We were now but twenty miles from the Red River, and yet this short
distance proved to be the most difficult travelling we had experienced
for a long while. We had to cross swamps, lagoons, and cane-brakes, in
which our horses were bogged continually; so that at noon, and after a
ride of six hours, we had only gained twelve miles. We halted upon a
dry knoll, and there, for the first time since the morning, we entered
into conversation; for, till then, we had been too busy scrutinising the
ground before our horses' feet. I had a great deal to say both to
Gabriel and to Roche; we were to part the next morning,--they to return
to the Comanches and the Shoshones, I to go on to the Mormons, and
perhaps to Europe.
I could not laugh at the doctor's _bon mots_, for my heart was full;
till then, I had never felt how long intercourse, and sharing the same
privations and dangers, will attach men to each other; and the
perspective of a long separation rendered me gloomier and gloomier, as
the time we still had to pass together became shorter.
Our five American companions had altered their first intention of
travelling with me through the Arkansas. They had heard on the way,
that some new thriving cities had lately sprung up on the American side
of the Red River; the doctor was already speculating upon the fevers and
agues of the ensuing summer; the parson was continually dreaming of a
neat little church and a buxom wife, and the three lawyers, of rich fees
from the wealthy cotton planters. The next day, therefore, I was to be
alone, among a people less hospitable than the Indians, and among whom I
had to perform a journey of a thousand miles on horseback, constantly on
the outskirts of civilisation, and consequently exposed to all the
dangers of border travelling.
When we resumed our march through the swampy cane-brake, Gabriel, Roche,
and I kept a little behind our companions.
"Think twice, whilst it is yet time," said Gabriel to me, "and believe
me, it is better to rule over your devoted and attached tribe of
Shoshones than to indulge in dreams of establishing a western empire;
and, even if you will absolutely make the attempt, why should we seek
the help of white men? what can we expect from them and their assistance
but exorbitant claims and undue interference? With a few months'
regular organisation, the Comanches, Apaches, and Shoshones can be made
equal to any soldiers of the civilised world, and among them you will
have no traitors."
I felt the truth of what he said, and for a quarter of an hour I
remained silent: "Gabriel," replied I at last, "I have now gone too far
to recede, and the plans which I have devised are not for my own
advantage, but for the general welfare of the Shoshones and of all the
friendly tribes. I hope to live to see them a great nation, and, at all
events, it is worth a trial."
My friend shook his head mournfully; he was not convinced, but he knew
the bent of my temper, and was well aware that all he could say would
now be useless.
The natural buoyancy of our spirits would not, however, allow us to be
grave long; and when the loud shouts of the doctor announced that he had
caught a sight of the river, we spurred our horses, and soon rejoined
our company. We had by this time issued from the swampy cane-brakes,
and were entering a lane between two rich cotton-fields, and at the end
of which flowed the Red River; not the beautiful, clear, and transparent
stream running upon a rocky and sandy bed, as in the country inhabited
by the Comanches and Pawnee Picts, and there termed the Colorado of the
West; but a red and muddy, yet rapid stream. We agreed that we should
not ferry the river that evening, but seek a farm, and have a feast
before parting company. We learned from a negro, that we were in a
place called Lost Prairie, and that ten minutes' ride down the bank of
the stream would carry us to Captain Finn's plantation. We received
this news with wild glee, for Finn was a celebrated character, one whose
life was so full of strange adventures in the wilderness, that it would
fill volumes with hairbreadth encounter and events of thrilling
interest.
Captain Finn received us with a cordial welcome, for unbounded
hospitality is the invariable characteristic of the older cotton
planters. A great traveller himself, he knew the necessities of a
travelling life, and, before conducting us to the mansion, he guided us
to the stables, where eight intelligent slaves, taking our horses,
rubbed them down before our eyes, and gave them a plentiful supply of
fodder and a bed of _fresh_ straw.
"That will do till they are cool," said our kind host; "tonight they
will have their grain and water; let us now go to the old woman and see
what she can give us for supper."
A circumstance worthy of remark is, that, in the western states, a
husband always calls his wife the old woman, and she calls him the old
man, no matter how young the couple may be. I have often heard men of
twenty-five sending their slaves upon some errand "to the old woman,"
who was not probably more than eighteen years old. A boy of ten years
calls his parents in the same way. "How far to Little Rock?" I once
asked of a little urchin; "I don't know," answered he, "but the old ones
will tell you." A few yards farther I met the "old ones;" they were
both young people, not much more than twenty.
In Mrs Finn we found a stout and plump farmer's wife, but she was a
lady in her manners. Born in the wilderness, the daughter of one bold
pioneer and married to another, she had never seen anything but woods,
cane-brakes, cotton, and negroes, and yet, in her kindness and
hospitality, she displayed a refinement of feeling and good breeding.
She was daughter of the celebrated Daniel Boone, a name which has
acquired a reputation even in Europe. She immediately ransacked her
pantry, her hen-roost, and garden, and when we returned from the
cotton-mill, to which our host, in his farmer's pride, had conducted us.
[We found upon] an immense table, a meal which would have satisfied
fifty of those voracious Bostonians whom we had met with the day before
at the _table-d'hote_.
Well do I recollect her, as she stood before us on that glorious
evening, her features beaming with pleasure, as she witnessed the
rapidity with which we emptied our plates. How happy she would look
when we praised her chickens, her honey, and her coffee; and then she
would carve and cut, fill again our cups, and press upon us all the
delicacies of the Far West borders, delicacies unknown in the old
countries; such as fried beaver-tail, smoked tongue of the buffalo-calf,
and (the _gourmand's_ dish _par excellence)_ the Louisiana gombo. Her
coffee, too, was superb, as she was one of the few upon the continent of
America who knew how to prepare it.
After our supper, the captain conducted us under the piazza attached to
the building, where we found eight hammocks suspended, as white as snow.
There our host disinterred from a large bucket of ice several bottles
of Madeira, which we sipped with great delight; the more so as, for our
cane pipes and cheap Cavendish, Finn substituted a box of genuine
Havannah cazadores. After our fatigues and starvation, it was more than
comfortable--it was delightful. The doctor vowed he would become a
planter, the parson asked if there were any widows in the neighbourhood,
and the lawyers inquired if the planters of the vicinity were any way
litigious. By the bye, I have observed that Captain Finn was a
celebrated character. As we warmed with the _Madere frappe a glace_, we
pressed him to relate some of his wild adventures, with which request he
readily complied; for he loved to rehearse his former exploits, and it
was not always that he could narrate them to so numerous an assembly.
As the style he employed could only be understood by individuals who
have rambled upon the borders of the Far West, I will relate the little
I remember in my own way, though I am conscious that the narrative must
lose much when told by any one but Finn himself.
When quite an infant, he had been taken by the Indians and carried into
the fastnesses of the West Virginian forests; there he had been brought
up till he was sixteen years old, when, during an Indian war, he was
recaptured by a party of white men. Who were his parents, he could
never discover, and a kind Quaker took him into his house, gave him his
name, and treated him as his own child, sending him first to school, and
then to the Philadelphia college. The young man, however, was little
fit for the restrictions of a university; he would often escape and
wander for days in the forests, until hunger would bring him home again.
At last, he returned to his adopted father, who was now satisfied that
his thoughts were in the wilderness, and that, in the bustle of a large
city and restraint of civilised life, he would not live, but linger on
till he drooped and died.
This discovery was a sad blow to the kind old man, who had fondly
anticipated that the youngster would be a kind and grateful companion to
him, when age should make him feel the want of friendship; but he was a
just man, and reflecting that perhaps a short year of rambling would
cure him, he was the first to propose it. Young Finn was grateful;
beholding the tears of his venerable protector, he would have remained
and attended him till the hour of his death; but the Quaker would not
permit him, he gave him his best horse, and furnished him with arms and
money. At that time, the fame of Daniel Boone had filled the Eastern
States, and young Finn had read with avidity the adventures of that bold
pioneer. Hearing that he was now on the western borders of Kentucky,
making preparations for emigration farther west, into the very heart of
the Indian country, he resolved to join him and share the dangers of his
expedition.
The life of Boone is too well known for me to describe this expedition.
Suffice it to say, that, once in Missouri, Finn conceived and executed
the idea of making alone a trip across the Rocky Mountains, to the very
borders of the Pacific Ocean. Strange to say, he scarcely remembers
anything of that first trip, which lasted eleven months.
The animals had not yet been scared out of the wilderness; water was
found twice every day; the vine grew luxuriantly in the forests, and the
caravans of the white men had not yet destroyed the patches of plums and
nuts which grew wild in the prairies.
Finn says he listened to the songs of the birds, and watched the sport
of the deer, the buffaloes, and wild horses, in a sort of dreaming
existence, fancying that he heard voices in the streams, in the foliage
of the trees, in the caverns of the mountains; his wild imagination
sometimes conjuring up strange and beautiful spirits of another world,
who were his guardians, and who lulled him asleep every evening with
music and perfumes.
I have related this pretty nearly in the very terms of our host, and
many of his listeners have remarked, at different times, that when he
was dwelling upon that particular portion of his life, he became gloomy
and abstracted, as if still under the influence of former indelible
impressions. Undoubtedly Captain Finn is of a strong poetical
temperament, and any one on hearing him narrate would say the same; but
it is supposed that when the captain performed this first solitary
excursion, his brain was affected by an excited and highly poetical
imagination. After eleven months of solitude, he reached the Pacific
Ocean, and awoke from his long illusion in the middle of a people whose
language he could not understand; yet they were men of his colour, kind
and hospitable; they gave him jewels and gold, and sent him back east of
the mountains, under the protection of some simple and mild-hearted
savages. The spot where Finn had arrived was at one of the missions,
and those who released him and sent him back were the good monks of one
of the settlements in Upper California.
When Finn returned to the Mississippi, his narrative was so much blended
with strange and marvellous stories, that it was not credited; but when
he showed and produced his stock of gold dust in bladders, and some
precious stones, fifty different proposals were made to him to guide a
band of greedy adventurers to the new western Eldorado. Finn, like
Boone, could not bear the society of his own countrymen; he dreaded to
hear the noise of their axes felling the beautiful trees; he feared
still more to introduce them, like so many hungry wolves, among the good
people who knew so well the sacred rites of hospitality.
After a short residence with the old back-woodsman, Finn returned to
Virginia, just in time to close the eyes of the kind old Quaker. He
found that his old friend had expected his return for he had sold all
his property, and deposited the amount in the hands of a safe banker, to
be kept for Finn's benefit. The young wanderer was amazed; he had now
ten thousand dollars, but what could he do with so much money? He
thought of a home, of love and happiness, of the daughter of old Boone,
and he started off to present her with his newly-acquired wealth. Finn
entered Boone's cottage, with his bags and pocket-books in each hand,
and casting his burden into a corner, he entered at once upon the
matter.
"Why, I say, old man, I am sure I love the gal."
"She is a comely and kind girl," said the father.
"I wish she could love me."
"She does."
"Does she? well, I tell you what, Boone, give her to me, I'll try to
make her happy."
"I will but not yet," said the venerable patriarch. "Why, you are both
of you mere children; she can't get a house, and how could you support
her?"
Finn jumped up with pride and glee. "Look," said he, while he scattered
on the floor his bank-notes, his gold, and silver, "that will support
her bravely; tell me, old father, that will keep her snug, won't it?"
The pioneer nodded his head. "Finn," answered he, "you are a good young
man, and I like you; you think like me; you love Polly, and Polly loves
you mind, you shall have her, when you are both old enough; but
remember, my son, neither your pieces of money nor your rags of paper
will ever keep a daughter of mine. No, no! you shall have Polly, but
you must first know how to use the rifle and the axe."
A short time after this interview, Finn started upon another trip to
unknown lands, leaving old Boone to make the most he could of his money.
Now, the old pioneer, although a bold hunter and an intrepid warrior,
was a mere child in matters of interest, and in less than two months he
had lost the whole deposit, the only "gentleman" he ever trusted having
suddenly disappeared with the funds. In the meanwhile Finn had gone
down the Mississippi, to the thirty-second degree of north latitude,
when, entering the western swamps, where no white man had ever
penetrated, he forced his way to the Red River, which he reached a
little above the old French establishment of Nachitoches. Beyond this
point, inland navigation had never been attempted, and Finn, procuring a
light dug-out, started alone, with his arms and his blanket, upon his
voyage of discovery. During four months he struggled daily against the
rapid stream, till he at last reached, in spite of rafts and dangerous
eddies, its source at the Rocky Mountains. On his return, a singular
and terrible adventure befell him; he was dragging his canoe over a
raft, exactly opposite to where now stands his plantation, when,
happening to hurt his foot, he lost hold of his canoe. It was on the
very edge of the raft, near a ruffled eddy; the frail bark was swamped
in a moment, and with it Finn lost his rifle, all his arms, and his
blanket. [See Note 1.]
Now that cotton grown on the Red River has been acknowledged to be the
best in the States, speculators have settled upon both sides of it as
far as two hundred miles above Lost Prairie; but at the time that Finn
made his excursion, the country was a wilderness of horrible morasses,
where the alligators basked unmolested. For months Finn found himself a
prisoner at Lost Prairie, the spot being surrounded with impenetrable
swamps, where the lightest foot would have sunk many fathoms below the
surface. As to crossing the river, it was out of the question, as it
was more than half a mile broad, and Finn was no swimmer; even now, no
human being or animal can cross it at this particular spot, for so
powerful are the eddies, that, unless a pilot is well acquainted with
the passage, a boat will be capsized in the whirlpools. Human life can
be sustained upon very little, for Finn managed to live for months upon
a marshy ground six miles in extent, partially covered with prickly
pears, sour grapes, and mushrooms. Birds he would occasionally kill
with sticks; several times he surprised tortoises coming on shore to
deposit their eggs, and once, when much pressed by hunger, he gave
battle to a huge alligator. Fire he had none; his clothes had long been
in rags; his beard had grown to a great length, and his nails were sharp
as the claws of a wild beast. At last there was a flood in the river,
and above the raft Finn perceived two immense pine trees afloat in the
middle of the stream. Impelled by the force of the current, they cut
through the raft, where the timber was rotten, and then grounded.
This was a chance which Finn lost no time in profiting by; out of the
fibrous substance of the prickly pear, he soon manufactured sufficient
rope to lash the two trees together, with great labour got them afloat,
and was carried down the stream with the speed of an arrow. He
succeeded in landing many miles below, on the eastern bank, but he was
so bruised, that for many days he was unable to move.
One day a report was spread in the neighbourhood of Port Gibson, that a
strange monster, of the ourang-outang species, had penetrated the
cane-brakes upon the western banks of the Mississippi. Some negroes
declared to have seen him tearing down a brown bear; an Arkansas hunter
had sent to Philadelphia an exaggerated account of this recently
discovered animal, and the members of the academies had written to him
to catch the animal, if possible, alive, no matter at what expense. A
hunting expedition was consequently formed, hundreds of dogs were let
loose in the cane-brakes, and the chase began.
The hunters were assembled, waiting till the strange animal should break
cover, when suddenly he burst upon them, covered with blood, and
followed closely by ten or fifteen hounds. He was armed with a heavy
club, with which he now and then turned upon the dogs, crushing them at
a blow. The hunters were dumb with astonishment; mounting their horses,
they sprang forward to witness the conflict; the brute, on seeing them,
gave a loud shout; one of the hunters being terrified, fired at him with
his rifle; the strange animal put one of his hairy paws upon its breast,
staggered, and fell; a voice was heard: "The Lord forgive you this
murder!"
On coming near, the hunters found that their victim was a man, covered
with hair from head to foot; he was senseless, but not dead. They
deplored their fatal error, and resolved that no expense or attention
should be spared upon the unfortunate sufferer. This hunted beast, this
hairy man, was Finn. The wound, not being mortal, was soon cured; but
he became crazy and did not recover his reason for eight months. He
related his adventures up to his quitting the Lost Prairie; after which
all was a blank. His narrative soon spread all over the States, and
land speculators crowded from every part to hear Finn's description of
the unknown countries. The government became anxious to establish new
settlements in these countries, and Finn was induced to commence the
work of colonisation by the gift of the "Lost Prairie." Money was also
supplied to him, that he might purchase slaves; but, before taking
possession of his grant, he went to Missouri to visit his old friend,
and claim his bride. Her father had been dead for some time, but the
daughter was constant.
With his wife, his brother-in-law, his negroes, and several waggons
loaded with the most necessary articles, Finn forced his way to Little
Rock, on the Arkansas River, whence, after a short repose, he again
started in a South South West direction, through a hilly and woody
country never before travelled. At last he reached the "Lost Prairie;"
nothing was heard of him for two years, when he appeared at Nachitoches
in a long cow [see note 2], laden with produce.
From Nachitoches Finn proceeded to New Orleans, where the money received
for his cotton, furs, and honey enabled him to purchase two more negroes
and a fresh supply of husbandry tools. A company was immediately
formed, for the purpose of exploring the Red River, as far as it might
prove navigable, and surveying the lands susceptible of cultivation. A
small steamboat was procured, and its command offered to Finn, who thus
became a captain. Although the boat could not proceed higher than Lost
Prairie, the result of the survey induced hundreds of planters to settle
upon the banks of the river, and Captain Finn lived to become rich and
honoured by his countrymen; his great spirit of enterprise never
deserted him, and it was he who first proposed to the government to cut
through the great rafts which impeded the navigation. His plans were
followed, and exploring steam-boats have since gone nearly a thousand
miles above Captain Finn's plantation at Lost Prairie.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note 1. Rafts are an assemblage of forest trees, which have been washed
down to the river, from the undermining of its banks. At certain points
they become interlaced and stationary, stretching right across the
river, preventing the passage of even a canoe.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note 2. A cow is a kind of floating raft peculiar to the western rivers
of America, being composed of immense pine-trees tied together, and upon
which a log cabin is erected.