty
horses about him.
He has, with the same spirit of liberality and politeness with
which Mons. Pierre Chouteau treated me on my passage up the river,
pronounced me welcome at his table, which groans under the luxuries of
the country; with buffalo meat and tongues, with beavers’ tails and
marrow-fat; but _sans_ coffee, _sans_ bread and butter. Good cheer and
good living we get at it however, and good wine also; for a bottle of
Madeira and one of excellent Port are set in a pail of ice every day,
and exhausted at dinner.
At the hospitable board of this gentleman I found also another, who
forms a happy companion for _mine host_; and whose intellectual and
polished society has added not a little to _my_ pleasure and amusement
since I arrived here.
The gentleman of whom I am speaking is an Englishman, by the name
of Hamilton, of the most pleasing and entertaining conversation,
whose mind seems to be a complete store-house of ancient and modern
literature and art; and whose free and familiar acquaintance with the
manners and men of his country gives him the stamp of a gentleman, who
has had the curiosity to bring the embellishments of the enlightened
world, to contrast with the rude and the wild of these remote regions.
We three _bons vivants_ form the group about the dinner-table, of which
I have before spoken, and crack our jokes and fun over the bottles of
Port and Madeira, which I have named; and a considerable part of which,
this gentleman has brought with great and precious care from his own
country.
This post is the general rendezvous of a great number of Indian tribes
in these regions, who are continually concentrating here for the
purpose of trade; sometimes coming, the whole tribe together, in a
mass. There are now here, and encamped about the Fort, a great many,
and I am continually at work with my brush; we have around us at this
time the Knisteneaux, Crows, Assinneboins and Blackfeet, and in a few
days are to have large accessions.
The finest specimens of Indians on the Continent are in these regions;
and before I leave these parts, I shall make excursions into their
respective countries, to their own native fire-sides; and there study
their looks and peculiar customs; enabling me to drop you now and then
an interesting Letter. The tribes which I shall be enabled to see and
study by my visit to this region, are the Ojibbeways, the Assinneboins,
Knisteneaux, Blackfeet, Crows, Shiennes, Grosventres, Mandans, and
others; of whom and their customs, their history, traditions, costumes,
&c., I shall in due season, give you further and minute accounts.
LETTER—No. 4.