It will be seen by the heading of this Letter that I am back again to
“head-quarters,” where I have joined my wife, and being seated down by
a comfortable fire, am to take a little retrospect of my rambles, from
the time of my last epistle.
The return to the society of old friends again, has been delightful,
and amongst those whom I more than esteem, I have met my kind and
faithful friend Joe Chadwick, whom I have often mentioned, as my
companion in distress whilst on that disastrous campaign amongst the
Camanchees. Joe and I have taken great pleasure in talking over the
many curious scenes we have passed together, many of which are as yet
unknown to others than ourselves. We had been separated for nearly two
years, and during that time I had passed many curious scenes worthy
of Joe’s knowing, and while he sat down in the chair for a portrait I
painted of him to send to his mother, on leaving the States, to take an
appointment from Governor Houston in the Texan army; I related to him
one or two of my recent _incidents_, which were as follow, and pleased
Joe exceedingly;—
“After I had paddled my bark canoe through the rapids, with my wife and
others in it, as I mentioned, and had put them on board a steamer for
St. Louis, I dragged my canoe up the east shore of the rapids, with a
line, for a distance of four miles, when I stopped and spent half of
the day in collecting some very interesting minerals, which I had in
the bottom of my canoe, and ready to get on the first steamer passing
up, to take me again to Camp Des Moines, at the head of the rapids.
“I was sitting on a wild and wooded shore, and waiting, when I at
length discovered a steamer several miles below me, advancing through
the rapids, and in the interim I set too and cleaned my fowling piece
and a noble pair of pistols, which I had carried in a belt at my side,
through my buffalo and other sports of the West, and having put them
in fine order and deposited them in the bottom of the canoe before me,
and taken my paddle in hand, with which my long practice had given
me unlimited confidence, I put off from the shore to the middle of
the river, which was there a mile and a halt in width, to meet the
steamer, which was stemming the opposing torrent, and slowly moving
up the rapids. I made my signal as I neared the steamer, and desired
my old friend Captain Rogers, not to stop his engine; feeling full
confidence that I could, with an _Indian touch_ of the paddle, toss
my little bark around, and gently grapple to the side of the steamer,
which was loaded down, with her gunnels near to the water’s edge. Oh,
that my skill had been equal to my imagination, or that I could have
had at that moment, the balance and the skill of an Indian _woman_,
for the sake of my little craft and what was in it! I had _brought it
about_, with a master hand, however, but the waves of the rapids and
the foaming of the waters by her sides were too much for my peaceable
adhesion, and at the moment of wheeling, to part company with her, a
line, with a sort of “laso throw,” came from an awkward hand on the
deck, and falling over my shoulder and around the end of my canoe, with
a simultaneous “haul” to it, sent me down head foremost to the bottom
of the river; where I was tumbling along with the rapid current over
the huge rocks on the bottom, whilst my gun and pistols, which were
emptied from my capsised boat, were taking their permanent position
amongst the rocks; and my trunk, containing my notes of travel for
several years, and many other valuable things, was floating off upon
the surface. If I had drowned, my death would have been witnessed by
at least an hundred ladies and gentlemen who were looking on, but I
_did not_.—I soon took a peep, by the side of my trunk &c., above the
water, and for the first time in my life was “collared,” and that by
my friend Captain Rogers, who undoubtedly saved me from making further
explorations on the river bottom, by pulling me into the boat, to the
amusement of all on deck, many of whom were my old acquaintance, and
not knowing the preliminaries, were as much astounded at my sudden
appearance, as if I had been disgorged from a whale’s belly. A small
boat was sent off for my trunk, which was picked up about half a mile
below and brought on board full of water, and consequently, clothes,
and sketch-books and everything else entirely wet through. My canoe
was brought on board, which was several degrees dearer to me now than
it had been for its long and faithful service; but my gun and pistols
are there yet, and at the service of the lucky one who may find them.
I remained on board for several miles, till we were passing a wild and
romantic rocky shore, on which the sun was shining warm, and I launched
my little boat into the water, with my trunk in it and put off to the
shore, where I soon had every paper and a hundred other things spread
in the sun, and at night in good order for my camp, which was at the
mouth of a quiet little brook, where I caught some fine bass and fared
well, till a couple of hours paddling the next morning brought me back
to Camp Des Moines.”
Here my friend Joe laughed excessively, but said not a word, as I
kept on painting—and told him also, that a few days after this, I
put my little canoe on the deck of a steamer ascending the river,
and landed at Rock Island, ninety miles above, on some business with
General Street, the Indian Agent—after which I “put off” in my little
bark, descending the river alone, to Camp Des Moines, with a fine
double-barrelled fowling-piece, which I had purchased at the garrison,
lying in the canoe before me as the means of procuring wild fowl, and
other food on my passage. “Egad!” said Joe, “how I should like to have
been with you!” “Sit still,” said I, “or I shall lose your likeness.”
So Joe kept his position, and I proceeded.
“I left Rock Island about eleven o’clock in the morning, and at
half-past three in a pleasant afternoon, in the cool month of October,
run my canoe to the shore of _Mas-co-tin_ Island, where I stepped out
upon its beautiful pebbly beach, with my paddle in my hand, having
drawn the bow of my canoe, as usual, on to the beach, so as to hold
it in its place. This beautiful island, so called from a band of the
Illinois Indians of that name, who once dwelt upon it, is twenty-five
or thirty miles in length, without habitation on or in sight of it,
and the whole way one extended and lovely prairie; with high banks
fronting the river, and extending back a great way, covered with a
high and luxuriant growth of grass. To the top of this bank I went
with my paddle in my hand, quite innocently, just to range my eye over
its surface, and to see what might be seen; when, in a minute or two,
I turned towards the river, and, to my almost annihilating surprise
and vexation, I saw my little canoe some twenty or thirty rods from
the shore, and some distance below me, with its head aiming across
the river, and steadily gliding along in that direction, where the
wind was roguishly wafting it! What little swearing I had learned in
the whole of my dealings with the _civilized_ world, seemed then to
concentrate in two or three involuntary exclamations, which exploded
as I was running down the beach, and throwing off my garments one
after the other, till I was denuded—and dashing through the deep
and boiling current in pursuit of it, I swam some thirty rods in a
desperate rage, resolving that this _must be_ my remedy, as there
was no other mode; but at last found, to my great mortification and
_alarm_, that the canoe, having got so far from the shore, was more
in the wind, and travelling at a speed quite equal to my own; so that
the only safe alternative was to turn and make for the shore with
all possible despatch. This I did—and had but just strength to bring
me where my feet could reach the bottom, and I waded out with the
appalling conviction, that if I had swam one rod farther into the
stream, my strength would never have brought me to the shore; for it
was in the fall of the year, and the water so cold as completely to
have benumbed me, and paralyzed my limbs. I hastened to pick up my
clothes, which were dropped at intervals as I had run on the beach, and
having adjusted them on my shivering limbs, I stepped to the top of the
bank, and took a deliberate view of my little canoe, which was steadily
making its way to the other shore—with my gun, with my provisions and
fire apparatus, and sleeping apparel, all snugly packed in it.
“The river at that place is near a mile wide; and I watched the
mischievous thing till it ran quite into a bunch of willows on the
opposite shore, and out of sight. I walked the shore awhile, alone and
solitary as a Zealand penguin, when I at last sat down, and in one
minute passed the following resolves from premises that were before
me, and too imperative to be evaded or unappreciated ‘I am here on a
desolate island, with nothing to eat, and destitute of the means of
procuring anything; and if I pass the night, or half a dozen of them
here, I shall have neither fire or clothes to make me comfortable;
and nothing short of _having my canoe_ will answer me at all.’ For
this, the only alternative struck me, and I soon commenced upon it. An
occasional log or limb of drift wood was seen along the beach and under
the bank, and these I commenced bringing together from all quarters,
and some I had to lug half a mile or more, to form a raft to float
me up and carry me across the river. As there was a great scarcity
of materials, and I had no hatchet to cut anything; I had to use my
scanty materials of all lengths and of all sizes and all shapes, and
at length ventured upon the motley mass, with paddle in hand, and
carefully shoved it off from the shore, finding it just sufficient to
float me up. I took a seat in its centre on a bunch of barks which I
had placed for a seat, and which, when I started, kept me a few inches
above the water, and consequently dry, whilst my feet were resting on
the raft, which in most parts was sunk a little below the surface. The
only alternative was _to go_, for there was no more timber to be found;
so I balanced myself in the middle, and by reaching forward with my
paddle, to a little space between the timbers of my raft, I had a small
place to dip it, and the only one, in which I could make but a feeble
stroke—propelling me at a very slow rate _across_, as I was floating
rapidly _down_ the current. I sat still and worked patiently, however,
content with the little gain; and at last reached the opposite shore
about three miles below the place of my embarkation; having passed
close by several huge snags, which I was lucky enough to escape,
without the power of having cleared them except by kind accident.
“My craft was ‘unseaworthy’ when I started, and when I had got to the
middle of the river, owing to the rotten wood, with which a great part
of it was made, and which had now become saturated with water, it had
sunk entirely under the surface, letting me down nearly to the waist,
in the water. In this critical way I moved slowly along, keeping the
sticks together under me; and at last, when I reached the shore, some
of the long and awkward limbs projecting from my raft, having reached
it before me, and being suddenly resisted by the bank, gave the instant
signal for its dissolution, and my sudden debarkation, when I gave one
grand leap in the _direction_ of the bank, yet some yards short of it,
and into the water, from head to foot; but soon crawled out, and wended
my way a mile or two up the shore, where I found my canoe snugly and
safely moored in the willows, where I stepped into it, and paddled back
to the island, and to the same spot where my misfortunes commenced, to
enjoy the pleasure of exultations, which were to flow from contrasting
my present with my former situation.
“Thus, the Island of Mas-co-tin soon lost its horrors, and I strolled
two days and encamped two nights upon its silent shores—with prairie
hens and wild fowl in abundance for my meals. From this lovely ground,
which shews the peaceful graves of hundreds of red men, who have valued
it before me, I paddled off in my light bark, and said, as I looked
back, ‘Sleep there in peace, ye brave fellows! until the sacrilegious
hands of white man, and the unsympathizing ploughshare shall turn thy
bones from their quiet and beautiful resting-place!’
“Two or three days of strolling, brought me again to the Camp Des
Moines, and from thence, with my favourite little bark canoe, placed
upon the deck of the steamer, I embarked for St. Louis, where I arrived
in good order, and soon found the way to the comfortable quarters from
whence I am now writing.”
When I finished telling this story to Joe, his portrait was done, and I
rejoiced to find that I had given to it all the fire and all the _game
look_ that had become so familiar and pleasing to me in our numerous
rambles in the far distant wilds of our former campaigns.[21]
When I had landed from the steamer Warrior, at the wharf, I left all
other considerations to hasten and report myself to my dear wife,
leaving my little canoe on deck and in the especial charge of the
Captain, till I should return for it in the afternoon, and remove it
to safe storage with my other Indian articles, to form an interesting
part of my Museum. On my return to the steamer it was “_missing_,” and
like one that I have named on a former occasion, by some _medicine_
operation, for ever severed from my sight, though not from my
recollections, where it will long remain, and also in a likeness which
I made of it (+plate+ 240, _a_), just after the trick it played me on
the shore of the Mascotin Island.
After I had finished the likeness of my friend Joe, and had told him
the two stories, I sat down and wrote thus in my note-book, and now
copy it into my Letter:—
The West—not the “Far West,” for that is a phantom, travelling on its
tireless wing: but the _West_, the simple West—the vast and vacant
wilds which lie between the trodden haunts of present savage and
civil life—the great and almost boundless garden-spot of earth! This
is the theme at present. The “antres vast and deserts idle,” where
the tomahawk sleeps with the bones of the savage, as yet untouched by
the trespassing ploughshare—the pictured land of silence, which, in
its melancholy alternately echoes backward and forward the plaintive
yells of the vanished red men, and the busy chaunts of the approaching
pioneers. I speak of the boundless plains of beauty, and Nature’s
richest livery, where the waters of the “great deep” parted in peace,
and gracefully passed off without leaving deformity behind them. Over
whose green, enamelled fields, as boundless and free as the ocean’s
wave, Nature’s proudest, noblest men have pranced on their wild horses,
and extended, through a series of ages, their long arms in orisons of
praise and gratitude to the Great Spirit in the sun, for the freedom
and happiness of their existence.—The land that was beautiful and
famed, but had no chronicler to tell—where, while “civilized” was yet
in embryo, dwelt the valiant and the brave, whose deeds of chivalry and
honour have passed away like themselves, unembalmed and untold—where
the plumed war-horse has pranced in time with the shrill sounding
war-cry, and the eagle calumet as oft sent solemn and mutual pledges in
fumes to the skies. I speak of the _neutral ground_ (for such it may
be called), where the smoke of the wigwam is no longer seen, but the
bleaching bones of the buffaloes, and the graves of the savage, tell
the story of times and days that are passed—the land of stillness, on
which the red man now occasionally re-treads in sullen contemplation,
amid the graves of his fathers, and over which civilized man advances,
filled with joy and gladness.
Such is the great valley of the Mississippi and Missouri, over almost
every part of which I have extended my travels, and of which and of its
future wealth and improvements, I have had sublime contemplations.
I have viewed man in the artless and innocent simplicity of nature, in
the full enjoyment of the luxuries which God had bestowed upon him. I
have seen him happier than kings or princes _can_ be; with his pipe
and little ones about him. I have seen him shrinking from civilized
approach, which came _with all its vices_, like the _dead of night_,
upon him: I have seen raised, too, in that _darkness, religion’s
torch_, and seen him gaze and then retreat like the frightened deer,
that are blinded by the light; I have seen him shrinking from the
soil and haunts of his boyhood, bursting the strongest ties which
bound him to the earth, and its pleasures; I have seen him set fire
to his wigwam, and smooth over the graves of his fathers; I have seen
him (’tis the only thing that will bring them) with tears of grief
sliding over his cheeks, clap his hand in silence over his mouth,
and take the _last look_ over his fair hunting grounds, and turn his
face in sadness to the setting sun. All this I have seen performed
in Nature’s silent dignity and grace, which forsook him not in the
last extremity of misfortune and despair; and I have seen as often,
the approach of the bustling, busy, talking, whistling, hopping,
elated and exulting white man, with the first dip of the ploughshare,
making sacrilegious trespass on the bones of the valiant dead. I
have seen the _skull_, the _pipe_, and the _tomahawk_ rise from the
ground together, in interrogations which the sophistry of the world
can never answer. I have seen thus, in all its forms and features,
the grand and irresistible march of civilization. I have seen this
splendid Juggernaut rolling on, and beheld its sweeping desolation;
and held converse with the happy thousands, living, as yet, beyond
its influence, who have not been crushed, nor yet have dreamed of its
approach.
I have stood amidst these unsophisticated people, and contemplated with
feelings of deepest regret, the certain approach of this overwhelming
system, which will inevitably march on and prosper, until reluctant
tears shall have watered every rod of this fair land; and from the
towering cliffs of the Rocky Mountains, the luckless savage will turn
back his swollen eye, over the blue and illimitable hunting grounds
from whence he has fled, and there contemplate, like Caius Marius on
the ruins of Carthage, their splendid desolation.
Such is the vast expanse of country from which Nature’s men are at
this time rapidly vanishing, giving way to the _modern crusade_ which
is following the thousand allurements, and stocking with myriads, this
world of green fields. This splendid area, denominated the “Valley of
the Mississippi,” embraced between the immutable barriers on either
side, the Alleghany and Rocky Mountains; with the Gulf of Mexico on
the South, and the great string of lakes on the North, and the mighty
Mississippi rolling its turbid waters through it, for the distance of
four thousand miles, receiving its hundred tributaries, whose banks
and plateaus are capable of supporting a population of one hundred
millions, covered almost entirely with the richest soil in the world,
with lead, iron, and coal, sufficient for its population—with twelve
thousand miles of river navigation for steamers, within its embrace,
besides the coast on the South, and the great expanse of lakes on the
North—with a population of five millions, already sprinkled over its
nether half, and a greater part of the remainder of it, inviting the
world to its possession, for one dollar and 25 cents (five shillings)
per acre!
I ask, who can contemplate, without amazement, this _mighty river
alone_, eternally rolling its boiling waters through the richest of
soil, for the distance of four thousand miles; over three thousand
five hundred of which, I have myself been wafted on mighty steamers,
ensconced within “curtains damasked, and carpets ingrain;” and on its
upper half, gazed with tireless admiration upon its thousand hills and
mounds of grass and green, sloping down to the water’s edge, in all
the grace and beauty of Nature’s loveliest fabrication. On its lower
half, also, whose rich alluvial shores are studded with stately cotton
wood and elms, which echo back the deep and hollow cough of the puffing
steamers. I have contemplated the bed of this vast river, sinking from
its natural surface; and the alligator driven to its bosom, abandoning
his native bog and fen, which are drying and growing into beauty and
loveliness under the hand of the husbandman.
I have contemplated these boundless forests melting away before the
fatal axe, until the expanded waters of this vast channel, and its
countless tributaries, will yield their surplus to the thirsty sunbeam,
to which their shorn banks will expose them; and I have contemplated,
also, the never-ending transit of steamers, ploughing up the sand
and deposit from its bottom, which its turbid waters are eternally
hurrying on to the ocean, sinking its channel, and thereby raising its
surrounding alluvions for the temptations and enjoyment of man.
All this is _certain_. Man’s increase, and the march of human
improvements in this New World, are as true and irresistible as the
laws of nature, and he who could rise from his grave and speak, or
would speak from the _life_ some half century from this, would proclaim
my prophecy true and fulfilled. I said above, (and I again say it,)
that these are subjects for “sublime contemplation!” At all events
they are so to the traveller, who has wandered over and seen this
vast subject in all its parts, and able to appreciate—who has seen
the frightened _herds_, as well as _multitudes of human_, giving way
and shrinking from the mountain wave of civilization, which is busily
rolling on behind them.
From Maine to Florida on the Atlantic coast, the forefathers of those
hardy sons who are now stocking this fair land, have, from necessity,
in a hard and stubborn soil, inured their hands to labour, and their
habits and taste of life to sobriety and economy, which will ensure
them success in the new world.
This rich country which is now alluring the enterprising young men from
the East, being commensurate with the whole Atlantic States, holds out
the extraordinary inducement that every emigrant can enjoy a richer
soil, and that too in his own native latitude. The sugar planter, the
rice, cotton, and tobacco growers—corn, rye, and wheat producers, from
Louisiana to Montreal, have only to turn their faces to the West, and
there are waiting for them the same atmosphere to breathe, and green
fields already cleared, and ready for the plough, too tempting to be
overlooked or neglected.
As far west as the banks of the Mississippi, the great wave of
emigration has rolled on, and already in its rear the valley is
sprinkled with towns and cities, with their thousand spires pointing
to the skies. For several hundred miles West, also, have the daring
pioneers ventured their lives and fortunes, with their families,
testing the means and luxuries of life, which Nature has spread before
them; in the country where the buried tomahawk is scarce rusted, and
the war-cry has scarcely died on the winds. Among these people have I
roamed. On the Red River I have seen the rich Louisianian chequering
out his cotton and sugar plantations, where the sunbeam could be seen
reflected from the glistening pates of his hundred negroes, making
first trespass with the hoe. I have sat with him at his hospitable
table in his log cabin, sipping sherry and champaigne. _He_ talks of
“_hogsheads_ and _price of stocks_,” or “goes in for cotton.”
In the western parts of Arkansas and Missouri, I have shared the
genuine cottage hospitality of the abrupt, yet polite and honourable
Kentuckian; the easy, affable and sociable Tennesseean; _this_ has “a
smart chance of corn;” the _other_, perhaps, “a power of cotton;” and
then, occasionally, (from the “Old Dominion,”) “I _reckon_ I shall have
a _mighty heap_ of tobacco this season,” &c.
Boys in this country are “_peart_,” fever and ague renders one
“_powerful weak_,” and sometimes it is almost impossible to get
“_shet_” of it. Intelligence, hospitality, and good cheer reign
under all of these humble roofs, and the traveller who knows how to
appreciate those things, with a good cup of coffee, “_corn_[22] bread,”
and fresh butter, can easily enjoy moments of bliss in converse with
the humble pioneer.
On the Upper Mississippi and Missouri, for the distance of seven or
eight hundred miles above St. Louis, is one of the most beautiful
champaigne countries in the world, continually alternating into timber
and fields of the softest green, calculated, from its latitude, for the
people of the northern and eastern states, and “Jonathan” is already
here—and almost every body else from “down East”—with fences of white,
drawn and drawing, like chalk lines, over the green prairie. “By gosh,
this ere is the biggest clearin I ever see.” “I expect we had’nt ought
to raise nothin but wheat and rye here.”—“I guess you’ve come arter
land, ha’nt you?”
Such is the character of this vast country, and such the manner in
which it is filled up, with people from all parts, tracing their
own latitudes, and carrying with them their local peculiarities and
prejudices. The mighty Mississippi, however, the great and everlasting
highway on which these people are for ever to intermingle their
interests and manners, will effectually soften down those prejudices,
and eventually result in an amalgamation of feelings and customs,
from which this huge mass of population will take one new and general
appellation.
It is here that the true character of the _American_ is to be
formed—here where the peculiarities and incongruities which detract
from his true character are surrendered for the free, yet lofty
principle that strikes between meanness and prodigality—between
_literal democracy_ and _aristocracy_—between low cunning and
self-engendered ingenuousness. Such will be found to be the true
character of the Americans when jostled awhile together, until their
local angles are worn off; and such may be found and already pretty
well formed, in the genuine Kentuckian, the first brave and daring
pioneer of the great West; he is the true model of an American—the
nucleus around which the character must form, and from which it is
to emanate to the world. This is the man who first relinquished the
foibles and fashions of Eastern life, trailing his rifle into the
forest of the Mississippi, taking simple Nature for his guide. From
necessity (as well as by nature), bold and intrepid, with the fixed
and unfaltering brow of integrity, and a hand whose very grip (without
words) tells you welcome.
And yet, many people of the East object to the Mississippi, “that it
is too far off—is out of the world.” But how strange and insufficient
is such an objection to the traveller who has seen and enjoyed its
hospitality, and reluctantly retreats from it with feelings of regret;
pronouncing it a “world of itself, equal in luxuries and amusements to
any other.” How weak is such an objection to him who has ascended the
Upper Mississippi to the Fall of St. Anthony, traversed the States of
Missouri, Illinois, and Michigan, and territory of Ouisconsin; over
all of which nature has spread her green fields, smiling and tempting
man to ornament with painted house and fence, with prancing steed and
tasseled carriage—with countless villages, silvered spires and domes,
denoting march of intellect and wealth’s refinement. The sun is sure to
look upon these scenes, and we, perhaps, “_may hear the tinkling from
our graves_.” Adieu.
[21] Poor Chadwick! a few days after the above occasion, he sent
his portrait to his mother, and started for Texas, where he joined
the Texan army, with a commission from Governor Houston; was taken
prisoner in the first battle that he fought, and was amongst the
four hundred prisoners who were shot down in cold blood by the
order of Santa Anna.
[22] Maize.
LETTER—No. 54.