My father took three strides up and down the room, and then, halting
on his hearth, and facing his brother, he thus spoke--"I condemn his
deed, Roland! At best he was but a haughty egotist. I understand why
Brutus should slay his sons. By that sacrifice he saved his country!
What did this poor dupe of an exaggeration save? nothing but his own
name. He could not lift the crime from his son's soul, nor the
dishonour from his son's memory. He could but gratify his own vain
pride, and, insensibly to himself, his act was whispered to him by the
fiend that ever whispers to the heart of man, 'Dread men's opinions
more than God's law!' Oh, my dear brother, what minds like yours
should guard against the most is not the meanness of evil--it is the
evil that takes false nobility, by garbing itself in the royal
magnificence of good." My uncle walked to the window, opened it,
looked out a moment, as if to draw in fresh air, closed it gently, and
came back again to his seat; but during the short time the window had
been left open, a moth flew in.
"Tales like these," renewed my father, pityingly--"whether told by
some great tragedian or in thy simple style, my brother,--tales like
these have their uses: they penetrate the heart to make it wiser; but
all wisdom is meek, my Roland. They invite us to put the question to
ourselves that thou hast asked--'Can we condemn this man?' and reason
answers, as I have answered--'We pity the man, we condemn the deed.'
We--take care, my love! that moth will be in the candle.
We--_whish!--whish!_"-- and my father stopped to drive away the moth.
My uncle turned, and taking his handkerchief from the lower part of
his face, on which he had wished to conceal the workings, he flapped
away the moth from the flame. My mother moved the candles from the
moth. I tried to catch the moth in my father's straw-hat. The deuce
was in the moth, it baffled us all; now circling against the ceiling,
now swooping down at the fatal lights. As if by a simultaneous
impulse, my father approached one candle, my uncle approached the
other; and just as the moth was wheeling round and round, irresolute
which to choose for its funeral pyre, both were put out. The fire had
burned down low in the grate, and in the sudden dimness my father's
soft sweet voice came forth as if from an invisible being:--"We leave
ourselves in the dark to save a moth from the flame, brother! shall we
do less for our fellow-men? Extinguish, oh! humanely extinguish the
light of our reason, when the darkness more favours our mercy." Before
the lights were relit, my uncle had left the room. His brother
followed him; my mother and I drew near to each other and talked in
whispers.
GUESSES AT TRUTH.[12]
[12] _Guesses at Truth._ By Two Brothers. Third Edition. First series.
We remember perusing this book soon after its first appearance. The
shortness of the several sections into which it is divided, and the
frequent change of topics, keeping the mind in a constant state of
expectation, prevented us, we suppose, from feeling at that time a
sense of weariness. In the perpetual anticipation of finding something
new in the next paragraph or section, we forgot the disappointment
which the last had so often occasioned. It is only thus we can explain
the difference of feeling with which we have re-perused this third and
late edition of the same work. The brevity of chapters, and
interchange of topics, could not practise their kindly deception on us
twice. Like those intertwisted walks in a confined shrubbery, which
are designed to cheat the pedestrian into the idea of vast extent of
space, the imposition succeeds but once. At the second perambulation
we discover within what narrow boundaries we have been led up and
down, and made our profitless circuit. We are compelled to say that an
exceeding weariness came over us on the second perusal of these
_Guesses at Truth_. Notwithstanding the modesty of the title, there
are few books which wear so perpetually the air of superiority, of
profound and subtle thought, with so very little to justify the
pretension. There is a constant smile of self-complacency--but it
plays over a very barren landscape. The soil is sterile on which this
sunshine is resting. It is not uninstructive to notice how far an
assumption of superiority, coupled with a form of composition
indulgent to the reader's attention, and stimulating to his curiosity,
may succeed in giving popularity and very respectable reputation to a
work which, when examined closely, proves to be made up of materials
of the slightest possible value.
We are the more disposed to look a little into these _Guesses at
Truth_, because they afford a fair specimen of the manner and
lucubrations of a small class, or coterie, whom we have had amongst
us, and who may be best described as the _Coleridgean_ school of
philosophers. It is a class distinguished by the thorough contempt it
manifests for all whom the world has been accustomed to consider as
clear and painstaking thinkers--by an overweening, quiet arrogance--by
a general indolence of mind interrupted by fitful efforts of thought,
and much laborious trifling. They are not genuine conscientious
thinkers after any order of philosophy; they are as little followers
of Kant as they are of Locke; but they take advantage of the name and
reputation of the one to speak with something approximating to disdain
of the superficiality of the other. That they alone are right--would
be fair enough. To one who strenuously labours to bring out and
establish his principles, we readily permit a great confidence in his
own opinion; if he did not think others wrong and himself alone right,
why should he be labouring at our conviction? But these gentlemen do
_not_ labour; they have earned nothing with the sweat of their brow;
they hover over all things with a consummate self-complacency; they
investigate nothing; they condescend to understand no one. Men of
indolent ability, they would be supposed calmly to overlook the whole
field of philosophic controversy, and by dint of some learning, by the
perpetual proclamation of the shallowness of their contemporaries, and
a mysterious intimation of profundities of thought of their own, which
they are sufficiently cautious not to attempt too fully to
reveal,--they certainly contrive to make a marvellous impression upon
the good-natured reader.
That we are right in pronouncing Coleridge as the master who has
formed this coterie of writers, many passages in the present work
would testify; but Archdeacon Hare, the author of the greater portion
of it, has very lately, in the plenitude of his years, proclaimed his
great veneration, and a sort of allegiance, towards Coleridge the
philosopher. To Coleridge the poet be all honour paid--we join in
whatever applause may, within reasonable compass, be bestowed upon
him; but Coleridge the sage, the metaphysician, the divine, is a very
different person; and with all his undoubted genius, the very last
man, we humbly conceive, to give a wise and steady direction to the
thinking faculty of others. It is thus, however, that Archdeacon Hare,
in his late Memoir of John Sterling, speaks of this wilful, fitful,
erratic genius:--"At that time it was beginning to be acknowledged by
more than a few that Coleridge is the _true sovereign of modern
English thought_. The _Aids to Reflection_ had recently been
published, and were doing the work for which they were so admirably
fitted; that book to which many, as has been said by one of Sterling's
chief friends, 'owe even their own selves.' Few felt the obligation
more deeply than Sterling. 'To Coleridge (he wrote to me in 1836) I
owe _education_. He taught me to believe that an empirical philosophy
is none; that faith is the highest reason; that all criticism, whether
of literature, laws, or manners, is blind, without the power of
discerning the organic unity of the object, &c., &c.'" He taught him
to believe he had a meaning where he had none, to slight authors as
shallow because they were lucid and intelligible, to substitute
occasional efforts, and a dogmatism arising out of generous emotions,
for the steady discipline of philosophy, and the calm inquiry after
truth. The whole intellectual career of Sterling proves how
unfortunate he was in having fallen under the dominion of this "true
sovereign of modern English thought." With the finest moral temper in
the world, we find him never, for two years together, with the same
set of opinions, and his set of opinions at each time were such as a
_Coleridgean_ only could hold together in harmony.
Let any one not overawed by sounding reputations, examine the _Aids to
Reflection_,--this work which gives a claim to the sovereignty of
modern English thought,--the characteristic that will chiefly strike
him is the predominance of _hard writing_, which at first wears the
appearance, and is found to be the melancholy substitute, of _hard
thinking_. On closer examination, he will be surprised to find how
much space is wasted in verbal quibbles, which the author in vain
endeavours to raise into importance; and how often the quotations from
Leighton, dignified with the name of aphorisms, are such as any page
of any sermon would have supplied him with. Amidst this jumble of
crude metaphysics and distorted theology, there is from time to time
an admirable observation admirably expressed; and there is also from
time to time an absurdity so flagrant, that it requires all the
author's skill of composition to redeem it from the charge of utter
nonsense.
At the time when Coleridge wrote, what are known especially as German
metaphysics had hardly reached our shores. He had studied them, or,
like every active mind, had rather studied _on_ them. They had given
an impulse and direction to his own trains of thought; and if
Coleridge had been capable of a continuous application, and a complete
execution of any one work, he might have introduced a body of
metaphysics into this country which, though due in its origin to
German thinkers, would still have been justly entitled his own. But
for this continuous labour he was not disposed: we have, therefore, a
mere dim broken outline of a system of philosophy (intelligible only
to those who have studied that system in other works) applied, in a
very strange manner, to the dogmatic tenets of theology. This forms
the basis of the _Aids to Reflection_; and very much of aid or
assistance it must bring! We venture to say, that no one unacquainted,
from any other source, with the speculations of Kant or
Schelling,--let him give what attention, or bring what brains he may
to his task,--can understand the refracted and partial representation
of their tenets which Coleridge occasionally gives. Take, for
instance, a long note, which every reader of the book must remember,
upon _Thesis_ and _Antithesis_, and _Punctum Indifferens_. With all
the assistance of scholastic and geometrical terms, and that
illustration abruptly enough introduced of "sulphuretted hydrogen,"
the reader, we are persuaded, if he comes fresh to the subject, must
be utterly at a loss for a meaning. We have diagram and tabular view,
and algebraic signs, and chemical illustration, and all the
paraphernalia of a most desperate development of thought, and not one
sentence of lucid explanation.
On the great subject of the existence of God, Coleridge appears to us
to assume a most unsatisfactory and a somewhat perilous position. To
oppose the school of Locke and Paley--far too simple for his taste--he
gives a validity to the ambitious subtleties which made Shelley an
atheist. The great argument from design, so convincing to us all, he
slights,--it is too vulgar and commonplace for his purpose,--and finds
his grounds of belief in the _practical reason_ of Kant, (an
afterthought of the philosopher of Kœnigsberg, and evidently at
issue with the main tenets of his system,) or in certain ontological
dogmas, which of all things are most open to dispute.
"I hold, then, it is true," he says, "that all the
(so-called) demonstrations of a God either prove too little,
as that from the order or apparent purpose in nature; or too
much, namely, that the world is itself God; or they
clandestinely involve the conclusion in the premises,
passing off the mere analysis or explication of an assertion
for the proof of it--a species of logical legerdemain not
unlike that of the jugglers at a fair, who, putting into
their mouths what seems to be a walnut, draw out a score
yards of ribbon, as in the postulate of a First Cause. And,
lastly, in all these demonstrations, the demonstrators
presuppose the idea or conception of a God without being
able to authenticate it; that is, to give an account whence
they obtained it. _For it is clear that the proof first
mentioned, and the most natural and convincing of all (the
cosmological, I mean, or that from the order of nature),
presupposes the ontological; that is, the proof of a God
from the necessity and necessary objectivity of the Idea._
If the latter can assure us of a God as an existing reality.
the former will go far to prove his power, wisdom, and
benevolence. All this I hold. But I also hold, that the
truth the hardest to demonstrate, is the one which, of all
others, least needs to be demonstrated; that though there
may be no conclusive demonstrations of a good, wise, living,
and personal God, there are so many convincing reasons for
it within and without--a grain of sand sufficing, and a
whole universe at hand to echo the decision!--that for every
mind not devoid of all reason, and desperately
conscience-proof, the truth which it is the least possible
to prove, it is little else than impossible not to
believe,--only indeed, just so much short of impossible as
to leave some room for the will, and the moral election, and
thereby to keep it a truth of religion, and the possible
subject of a commandment."--(P. 132.)
We are not very partial to this notion of a truth of the reason being
a subject for the exercise of moral obedience, and least of all in the
case of a truth, the recognition of which must _precede_ any
intelligible exercise of the religious conscience. In common with the
vast majority of mankind, we hold that the cosmological argument is
complete in itself. Ontology, as a branch of metaphysics placed in
opposition to psychology, is, by the greater number of reflecting men,
regarded as a mere shadow, the region of utter and hopeless obscurity.
We know nothing in itself,--only its phenomena; _being_ escapes us,
except as that to which the phenomena belong. If we prove, or rather
if we _see_, order and wisdom in the material world, we have all the
demonstration of a being, intelligent and wise, that our minds are
capable of receiving. We have the same proof for the being of God, as
we have for the existence of matter or of mind; we cannot have more,
and we have not a jot less.
By way of compensation, our philosopher, when he is once in possession
of the Idea of God, evolves from it, by unassisted reason, the most
profound mysteries of revealed religion. Mark here the elated step of
the triumphant logician:--
"I form a certain notion in my mind, and say, 'This is what
I understand by the term God.' From books and conversation,
I find that the learned generally connect the same notion
with the same word. _I then apply the rules laid down by the
masters of logic for the involution and evolution of terms_
[the conjurer that he is!] and prove, to as many as agree
with me in my premises, that the notion God involves the
notion Trinity."--(P. 126.)
The further description of this successful process of the involution
and evolution of terms is postponed to a future work. It was a strange
and somewhat affected position that Coleridge assumed between the
philosophical and the religious world. He would belong to both, and
yet would be unhappy if you did not regard him as standing apart and
alone. He was the _Punctum Indifferens_, which might be both, or
neither. The philosopher among divines, the divine among philosophers,
he was delighted to appear to each class in a masquerade drawn from
the wardrobe of the other. Even on the most ordinary occasions, he
would sometimes eke out, or obscure, his explanations by a little of
the dialect of the chapel, or the meeting-house. Near the commencement
of the book is the following note:--
"DISTINCTION BETWEEN THOUGHT AND ATTENTION.--By THOUGHT is
here meant the voluntary reproduction in our own minds of
those states of consciousness, or (_to use a phrase more
familiar to the religious reader_) _of those inward
experiences_, to which, as to his best and most authentic
documents, the teacher of moral and religious truth refers
us. In ATTENTION, we keep the mind _passive_; in THOUGHT, we
rouse it into activity. In the former, we submit to an
impression,--we keep the mind steady in order to receive the
stamp. In the latter, we seek to imitate the artist, while
we ourselves make a copy or duplicate of his work. _We may
learn arithmetic or the elements of geometry by continued
attention alone_; but self-knowledge, or an insight into the
laws and constitution of the human mind, and, the grounds of
religion and true morality, in addition to the effort of
attention, requires the energy of thought."
Now this reference to the word _experience_, as one which would be
more familiar to the religious reader, is pure affectation; because he
must have known that religious people never use that term in the wide
or general sense of states of consciousness, but restrict its meaning
to a very peculiar class of feelings. As to the distinction which is
here laid down, we thought we agreed with Coleridge till we came to
the illustration that was to make all clear. He who has to learn
arithmetic, or geometry must assuredly exercise thought as well as
attention. It is by that "voluntary reproduction" of the ideas
presented to him, by which Coleridge defines thought, that he can
alone fully understand and make the subject his own.
At other times this erratic genius rejoices in astonishing all
philosophically-minded individuals by some extravagance got from the
remotest regions of the religious world. What but some morbid caprice
could have induced him to pen such a paragraph as this:--
"It might be the means of preventing many unhappy marriages,
if the youth of both sexes had it early impressed on their
minds that marriage contracted between Christians is a true
and perfect Symbol or Mystery; that is, the actualising
Faith being supposed to exist in the receivers, it is an
outward sign co-essential with that which it signifies, or a
living part of that, the whole of which it represents."
Coleridge never did seriously think--of that we may be sure--that the
repetition of this _abracadabra_ could be the means "of preventing
many unhappy marriages."
The author of the _Aids to Reflection_ had, however, this undoubted
merit--that he _was_ a thinker--that, in his own fitful method, he
gave himself from time to time to strenuous meditation. He lacked,
indeed, the calm, and serene, and patient thought which characterises
the successful inquirer into philosophic truth. He could plunge boldly
in, and dive deeply down; but the tranquillity of mind which the diver
should possess in those depths where the light is so faint--this he
failed in; so that, from his perilous enterprises, he often rose with
tangled weeds instead of treasure, spasmodically clasped in both his
hands, and held aloft with a shout of triumph. This energy of mind
makes itself felt through all the cumbrous obscurity of his
exposition, and is the real secret of the influence which he exerted
over many, to whom he imparted a noble but irregular impulse, and a
sense of proud achievement where nothing complete had been
accomplished. His disciples are therefore distinguished, as we have
remarked, by undisciplined efforts of thought, and a fancied
superiority to the age in which they live,--a notion that they stand
upon an intellectual eminence they have neither attained nor fairly
toiled for.
But we are in danger of forgetting that it is not the _Aids to
Reflection_, but the _Guesses at Truth_, we are at present concerned
with. Guesses at _Truth_! You think, of course, that the modest
inquirer is about to give us the conclusions to which he has arrived
upon the great questions of philosophy,--to collect together the
results of his investigations into first principles and the eternal
problems of human life. But these results, whatever they may be, are
rather assumed than expressed throughout the whole book. As you read
on, you find the page still occupied with some trifling discussion
about words--strictures upon the contemporary tastes--odd bits of
criticism and politics--quibble and conundrum. Over all, indeed, is
seen hanging the beetle-brow of the pre-eminent sage, and you are to
presume that the meditative man is unbending, and merely at his sport.
But he is unbent always: the bow is never strung, or nothing flies
from it; the great thinker never sets himself earnestly to work. At
last you conclude that there is _no work in him_--that he never did,
and never will work; and that it is useless to wait any longer for
this nodding image, with its eternal smile of self-complacency, to
turn into an oracle of wisdom.
If, indeed, the writer or writers were verily sportive,--if there were
wit or amusement in this unbent condition of the bow, most readers
might think there was very little reason to complain: there would be
mirth, if not wisdom, to be had. But there is no such compensation.
With few exceptions, nothing can be more heavy or cumbrous than their
efforts at pleasantry. The illustrations, intended to be humorous and
sprightly, have no gaiety in them; and the satirical observations have
rarely any other characteristic of satire than their evident
injustice.
The manner in which these writers appear to have proceeded, in the
excogitation of their detached remarks, is after this fashion,--on all
occasions, trivial or important, to carp at any thing that assumes the
shape of a commonplace truth, any thing that is generally said or
admitted. By this means some merit of originality may surely be
obtained, and a lofty character for independence secured. Open the
book at the first page:--
"The heart has often been compared to the needle for its
constancy: has it ever been so for its variations?"
Why should it? Why should the magnetic needle, which is a popular
illustration for constancy of purpose, be chosen as an emblem also for
our mutability? Are there not the winds, and the clouds, and the
feather blown in the air, and a thousand other similes for this phase
of our nature? But "true as the needle to the pole" had been said so
long that it was time to see whether the saying could not be reversed.
We may as well quote the rest of the passage.
"Yet were any man to keep minutes of his feelings from youth
to age, what a table of variations would they present! how
numerous! how diverse! how strange! This is just what we
find in the writings of Horace. If we consider his
occasional effusions--and such they almost all are--as
merely expressing the piety or the passion, the seriousness
or the levity of the moment, we shall have no difficulty in
accounting for those discrepancies in their features which
have so much puzzled professional commentators. Their very
contradictions prove their truth. Or, could the face even of
Ninon de l'Enclos at seventy be just what it was at
seventeen? Nay, was Cleopatra before Augustus the same as
Cleopatra with Antony? or Cleopatra with Antony the same as
with the great Julius?"
A section half a page in length, and on so trite a subject, ought at
least to have boasted a greater distinctness of thought. One would
hardly have anticipated that the shifting humours of Horace and the
decline of Ninon's beauty (of whom it seems to be gravely asked,
whether she could be just the same at seventy as at seventeen,) would
be put in the same category. The form of composition adopted by the
author has not prevented a frequent confusion of ideas, though it has
rendered such a fault less excusable. His mode of progression is "like
a peacock's walk, a stride and a stand," yet he often fails to take
his single step with firmness and decision.
In a work of this kind, we know not how better to proceed than to
examine some of the sections in the order they occur; and, as we have
begun at the first page, we shall turn over the leaves of the book,
and, without too much anxiety of selection, extract for our comment
such as appear best to characterise the authors. Nor shall we attempt
to make any distinction between the writers. The larger portion, and
to which no signature is affixed, is the composition of Archdeacon
Hare; those signed U, are by his brother; and there are occasionally
other signatures, as A. and L., and A. and O. L., but what names these
stand for we are not informed,--nor are we anxious to know. It is as a
specimen of a certain class or coterie of thinkers we have been
induced to notice the work, and we would at all times rather assail
the thing said than the person who says it. It is remarkable that
there is as much harmony between the several parts of the work as if
the whole had been written by the same individual; and where
inconsistencies appear, they will generally be found in the portions
which bear the same signature, and which are the composition therefore
of the same writer.
"Philosophy, like every thing else, in a Christian nation,
should be Christian. We throw away the better half of our
means, when we neglect to avail ourselves of the advantages
which starting in the right road gives us. It is idle to
urge that unless we do this, anti-Christians will deride us.
Curs bark at gentlemen on horseback; but who, except a
hypochondriac, ever gave up riding on that account?"
To say that philosophy should be Christian, is very much like saying
that truth should be Christian. The philosophy of a genuine Christian
will be Christian, we presume, unless he be capable of believing
contradictory propositions. Or does the writer mean that that alone is
Christian philosophy of which Coleridge has given us a slight
specimen, and where the attempt is made to deduce from human reason
alone the revealed mysteries of Christianity? What follows is as
carelessly penned as it is pointless and vapid. "It is idle to urge
that unless we _do this_ anti-Christians will deride us." It would be
impossible from the mere rules of grammar to know what it is that
anti-Christians would deride us for doing,--whether for going right or
wrong. But the illustration, by no means very elegant, which follows,
comes to our assistance. As the anti-Christians, are the curs, and the
gentleman on horseback the Christian philosopher, and as riding on
horseback is certainly a very commendable thing, we discover that it
is for going right that the anti-Christians would deride us.
The next is an instance how an observation, good in itself, may be run
to death.
"'I am convinced that jokes are often accidental. A man in
the course of conversation throws out a remark at random,
and is as much surprised as any of the company, on hearing
it, to find it witty.'
"For the substance of this observation I am indebted to one
of the pleasantest men I ever knew, who was doubtless giving
the results of his own experience. _He might have carried
his remark some steps further with ease and profit._ It
would have done our pride no harm to be reminded, how few of
our best and wisest, and even of our newest thoughts, do
really and wholly originate in ourselves,--how few of them
are voluntary, or at least intentional. Take away all that
has been suggested or improved by the hints and remarks of
others,--all that has fallen from us accidentally, all that
has been struck out by collision, all that has been prompted
by a sudden impulse, or has occurred to us when least
looking for it--and the remainder, which alone can be
claimed as the fruit of our thought and study, will in every
man form a small portion of his store, and in most men will
be little worth preserving."
This is carrying his friend's observation "a little further with ease
and profit!" It is carrying it to where it is utterly lost in mere
absurdity. "Take away all that has been suggested," &c.--(take away
all that we have ever learned)--"take away all that has been
prompted," &c.--(take away all excitement to thinking, as well as all
materials of thought)--and we should be glad to know what "remainder"
can be left at all. The paragraph continues thus--
"We can no more make thoughts than seeds. How absurd, then,
for a man to call himself a poet or _maker_! The ablest
writer is a gardener first, and then a cook," (two very
industrious professions at all events.) "His tasks are,
carefully to select and cultivate his strongest and most
nutritive thoughts; and, when they are ripe, to dress them
wholesomely, and so that they may have a relish."
A very succulent image. The next sentence which our eye falls upon is
pretty, and we willingly extract it:--
"Leaves are light, and useless, and idle, and wavering, and
changeable; they even dance: yet God has made them part of
the oak. In so doing, he has given us a lesson not to deny
the stout-heartedness within, because we see the
lightsomeness without."
The following truism we should have hardly thought deserving of a
place amidst _Guesses_ at Truth; but, being admitted, the section
devoted to it might surely have been preserved from obscurity to the
close:--
"Time is no agent, as some people appear to think, that it
should accomplish any thing of itself. Looking at a heap of
stones for a thousand years will do no more toward building
a house of them, than looking at them for a moment. For
time, when applied to works of any kind, being only a
succession of relevant acts, each furthering the work, it is
clear that even an infinite succession of irrelevant and
therefore inefficient acts would no more achieve or forward
the completion, than an infinite number of jumps on the same
spot would advance a man toward his journey's end. There is
a _motion_, without progress in time as well as in space;
where a thing often _remains stationary_, which appears to
us to recede, while we are leaving it behind."
Plain sailing enough till we come to the last sentence. We dare not
say that "we do not understand this"--these writers tell us so often
that the critic fails in understanding simply from his own want of
apprehension--but we may venture to hint that whatever meaning it
contains might have been more clearly expressed. The hapless critic,
by the way, is severely dealt with by this school of philosophers. He
is told that "Coleridge's golden rule--_Until you understand an
author's ignorance, presume yourself ignorant of his understanding_--
should be borne in mind by all writers who feel an itching in their
forefinger and thumb to be carping at their wisers and betters." (P.
161) Our _wisers_ should have informed the critic how he is to fathom
an author's ignorance except by examining the accuracy and
intelligibility of the positive statements he makes. "A Reviewer's
business," we are assured in another part, "is to have positive
opinions upon all subjects, without need of steadfast principles or
thoroughgoing knowledge upon any: and he belongs to the hornet class,
unproductive of any thing useful or sweet, but ever ready to sally
forth and sting." Hard measure this. But we must not be judges in our
own cause.
Meanwhile nothing pleases our amiable writers so much as to gird at
the times in which they live, and find error in every general belief.
"Another form of the same materialism, which cannot
comprehend or conceive any thing, except as the product of
some external cause, is the spirit so general in these
times, which attaches an inordinate importance to mechanical
inventions, and accounts them the great agents in the
history of mankind. It is a common opinion with these
exoteric philosophers that the invention of printing was the
chief cause of the Reformation--that the invention of the
compass brought about the discovery of America--and that the
vast changes in the military and political state of Europe
since the middle ages have been wrought by the invention of
gunpowder. It would be almost as rational to say that the
cock's crowing, makes the sun rise. U." (P. 85.)
Now it is _not_ the common opinion that the invention of printing was
the _chief_ cause of the Reformation, but that it afforded to the
reformers a great and very opportune assistance. It is not the common
opinion that the invention of the compass brought about of itself the
discovery of America, but it is a very general belief that Columbus
would have hardly sailed due west over the broad ocean without a
compass. It is not the common opinion that the vast changes, meaning
thereby all the changes that have taken place in the military and
political affairs of Europe since the middle ages, have been the
result of the invention of gunpowder; but it is a conviction generally
entertained that the use of fire-arms has had something more to do
with certain changes in our military and political condition than the
crowing of the cock with the rising of the sun.
Having in this candid manner exposed the popular errors upon this
subject, he substitutes in their stead this very luminous proposition,
that "the utility of an invention depends upon our making use of it!"
"These very inventions had existed, the greatest of them for
many centuries, in China, without producing any result. For
why? Because the utility of an invention depends on our
making use of it. There is no power, none at least for good
[why this qualification?] in any instrument or weapon,
except so far as there is power in him who wields it: nor
does the sword guide or move the hand, but the hand the
sword. Nay," he adds in a tone of triumphant discovery, "it
is the hand that fashions the sword."
"Or," continues the writer, starting afresh, "we may look at
the matter in another light. We may conceive that, whenever
any of the great changes ordained by God's providence in the
destinies of mankind are about to take place, the means
requisite for the effecting of those changes are likewise
prepared by the same Providence."
What is this but the general opinion of mankind? which, however, as
entertained in the minds of others, is a vulgar materialism. What are
all the world saying, but simply this, that the inventions of the
printing press, of the compass, and of gunpowder, are great means
ordained by God's providence for the advancement of human affairs?
The beauties of inanimate nature have their turn to be descanted on;
and here our selecter spirits have a double task to perform: first, to
throw contempt on those who do not feel them; and, secondly, on those
who do. For, explain it how you will, they and their few friends are
evidently the only people who have an accurate perception of beauty as
well as of truth.
"It is an uncharitable error to ascribe the delight with
which unpoetical persons often speak of a mountain-tour, to
affectation. The delight is as real as mutton and beef, with
which it has a closer connexion than the travellers
themselves suspect; arising, in great measure, from the good
effects of mountain air, regular exercise, and wholesome
diet, upon the spirits. This is sensual, indeed, though not
improperly so; but it is no concession to the materialist. I
do not deny that my neighbour has a soul, by referring a
particular pleasure in him to the body." (P. 35.)
So much for the unpoetic traveller with staff and knapsack, glorying,
it may be, in his feats of pedestrianism. He is permitted, in spite of
his grossness, to have a soul within his body. But the more poetic
fraternity are not therefore to pass scatheless.
"The noisiest streams are the shallowest. It is an old
saying, but never out of season, least of all in an age the
fit symbol of which would not be, like the Ephesian
personification of nature, _multimamma_--for it neither
brings forth nor nourishes--but _multilingua_. Your
_amateur_ will talk by the ell, or, if you wish it, by the
mile, about the inexpressible charms of nature; but I never
heard that his love had caused him the slightest uneasiness.
"It is only," continues the writer, in a style which becomes
suddenly overclouded with a strange metaphysical
obscurity,--"it is only by the perception of some contrast
that we become conscious of our feelings. _The feelings,
however, may exist for centuries, without the consciousness;
and still, when they are mighty, they will overpower
consciousness_; when they are deep, it will be unable to
fathom them. Love has been called 'loquacious as a vernal
bird,' and with truth; but his loquacity comes on him mostly
in the absence of his beloved. Here too the same
illustration holds: the deep stream is not heard until some
obstacle opposes it. But can anybody, when floating down the
Rhine, believe that the builders and dwellers in those
castles, with which every rock is crested, were blind to all
the beauties around them? Is it quite impossible that they
should have felt almost as much as the sentimental tourist,
who returns to his parlour in some metropolis, and puffs out
the fumes of his admiration through his quill? Has the moon
no existence independent of the halo about her? [_sic_] or
does the halo even flow from her? Is it not produced by the
dimness and density of the atmosphere through which she has
to shine? Give me the love of the bird that broods over her
own nest, rather than of one who lays her eggs in the nest
of another, albeit she warble about parental affection as
loudly as Rousseau or Lord Byron." (P. 50.)
Nevertheless, we should not adopt the present writer, with all his
two-fold fastidiousness, as our guide to enlighten us upon the highest
sort of pleasure which scenery produces. He lays far more stress than
to us seems due on the pictorial art as a means of cultivating a taste
for the beauties of nature. It is quite true that a person familiar
with the art of painting will see in an ordinary landscape points of
interest which another would overlook. But as the sublimer objects in
nature cannot be represented in pictures, so as to convey an
impression of sublimity, it is not here that we can learn how to
appreciate them. You paint a river and all the amenities of the
landscape through which it flows; you cannot paint the sea and its
grandeur. On no canvass can you transfer a mountain so as to bring
with it the true impression of its sublimity.
That which we call the love of nature must exist in very different
forms in minds of different habits and culture. The professional
artist notes the various forms, the various colours, how they blend
and contrast; he likes to see the whole field of vision richly and
harmoniously filled. The poet, after spending a whole day in rapture
amongst the mountains, could scarcely give you the exact outline of a
single peak; he cannot fill you a solitary canvass; he has grouped all
that his memory retains by the law only of his own feelings; he can
describe the scene only by the emotions it has called forth.
There is also, no doubt, a simpler love of natural objects that never
seeks to express itself either with the pencil or the pen. And this
may, as our writer suggests, form a component part of that love of
their country for which mountaineers are particularly distinguished.
Yet, having ourselves had occasion to notice how very destitute of
what is called _sentiment_, the peasantry of the noblest country are
found to be, we should rather attribute the passionate love of home
that is remarkable in the Swiss or the Norwegian to this,--that the
causes which make home dear to all men are aggravated in their case by
the mountainous seclusion in which they live. One who has resided in
the same valley all his life, knows every one in that valley, and
knows no one beyond it. The whole of the inhabitants form, as it were,
one family. And though the sublimity of the mountains around him
affects his mind but little, yet their lofty summits present to him
(merely as so much matter and form) great physical objects to which he
gets familiarised and attached. Each time he raises his eyes, he sees
them there eternal in the heavens he can go no where to escape them;
and they enclose for him whatever he possesses in common with all
other countrymen--his own field, its hedge, its stile,--the village
church,--the bridge over the torrent stream on which he played when a
boy, and stood and gossipped when a man.
"When I was in the lake of Zug," says our author, "which
lies bosomed among such grand mountains, the boatman, after
telling some stories about Suwarrow's march through the
neighbourhood, asked me,--_Is it true that he came from a
country where there is not a mountain to be seen?_ _Yes_, I
replied; _you may go hundreds of miles without coming to a
hillock._ _That must be beautiful!_ he exclaimed: _das muss
schön seyn...._ This very man, however, had he been
transported to the plains he sighed for,--even though they
had been as flat as Burnet's Paradise, or the _tabula rasa_
which Locke supposed to be the _paradisiacal state of the
human mind_--(why is this piece of folly introduced? or what
wit or sense can there be in attributing this childish
absurdity to Locke?) would probably have been seized with
the homesickness which is so common among his countrymen, as
it is also among the Swedes and Norwegians, but which I
believe is hardly found, except in the natives of a
mountainous and beautiful country."[13]
[13] We have not thought it worth while to adhere in our quotations to
the somewhat affected manner of spelling which the brothers Hare have
adopted. For instance, _asked_ and _wished_ are spelt _askt_ and
_wisht_: we have but one _l_ in traveller, and the French word
_ragouts_ is rather oddly travestied into _ragoos_. The substitution
of _t_ for _ed_ in the participle of many verbs, is the most
systematic alteration attempted. Now the _d_ and the _t_, as is very
well known, slide into one another by such fine gradations that it is
impossible to determine, in many cases, which of these two letters
most accurately represents the pronunciation in general use. As the
termination _ed_ is what is understood by grammarians as the regular
form, and is, moreover, in possession of the ground, it seems very
futile to take any pains to alter it. In the instances we have already
mentioned, wish_t_ for wish_ed_, ask_t_ for ask_ed_, the new
orthography is no nearer to the actual daily pronunciation of the
words than the old and received mode of spelling. We do not pronounce
_wished_ and _asked_ as we do the word _waft_. Give the full sound of
the _t_ in these words, and a pronunciation is introduced quite as
novel as the mode of spelling.
We have said that the prevailing characteristic of these
semi-philosophers is the love of contradicting whatever to the
majority of men seems a simple and intelligible truth. We will give
two very short instances of this spirit of contradiction. We need not
say that they are religious men, or that the want of piety in the
world is their frequent subject of animadversion. "I was surprised
just now," says one of the brothers, "to see a cobweb round a knocker:
for it was not on the gate of heaven." You would suppose, therefore,
that a man could not be too earnest in knocking at this gate that it
might be opened to him. But this is what all the religious world is
saying, and to float with the stream would be intolerable. It is
discovered, therefore, that the religious world make of salvation, of
the entrance into heaven, a matter of too much _personal interest_.
"Catholic religion has wellnigh been split up into personal, so that
the very idea of the former has almost been lost; _and it is the
avowed principle of what is called the Religious World that every
body's paramount, engrossing duty is to take care his own soul_." (P.
194.) What is called the Religious World world be a little surprised
to hear itself censured by the archdeacon on such a ground as this.
Our next, which is very brief, is a still more striking instance of
this contradictious and exclusive spirit. "The glories of their
country,"--he is speaking of the ancient Greeks,--"inspired them with
enthusiastic patriotism; and an aristocratical religion--(_which,
until it was supplanted by a vulgar philosophy_, was revered in spite
of all its errors)--gave them," &c. It was a "vulgar philosophy" that
doubted of the truth of Paganism! It is, at all events, a very
commonplace philosophy at the present day which discredits the gods of
Olympus, and is therefore to be spoken of with due contempt.
Instead of being intelligible and vulgar, how much better to wrap up
our Christian philosophy in a style as rare and curious, and
undecipherable, as the hieroglyphic cerements of an Egyptian mummy!
"The precepts of Christianity are holy and imperative; its
mysteries vast, undiscoverable, unimaginable; and, what is
still worthier of consideration, these two limbs of our
religion are not severed, or even laxly joined, but, after
the workmanship of the God of nature, so 'lock in with and
over-wrap one another' that they cannot be torn asunder
without rude force. _Every mystery is the germ of a duty:
every duty has its motive in a mystery. So that if I may
speak of these things in the symbolical language of ancient
wisdom, every thing divine being circular, every right thing
human straight--the life of the Christian may be compared to
a chord, each end of which is supported by the arc it
proceeds from and terminates in._" (P. 214.)
Literary criticism occupies a portion of these pages. Here also there
is a singular air of pretension, but _nothing done_. A vague
indefinite claim is made to very superior taste, and an exclusive
appreciation of the great poets, but nothing is ever attempted to
support this claim. The solitary criticism on a passage in Milton,
where the poet says of the great palace of Pandemonium, that it "rose
like an exhalation," is the only instance we remember where these
authors have put forth any positive criticism; and this example does
not appear to evince any very delicate or refined appreciation of
poetic imagery. A comparison is drawn (where there is very little room
for one) between this passage and the expression νυκτι εοικως,
which Homer uses in describing the coming of Apollo,--and the
ηυτ' ομιχλη, which he employs when speaking of Thetis rising
from the sea. "How inferior," says the writer, "in grandeur, in
simplicity, in beauty and grace, to the Homeric! which moreover has
better caught the spirit and sentiment of the natural appearances. For
Apollo does come with the power and majesty, and with the terrors of
night; and the soft waviness of an exhalation is a much fitter image
for the rising of the goddess, than for the massiness and hard stiff
outline of a building." It is the hard stiff outline which the very
image of Milton conceals from us, as the angel-built structure rises
gradually, continuously, like an exhalation from the earth.
Of Shakspeare we are, of course, told that neither we, nor any other
Englishmen, understand him.
"How many Englishmen admire Shakspeare? Doubtless all who
understand him, and, it is to be hoped, a few more; for how
many Englishmen understand Shakspeare? Were Diogenes to set
out on his search through the land, I trust he would bring
home many hundreds, not to say thousands, for every one I
should put up. To judge from what has been written about
him, the Englishmen who understand Shakspeare are little
more numerous than those who understand the language spoken
in Paradise. You will now and then meet with ingenious
remarks on particular passages, and even in particular
characters, or rather in particular features in them. But
these remarks are mostly as incomplete and unsatisfactory as
the description of a hand or foot would be, unless received
with reference to the whole body. He who wishes to trace the
march and to scan the operations of this most marvellous
genius, and to discern the mysterious organisation of his
wonderful works, will find little help but what comes from
beyond the German Ocean." (P. 267.)
We are very much disposed to think that the age which follows ours,
though still admiring Shakspeare as one of the greatest, if not the
greatest, of poets, will look upon this present age as eminently
distinguished for having talked a marvellous deal of nonsense about
that great man--whether with or without help from beyond the German
Ocean. There is, however, confessedly some light to be got from
another quarter, though still a very remote one. We are rather
affectedly told in the preceding page:--
"Were nothing else to be learnt from the _rhetoric_ and
_ethics_ of Aristotle, they should be studied by every
educated Englishman as the best of commentaries on
Shakspeare."
To Coleridge, indeed, whose snatches of literary criticism are
admirable, (when he is not evidently led away by some capricious
paradoxical spirit,) we have a debt to acknowledge on this subject. He
first taught us, if we mistake not, to appreciate the structure of
Shakspeare's plays, and vindicated them from that charge of rudeness
and irregularity which had been so frequently made that it had passed
for an admitted truth. He showed that there was a harmony in his
intricate plots of a far higher order than the disciples of the
_unities_ had ever dreamed of.
Whatever may be their critical appreciation of the poetic language of
others, these writers display very little taste themselves in the use
of imagery, or illustration, or metaphor. What is intended for wit or
pleasantry proves to be a cumbrous allegory or unwieldy simile; we
feel that we are to smile, but we do not smile. Instances of this may
be found at page 111, in a sort of fable about "leather" and
"stockings;" and at page 133 about "four-sided and five-sided fields."
The examples are too long to quote. At page 260, great men are
compared to mountains. The simile is not new, but the manner of
dealing with it has more of novelty than of grace.--"Mountains never
shake hands," &c.--like great men, they stand alone. "But if mountains
do not shake hands, neither do they kick each other." And here, at
page 259, is an instance, not too long to quote entire, which shows
how little tact and delicacy these writers have in dealing with
metaphorical language.
"It is a mistake to suppose the poet does not know truth by
sight quite as well as the philosopher. He must; for he is
ever seeing her in the mirror of nature. The difference
between them is, that the poet is satisfied with worshipping
her reflected image, while the philosopher traces her out,
_and follows her to her remote abode between cause and
consequence, and there impregnates her_."
Frequently the illustration, standing alone, brief and obscure,
becomes a mere riddle, a conundrum, to which you can either attach no
meaning, or any meaning you please.
"Instead of watching the bird as it flies above our heads,
we chase the shadow along the ground, and finding we cannot
grasp it, we conclude it to be nothing.
"I hate to see trees pollarded--or nations.
"What way of circumventing a man can be so easy and suitable
as a _period_? The name should be enough to put us on our
guard; the experience of every age is not."
The oracular wisdom which these and the like sentences contain, we
must confess ourselves unable to expound. We would not undertake to
act as interpreter of such aphorisms; and we feel persuaded that if
three of the most friendly commentators were to sit down before them,
they would each give a different explanation.
In quitting our somewhat ungracious task, we would not leave the
impression behind that there is absolutely nothing in this volume to
reward perusal. There are some sparkling sayings, and some sound
reflections, which, if the book had now appeared for the first time,
we should think it our duty to hunt out and bring together. But the
work has been long before the public, and our present object was
merely to point out some of the weaknesses of a very dogmatical class
of writers. The following _guess_, for instance, is very significant,
and extremely apposite, moreover, to our own times. That we may leave
our readers something to meditate upon, we will conclude by quoting
it:--
"_When the pit seats itself in the boxes, the gallery will soon drive
out both, and occupy the whole of the house._"--A.
LIFE IN THE "FAR WEST."
PART I.--CHAP. I.
Away to the head waters of the Platte, where several small streams run
into the south fork of that river, and head in the broken ridges of
the "Divide" which separates the valleys of the Platte and Arkansa,
were camped a band of trappers on a creek called Bijou. It was the
month of October, when the early frosts of the coming winter had
crisped and dyed with sober brown the leaves of the cherry and quaking
asp, which belted the little brook; and the ridges and peaks of the
Rocky Mountains were already covered with a glittering mantle of snow,
which sparkled in the still powerful rays of the autumn sun.
The camp had all the appearance of being a permanent one; for not only
did one or two unusually comfortable shanties form a very conspicuous
object, but the numerous stages on which huge strips of buffalo meat
were hanging in process of cure, showed that the party had settled
themselves here in order to lay in a store of provisions, or, as it is
termed in the language of the mountains, "make meat." Round the camp
were feeding some twelve or fifteen mules and horses, having their
fore-legs confined by hobbles of raw hide, and, guarding these
animals, two men paced backwards and forwards, driving in the
stragglers; and ever and anon ascending the bluffs which overhung the
river, and, leaning on their long rifles, would sweep with their eyes
the surrounding prairie. Three or four fires were burning in the
encampment, on some of which Indian women were carefully tending
sundry steaming pots; whilst round one, which was in the centre of it,
four or five stalwart hunters, clad in buckskin, sat cross-legged,
pipe in mouth.
They were a trapping party from the north fork of Platte, on their way
to wintering-ground in the more southern valley of the Arkansa; some,
indeed, meditating a more extended trip, even to the distant
settlements of New Mexico, the paradise of mountaineers. The elder of
the company was a tall gaunt man, with a face browned by a twenty
years' exposure to the extreme climate of the mountains; his long
black hair, as yet scarcely tinged with gray, hung almost to his
shoulders, but his cheeks and chin were cleanly shaved, after the
fashion of the mountain men. His dress was the usual hunting-frock of
buckskin, with long fringes down the seams, with pantaloons similarly
ornamented, and mocassins of Indian make. As his companions puffed
their pipes in silence, he was narrating a few of his former
experiences of western life; and whilst the buffalo "hump-ribs" and
"tender loin" are singing away in the pot, preparing for the hunters'
supper, we will note down the yarn as it spins from his lips, giving
it in the language spoken in the "far west:"--
"'Twas about 'calf-time,' maybe a little later, and not a hunderd year
ago, by a long chalk, that the biggest kind of rendezvous was held
'to' Independence, a mighty handsome little location away up on old
Missoura. A pretty smart lot of boys was camp'd thar, about a quarter
from the town, and the way the whisky flowed that time was 'some' now,
I can tell you. Thar was old Sam Owins--him as got 'rubbed out'[14] by
the Spaniards at Sacramenty, or Chihuahuy, this hos doesn't know
which, but he 'went under'[14] any how. Well, Sam had his train along,
ready to hitch up for the Mexican country--twenty thunderin big
Pittsburg waggons; and the way _his_ Santa Fé boys took in the liquor
beat all--eh, Bill?"
[14] Killed, Died--both terms adapted from the Indian figurative
language.
"_Well_, it did."
"Bill Bent--his boys camped the other side the trail, and they was all
mountain men, wagh!--and Bill Williams, and Bill Tharpe (the Pawnees
took his hair on Pawnee Fork last spring:) three Bills, and them
three's all 'gone under.' Surely Hatcher went out that time; and
wasn't Bill Garey along, too? Didn't him and Chabonard sit in camp for
twenty hours at a deck of Euker? Them was Bent's Indian traders up on
Arkansa. Poor Bill Bent! them Spaniards made meat of him. He lost his
topknot to Taos. A 'clever' man was Bill Bent as _I_ ever know'd trade
a robe or 'throw' a bufler in his tracks. Old St Vrain could knock the
hind-sight off him though, when it come to shootin, and old silver
heels spoke true, she did: 'plum-center' she was, eh?"
"_Well_, she was'nt nothin else.'"
"The Greasers[15] payed for Bent's scalp, they tell me. Old St Vrain
went out of Santa Fé with a company of mountain men, and the way they
made 'em sing out was 'slick as shootin'. He 'counted a coup' did St
Vrain. He throwed a Pueblo as had on poor Bent's shirt. I guess he
tickled that niggur's hump-ribs. Fort William[16] aint the lodge it
was, an' never will be agin, now he's gone under; but St Vrain's
'pretty much of a gentleman,' too; if he aint, I'll be dog-gone, eh,
Bill?"
[15] The Mexicans are called "Spaniards" or "Greasers" (from their
greasy appearance) by the Western people.
[16] Bent's Indian trading fort on the Arkansa.
"He is _so-o_."
"Chavez had his waggons along. He was only a Spaniard any how, and
some of his teamsters put a ball into him his next trip, and made a
raise of _his_ dollars, wagh! Uncle Sam hung 'em for it, I heard, but
can't b'lieve it, no-how. If them Spaniards wasn't born for shootin',
why was beaver made? You was with us that spree, Jemmy?"
"No _sirre-e_; I went out when Spiers lost his animals on Cimmaron: a
hunderd and forty mules and oxen was froze that night, wagh!"
"Surely Black Harris was thar; and the darndest liar was Black
Harris--for lies tumbled out of his mouth like boudins out of a
bufler's stomach. He was the child as saw the putrefied forest in the
Black Hills. Black Harris come in from Laramie; he'd been trapping
three year an' more on Platte and the 'other side;' and, when he got
into Liberty, he fixed himself right off like a Saint Louiy dandy.
Well, he sat to dinner one day in the tavern, and a lady says to
him:--
"'Well, Mister Harris, I hear you're a great travler.'
"'Travler, marm,' says Black Harris, 'this niggur's no travler; I ar'
a trapper, marm, a mountain-man, wagh!"
"'Well, Mister Harris, trappers are great travlers, and you goes over
a sight of ground in your perishinations, I'll be bound to say.'
"'A sight, marm, this coon's gone over, if that's the way your 'stick
floats.'[17] I've trapped beaver on Platte and Arkansa, and away up on
Missoura and Yaller Stone; I've trapped on Columbia, on Lewis Fork,
and Green River; I've trapped, marm, on Grand River and the Heely
(Gila.) I've fout the 'Blackfoot' (and d----d bad Injuns they ar;)
I've 'raised the hair'[18] of more _than one_ Apach, and made a Rapaho
'come' afore now; I've trapped in heav'n, in airth, and h----, and
scalp my old head, marm, but I've seen a putrefied forest.'
[17] Meaning,--if that's what you mean? The "stick" is tied to the
beaver trap by a string; and, floating on the water, points out its
position, should a beaver have carried it away.
[18] Scalped.
"'La, Mister Harris, a what?'
"'A putrefied forest, marm, as sure as my rifle's got hind-sights, and
_she_ shoots center. I was out on the Black Hills, Bill Sublette knows
the time--the year it rained fire--and every body knows when that was.
If thar wasn't cold doin's about that time, this child wouldn't say
so. The snow was about fifty foot deep, and the bufler lay dead on the
ground like bees after a beein'; not whar we was tho', for _thar_ was
no bufler, and no meat, and me and my band had been livin' on our
mocassins, (leastwise the parflesh,[19]) for six weeks; and poor
doin's that feedin' is, marm, as you'll never know. One day we crossed
a 'cañon' and over a 'divide,' and got into a peraira, whar was green
grass, and green trees, and green leaves on the trees, and birds
singing in the green leaves, and this in Febrary, wagh! Our animals
was like to die when they see the green grass, and we all sung out,
'hurraw for summer doin's.'
[19] Soles made of buffalo hide.
"'Hyar goes for meat,' says I, and I jest ups old Ginger at one of
them singing birds, and down come the crittur elegant; its darned head
spinning away from the body, but never stops singing, and when I takes
up the meat, I finds it stone, wagh! 'Hyar's damp powder and no fire
to dry it,' I says, quite skeared.'
"'Fire be dogged,' says old Rube. 'Hyar's a hos as'll make fire come;'
and with that he takes his axe and lets drive at a cotton wood.
Schr-u-k--goes the axe agin the tree, and out comes a bit of the blade
as big as my hand. We looks at the animals, and thar they stood
shaking over the grass, which I'm dog-gone if it wasn't stone, too.
Young Sublette comes up, and he'd been clerking down to the fort on
Platte, so he know'd something. He looks and looks, and scrapes the
trees with his butcher knife, and snaps the grass like pipe stems, and
breaks the leaves a-snappin' like Californy shells.'
"'What's all this, boy?' I asks.
"'Putrefactions,' says he, looking smart, 'putrefactions, or I'm a
niggur.'
"'La, Mister Harris,' says the lady; 'putrefactions, why, did the
leaves, and the trees, and the grass smell badly?'
"'Smell badly, marm,' says Black Harris, 'would a skunk stink if he
was froze to stone? No, marm, this child didn't know what
putrefactions was, and young Sublette's varsion wouldn't 'shine'
nohow, so I chips a piece out of a tree and puts it in my trap-sack,
and carries it in safe to Laramie. Well, old Captain Stewart, (a
clever man was that, though he was an Englishman,) he comes along next
spring, and a Dutch doctor chap was along too. I shows him the piece I
chipped out of the tree, and he called it a putrefaction too; and so,
marm, if that wasn't a putrefied peraira, what was it? For this hos
doesn't know, and _he_ knows 'fat cow' from 'poor bull,' anyhow.'
"Well, old Black Harris is gone under too, I believe. He went to the
'Parks' trapping with a Vide Pôche Frenchman, who shot him for his
bacca and traps. Darn them Frenchmen, they're no account any way you
lays your sight. (Any 'bacca in your bag, Bill?' this beaver feels
like chawing.)
"Well, any how, thar was the camp, and they was goin to put out the
next morning; and the last as come out of Independence was that ar
Englishman. He'd a nor-west[20] capôte on, and a two-shoot gun rifled.
Well, them English are darned fools; they can't fix a rifle any ways;
but that one did shoot 'some;' leastwise _he_ made it throw
plum-center. He made the bufler 'come,' _he_ did, and fout well at
Pawnee Fork too. What was his name? All the boys called him Cap'en,
and he got his fixings from old Choteau; but what he wanted out thar
in the mountains, I never jest rightly know'd. He was no trader, nor a
trapper, and flung about his dollars right smart. Thar was old grit in
him, too, and a hair of the black b'ar at that.[21] They say he took
the bark of the Shians when he cleared out of the village with old
Beaver Tail's squaw. He'd been on Yaller Stone afore that: Leclerc
know'd him in the Blackfoot, and up in the Chippeway country; and he
had the best powder as ever I flashed through life, and his gun was
handsome, that's a fact. Them thar locks was grand; and old Jake
Hawken's nephey, (him as trapped on Heely that time,) told me, the
other day, as he saw an English gun on Arkansa last winter as beat all
off hand.
[20] The Hudson Bay Company, having amalgamated with the American
North West Company, is known by the name 'North West' to the southern
trappers. Their employés usually wear Canadian capôtes.
[21] A spice of the devil.
"Nigh upon two hundred dollars I had in my possibles, when I went to
that camp to see the boys afore they put out; and you know, Bill, as I
sat to 'Euker' and 'seven up'[22] till every cent was gone.
[22] "Euker," "poker," and "seven-up," are the fashionable games of
cards.
"'Take back twenty, old coon,' says Big John.
"'H----'s full of such takes back,' says I; and I puts back to town
and fetches the rifle and the old mule, puts my traps into the sack,
gets credit for a couple of pounds of powder at Owin's store, and hyar
I ar on Bijou, with half a pack of beaver, and running meat yet, old
hos: so put a log on, and let's have a smoke.
"Hurraw, Jake, old coon, bear a hand, and let the squaw put them tails
in the pot; for sun's down, and we'll have to put out pretty early to
reach 'Black Tail' by this time to-morrow. Who's fust guard, boys:
them cussed 'Rapahos' will be after the animals to-night, or I'm no
judge of Injun sign. How many did you see, Maurice?"
"Enfant de Gârce, me see bout honderd, when I pass Squirrel Creek, one
dam war-party, parce-que, they no hosses, and have de lariats for
steal des animaux. May be de Yutes in Bayou Salade."
"We'll be having trouble to-night, I'm thinking, if the devils are
about. Whose band was it, Maurice?"
"Slim-Face--I see him ver close--is out; mais I think it White
Wolf's."
"White Wolf, maybe, will lose his hair if he and his band knock round
here too often. That Injun put me afoot when we was out on 'Sandy'
that fall. This niggur owes him one, any how."
"H----'s full of White Wolves: go ahead, and roll out some of your
doins across the plains that time."
"You seed sights that spree, eh, boy?"
"_Well_, we did. Some of em got their flints fixed this side of Pawnee
Fork, and a heap of mule-meat went wolfing. Just by Little Arkansa we
saw the first Injun. Me and young Somes was ahead for meat, and I had
hobbled the old mule and was 'approaching' some goats,[23] when I see
the critturs turn back their heads and jump right away for me.
'Hurraw, Dick!' I shouts, 'hyars brown-skin acomin,' and off I makes
for the mule. The young greenhorn sees the goats runnin up to him, and
not being up to Injun ways, blazes at the first and knocks him over.
Jest then seven darned red heads top the bluff, and seven Pawnees come
a-screechin upon us. I cuts the hobbles and jumps on the mule, and,
when I looks back, there was Dick Somes ramming a ball down his gun
like mad, and the Injuns flinging their arrows at him pretty smart, I
tell you. 'Hurraw, Dick, mind your hair,' and I ups old Greaser and
let one Injun 'have it,' as was going plum into the boy with his
lance. _He_ turned on his back handsome, and Dick gets the ball down
at last, blazes away, and drops another. Then we charged on em, and
they clears off like runnin cows; and I takes the hair off the heads
of the two we made meat of; and I do b'lieve thar's some of them
scalps on my old leggings yet.
[23] Antelope are frequently called "goats" by the mountaineers.
"Well, Dick was as full of arrows as a porkypine: one was sticking
right through his cheek, one in his meat-bag, and two more 'bout his
hump ribs. I tuk 'em all out slick, and away we go to camp, (for they
was jost a-campin' when we went ahead) and carryin' the goat too.
Thar' was a hurroo when we rode in with the scalps at the end of our
guns. 'Injuns! Injuns!' was the cry from the green-horns; 'we'll be
'tacked to-night, that's certain.'
"''Tacked be ----' says old Bill; 'aint we men too, and white at that.
Look to your guns, boys; send out a strong hos'-guard with the
animals, and keep your eyes skinned.'
"Well, as soon as the animals were unhitched from the waggons, the
guvner sends out a strong guard, seven boys, and old hands at that. It
was pretty nigh upon sundown, and Bill had just sung out to 'corral.'
The boys were drivin' in the animals, and we were all standin' round
to get 'em in slick, when, 'howgh-owgh-owgh-owgh,' we hears right
behind the bluff, and 'bout a minute and a perfect crowd of Injuns
gallops down upon the animals. Wagh! war'nt thor hoopin'! We jump for
the guns, but before we get to the fires, the Injuns were among the
cavayard. I saw Ned Collyer and his brother, who were in the
hos'-guard, let drive at 'em; but twenty Pawnees were round 'em before
the smoke cleared from their rifles, and when the crowd broke the two
boys were on the ground, and their hair gone. Well, that ar
Englishman just saved the cavayard. He had his horse, a reglar
buffalo-runner, picketed round the fire quite handy, and as soon as he
sees the fix, he jumps upon her and rides right into the thick of the
mules, and passes through 'em, firing his two-shoot gun at the Injuns,
and by Gor, he made two come. The mules, which was a snortin' with
funk and running before the Injuns, as soon as they see the
Englishman's mare (mules 'ill go to h---- after a horse, you all
know,) followed her right into the corral, and thar they was safe.
Fifty Pawnees come screechin' after 'em, but we was ready that time,
and the way we throw'd 'em was something handsome, I tell you. But
three of the hos'-guard got skeared--leastwise their mules did, and
carried 'em off into the peraira, and the Injuns having enough of
_us_, dashed after 'em right away. Them poor devils looked back
miserable now, with about a hundred red varmints tearin' after their
hair, and whooping like mad. Young Jem Bulcher was the last; and when
he seed it was no use, and his time was nigh, he throw'd himself off
the mule, and standing as upright as a hickory wiping stick, he waves
his hand to us, and blazes away at the first Injun as come up, and
dropped him slick; but the moment after, you may guess, _he_ died.
"We could do nothin', for, before our guns were loaded, all three were
dead and their scalps gone. Five of our boys got rubbed out that time,
and seven Injuns lay wolf's meat, while a many more went away
gut-shot, I'll lay. How'sever, seven of us went under, and the Pawnees
made a raise of a dozen mules, wagh!"
Thus far, in his own words, we have accompanied the old hunter in his
tale; and probably he would have taken us, by the time that the Squaw
Chili-pat had pronounced the beaver tails cooked, safely across the
grand prairies--fording Cotton Wood, Turkey Creek, Little Arkansa,
Walnut Creek, and Pawnee Fork--passed the fireless route of the Coon
Creeks; through a sea of fat buffalo meat, without fuel to cook it;
have struck the big river, and, leaving at the "Crossing" the waggons
destined for Santa Fé, have trailed us up the Arkansa to Bent's Fort;
thence up Boiling Spring, across the divide over to the southern fork
of the Platte, away up to the Black Hills, and finally camped us, with
hair still preserved, in the beaver-abounding valleys of the Sweet
Water, and Câche la Poudre, under the rugged shadow of the Wind River
mountains, if it had not so befell, that at this juncture, as all our
mountaineers sat cross-legged round the fire, pipe in mouth, and with
Indian gravity listened to the yarn of the old trapper, interrupting
him only with an occasional wagh! or the assured exclamations of some
participator in the events then under narration, who would every now
and then put in a corroborative,--"This child remembers that fix," or,
"hyar's a niggur lifted hair that spree," &c.--that a whizzing noise
was heard to whistle through the air, followed by a sharp but
suppressed cry from one of the hunters.
CHAPTER II.
In an instant the mountaineers had sprung from their seats, and,
seizing the ever-ready rifle, each one had thrown himself on the
ground a few paces beyond the light of the fire, (for it was now
nightfall;) but not a word escaped them, as, lying close, with their
keen eyes directed towards the gloom of the thicket, near which the
camp was placed, with rifles cocked, they waited a renewal of the
attack. Presently the leader of the band, no other than Killbuck, who
had so lately been recounting some of his experiences across the
plains, and than whom no more crafty woodsman or more expert trapper
ever tracked a deer or grained a beaverskin, raised his tall,
leather-clad form, and, placing his hand over his mouth, made the
prairie ring with the wild protracted note of an Indian war-whoop.
This was instantly repeated from the direction where the animals
belonging to the camp were grazing, under the charge of the
horse-guard, and three shrill whoops answered the warning of the
leader, and showed that the guard was on the alert, and understood the
signal. However, with this manifestation of their presence, the
Indians appeared to be satisfied; or, what is more probable, the act
of aggression had been committed by some daring young warrior, who,
being out on his first expedition, desired to strike the first _coup_,
and thus signalise himself at the outset of the campaign. After
waiting some few minutes, expecting a renewal of the attack, the
mountaineers in a body rose from the ground and made towards the
animals, with which they presently returned to the camp; and, after
carefully hobbling and securing them to pickets firmly driven into the
ground, and mounting an additional guard, they once more assembled
round the fire, after examining the neighbouring thicket, relit their
pipes, and puffed away the cheering weed as composedly as if no such
being as a Redskin, thirsting for their lives, was within a thousand
miles of their perilous encampment.
"If ever thar was bad Injuns on these plains," at last growled
Killbuck, biting hard the pipe-stem between his teeth, "it's these
Rapahos, and the meanest kind at that."
"Can't beat the Blackfeet any how," chimed in one La Bonté, from the
Yellow Stone country, and a fine, handsome specimen of a mountaineer.
"However, one of you quit this arrow out of my hump," he continued,
bending forwards to the fire, and exhibiting an arrow sticking out
under his right shoulder-blade, and a stream of blood trickling down
his buckskin coat from the wound.
This his nearest neighbour essayed to do; but finding, after a tug,
that it "would not come," expressed his opinion that the offending
weapon would have to be "butchered" out. This was accordingly effected
with the ready blade of a scalp-knife; and a handful of beaver-fur
being placed on the wound, and secured by a strap of buckskin round
the body, the wounded man donned his hunting-shirt once more, and
coolly set about lighting his pipe, his rifle lying across his lap,
cocked and ready for use.
It was now near midnight--dark and misty; and the clouds, rolling away
to the eastward from the lofty ridges of the Rocky Mountains, were
gradually obscuring the little light which was afforded by the dim
stars. As the lighter vapours faded from the mountains, a thick black
cloud succeeded them, and settled over the loftier peaks of the chain,
which were faintly visible through the gloom of night, whilst a mass
of fleecy scud soon overspread the whole sky. A hollow moaning sound
crept through the valley, and the upper branches of the cotton woods,
with their withered leaves, began to rustle with the first breath of
the coming storm. Huge drops of rain fell at intervals, hissing as
they fell on the blazing fires, and pattered on the skins which the
hunters were hurriedly laying on their exposed baggage. The mules near
the camp cropped the grass with quick and greedy bites round the
circuit of their pickets, as if conscious that the storm would soon
prevent their feeding, and were already humping their backs as the
chilling rain fell upon their flanks. The prairie wolves crept closer
to the camp, and in the confusion that ensued from the hurry of the
trappers to cover the perishable portions of their equipment,
contrived more than once to dart off with a piece of meat, when their
peculiar and mournful chiding would be heard as they fought for the
possession of the ravished morsel.
As soon as every thing was duly protected, the men set to work to
spread their beds, those who had not troubled themselves to erect a
shelter getting under the lee of the piles of packs and saddles; while
Killbuck, disdaining even such care of his carcass, threw his buffalo
robe on the bare ground, declaring his intention to "take" what was
coming at all hazards, and "any how." Selecting a high spot, he drew
his knife and proceeded to cut drains round it, to prevent the water
running into him as he lay; then taking a single robe he carefully
spread it, placing under the end farthest from the fire a large stone
brought from the creek. Having satisfactorily adjusted this pillow, he
adds another robe to the one already laid, and places over all a
Navajo blanket, supposed to be impervious to rain. Then he divests
himself of his pouch and powder-horn, which, with his rifle, he
places inside his bed, and quickly covers up lest the wet reach them.
Having performed these operations to his satisfaction, he lighted his
pipe by the hissing embers of the half-extinguished fire (for by this
time the rain was pouring in torrents,) and going the rounds of the
picketed animals, and cautioning the guard round the camp to keep
their "eyes skinned, for there would be 'powder burned' before
morning," he returned to the fire, and kicking with his mocassined
foot the slumbering ashes, squats down before it, and thus
soliloquises:--
"Thirty year have I been knocking about these mountains from
Missoura's head as far sothe as the starving Gila. I've trapped a
'heap,'[24] and many a hundred pack of beaver I've traded in my time,
wagh! What has come of it, and whar's the dollars as ought to be in my
possibles? Whar's the ind of this, I say? Is a man to be hunted by
Injuns all his days? Many's the time I've said I'd strike for Taos,
and trap a squaw, for this child's getting old, and feels like wanting
a woman's face about his lodge for the balance of his days; but when
it comes to caching of the old traps, I've the smallest kind of heart,
I have. Certain, the old state comes across my mind now and again, but
who's thar to remember my old body? But them diggings gets too over
crowded now-a-days, and its hard to fetch breath amongst them big
bands of corncrackers to Missoura. Beside, it goes against natur to
leave bufler meat and feed on hog; and them white gals are too much
like picturs, and a deal too 'fofarraw' (fanfaron.) No; darn the
settlements, I say. It won't shine, and whar's the dollars? Howsever,
beaver's 'bound to rise;' human natur can't go on selling beaver a
dollar a pound; no, no, that arn't a going to shine much longer, I
know. Them was the times when this child first went to the mountains:
six dollars the plew--old 'un or kitten. Wagh! but it's bound to rise,
I says agin; and hyar's a coon knows whar to lay his hand on a dozen
pack right handy, and then he'll take the Taos trail, wagh!"
[24] An Indian is always a "heap" hungry or thirsty--loves a
"heap"--is a "heap" brave--in fact, "heap" is tantamount to very much.
Thus soliloquising, Killbuck knocked the ashes from his pipe, and
placed it in the gaily ornamented case which hung round his neck, drew
his knife-belt a couple of holes tighter, and once more donned his
pouch and powder-horn, took his rifle, which he carefully covered with
the folds of his Navajo blanket, and striding into the darkness,
cautiously reconnoitred the vicinity of the camp. When he returned to
the fire he sat himself down as before, but this time with his rifle
across his lap; and at intervals his keen gray eye glanced piercingly
around, particularly towards an old, weatherbeaten, and grizzled mule,
who now, old stager as she was, having filled her belly, was standing
lazily over her picket pin, with head bent down and her long ears
flapping over her face, her limbs gathered under her, and with back
arched to throw off the rain, tottering from side to side as she rests
and sleeps.
"Yep, old gal!" cried Killbuck to the animal, at the same time picking
a piece of burnt wood from the fire and throwing it at her, at which
the mule gathered itself up and cocked her ears as she recognised her
master's voice. "Yep, old gal! and keep your nose open; thar's brown
skin about, I'm thinkin', and maybe you'll get 'roped' (lasso'd) by a
Rapaho afore mornin." Again the old trapper settled himself before the
fire; and soon his head began to nod, as drowsiness stole over him.
Already he was in the land of dreams; revelling amongst bands of "fat
cow," or hunting along a stream well peopled with beaver; with no
Indian "sign" to disturb him, and the merry rendezvous in close
perspective, and his peltry selling briskly at six dollars the plew,
and galore of alcohol to ratify the trade. Or, perhaps, threading the
back trail of his memory, he passed rapidly through the perilous
vicissitudes of his hard, hard life--starving one day, revelling in
abundance the next; now beset by whooping savages thirsting for his
blood, baying his enemies like the hunted deer, but with the
unflinching courage of a man; now, all care thrown aside, secure and
forgetful of the past, a welcome guest in the hospitable trading fort;
or back, as the trail gets fainter, to his childhood's home in the
brown forests of old Kentuck, tended and cared for--no thought his,
but to enjoy the homminy and johnny cakes of his thrifty mother. Once
more, in warm and well remembered homespun, he sits on the snake fence
round the old clearing, and munching his hoe-cake at set of sun,
listens to the mournful note of the whip-poor-will, or the harsh cry
of the noisy catbird, or watches the agile gambols of the squirrels as
they chase each other, chattering the while, from branch to branch of
the lofty tameracks, wondering how long it will be before he will be
able to lift his father's heavy rifle, and use it against the tempting
game. Sleep, however, sat lightly on the eyes of the wary mountaineer,
and a snort from the old mule in an instant stretched his every nerve;
and, without a movement of his body, the keen eye fixed itself upon
the mule, which now was standing with head bent round, and eyes and
ears pointed in one direction, snuffing the night air and snorting
with apparent fear. A low sound from the wakeful hunter roused the
others from their sleep; and raising their bodies from their
well-soaked beds, a single word apprised them of their danger.
"Injuns!"
Scarcely was the word out of Killbuck's lips, when, above the howling
of the furious wind, and the pattering of the rain, a hundred savage
yells broke suddenly upon their ears from all directions round the
camp; a score of rifle-shots rattled from the thicket, and a cloud of
arrows whistled through the air, at the same time that a crowd of
Indians charged upon the picketed animals. "Owgh, owgh--owgh--owgh--g-h-h."
"A foot, by gor!" shouted Killbuck, "and the old mule gone at that. On
'em, boys, for old Kentuck!" and rushed towards his mule, which was
jumping and snorting mad with fright, as a naked Indian strove to
fasten a lariat round her nose, having already cut the rope which
fastened her to the plcket-pin.
"Quit that, you cussed devil!" roared the trapper, as he jumped upon
the savage, and without raising his rifle to his shoulder, made a
deliberate thrust with the muzzle at his naked breast, striking him
full, and at the same time pulling the trigger, actually driving the
Indian two paces backwards with the shock, when he fell in a heap and
dead. But at the same moment, an Indian, sweeping his club round his
head, brought it with fatal force down upon Killbuck's skull, and
staggering for a moment, he threw out his arms wildly into the air,
and fell headlong to the ground.
"Owgh! owgh, owgh-h-h!" cried the Rapaho as the white fell, and,
striding over the prostrate body, seized with his left hand the middle
lock of the trapper's long hair, and drew his knife round the head to
separate the scalp from the skull. As he bent over to his work, the
trapper named La Bonté caught sight of the strait his companion was
in, and quick as thought rushed at the Indian, burying his knife to
the hilt between his shoulders, and with a gasping shudder, the Rapaho
fell dead upon the prostrate body of his foe.
The attack, however, lasted but a few seconds. The dash at the animals
had been entirely successful, and, driving them before them, with loud
cries, the Indians disappeared quickly in the darkness. Without
waiting for daylight, two of the three trappers who alone were to be
seen, and who had been within the shanties at the time of attack,
without a moment's delay commenced packing two horses, which having
been fastened to the shanties had escaped the Indians, and placing
their squaws upon them, showering curses and imprecations on their
enemies, left the camp, fearful of another onset, and resolved to
retreat and câche themselves until the danger was over. Not so La
Bonté, who, stout and true, had done his best in the fight, and now
sought the body of his old comrade, from which, before he could
examine the wounds, he had first to remove the corpse of the Indian he
had slain. Killbuck still breathed. He had been stunned; but, revived
by the cold rain beating upon his face, he soon opened his eyes,
recognising his trusty friend, who, sitting down, lifted his head into
his lap, and wiped away the blood which streamed from the wounded
scalp.
"Is the top-knot gone, boy?" asked Killbuck; "for my head feels
queersome, I tell you."
"Thar's the Injun as felt like lifting it," answered the other,
kicking the dead body with his foot.
"Wagh! boy, you've struck a coup; so scalp the nigger right off, and
then fetch me a drink."
The morning broke clear and cold. With the exception of a light cloud
which hung over Pike's Peak, the sky was spotless; and a perfect calm
had succeeded the boisterous winds of the previous night. The creek
was swollen and turbid with the rains; and as La Bonté proceeded a
little distance down the bank to find a passage to the water, he
suddenly stopped short, and an involuntary cry escaped him. Within a
few feet of the bank lay the body of one of his companions who had
formed the guard at the time of the Indians' attack. It was lying on
the face, pierced through the chest with an arrow which was buried to
the very feathers, and the scalp torn from the bloody skull. Beyond,
and all within a hundred yards, lay the three others, dead and
similarly mutilated. So certain had been the aim, and so close the
enemy, that each had died without a struggle, and consequently had
been unable to alarm the camp. La Bonté, with a glance at the bank,
saw at once that the wily Indians had crept along the creek, the noise
of the storm facilitating their approach undiscovered, and crawling up
the bank, had watched their opportunity to shoot simultaneously the
four hunters who were standing guard.
Returning to Killbuck, he apprised him of the melancholy fate of their
companions, and held a council of war as to their proceedings. The old
hunter's mind was soon made up. "First," said he, "I get back my old
mule; she's carried me and my traps these twelve years, and I aint a
goin' to lose her yet. Second, I feel like taking hair, and some
Rapahós has to 'go under' for this night's work. Third, We have got to
câche the beaver. Fourth, We take the Injun trail, wharever it leads."
No more daring mountaineer than La Bonté ever trapped a beaver, and no
counsel could have more exactly tallied with his own inclination than
the law laid down by old Killbuck.
"Agreed," was his answer, and forthwith he set about forming a câche.
In this instance they had not sufficient time to construct a regular
one, so contented themselves with securing their packs of beaver in
buffalo robes, and tying them in the forks of several cotton-woods,
under which the camp had been made. This done, they lit a fire, and
cooked some buffalo meat; and, whilst smoking a pipe, carefully
cleaned their rifles, and filled their horns and pouches with good
store of ammunition.
A prominent feature in the character of the hunters of the far west is
their quick determination and resolve in cases of extreme difficulty
and peril, and their fixedness of purpose, when any plan of operations
has been laid requiring bold and instant action in carrying out. It is
here that they so infinitely surpass the savage Indian, in bringing to
a successful issue their numerous hostile expeditions against the
natural foe of the white man in the wild and barbarous regions of the
west. Ready to resolve as they are prompt to execute, and with the
advantage of far greater dash and daring with equal subtlety and
caution, they possess great advantage over the vacillating Indian,
whose superstitious mind in a great degree paralyses the physical
energy of his active body; and in waiting for propitious signs and
seasons before he undertakes an enterprise, he loses the opportunity
which his white and more civilised enemy knows so well to profit by.
Killbuck and La Bonté were no exceptions to this characteristic rule,
and, before the sun was a hand's-breadth above the eastern horizon,
the two hunters were running on the trail of the victorious Indians.
Striking from the creek where the night attack was made, they crossed
to another known as Kioway, running parallel to Bijou, a few hours'
journey westward, and likewise heading in the "divide." Following this
to its forks, they struck into the upland prairies lying at the foot
of the mountains; and crossing to the numerous water-courses which
feed the creek called "Vermillion" or "Cherry," they pursued the trail
over the mountain-spurs until it reached a fork of the Boiling
Spring. Here the war-party had halted and held a consultation, for
from this point the trail turned at a tangent to the westward, and
entered the rugged gorges of the mountains. It was now evident to the
two trappers that their destination was the Bayou Salade,--a mountain
valley which is a favourite resort of the buffalo in the winter
season, and also, and for this reason, often frequented by the Yuta
Indians as their wintering ground. That the Rapahos were on a war
expedition against the Yutas, there was little doubt; and Killbuck,
who knew every inch of the ground, saw at once, by the direction the
trail had taken, that they were making for the Bayou in order to
surprise their enemies, and, therefore, were not following the usual
Indian trail up the cañon of the Boiling Spring River. Having made up
his mind to this, he at once struck across the broken ground lying at
the foot of the mountains, steering a course a little to the eastward
of north, or almost in the direction whence he had come: and then,
pointing westward, about noon he crossed a mountain chain, and
descending into a ravine through which a little rivulet tumbled over
its rocky bed, he at once proved the correctness of his judgment by
striking the Indian trail, now quite fresh, as it wound through the
cañon along the bank of the stream. The route he had followed, which
would have been impracticable to pack animals, had saved at least
half-a-day's journey, and brought them within a short distance of the
object of their pursuit; for, at the head of the gorge, a lofty bluff
presenting itself, the hunters ascended to the summit, and, looking
down, descried at their very feet the Indian camp, with their own
stolen cavallada feeding quietly round.
"Wagh!" exclaimed both the hunters in a breath. "And thar's the old
ga'l at that," chuckled Killbuck, as he recognised his old grizzled
mule making good play at the rich buffalo grass with which these
mountain valleys abound.
"If we don't make 'a raise' afore long, I wouldn't say so. Thar plans
is plain to this child as beaver sign. They're after Yute hair, as
certain as this gun has got hind-sights; but they ar'nt agoin' to pack
them animals after 'em, and have crawled like 'rattlers' along this
bottom to câche 'em, till they come back from the Bayou,--and maybe
they'll leave half a dozen 'soldiers'[25] with 'em."
[25] The young untried warriors of the Indians are thus called.
How right the wily trapper was in his conjectures will be shortly
proved. Meanwhile, with his companion, he descended the bluff, and
pushing his way into a thicket of dwarf pine and cedar, sat down on a
log, and drew from an end of the blanket, which was strapped on his
shoulder, a portion of a buffalo's liver, which they both discussed
with infinite relish--and _raw_; eating in lieu of bread (an unknown
luxury in these parts) sundry strips of dried fat. To have kindled a
fire would have been dangerous, since it was not impossible that some
of the Indians might leave their camp to hunt, when the smoke would at
once have discovered the presence of enemies. A light was struck,
however, for their pipes, and after enjoying this true consolation for
some time, they laid a blanket on the ground, and, side by side, soon
fell asleep.
If Killbuck had been a prophet, or the most prescient of "medicine
men," he could not have more exactly predicted the movements in the
Indian camp. About three hours before "sun-down," he rose and shook
himself, which movement was sufficient to awaken his companion.
Telling La Bonté to lie down again and rest, he gave him to understand
that he was about to reconnoitre the enemy's camp; and after examining
carefully his rifle, and drawing his knife-belt a hole or two tighter,
he proceeded on his dangerous errand. Ascending the same bluff from
whence he had first discovered the Indian camp, he glanced rapidly
round, and made himself master of the features of the ground--choosing
a ravine by which he might approach the camp more closely, and without
danger of being discovered. This was soon effected; and in half an
hour the trapper was lying on his belly on the summit of a
pine-covered bluff, which overlooked the Indians within easy
rifle-shot, and so perfectly concealed by the low spreading branches
of the cedar and arbor-vitæ, that not a particle of his person could
be detected; unless, indeed, his sharp, twinkling gray eye contrasted
too strongly with the green boughs that covered the rest of his face.
Moreover, there was no danger of their hitting upon his trail, for he
had been careful to pick his steps on the rock-covered ground, so that
not a track of his mocassin was visible. Here he lay, still as a
carcagien in wait for a deer, only now and then shaking the boughs as
his body quivered with a suppressed chuckle, when any movement in the
Indian camp caused him to laugh inwardly at his (if they had known it)
unwelcome propinquity. He was not a little surprised, however, to
discover that the party was much smaller than he had imagined,
counting only forty warriors; and this assured him that the band had
divided, one half taking the Yute trail by the Boiling Spring, the
other (the one before him) taking a longer circuit in order to reach
the Bayou, and make the attack on the Yutas, in a different direction.
At this moment the Indians were in deliberation. Seated in a large
circle round a very small fire,[26] the smoke from which ascended in a
thin straight column, they each in turn puffed a huge cloud of smoke
from three or four long cherry-stemmed pipes, which went the round of
the party; each warrior touching the ground with the heel of the
pipe-bowl, and turning the stem upwards and away from him, as
"medicine" to the Great Spirit, before he himself inhaled the fragrant
kinnik-kinnik. The council, however, was not general, for no more than
fifteen of the older warriors took part in it, the others sitting
outside and at some little distance from the circle. Behind each were
his arms--bow and quiver, and shield hanging from a spear stuck in the
ground, and a few guns in ornamented covers of buckskin were added to
some of the equipments.
[26] There is a great difference between an Indian's fire and a
white's. The former places, the ends of logs to burn gradually; the
latter, the centre, besides making such a bonfire that the Indians
truly say, that "The white makes a fire so hot that he cannot approach
to warm himself by it."
Near the fire, and in the centre of the inner circle, a spear was
fixed upright in the ground, and on this dangled the four scalps of
the trappers killed the preceding night; and underneath them, affixed
to the same spear, was the mystic "medicine bag," by which Killbuck
knew that the band before him was under the command of the head chief
of the tribe.
Towards the grim trophies on the spear, the warriors, who in turn
addressed the council, frequently pointed--more than one, as he did
so, making the gyratory motion of the right hand and arm, which the
Indians use in describing that they have gained an advantage by skill
or cunning. Then pointing westward, the speaker would thrust out his
arm, extending his fingers at the same time, and closing and reopening
them several times, meaning, that although four scalps already
ornamented the "medicine" pole, they were as nothing compared to the
numerous trophies they would bring from the Salt Valley, where they
expected to find their hereditary enemies the Yutes. "That now was not
the time to count their coups," (for at this moment one of the
warriors rose from his seat, and, swelling with pride, advanced
towards the spear, pointing to one of the scalps, and then striking
his open hand on his naked breast, jumped into the air, as if about to
go through the ceremony.) "That before many suns all their spears
together would not hold the scalps they had taken, and that then they
would return to their village, and spend a moon in relating their
achievements, and counting coups."
All this Killbuck learned: thanks to his knowledge of the language of
signs--a master of which, if even he have no ears or tongue, never
fails to understand, and be understood by, any of the hundred tribes
whose languages are perfectly distinct and different. He learned,
moreover, that at sundown the greater part of the band would resume
the trail, in order to reach the Bayou by the earliest dawn; and also,
that no more than four or five of the younger warriors would remain
with the captured animals. Still the hunter remained in his position
until the sun had disappeared behind the ridge; when, taking up their
arms, and throwing their buffalo robes on their shoulders, the war
party of Rapahos, one behind the other, with noiseless step, and
silent as the dumb, moved away from the camp; and, when the last dusky
form had disappeared behind a point of rocks which shut in the
northern end of the little valley or ravine, Killbuck withdrew his
head from its screen, crawled backwards on his stomach from the edge
of the bluff, and, rising from the ground, shook and stretched
himself; then gave one cautious look around, and immediately proceeded
to rejoin his companion.