WE must move on; we have a long and rough journey before us. Durham had
old friends in New York, Fred Calthorpe had letters to Colonel Fremont,
who was then a candidate for the Presidency, and who had discovered the
South Pass; and Mr. Ellice had given me a letter to John Jacob
Astor—_the_ American millionaire of that day. We were thus well provided
with introductions; and nothing could exceed the kindness and hospitality
of our American friends.
But time was precious. It was already mid May, and we had everything to
get—wagons, horses, men, mules, and provisions. So that we were anxious
not to waste a day, but hurry on to St. Louis as fast as we could.
Durham was too ill to go with us. Phoca had never intended to do so.
Fred, Samson, and I, took leave of our companions, and travelling via the
Hudson to Albany, Buffalo, down Lake Erie, and across to Chicago, we
reached St. Louis in about eight days. As a single illustration of what
this meant before railroads, Samson and I, having to stop a day at
Chicago, hired a buggy and drove into the neighbouring woods, or
wilderness, to hunt for wild turkeys.
Our outfit, the whole of which we got at St. Louis, consisted of two
heavy wagons, nine mules, and eight horses. We hired eight men, on the
nominal understanding that they were to go with us as far as the Rocky
Mountains on a hunting expedition. In reality all seven of them, before
joining us, had separately decided to go to California.
Having published in 1852 an account of our journey, entitled ‘A Ride over
the Rocky Mountains,’ I shall not repeat the story, but merely give a
summary of the undertaking, with a few of the more striking incidents to
show what travelling across unknown America entailed fifty or sixty years
ago.
A steamer took us up the Missouri to Omaha. Here we disembarked on the
confines of occupied territory. From near this point, where the Platte
river empties into the Missouri, to the mouth of the Columbia, on the
Pacific—which we ultimately reached—is at least 1,500 miles as the crow
flies; for us (as we had to follow watercourses and avoid impassable
ridges) it was very much more. Some five-and-forty miles from our
starting-place we passed a small village called Savannah. Between it and
Vancouver there was not a single white man’s abode, with the exception of
three trading stations—mere mud buildings—Fort Laramie, Fort Hall, and
Fort Boisé.
The vast prairies on this side of the Rocky Mountains were grazed by
herds of countless bison, wapiti, antelope, and deer of various species.
These were hunted by moving tribes of Indians—Pawnees, Omahaws,
Cheyennes, Ponkaws, Sioux, &c. On the Pacific side of the great range, a
due west course—which ours was as near as we could keep it—lay across a
huge rocky desert of volcanic débris, where hardly any vegetation was to
be met with, save artemisia—a species of wormwood—scanty blades of gramma
grass, and occasional osiers by river-banks. The rivers themselves often
ran through cañons or gulches, so deep that one might travel for days
within a hundred feet of water yet perish (some of our animals did so)
for the want of a drop to drink. Game was here very scarce—a few
antelope, wolves, and abundance of rattlesnakes, were nearly the only
living things we saw. The Indians were mainly fishers of the Shoshone—or
Great Snake River—tribe, feeding mostly on salmon, which they speared
with marvellous dexterity; and Root-diggers, who live upon wild roots.
When hard put to it, however, in winter, the latter miserable creatures
certainly, if not the former, devoured their own children. There was no
map of the country. It was entirely unexplored; in fact, Bancroft the
American historian, in his description of the Indian tribes, quotes my
account of the Root-diggers; which shows how little was known of this
region up to this date. I carried a small compass fastened round my
neck. That and the stars (we travelled by night when in the vicinity of
Indians) were my only guides for hundreds of dreary miles.
Such then was the task we had set ourselves to grapple with. As with
life itself, nothing but the magic powers of youth and ignorance could
have cajoled us to face it with heedless confidence and eager zest.
These conditions given, with health—the one essential of all
enjoyment—added, the first escape from civilised restraint, the first
survey of primordial nature as seen in the boundless expanse of the open
prairie, the habitat of wild men and wild animals,—exhilarate one with
emotions akin to the schoolboy’s rapture in the playground, and the
thoughtful man’s contemplation of the stars. Freedom and change, space
and the possibilities of the unknown, these are constant elements of our
day-dreams; now and then actual life dangles visions of them before our
eyes, alas! only to teach us that the aspirations which they inspire are,
for the most part, illusory.
Brief indeed, in our case, were the pleasures of novelty. For the first
few days the business was a continuous picnic for all hands. It was a
pleasure to be obliged to help to set up the tents, to cut wood, to fetch
water, to harness the mules, and work exactly as the paid men worked.
The equality in this respect—that everything each wanted done had to be
done with his own hands—was perfect; and never, from first to last, even
when starvation left me bare strength to lift the saddle on to my horse,
did I regret the necessity, or desire to be dependent on another man.
But the bloom soon wore off the plum; and the pleasure consisted not in
doing but in resting when the work was done.
For the reason already stated, a sample only of the daily labour will be
given. It may be as well first to bestow a few words upon the men; for,
in the long run, our fellow beings are the powerful factors, for good or
ill, in all our worldly enterprises.
We had two ordinary mule-drivers—Potter and Morris, a little acrobat out
of a travelling circus, a _metif_ or half-breed Indian named Jim, two
French Canadians—Nelson and Louis (the latter spoke French only); Jacob,
a Pennsylvanian auctioneer whose language was a mixture of Dutch, Yankee,
and German; and (after we reached Fort Laramie) another Nelson—‘William’
as I shall call him—who offered his services gratis if we would allow him
to go with us to California.
Jacob the Dutch Yankee was the most intelligent and the most useful of
the lot, and was unanimously elected cook for the party. The Canadian
Nelson was a hard-working good young fellow, with a passionate temper.
Louis was a hunter by profession, Gallic to the tip of his moustache—fond
of slapping his breast and telling of the mighty deeds of _nous autres en
haut_. Jim, the half-breed was Indian by nature—idle, silent,
treacherous, but a crafty hunter. William deserves special mention, not
from any idiosyncrasy of the man, but because he was concerned soon after
he joined us in the most disastrous of my adventures throughout the
expedition.
To look at, William Nelson might have sat for the portrait of
Leatherstocking. He was a tall gaunt man who had spent his youth
bringing rafts of timber down the Wabash river, from Fort Wayne to
Maumee, in Ohio. For the last six years (he was three-and-thirty) he had
been trapping musk rats and beaver, and dealing in pelts generally. At
the time of our meeting he was engaged to a Miss Mary something—the
daughter of an English immigrant, who would not consent to the marriage
until William was better off. He was now bound for California, where he
hoped to make the required fortune. The poor fellow was very sentimental
about his Mary; but, despite his weatherbeaten face, hardy-looking frame,
and his ‘longue carabine,’ he was scarcely the hero which, no doubt, Miss
Mary took him for.
Yes, the novelty soon wore off. We had necessaries enough to last to
California. We also had enough unnecessaries to bring us to grief in a
couple of weeks. Our wagons were loaded to the roof. And seeing there
was no road nor so much as a track, that there were frequent swamps and
small rivers to be crossed, that our Comanche mules were wilder than the
Indians who had owned them, it may easily be believed that our rate of
progress did not average more than six or seven miles a day; sometimes it
took from dawn to dusk to cross a stream by ferrying our packages, and
emptied wagons, on such rafts as could be extemporised. Before the end
of a fortnight, both wagons were shattered, wheels smashed, and axles
irreparable. The men, who were as refractory as the other animals,
helped themselves to provisions, tobacco and whisky, at their own sweet
will, and treated our remonstrances with resentment and contempt.
Heroic measures were exigent. The wagons were broken up and converted
into pack saddles. Both tents, masses of provisions, 100 lbs. of lead
for bullets, kegs of powder, warm clothing, mackintoshes, waterproof
sheeting, tarpaulins, medicine chest, and bags of sugar, were flung aside
to waste their sweetness on the desert soil. Not one of us had ever
packed a saddle before; and certainly not one of the mules had ever
carried, or to all appearances, ever meant to carry, a pack. It was a
fight between man and beast every day—twice a day indeed, for we halted
to rest and feed, and had to unpack and repack our remaining impedimenta
in payment for the indulgence.
Let me cite a page from my diary. It is a fair specimen of scores of
similar entries.
‘_June_ 24_th_.—My morning watch. Up at 1 A.M. Roused the men at 3.30.
Off at 7.30. Rained hard all day. Packs slipped or kicked off eighteen
times before halt. Men grumbling. Nelson and Jim both too ill to work.
When adjusting pack, Nelson and Louis had a desperate quarrel. Nelson
drew his knife and nearly stabbed Louis. I snatched a pistol out of my
holster, and threatened to shoot Nelson unless he shut up. Fred, of
course, laughed obstreperously at the notion of my committing murder,
which spoilt the dramatic effect.
‘Oh! these devils of mules! After repacking, they rolled, they kicked
and bucked, they screamed and bit, as though we were all in Hell, and
didn’t know it. It took four men to pack each one; and the moment their
heads were loosed, away they went into the river, over the hills, and
across country as hard as they could lay legs to ground. It was a
cheerful sight!—the flour and biscuit stuff swimming about in the stream,
the hams in a ditch full of mud, the trailed pots and pans bumping and
rattling on the ground until they were as shapeless as old wide-awakes.
And, worst of all, the pack-saddles, which had delayed us a week to
make—nothing now but a bundle of splinters.
‘25_th_.—What a night! A fearful storm broke over us. All round was
like a lake. Fred and I sat, back to back, perched on a flour bag till
daylight, with no covering but our shooting jackets, our feet in a pool,
and bodies streaming like cascades. Repeated lightning seemed to strike
the ground within a few yards of us. The animals, wild with terror,
stampeded in all directions. In the morning, lo and behold! Samson on
his back in the water, insensibly drunk. At first I thought he was dead;
but he was only dead drunk. We can’t move till he can, unless we
bequeath him to the wolves, which are plentiful. This is the third time
he has served us the same trick. I took the liberty to ram my heel
through the whisky keg (we have kept a small one for emergencies) and put
it empty under his head for a pillow.’
There were plenty of days and nights to match these, but there were worse
in store for us.
One evening, travelling along the North Platte river, before reaching
Laramie, we overtook a Mormon family on their way to Salt Lake city.
They had a light covered wagon with hardly anything in it but a small
supply of flour and bacon. It was drawn by four oxen and two cows. Four
milch cows were driven. The man’s name was Blazzard—a Yorkshireman from
the Wolds, whose speech was that of Learoyd. He had only his wife and a
very pretty daughter of sixteen or seventeen with him. We asked him how
he became a Mormon. He answered: ‘From conviction,’ and entreated us to
be baptized in the true faith at his hands. The offer was tempting, for
the pretty little milkmaid might have become one of one’s wives on the
spot. In truth the sweet nymph urged conversion more persuasively than
her papa—though with what views who shall say? The old farmer’s
acquaintance with the Bible was remarkable. He quoted it at every
sentence, and was eloquent upon the subject of the meaning and the origin
of the word ‘Bible.’ He assured us the name was given to the Holy Book
from the circumstance of its contents having passed a synod of prophets,
just as an Act of Parliament passes the House of Commons—_by Bill_.
Hence its title. It was this historical fact that guaranteed the
authenticity of the sacred volume. There are various reasons for
believing—this is one of them.
The next day, being Sunday, was spent in sleep. In the afternoon I
helped the Yorkshire lassie to herd her cattle, which had strayed a long
distance amongst the rank herbage by the banks of the Platte. The heat
was intense, well over 120 in the sun; and the mosquitos rose in clouds
at every step in the wet grass. It was an easy job for me, on my little
grey, to gallop after the cows and drive them home, (it would have been a
wearisome one for her,) and she was very grateful, and played Dorothea to
my Hermann. None of our party wore any upper clothing except a flannel
shirt; I had cut off the sleeves of mine at the elbow. This was better
for rough work, but the broiling sun had raised big blisters on my arms
and throat which were very painful. When we got back to camp, Dorothea
laved the burns for me with cool milk. Ah! she was very pretty; and,
what ‘blackguard’ Heine, as Carlyle dubs him, would have called ‘naïve
schmutzig.’ When we parted next morning I thought with a sigh that
before the autumn was over, she would be in the seraglio of Mr. Brigham
Young; who, Artemus Ward used to say, was ‘the most married man he ever
knew.’