THE WILD WEST AT SEA.
The Wild West visited many of the principal cities of this country,
played a winter season in New Orleans, a summer season at Staten
Island, and the winter of 1886-87 in Madison Square Garden in New
York. But with the immortal bard who wrote “ambition grows with what
it feeds on,” Colonel Cody and Mr. Salsbury had an ambition to conquer
other nations. The importance of the undertaking was fully realized,
but nothing daunted by all that would have to be undergone to reach a
foreign land and give exhibitions, the owners of the Wild West boldly
made the venture.
The writer went abroad and arranged to play a season of six months in
London, as an adjunct of the American exhibition. All arrangements
being made, the Indians were secured, the representative types of the
Sioux, Cheyennes, Kiowas, Pawnees, and Ogalallas, and a number of
prominent chiefs.
Having collected a company of more than two hundred men and animals,
consisting of Indians, cowboys, Mexican riders, rifle-shots, buffaloes,
Texas steers, burros, broncos, racing-horses, elk, bear, and an immense
amount of paraphernalia such as tents, wagons, stage-coach, arms,
ammunition, costumes, and all equipage necessary, the steamship City of
Nebraska, Captain Braes, was chartered. The City of Nebraska, loaded
with the Wild West, set sail from New York, Thursday, March 31, 1887.
The piers were crowded with thousands of good friends who went down to
wave adieux and to wish the Wild West a pleasant voyage and success.
As the steamship City of Nebraska pulled out of the dock the cowboy
band played “The Girl I Left Behind Me” in a manner that suggested
more reality than empty sentiment in the familiar air. Before starting
on the trip a number of the Indians had expressed grave fears about
trusting themselves upon the mighty ocean, fearing that a dreadful
death would soon overtake them, and it required much persuasion at the
last moment to induce them to go on board.
Red Shirt explained that these fears were caused by a superstitious
belief that if a red man attempted to cross the ocean he would be
seized of a malady that would first prostrate the victim and then
slowly consume his flesh, until at length the very skin itself would
drop from his bones, leaving nothing but the skeleton, and this even
would never find burial. This weird belief was repeated by the chiefs
of several tribes to the Indians who had joined the Wild West, so there
was little reason for wonder that the poor children of the forest
should hesitate to submit themselves to such an experiment. On the
day following the departure from New York the Indians began to grow
weary, and becoming seasick they were both treacherous and rebellious.
Their fears were greatly intensified as even Red Shirt, the bravest
of his people, looked anxiously toward the hereafter, and began to
feel his flesh to see if it was really diminishing. The hopelessness
stamped upon the faces of the Indians was pitiful to behold, and but
for the endeavors of Buffalo Bill to cheer them up and relieve their
forebodings there is no knowing what might have happened. But for two
days the whole company, Indians, cowboys, and all, did little other
active service than to feed the fishes.
On the third day all began to grow better, and the Indians were called
into the salon and given a sermon by Buffalo Bill; Red Shirt also,
having lost his anxiety, joining in the oratory.
After the seasickness was over, Mr. Salsbury, as singer and comedian,
took an active part in amusing all on board. The seventh day of the
voyage a fierce storm swept over the sea, and the ship was forced to
lay to, and during its continuance the stock suffered greatly; but
only one horse died on the trip. At last the steamship cast anchor
off Gravesend, and a tugboat loaded with custom-house and quarantine
officers boarded to make the usual inspection. The English government,
through its officials, extended every courtesy. A special permit was
given for the animals to land, and the people started for the camp.
The arrival of the City of Nebraska had been watched for with great
curiosity, as a number of yachts, tugboats, and other craft surrounding
it testified. A tug was soon seen flying the Stars and Stripes, and as
it came nearer the strains of “The Star Spangled Banner,” rendered by
the band on her deck, floated across the water. As the welcome strains
ended, the cowboy band on the Nebraska responded with “Yankee Doodle.”
When the tug came alongside, the company on board proved to be the
directors of the American exhibition in London, with Lord Ronald Gower
heading a distinguished committee and representatives of the leading
journals of England.
As Buffalo Bill landed with the committee three cheers were given, and
cries rang out of “Welcome to old England,” giving pleasing evidence
of the public interest that had been awakened through the coming of the
Wild West. A special train with saloon carriages was waiting to convey
the party to London, and leaving behind them the old Kentish town, in
an hour after they arrived at Victoria Station.
Entering the headquarters of the exhibition Buffalo Bill and those who
accompanied him found a bounteous repast set, and a generous welcome
was accorded them. After brief social converse a visit was made to the
grounds, where hundreds of busy workmen were hastening the completion
of the arena, the grand-stand, and stabling for the cattle. When it
is taken into consideration that these operations were dealing with
an expenditure of over one hundred and thirty thousand dollars, the
greatness of the enterprise can be understood. An arena of more than a
third of a mile in circumference, flanked by a grand-stand filled with
seats and boxes to accommodate 20,000 persons, sheltered stands for
10,000 more, the standing-room being 10,000, will give an idea of the
size of the Wild West exhibition grounds.
The interest evinced by the British workmen in the coming of the Wild
West people was as a straw indicating which way the wind blew, or
intended to blow. On the following morning, when the tide was at its
flood, the City of Nebraska steamed up the river, the trip being a
pleasure to all on board. With the assistance of the horsemen, each
looking after his own horse, the unloading was begun and carried on
with a rapidity that astonished even the old dock-hands and officials.
Through the courtesy of the custom-house people there was hardly a
moment’s delay in the debarkation; but although landing in London, the
Wild West was still twelve miles away from its city camp. Loading the
entire outfit on two trains, it was speedily delivered at the Midland
Railway Depot adjoining the grounds, and by 4 o’clock on the same
afternoon the horses and other animals had been stabled, watered, and
fed, and the camp equipage and bedding distributed. The camp cooks were
preparing the evening meal, tents were going up, stoves being erected,
tables spread and set in the open air, tepees erected, and by 6 o’clock
a perfect canvas city had sprung up in the heart of West End London.
Upon the flag-staff the starry banner had been run up and was floating
in the breeze, and the cowboy band rendering the national airs of
America, amid the shouts and cheers of thousands who lined the walls,
streets, and housetops of the surrounding neighborhood. This was most
gratifying to the newcomers, and in answer to the hearty plaudits
of the English, Colonel Cody ordered the band to play “God Save the
Queen,” and the Wild West was at home in London.
The first camp meal being necessarily eaten in full view of the crowd,
the dining-tents not being ready, was a novel sight to them, from the
motley population of Indians, cowboys, scouts, Mexicans, etc. The
meal was finished by 7 o’clock, and by 9 o’clock the little camp was
complete, and its tired occupants, men, women, and children, were
reposing more snugly, safely, and peacefully than they had done in many
weeks.
Trivial as these details may appear at first sight, the rapidity with
which the Wild West had transported its materials from dock to depot,
and depot to ground, had an immense effect upon the people of London.
A number of notable visitors present, especially the representatives
of the press, expressed great astonishment at the enterprise of the
Americans, and communicated that feeling throughout London.
“The Yankees mean business” was the expression heard upon all sides.
As the Wild West was not to open its exhibition for several days
after its arrival, Colonel Cody and Mr. Salsbury had an opportunity
of meeting many distinguished persons in England, who called upon
them, and who afterward proved most friendly and hospitable. Among
these prominent persons was Mr. Henry Irving, who had witnessed the
Wild West performance at Staten Island, and paved the way in a great
measure for its success in London by speaking in the kindest terms to
a representative of the great dramatic organ, _The Era_. It may not be
amiss to here quote his remarks. Mr. Irving said in _The Era_:
“I saw an entertainment in New York, the like of which I had never
seen before, which impressed me immensely. It is coming to London.
It is an entertainment in which the whole of the most interesting
episodes of life on the extreme frontier of civilization in America
are represented with the most graphic vividness and scrupulous detail.
You have real cowboys with bucking horses, real buffaloes, and great
hordes of steers, which are lassoed and stampeded in the most realistic
fashion imaginable. Then there are real Indians, who execute attacks
upon coaches driven at full speed. No one can exaggerate the extreme
excitement and ‘go’ of the whole performance. It is simply immense, and
I venture to predict that when it comes to London it will take the town
by storm.”
Among other early callers upon the Wild West, and who gave their
influence and friendly aid in London, were genial John L. Toole, Miss
Ellen Terry, Mr. Justin McCarthy, United States Minister Phelps,
Consul-General Gov. Thomas Waller, Deputy Consul Moffat, Mr. Henry
Labouchere, M. P., Miss Mary Anderson, Mrs. Brown-Potter, Mr. Charles
Wyndham, Lord Ronald Gower, Sir Cundiffe Owen, Lord Henry Paget, Lord
Charles Beresford, the Grand Duke Michael of Russia, Lady Monckton,
Sir Francis Knollys, private secretary to the Prince of Wales; Colonel
Clarke, Colonel Montague, Lady Alice Beckie (whom the Indians afterward
named the “Sunshine of the Camp”), Lord Strathmore, Lord Windsor, Lady
Randolph Churchill, Mrs. John W. Mackay, and a host of distinguished
American residents in London, who also visited the camp before
the regular opening of the Wild West, and by their expressions of
friendship gave encouragement for success in the future.
The sight of the Indians, cowboys, American girls, and Mexicans, with
Buffalo Bill as chief, was most attractive to Londoners, while the
English love of horsemanship, feats of skill, and fondness for sports
presaged an appreciative community. The press was also most generous,
the columns of the papers teeming daily with information so eulogistic
that the Wild Westerners were afraid they would never be able to come
up to expectations.
Fifty large scrap-books, filled to repletion with press notices, now
form a conspicuous part of Colonel Cody’s library at Scout’s-Rest
Ranch. The London _Illustrated News_, in connection with two pages of
illustration, is drawn upon for the following extract:
“It is certainly a novel idea for one nation to give an exhibition
devoted exclusively to its own frontier history, or the story enacted
by genuine characters of the dangers and hardships of its settlement,
upon the soil of another country 3,000 miles away. Yet this is exactly
what the Americans will do this year in London, and it is an idea
worthy of that thorough-going and enterprising people. We frankly and
gladly allow that there is a natural and sentimental view of the design
which will go far to obtain for it a hearty welcome in England. The
progress of the United States, now the largest community of the English
race on the face of the earth, though not in political union with
Great Britain, yet intimately connected with us by social sympathies;
by a common language and literature; by ancestral traditions and
many centuries of common history; by much remaining similarity of
civil institutions, laws, morals, and manners; by the same forms of
religions; by the same attachments to the principles of order and
freedom, and by the mutual interchange of benefits in a vast commerce,
and in the materials and sustenance of their staple industries, is a
proper subject of congratulation; for the popular mind in the United
Kingdom does not regard, and will never be taught to regard, what are
styled ‘imperial’ interests--those of mere political dominion--as
equally valuable with the habits and ideas and domestic life of the
aggregate of human families belonging to our own race. The greater
numerical proportion of these, already exceeding sixty millions, are
inhabitants of the great American Republic, while the English-speaking
subjects of Queen Victoria number a little above forty-five millions,
including those in Canada and Australasia and scattered among the
colonial dependencies of this realm. It would be unnatural to deny
ourselves the indulgence of a just gratification in seeing what men of
our own blood, men of our own mind and disposition in all essential
respects, though tempered and sharpened by more stimulating conditions,
with some wider opportunities for exertion, have achieved in raising a
wonderful fabric of modern civilization, and bringing it to the highest
prosperity, across the whole breadth of the Western Continent, from
the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. We feel sure that this sentiment
will prevail in the hearts of hundreds of thousands of visitors to
Buffalo Bill’s American camp, about to be opened at the west end of
London; and we take it kindly of the great kindred people of the United
States that they now send such a magnificent representation to the
motherland, determined to take some part in celebrating the jubilee
of her majesty the queen, who is the political representative of the
people of Great Britain and Ireland.”
The tone of this article strikes the same chord as the whole of the
comments of the English press. It divested the Wild West of its
attributes as an entertainment simply, and treated the visit as an
event of first-class international importance, and a link between the
affections of the two kindred nations such as had never before been
forged.
[Illustration:
W E Gladstone King of Greece John Bright, M.P.
King of Saxony King of the Belgians King of Denmark
Prince of Wales King of Sweden Gen’l Lord Wolseley.
EUROPEAN CELEBRITIES--VISITORS AT THE WILD WEST, LONDON.]