ten days’ supply of food for dogs and men. If the journey exceeds that
time, the allowance must be reduced; and sometimes the party will be
on the point of starvation. At the end of each day’s journey, it is
customary, if the party is to return by the same route, to conceal a
day’s supply of food, and thus lighten the load as much as possible.
There are several ways of making these deposits. The first requisite
is generally to protect the food against wild animals. Poles eight
or ten feet high are set upright, and a rude box is made at the top,
where the food can be placed. Wolves and foxes are the principal
four-footed thieves; they cannot climb, and therefore anything
protected in this way is safe from their depredations. Sometimes a
hole is made in the ground, and the deposit is placed within it. This
can only be safely done in winter, as the soft earth in summer can be
dug up by the enterprising and keen-scented animals with very little
trouble. A hole in winter can be made secure by pouring water over
the replaced earth, and allowing it to freeze. Wolves and foxes can
do many things, but they have not yet invented any way to dig through
frozen ground. They are wise enough not to attempt it, as they would
need a new set of paws every half hour if they followed digging in
frozen earth as a means of livelihood.
Baron Wrangell, Dr. Kane, and other arctic explorers, when travelling
on the ice of the Polar Sea, used to make holes in the bergs and
hummocks, and sometimes in the level ice, which frequently gets a
thickness of eight or ten feet. After they had made the deposit in a
hole of this sort, they would fit a block of ice as nearly as possible
to the opening. After inserting the block they poured water into the
interstices, and allowed it to freeze, so as to make the place as
solid and even as ever. This was a sufficient protection against small
animals, but not always against polar bears. These huge beasts would
scent out the food, and with their powerful claws they managed to dig
into the ice, and help themselves. Even if the food had been put into
strong boxes before it was deposited, the beasts did not seem to be
hindered in getting at it, as they would break the boxes as easily as
a rat would open an egg-shell. Dr. Kane once tried the plan of sealing
the food in sheet iron cans pointed at the ends. Sometimes the bears
tossed these cans a while, and then abandoned them but they generally
managed to throw them about with sufficient violence to break the
shell and reach the contents. A healthy and full-grown polar bear
is a powerful beast, and has no respect for the laws affecting the
ownership of property.
[Sidenote: HONEST ABORIGINALS.]
In the extreme north deposits of food are in much greater danger from
four-footed beasts than from men. In the first place, the beasts
are much more numerous than men, and consequently want more to eat.
Men are not very likely, in those wild countries, to come near the
deposits, especially in arctic explorations; and even when they find
them they are not generally in the habit of stealing. The Esquimaux of
the region where Dr. Kane made his explorations are somewhat thievish
when they have the opportunity, but the natives of Northern Asia
have a high reputation for honesty. There are some tribes that have
never learned to steal; they have had very little intercourse with
white men, and are thoroughly uncivilized. As an illustration of this
barbarous honesty, I will give my own experience among the Koraks of
North-eastern Siberia.
My first acquaintance with them was on the shores of the Okhotsk Sea,
where they had assembled with their herds of reindeer. When we went
ashore we managed somehow to wet our blankets, and I hung mine up to
dry. I expressed my fears that the blankets would be stolen by some of
the Koraks, but was told that everything would be safe. When we camped
at night, my blankets were dry, and I slept in them. But I forgot the
blanket-straps, and there they hung in the open air all night, and all
the next day.
Now, it is a moral or an immoral certainty that a pair of leather
straps, new, and in good condition, in almost any other country would
have been taken in hand by somebody who couldn’t bear to see them
unused. But when I finally thought of my straps, I found them hanging
where I had left them thirty hours before, in full view of a dozen or
more natives, who were dressed in skins, and didn’t know anything more
about civilization and the customs of fashionable society than a horse
knows about running a sewing-machine.
[Sidenote: EXPERIENCE WITH A CACHE.]
On our western plains the custom of concealing articles in the
ground prevails over any other mode. The Indians have long practised
it, and they manage it so skilfully that it is next to impossible
to detect them. The early French settlers and explorers learned the
practice from the Indians, and the name they gave to a place of
concealment—“_cache_,” from _cacher_, to conceal—has been adopted into
the language of all plainsmen, of whatever nationality. So well is
this word known that many frontier Americans use it in preference to
words in their own language having the same meaning. A frontiers-man
will speak of finding a place where a squirrel had _cached_ a peck
of nuts, or will tell you that he _cached_ his bowie knife in his
boot-leg rather than carry it at his waist-belt.
My first acquaintance with a cache on the plains was in the vicinity
of Fort Kearney. Our party was camped near a half dozen men who were
returning from Salt Lake City, and had lost three of their oxen. We
struck up an acquaintance, and in the evening invited them to sit
around our fire, where we exchanged news and stories, they telling us
of Utah, and we telling them about the States or “God’s Country,” as
one of them called it. “Stranger,” said he, “if ever I get back to
God’s Country, and you catch me again on these yere plains, you may
just shoot me for a prairie dog. I’ve seen all I want of this yere
living, and don’t hanker for no more of it. I’m a going back where I
can have a square meal at a table, and drink whiskey that wouldn’t
burn a hole through an old boot in five minutes.”
We were not bountifully supplied with the necessaries of life, but
we felt liberal, and ventured to offer a drink of whiskey to each of
the strangers. They took it as unhesitatingly as a kitten would take
a saucer of new milk, and we became friends in a short time. When we
separated, one of the eastward-bound travellers said,—
“May be you’ll run short of flour before you get to the mountains,
and a little would help you along. Now, we had to lighten up just
this side of the Platte crossing, where we lost two of our oxen. We
couldn’t find anybody to sell to, and as we didn’t like to throw
things away altogether, we cached some of them. Next day we met a man
one of us knew, and we sold him all the caches but one, and told him
where to find them. But there was one bag of flour in a cache away
from the rest, and he didn’t want no flour; so we didn’t tell him
where it was.”
We offered to buy the flour, but the men would not listen to the
proposition.
“It’s Utah flour,” said one of them, “and isn’t very good. The sack
is small, and the whole lot wouldn’t be worth a great deal; but you
can’t buy it. You’ve treated us handsome, and we’re not going to be
rattlesnakes. We want you to take that flour, and you shan’t pay for
it.”
We thanked them heartily, and proffered another drink, which was
accepted and swallowed.
[Sidenote: HOW TO CONCEAL FLOUR.]
“About five miles this side of the old crossing of the Platte,” one of
the strangers continued, after wiping the drops of whiskey from his
lips, “you will come to a dry creek. There’s a small clump of willows
on your right hand, and mighty small willows they are too; and on the
left side, a dozen yards off the road, there are three buffalo heads
piled up, with a sage bush sticking in the top one. Now, you go up the
creek past these yere buffalo heads about fifty yards, and you’ll see
a grave with a little board at one end. On the board are some words
which we cut, that says, ‘J. MEANS, SALT LAKE, 34 YEARS.’ Now, there
ain’t no J. Means there, but there is a sack of flour, and you’ll find
it by digging.”
We made a memorandum of the direction, and soon after retired to
sleep. In the morning we broke camp, and continued our journey,
keeping the cache constantly in mind. When we reached the spot
indicated, we opened the grave, and found the sack of flour, as our
friends of a night had told us we should find it. The soil where it
lay was quite dry, and the flour might have been left there for months
without serious injury, beyond growing a little musty.
A grave is regarded with respect by nearly all white men and by
most savages. Consequently a cache is frequently made in the form
of a grave. A head-board bearing the name, residence, and age of a
fictitious dead man, serves to complete the deception, and is likewise
useful in describing the cache so that it can be found. All sorts
of articles can be placed in the grave, provided they are not of a
character to attract wild animals and cause them to dig. In certain
localities, the animals, when hungry, will dig into a real grave, and
exhume the body to devour it. Thus it happens that the fact that a
mound has not been disturbed by beasts sometimes reveals its character
to a keen-eyed observer, and tells him that it is a cache, containing
something else than the remains of a luckless traveller.
[Sidenote: DECEIVING A DRUNKARD.]
In a journey from Denver to New Mexico, in the autumn of 1860, our
party contained one man whose appetite for whiskey was of the keenest
and most insatiable. In making up our outfit, we had left a portion
of the purchases to him, and he had bought about six times as much
fire-water as we really needed. On the first and second day he
managed to get as drunk as a Tammany repeater at election time, and
was neither ornamental nor useful. On the second night, while he was
sleeping, and possibly dreaming of a paradise where there were rivers
of pure Bourbon, and no charge to bathers and drinkers, we arranged a
plan to bring him to grief. We took a keg of whiskey from our wagon,
and cached it a little way from camp. We threw the dirt into the
creek, and built a fire over the place of concealment, so that there
was no trace of what we had done. In the morning we kept him away from
the wagon until we were several miles on the road, and as he had a
bottle at his command he did not discover the loss until night.
But when he did discover it, there was trouble in the camp. We dared
not tell the truth, for fear he would insist upon returning to recover
the treasure. So we feigned ignorance, thought it must have been lost
on the road, or left in Denver, or, possibly, the driver had stolen
it. We were all certain that it had not been left at the camp, as we
had followed the universal custom of emigrants on the plains, and
carefully examined the ground after the wagon had started.
To console himself, he went into a condition of blind drunkenness,
and remained in it till morning. At this camp we cached a couple of
bottles of whiskey, and then solemnly averred, next morning, that
he had swallowed them. To all his denials we were incredulous, and
we narrated, with great minuteness, how he drank one bottle after
another, filling a pint cup at a time, and draining it at a gulp. He
finally began to believe that we were right, and for the rest of the
journey he kept comparatively sober.
[Sidenote: TWO-BOTTLE CAMP.]
On our return, two weeks later, we had a long day’s journey before
us to reach “Two-Bottle Camp,” as we had named it. In the morning we
made a general confession to the old fellow, and owned up to the theft
and concealment of the bottles. His rage at the deception practised
upon him was great, but it was not equal to his joy at knowing there
was happiness ahead. Never on the whole journey did he exert himself
more than on that day to keep the wagon in motion, and enable us to
reach the whiskey-hunting ground by sunset. To him the camp of the Two
Bottles was like a harbor for which the storm-tossed mariner hopes and
prays when the gale is upon him, and his ship is lying at the mercy of
the wind; and as soon as we reached it, he made a rapid break for the
cache, and opened it before the wagon was fairly halted.
He forgave us everything, and for that evening we had a millennium
on a small scale. We compelled him to retain one bottle for the
festivities of the next evening, as we wanted him to go to town sober,
and consequently determined to exhume the keg, and put it in the wagon
without his knowledge. Everything was lovely; the keg was secured,
and when we reached Denver, we pretended to discover it in the office
whence we had started.
In the days of the great emigration overland in 1849 and ‘50, the
emigrants frequently found their wagons too heavily burdened, and were
obliged to throw away or cache a large part of their loads. When they
cached their goods, the Indians generally found them, as the work was
almost always done carelessly and in haste, so that traces of it
could be plainly seen. One old plainsman once described to me a cache
which was made by a party to which he belonged.
“We found,” said he, “that we must lighten up our wagons; and so we
concluded to stop a day or two, make a cache, and give our animals a
chance to rest. We were near the Wind River Mountains, and Indians
were not abundant. We had seen none for several days, and thought we
could rely upon doing our work without their seeing us. We were in
camp when we decided to make the cache, and at daylight next morning
two of us started out to find a good place.
“About three miles off the trail we found a bluff that was quite steep
towards a small river that we named Lost Ox River, because one of our
oxen afterwards got into the quicksand and was drowned. We thought
this bluff would be a good place for a cache, as we could throw the
dirt into the river and have it washed away. The bluff was hard and
dry, and would keep things from spoiling.
[Sidenote: AN EXTENSIVE CACHE.]
“We drove the train into the valley, at the foot of the bluff, and
then went to work. We made a hole about three feet square, and as many
deep, and then we hollowed out a space as large as a good-sized room.
We did not drop an ounce of dirt around the opening, but threw it all
into the river. We spread blankets and sacks all around the opening,
and laid a row of them from the hole to our camp, so that the ground
wouldn’t be trodden up.
“Then we lightened our wagons of everything we could spare. There
were bundles of goods, extra clothing, saddles, chains, boots, and
everything we thought it possible to do without. When the hole was
full, we put the stump of a tree into the opening, and scattered
leaves and rubbish around it, so that nobody could possibly see that
the earth had ever been disturbed.
“It took us three days to make the cache. Our mules and oxen had
gathered strength, and we moved on, with a good prospect of getting
through to California.
“But things grew worse instead of better. When we got into the alkali
plains our oxen died off fast, and we had to throw away something
every day. With so much bad luck it was quite natural that we should
get into rows among ourselves, and the upshot of it was, that we
separated. Some of us were discouraged, and wanted to go back; and we
did go back.
“Four of us took our rifles, and each picked out a riding mule to
carry us to the Missouri River. We had two pack mules, and thought
we could somehow manage to get through. We had a hard time of it,
stranger, and didn’t get farther than Laramie, where we broke up, and
concluded to try our luck at anything that turned up.
“When we got to where we left the trail to make our cache, I told the
boys we had better go and see if it was all right. Three of us went
there, and left the other to take care of the animals.
“Somehow the Indians had found out the whole thing. We don’t know how
they did it, but it was most likely that the wolves and foxes went
to digging there for the leather in the boots and saddles, and the
Indians saw where they dug, and knew something was hid. All around
there were tracks of Indians, and they had taken out more than half of
what we had put there.
“While we were talking about the business, and cursing the red skins,
we saw five of them coming up the valley. There were four bucks and
one squaw, and they hadn’t seen us. So we just laid low and waited
for them. They stopped at the foot of the bluff, and the bucks made
for the hole, leaving the squaw to take care of their ponies and keep
watch.
[Sidenote: CAPTURING A SQUAW.]
“The squaw sat down, with her back against a tree, about fifty feet
from where we were. She was evidently tired, for she dropped her head
forward, and didn’t keep much of a watch. Jim Foster, one of the
fellows with me, was an old Indian hunter, and knew how to work. He
crept up behind her, slipped the belt from his waist, and before she
knew what she was about, he had the belt around her neck, and fastened
her to the tree. As soon as he had her fast, the other fellow and
I ran to the cache, picked up the stump that had been in the hole
originally, and put it where it belonged. Then we piled logs and
rubbish on top, and stopped up the crevices, and waited a couple of
hours, until we thought they had breathed all the air up and were good
Indians.”
“What do you mean by good Indians?” I asked.
“Why, don’t you know,” said he, “that all good Indians are dead
Indians?”
I saw his point, and after he had terminated the smile with which his
axiom was delivered, he went on with the story.
“We made sure that they would never do any more stealing. We didn’t
want to kill them, of course, but we thought it would be no more than
right to cache them along with the property that was left. There never
was a better use made of an Indian than to cache him. As soon as we
were satisfied that they couldn’t get out, we took the ponies and went
to where our fourth man was waiting with the mules. We distributed our
loads on the mules, took the ponies to ride on, and you may believe
that we travelled our level best out of that region.”
“And the squaw,” I asked; “did she go with you?”
[Sidenote: A CARELESS PLAINSMAN.]
“O, I forgot about her. Jim was a careless sort of a fellow, and he
pulled that strap so close around her neck that she never recovered.
Come to think of it, she didn’t live long, not more than five minutes,
and Jim was very sorry. He said he would do the best he could for her,
and seeing she was dead, he wouldn’t refuse to bury her. So he carried
her to the river, where there was a good bed of quicksand, and dropped
her in. She sunk easy, and I reckon she’s somewhere about there now.
She had a lot of silver ornaments about her, and Jim felt so bad that
he kept them to remember her by. He said it would be a shame to waste
them, as silver was scarce in that country. He wanted to go back, and
see if the bucks had something valuable about them; but I thought we
had done a fair morning’s work in hiving the ponies, and it was best
to be getting away from there before any more Indians came around. And
we up and travelled lively.”
XX.
THE GREEN VAULTS OF DRESDEN.
THE RICHEST TREASURY IN THE WORLD.—HOW THE SAXON PRINCES ACQUIRED
IT.—THE DIFFERENT CABINETS, AND WHAT THEY CONTAIN.—WONDERFUL
CARVINGS, MOSAICS, AND CURIOSITIES.—SPLENDID GOLD AND SILVER
PLATE.—MAGNIFICENT ROYAL REGALIA.—A LUXURIOUS AND GALLANT
MONARCH.—HIS ROMANTIC ADVENTURES.—A MARVELLOUS TOY.—DAZZLING
EMERALDS, PEARLS, RUBIES, AND DIAMONDS.—THE LARGEST AND MOST
PRECIOUS GEMS ON THE GLOBE.—INGENIOUS AND DESPERATE ATTEMPTS TO
ROB THE VAULTS.—A THIEF WALLED UP ALIVE.—EFFECT OF EXPOSING HIS
SKELETON.—ARE THE PRICELESS JEWELS FALSE?—WHAT AN ENTERPRISING
SCOUNDREL MIGHT ACCOMPLISH.
The Green Vaults (_Grüne Gewölbe_) of Dresden, as they are called from
the hue of the hangings which once covered them, are in the Zwinger,
a group of buildings erected by Augustus II. as a vestibule to a new
palace. They are not under ground as might be supposed from their
name, and from the fact that they contain the treasures of the King
of Saxony. They are vaulted apartments, eight in number, stored with
rare carving, mosaics, gold and silver plate, precious stones, and an
endless variety of curious and invaluable articles.
The collection is the richest possessed by any European monarch, and
altogether beyond what so small a power would be thought able to
collect or keep. The Saxon princes, it must be remembered, however,
were of far more consequence and influence in the past than they
are in the present. The Freiberg silver mines alone were a source
of immense revenue before the discovery of America, and Saxony had
various means of acquiring wealth of which she is now wholly deprived.
I have examined nearly all the royal treasuries abroad, and none of
them are at all equal to the collection in Dresden, which is likely
to create an agreeable surprise even after one has heard its variety
and value extolled. I have known political economists to regret that
what might be converted into so much money should be allowed to lie
idle, and I have met others, again, who regarded the treasures of art
and the priceless jewels gathered there as so many baubles unworthy
of serious consideration. Persons of cultivated taste and lovers of
beauty, however, can hardly be so narrow in their opinions, for they
will find in the Green Vaults something more than capital uninvested,
or glittering toys. The princes deserve commendation for the liberal
manner in which they expended their wealth for the æsthetic benefit of
those to come after them.
[Sidenote: WONDERFUL WORKS OF ART.]
The apartments are so arranged that each one you enter surpasses the
last in interest and the variety of its contents. A great deal of
space would be required to enumerate all the articles, though the
principal may be easily set down.
The first apartment is devoted to bronzes of the nicest and most
curious workmanship. There are copies in miniature of some of the
famous statues, that cannot be fully appreciated without close
attention to detail and a liberal understanding of art. A crucifix
by John of Bologna, and a small dog, stretching itself, by Peter
Visscher, are masterpieces of their kind.
In the second apartment are ivory carvings of remarkable excellence;
among them a number of beautiful vases, some quite large, cut out of
a single piece. There are, also, a battle scene by Albrecht Durer,
a crucifix by Michael Angelo, and a marvellous group of some ninety
figures carved in one piece sixteen inches high, representing the fall
of Lucifer and his wicked angels. Nothing could be finer or more exact
than these figures. Small as they are, they are perfect, and plainly
show what extraordinary patience and skill the artist must have had.
A goblet, of stag’s horn, cut like a cameo, in figures portraying the
chase, is admirably wrought, as is also a cup on which the story of
the Foolish Virgins is delineated.
The third apartment has Florentine mosaics, engraved shells, ostrich
eggs carved and ornamented, a singular chimney-piece of Dresden
china set with precious stones, paintings in enamel, and a number of
portraits of historic characters, the most noticeable of which are
Peter the Great and Augustus II., surnamed the Strong.
[Sidenote: CUPS OF GREAT VALUE.]
The fourth apartment is filled with the gold and silver plate formerly
used at the banquets of the Saxon princes, a portion of which was wont
to be carried to Frankfort on the occasion of the coronation of the
German emperors by the electors of Saxony, who held the hereditary
office of arch-marshal at those imposing ceremonies. Beyond the mere
value, this plate is not desirable. If it were mine, I should melt it
at once into the coin of the realm, since it has neither grace nor
beauty of form. It may seem very grand to eat and drink out of such
vessels, but they would be found extremely inconvenient for practical
purposes. The china of our day is altogether superior to all the gold
and silver plate that has ever been heaped on royal tables.
The fifth apartment is taken up with agates, crystals, chalcedony,
lapis lazuli, and other varieties of semi-precious stones. Some cups
of moss agates are particularly beautiful, and two goblets, composed
entirely of cut gems, have a value of ten thousand dollars each. An
equestrian statue of Charles II. of England, made from a solid piece
of cast iron, represents him in the character of St. George, and is
skilfully done. The eminent sculptor, Colin of Mechlin, has shown the
cunning of his art by two spirited combats of knights, though they are
only wooden heads; wood being the material of which the carvings are
made. The largest enamel painting known, a Magdalen by Dinglinger, is
also shown there.