Concluding the Route to the Great Salt Lake City.
[SUNRISE.]
_Along the Black Hills to Box-Elder. 15th August._
I arose “between two days,” a little before 4 A.M., and watched the
dawn, and found in its beauties a soothing influence, which acted upon
stiff limbs and discontented spirit as if it had been a spell.
The stars of the Great Bear--the prairie night-clock--first began
to pale without any seeming cause, till presently a faint streak of
pale light--_dum i gurg_, or the wolf’s tail, as it is called by the
Persian--began to shimmer upon the eastern verge of heaven. It grew
and grew through the dark blue air: one unaccustomed to the study
of the “gray-eyed morn” would have expected it to usher in the day,
when, gradually as it had struggled into existence, it faded, and a
deeper darkness than before once more invaded the infinitude above.
But now the unrisen sun is more rapidly climbing the gloomy walls of
Koh i Kaf--the mountain rim which encircles the world, and through
whose lower gap the false dawn had found its way--preceded by a warm
flush of light, which chases the shades till, though loth to depart,
they find neither on earth nor in the firmament a place where they
can linger. Warmer and warmer waxes the heavenly radiance, gliding
up to the keystone of the vault above; fainter and fainter grows
the darkness, till the last stain disappears behind the Black Hills
to the west, and the stars one by one, like glow-worms, “pale their
ineffectual fires”--the “Pointers” are the longest to resist--retreat
backward, as it were, and fade away into endless space. Slowly, almost
imperceptibly, the marvelous hues of “glorious morn,” here truly a
fresh “birth of heaven and earth,” all gold and sapphire, acquire depth
and distinctness, till at last a fiery flush ushers from beneath the
horizon the source of all these splendors,
“Robed in flames and amber light;”
and another day, with its little life of joys and sorrows, of hopes and
fears, is born to the world.
Though we all rose up early, packed, and were ready to proceed, there
was an unusual _vis inertiæ_ on the part of the driver: Indians were
about; the mules, of course, had bolted; but that did not suffice as
explanation. Presently the “wonder leaked out:” our companions were
transferred from their comfortable vehicle to a real “shandridan,” a
Rocky-Mountain bone-setter. They were civil enough to the exceedingly
drunken youth--a runaway New Yorker--who did us the honor of driving
us; for _quand on a besoin du diable on lui dit, “Monsieur.”_ One
can not expect, however, the _diable_ to be equally civil: when we
asked him to tidy our vehicle a little, he simply replied that he’d
be darned if he did. Long may be the darning-needle and sharp to him!
But tempers seriously soured must blow up or burst, and a very pretty
little quarrel was the result: it was settled bloodlessly, because one
gentleman, who, to do him justice, showed every disposition to convert
himself into a target, displayed such perfect unacquaintance with the
weapons--revolvers--usually used on similar occasions, that it would
have been mere murder to have taken pistol in hand against him.
As we sat very disconsolate in the open veranda, five Indians stalked
in, and the biggest and burliest of the party, a middle-aged man, with
the long, straight Indian hair, high, harsh features, and face bald
of eyebrows and beard, after offering his paw to Mrs. Dana and the
rest of the party, sat down with a manner of natural dignity somewhat
trenching upon the impertinent. Presently, diving his hand into his
breast, the old rat pulled out a thick fold of leather, and, after much
manipulation, disclosed a dirty brown, ragged-edged sheet of paper,
certifying him to be “Little Thunder,” and signed by “General Harney.”
This, then, was the chief who showed the white feather at Ash Hollow,
and of whom some military poet sang:
“We didn’t make a blunder,
We rubbed out Little Thunder,
And we sent him to the other side of Jordan.”
Little Thunder did not look quite rubbed out; but for poesy fiction
is, of course, an element far more appropriate than fact. I remember a
similar effusion of the Anglo-Indian muse, which consigned “Akbar Khan
the Yaghi” to the tune and fate of the King of the Cannibal Isles, with
a contempt of actualities quite as refreshing. The Western Indians are
as fond of these testimonials as the East Indians: they preserve them
with care as guarantees of their good conduct, and sometimes, as may
be expected, carry about certificates in the style of Bellerophons’
letters. Little Thunder was _en route_ to Fort Laramie, where he
intended to lay a complaint against the Indian agent, who embezzled, he
said, half the rations and presents intended for his tribe. Even the
whites owned that the “Maje’s” bear got more sugar than all the Indians
put together.
[THE INDIAN DEPARTMENT.]
Nothing can be worse, if the _vox populi occidentalis_ be taken as
the _vox Dei_, than the modern management of the Indian Bureau at
Washington. In former times the agencies were in the hands of the
military authorities, and the officer commanding the department
was responsible for malversation of office. This was found to work
well; the papers signed were signed on honor. But in the United
States, the federal army, though well paid, is never allowed to keep
any appointment that can safely be taken away from it. The Indian
Department is now divided into six superintendencies, viz., Northern,
Central, Southern, Utah, New Mexico, Washington and Oregon Territories,
who report to the Indian Office or Bureau of the Commissioners of
Indian Affairs at Washington, under the charge of the Department of the
Interior. The bond varies from $50,000 to $75,000, and the salary from
$2000 to $2500 per annum. The northern superintendency contains four
agencies, the central fourteen, the southern five, the Utah three, New
Mexico six, and the miscellaneous, including Washington, eight. The
grand total of agents, including two specials for Indians in Texas,
is forty-two. Their bond is between $5000 and $75,000, and the salary
between $1000 and $1550. There are also various sub-agencies, with
pay of $1000 each, and giving in bonds $2000. There ought to be no
perquisites; an unscrupulous man, however, finds many opportunities
of making free with the presents; and the reflection that his office
tenure shall expire after the fourth year must make him but the more
reckless. As fifty or sixty appointments = 50 or 60 votes, × 20 in
President electioneering, fitness for the task often becomes quite
a subordinate consideration; the result is, necessarily, peculation
producing discontent among the Indians, and the finale, death to the
whites. To become a good Indian agent, a man requires the variety of
qualifications which would fit him for the guardianship of children,
experience and ability, benevolence and philanthropy: it would be
difficult to secure such phœnix for $200 per annum, and it is found
easier not to look for it. The remedy of these evils is not far from
the surface--the restoration of the office into the hands of the
responsible military servant of the state, who would keep it _quamdiu
se benè gesserit_, and become better capable of serving his masters,
the American people, by the importance which the office would give him
in the eyes of his _protégés_. This is the system of the French Bureau
Arabe, which, with its faults, I love still. But the political mind
would doubtless determine the cure to be worse than the disease. After
venting his grievances, Little Thunder arose, and, accompanied by his
braves, remounted and rode off toward the east.
While delayed by the mules and their masters, we may amuse ourselves
and divert our thoughts from the battle, and, perhaps, murder and
sudden death, which may happen this evening, by studying the geography
of the Black Hills. The range forms nearly a right angle, the larger
limb--ninety miles--running east to west with a little southing along
the Platte, the shorter leg--sixty miles--trending from north to south
with a few degrees of easting and westing. Forming the easternmost
part of the great trans-Mississippian mountain region, in the 44th
parallel and between the 103d and 105th meridians, these masses cover
an area of 6000 square miles. They are supposed to have received their
last violent upheaval at the close of the cretaceous period; their
bases are elevated from 2500 to 3500 feet--the highest peaks attaining
6700 feet--above river level, while their eastern is from 2000 to 3000
feet below the western foundation. Their materials, as determined
by Lieutenant Warren’s exploration, are successively metamorphosed
azoic rock, including granite, lower Silurian (Potsdam sandstone),
Devonian (?), carboniferous, Permian, Jurassic, and cretaceous. Like
Ida, they are abundant in springs and flowing streams, which shed
mainly to the northeast and the southeast, supplying the Indians with
trout and salmon trout, catfish (_Prinelodus_), and pickerel. They
abound in small rich valleys, well grown with grass, and wild fruits,
choke-cherries (_P. Virginiana_), currants, sand-buttes fruit (_C.
pumila?_), and buffalo berries (_Shepherdia argentea_, or grains de
bœuf). When irrigated, the bottoms are capable of high cultivation.
They excel in fine timber for fuel and lumber, covering an area of
1500 square miles; in carboniferous rock of the true coal measures;
and in other good building material. As in most of the hill ranges
which are offsets from the Rocky Mountains, they contain gold in
valuable quantities, and doubtless a minute examination will lead
to the discovery of many other useful minerals. The Black Hills are
appropriately named: a cloak of gloomy forest, pine and juniper,
apparently springing from a rock denuded of less hardy vegetation,
seems to invest them from head to foot. The Laramie Hills are
sub-ranges of the higher ridge, and the well-known peak, the Pharos of
the prairie mariner, rises about 1° due west of Fort Laramie to the
height of 6500 feet above sea level. Beyond the meridian of Laramie
the country totally changes. The broad prairie lands, unencumbered by
timber, and covered with a rich pasturage, which highly adapts them
for grazing, are now left behind. We are about to enter a dry, sandy,
and sterile waste of sage, and presently of salt, where rare spots are
fitted for rearing stock, and this formation will continue till we
reach the shadow of the Rocky Mountains.
[LA BONTÉ.]
At length, the mules coming about 10 45 A.M., we hitched up, and,
nothing loth, bade adieu to Horseshoe Creek and the “ladies.” The
driver sentimentally informed us that we were to see no more specimens
of ladyhood for many days--gladdest tidings to one of the party, at
least. The road, which ran out of sight of the river, was broken and
jagged; a little labor would have made it tolerable, but what could the
good pastor of Oberlin do with a folk whose only thought in life is
dram-drinking, tobacco-chewing, trading, and swapping?[80] The country
was cut with creeks and arroyos, which separated the several bulges of
ground, and the earth’s surface was of a dull brick-dust red, thinly
scrubbed over with coarse grass, ragged sage, and shrublets fit only
for the fire. After a desolate drive, we sighted below us the creek
La Bonté--so called from a French _voyageur_--green and bisected by a
clear mountain stream whose banks were thick with self-planted trees.
In the labyrinth of paths we chose the wrong one: presently we came
to a sheer descent of four or five feet, and after deliberation as to
whether the vehicle would “take it” or not, we came to the conclusion
that we had better turn the restive mules to the right-about. Then,
cheered by the sight of our consort, the other wagon, which stood
temptingly shaded by the grove of cotton-wood, willows, box elder
(_Negundo aceroides_), and wild cherry, at the distance of about half
a mile, we sought manfully the right track, and the way in which the
driver charged the minor obstacles was “a caution to mules.” We ought
to have arrived at 2 45 P.M.; we were about an hour later. The station
had yet to be built; the whole road was in a transition state at the
time of our travel; there was, however, a new corral for “forting”
against Indians, and a kind of leafy arbor, which the officials had
converted into a “cottage near a wood.”
[80] The civilized Anglo-Americans are far more severe upon their
half-barbarous brethren than any stranger; to witness, the following:
A Hoosier (native of Indiana) was called upon the stand, away out
West, to testify to the character of a brother Hoosier. It was as
follows:
“How long have you known Bill Bushwhack?”
“Ever since he war born.”
“What is his general character?”
“Letter A, No. 1--’bove par a very great way.”
“Would you believe him on oath?”
“Yes, Sir-ee, on or off, or any other way.”
“What is your opinion on his qualifications to good conduct?”
“He’s the best shot on the prairies or in the woods; he can shave the
eye-bristles off a wolf as far as a shootin’-iron’ll carry a ball;
he can drink a quart of grog any day, and he chaws tobacker like a
horse.”
So Bill Bushwhack passed muster.--_N. Y. Spirit of the Times._
[THE RED REGION.]
A little after 4 P.M. we forded the creek painfully with our new
cattle--three rats and a slug. The latter was pronounced by our driver,
when he condescended to use other language than anathemata, “the
meanest cuss he ever seed.” We were careful, however, to supply him at
the shortest intervals with whisky-drams, which stimulated him, after
breaking his whip, to perform a tattoo with clods and stones, kicks and
stamps, upon the recreant animals’ haunches, and by virtue of these
we accomplished our twenty-five miles in tolerable time. For want of
other pleasantries to contemplate, we busied ourselves in admiring
the regularity and accuracy with which our consort wagon secured for
herself all the best teams. The land was a red waste, such as travelers
find in Eastern Africa, which after rains sheds streams like blood.
The soil was a decomposition of ferruginous rock, here broken with
rugged hills, precipices of ruddy sandstone 200 feet high, shaded or
dotted with black-green cedars, there cumbered by huge boulders; the
ravine-like water-courses which cut the road showed that after heavy
rains a net-work of torrents must add to the pleasures of traveling,
and the vegetation was reduced to the dull green artemisia, the azalia,
and the jaundiced potentilla. After six miles we saw on the left of
the path a huge natural pile or burrow of primitive boulders, about 200
feet high, and called “Brigham’s Peak,” because, according to Jehu’s
whiskyfied story, the prophet, revelator, and seer of the Latter-Day
Saints had there, in 1857 (!), pronounced a 4th of July oration in the
presence of 200 or 300 fair devotees.
Presently we emerged from the red region into the normal brown clay,
garnished with sage as moors are with heather, over a road which might
have suggested the nursery rhyme,
“Here we go up, up, up,
There we go down, down, down.”
At last it improved, and once more, as if we never were to leave it,
we fell into the Valley of the Platte. About eight miles from our
destination we crossed the sandy bed of the La Prêle River, an arroyo
of twenty feet wide, which, like its brethren, brims in spring with
its freight of melted snow. In the clear shade of evening we traversed
the “timber,” or well-wooded lands lying upon Box-Elder Creek--a
beautiful little stream some eight feet broad, and at 9 P.M. arrived
at the station. The master, Mr. Wheeler, was exceptionably civil and
communicative; he lent us buffalo robes for the night, and sent us to
bed after the best supper the house could afford. We were not, however,
to be balked of our proper pleasure, a “good grumble,” so we hooked it
on to another peg. One of the road-agents had just arrived from Great
Salt Lake City in a neat private ambulance after a journey of three
days, while we could hardly expect to make it under treble that time.
It was agreed on all sides that such conduct was outrageous; that
Messrs. Russell and Co. amply deserved to have their contract taken
from them, and--on these occasions your citizen looks portentous, and
deals darkly in threatenings, as if his single vote could shake the
spheres--we came to a mutual understanding that _that_ firm should
never enjoy our countenance or support. We were unanimous; all, even
the mortal quarrel, was “made up” in the presence of the general foe,
the Mail Company. Briefly we retired to rest, a miserable Public, and,
soothed by the rough lullaby of the coyote, whose shrieks and screams
perfectly reproduced the Indian jackal, we passed into the world of
dreams.
_To Platte Bridge. August 16th._
[CLIMATE.]
At 8 30 A.M. we were once more under way along the valley of Father
Platte, whose physiognomy had now notably changed for the better.
Instead of the dull, dark, silent stream of the lower course, whose
muddy monotonous aspect made it a grievance to behold, we descried with
astonishment a bright little river, hardly a hundred yards wide--one’s
ideas of potamology are enlarged with a witness by American travel! a
mirrory surface, and waters clear and limpid as the ether above them.
The limestones and marls which destroy the beauty of the Lower Platte
do not extend to the upper course. The climate now became truly
delicious. The height above sea-level--5000 feet--subjects the land to
the wholesome action of gentle winds, which, about 10-11 A.M., when
the earth has had time to air, set in regularly as the sea-breezes
of tropical climes, and temper the keen shine of day. These higher
grounds, where the soil is barren rather for want of water than from
the character of its constituents, are undoubtedly the healthiest part
of the plains: no noxious malaria is evolved from the sparse growth of
tree and shrub upon the banks of the river; and beyond them the plague
of brûlés (sand-flies) and musquetoes is unknown; the narrowness of
the bed also prevents the shrinking of the stream in autumn, at which
season the Lower Platte exposes two broad margins of black infected
mire. The three great elements of unhealthiness, heavy and clammy
dews, moisture exhaled from the earth’s surface, and the overcrowding
of population--which appears to generate as many artificial diseases
as artificial wants--are here unknown: the soil is never turned up,
and even if it were, it probably would not have the deleterious effect
which climatologists have remarked in the damp hot regions near the
equator. The formation of the land begins to change from the tertiary
and cretaceous to the primary--granites and porphyries--warning us that
we are approaching the Rocky Mountains.
[THE FIRST MORMONS.]
On the road we saw for the first time a train of Mormon wagons,
twenty-four in number, slowly wending their way toward the Promised
Land. The “Captain”--those who fill the dignified office of guides are
so designated, and once a captain always a captain is the Far Western
rule--was young Brigham Young, a nephew of the Prophet; a _blondin_,
with yellow hair and beard, an intelligent countenance, a six-shooter
by his right, and a bowie-knife by his left side. It was impossible
to mistake, even through the veil of freckles and sun-burn with which
a two months’ journey had invested them, the nationality of the
emigrants; “British-English” was written in capital letters upon the
white eyelashes and tow-colored curls of the children, and upon the
sandy brown hair and staring eyes, heavy bodies, and ample extremities
of the adults. One young person concealed her facial attractions under
a manner of mask. I thought that perhaps she might be a sultana,
reserved for the establishment of some very magnificent Mormon bashaw;
but the driver, when appealed to, responded with contempt, “’Guess old
Briggy wont stampede many o’ that ’ere lot!” Though thus homely in
appearance, few showed any symptoms of sickness or starvation; in fact,
their condition first impressed us most favorably with the excellence
of the Perpetual Emigration Funds’ traveling arrangements.
The Mormons who can afford such luxury generally purchase for the
transit of the plains an emigrant’s wagon, which in the West seldom
costs more than $185. They take a full week before well _en route_,
and endeavor to leave the Mississippi in early May, when “long forage”
is plentiful upon the prairies. Those prospecting parties who are bound
for California set out in March or April, feeding their animals with
grain till the new grass appears; after November the road over the
Sierra Nevada being almost impassable to way-worn oxen. The ground in
the low parts of the Mississippi Valley becomes heavy and muddy after
the first spring rains, and by starting in good time the worst parts of
the country will be passed before the travel becomes very laborious.
Moreover, grass soon disappears from the higher and less productive
tracts; between Scott’s Bluffs and Great Salt Lake City we were seldom
out of sight of starved cattle, and on one spot I counted fifteen
skeletons. Travelers, however, should not push forward early, unless
their animals are in good condition and are well supplied with grain;
the last year’s grass is not quite useless, but cattle can not thrive
upon it as they will upon the grammas, festucas, and buffalo clover
(_Trifolium reflexum_) of Utah and New Mexico. The journey between St.
Jo and the Mormon capital usually occupies from two to three months.
The Latter-Day Saints march with a quasi-military organization. Other
emigrants form companies of fifty to seventy armed men--a single
wagon would be in imminent danger from rascals like the Pawnees,
who, though fonder of bullying than of fighting, are ever ready to
cut off a straggler--elect their “Cap.,” who holds the office only
during good conduct, sign and seal themselves to certain obligations,
and bind themselves to stated penalties in case of disobedience or
defection. The “Prairie Traveler” strongly recommends this systematic
organization, without which, indeed, no expedition, whether emigrant,
commercial, or exploratory, ought ever or in any part of the world
to begin its labors; justly observing that, without it, discords and
dissensions sooner or later arise which invariably result in breaking
up the company.
[MORMON OUTFIT.]
In this train I looked to no purpose for the hand-carts with which the
poorer Saints add to the toils of earthly travel a semi-devotional work
of supererogation expected to win a proportionate reward in heaven.[81]
[81] The following estimate of outfit was given to me by a Mormon
elder, who has frequently traveled over the Utah route. He was
accompanied by his wife, and family, and help--six persons in total;
and having money to spare, he invested it in a speculation which
could hardly fail at least to quadruple his outlay at the end of
the march: the stove, for instance, bought at $28, would sell for
$80 to $120. The experienced emigrant, it may be observed, carries
with him a little of every thing that may or might be wanted, such
as provisions, clothing, furniture, drugs, lint, stationery, spices,
ammunition, and so forth; above all things, he looks to his weapons
as likely to be, at a pinch, his best friends:
2 yokes oxen at $180 to $200 00
1 cow (milch) 25 00
1 wagon 87 30
1 double cover 8 50
2 ox yokes 8 00
1 ox chain 1 50
1 tar-bucket 1 00
1 large tent ($9 for smaller sizes) 15 00
Camp equipment, axes, spades, shovels, triangles for fires, etc. 10 00
600 lbs. flour 25 50
100 lbs. ham and bacon 14 00
150 lbs. crackers (sea biscuits) 13 13
100 lbs. sugar 9 50
25 lbs. crystallized ditto 3 00
24 lbs. raisins 4 00
20 lbs. currants 3 00
25 lbs. rice 2 25
1 bushel dried apples 6 00
1 „ „ peaches 4 30
1 „ beans 2 00
1 stove 28 00
-------
Grand total $490 98
After ten miles of the usual number of creeks, “Deep,” “Small,” “Snow,”
“Muddy,” etc., and heavy descents, we reached at 10 A.M. Deer Creek,
a stream about thirty feet wide, said to abound in fish. The station
boasts of an Indian agent, Major Twiss, a post-office, a store, and of
course a grog-shop. M. Bissonette, the owner of the two latter and an
old Indian trader, was the usual Creole, speaking a French not unlike
that of the Channel Islands, and wide awake to the advantages derivable
from travelers: the large straggling establishment seemed to produce in
abundance large squaws and little half-breeds. Fortunately stimulants
are not much required on the plains: I wish my enemy no more terrible
fate than to drink excessively with M. Bissonette of M. Bissonette’s
liquor. The good Creole, when asked to join us, naïvely refused: he
reminded me of certain wine-merchants in more civilized lands, who,
when dining with their pratique, sensibly prefer small-beer to their
own concoctions.
[BUNCH-GRASS.]
A delay of fifteen minutes, and then we were hurried forward. The
ravines deepened; we were about entering the region of kanyons.[82]
Already we began to descry bunch-grass clothing the hills. This
invaluable and anomalous provision of nature is first found, I believe,
about fifty miles westward of the meridian of Fort Laramie, and it
extends to the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada. On the Pacific
water-shed it gives way to the wild oats (_Avena fatua_), which are
supposed to have been introduced into California by the Spaniards. The
festuca is a real boon to the land, which, without it, could hardly be
traversed by cattle. It grows by clumps, as its name denotes, upon the
most unlikely ground, the thirsty sand, and the stony hills; in fact,
it thrives best upon the poorest soil. In autumn, about September, when
all other grasses turn to hay, and their nutriment is washed out by the
autumnal rains, the bunch-grass, after shedding its seed, begins to put
forth a green shoot within the apparently withered sheath. It remains
juicy and nutritious, like winter wheat in April, under the snows, and,
contrary to the rule of the _gramineæ_, it pays the debt of nature,
drying and dying about May; yet, even when in its corpse-like state, a
light yellow straw, it contains abundant and highly-flavored nutriment;
it lasts through the summer, retiring up the mountains, again becomes
grass in January, thus feeding cattle all the year round. The small
dark pyriform seed, about half the size of an oat, is greedily devoured
by stock, and has been found to give an excellent flavor to beef and
mutton. It is curious how little food will fatten animals upon the
elevated portions of the prairies and in the valleys of the Rocky
Mountains. I remarked the same thing in Somaliland, where, while far as
the eye could see the country wore the semblance of one vast limestone
ledge, white with desolation, the sheep and bullocks were round and
plump as stall-fed animals. The idea forces itself upon one’s mind
that the exceeding purity and limpidity of the air, by perfecting
the processes of digestion and assimilation, must stand in lieu of
quantity. I brought back with me a small packet of the bunch-grass
seed, in the hope that it may be acclimatized: the sandy lands about
Aldershott, for instance, would be admirably fitted for the growth.
[82] The Spanish cañon--Americanized to kanyon--signifies, primarily,
a cannon or gun-barrel; secondarily, a tube, shaft of a mine, or a
ravine of peculiar form, common in this part of America. The word
is loosely applied by the Western men, but properly it means those
gorges through a line of mountains whose walls are high and steep,
even to a tunnel-like overhanging, while their soles, which afford
passages to streams, are almost flat. In Northern Mexico the kanyon
becomes of stupendous dimensions; it is sometimes a crack in the
plains 2000 feet deep, exposing all the layers that clothe earth’s
core, with a stream at the bottom, in sight, but impossible for the
traveler dying of thirst to drink at.
We arrived at a station, called the “Little Muddy Creek,” after a hot
drive of twenty miles. It was a wretched place, built of “dry stones,”
viz., slabs without mortar, and the interior was garnished with certain
efforts of pictorial art, which were rather _lestes_ than otherwise.
The furniture was composed of a box and a trunk, and the negative
catalogue of its supplies was extensive--whisky forming the only
positive item.
We were not sorry to resume our journey at 1 15 P.M. After eight miles
we crossed the vile bridge which spans “Snow Creek,” a deep water, and
hardly six feet wide. According to the station-men, water here was once
perennial, though now reduced to an occasional freshet after rain: this
phenomenon, they say, is common in the country, and they attribute it
to the sinking of the stream in the upper parts of the bed, which have
become porous, or have given way. It is certain that in the Sinaitic
regions many springs, which within a comparatively few years supplied
whole families of Bedouins, have unaccountably dried up; perhaps the
same thing happens in the Rocky Mountains.
After about two hours of hot sun, we debouched upon the bank of the
Platte at a spot where once was the Lower Ferry.[83] The river bed is
here so full of holes and quicksands, and the stream is so cold and
swift, that many have been drowned when bathing, more when attempting
to save time by fording it. A wooden bridge was built at this point
some years ago, at an expense of $26,000, by one Regshaw, who, if
report does not belie him, has gained and lost more fortunes than a
Wall Street professional “lame duck.” We halted for a few minutes at
the indispensable store--the _tête de pont_--and drank our whisky with
ice, which, after so long a disuse, felt unenjoyably cold. Remounting,
we passed a deserted camp, where in times gone by two companies of
infantry had been stationed: a few stumps of crumbling wall, broken
floorings, and depressions in the ground, were the only remnants which
the winds and rains had left. The banks of the Platte were stained with
coal: it has been known to exist for some years, but has only lately
been worked. Should the supply prove sufficient for the wants of the
settlers, it will do more toward the civilization of these regions than
the discovery of gold.
[83] The first ferry, according to the old guide-books, was at Deer
Creek; the second was at this place, thirty-one miles above the
former; and the third was four miles still farther on.
[COAL-BEDS.]
The lignite tertiary of Nebraska extends north and west to the British
line; the beds are found throughout this formation sometimes six and
seven feet thick, and the article would make good fuel. The true
coal-measures have been discovered in the southeastern portion of the
Nebraska prairies, and several small seams at different points of the
Platte Valley. Dr. F. V. Hayden, who accompanied Lieutenant Warren
as geologist, appears to think that the limestones which contain the
supplies, though belonging to the true coal-measures, hold a position
above the workable beds of coal, and deems it improbable that mines of
any importance will be found north of the southern line of Nebraska.
But, as his examination of the ground was somewhat hurried, there is
room to hope that this unfavorable verdict will be canceled. The coal
as yet discovered is all, I believe, bituminous. That dug out of the
Platte bank runs in a vein about six feet thick, and is as hard as
cannel coal: the texture of the rock is a white limestone. The banks
of the Deer and other neighboring creeks are said also to contain the
requisites for fuel.
[TOLL-BRIDGE.]
Our station lay near the upper crossing or second bridge, a short
distance from the town. It was also built of timber at an expense
of $40,000, about a year ago, by Louis Guenot, a Quebecquois, who
has passed the last twelve years upon the plains. He appeared very
downcast about his temporal prospects, and handed us over, with the
_insouciance_ of his race, to the tender mercies of his venerable
squaw. The usual toll is 50 cents, but from trains, especially of
Mormons, the owner will claim $5; in fact, as much as he can get
without driving them to the opposition lower bridge, or to the
ferry-boat. It was impossible to touch the squaw’s supper; the tin cans
that contained the coffee were slippery with grease, and the bacon
looked as if it had been dressed side by side with “boyaux.” I lighted
my pipe, and, air-cane in hand, sallied forth to look at the country.
The heights behind the station were our old friends the Black Hills,
which, according to the Canadian, extend with few breaks as far as
Denver City. They are covered with dark green pine; at a distance it
looks black, and the woods shelter a variety of wild beasts, the
grizzly bear among the number. In the more grassy spaces mustangs,
sure-footed as mountain goats, roam uncaught; and at the foot of the
hills the slopes are well stocked with antelope, deer, and hares,
here called rabbits. The principal birds are the sage-hen (_Tetrao
urophasianus_) and the prairie-hen (_T. pratensis_). The former,
also called the cock of the plains, is a fine, strong-flying grouse,
about the size of a full-grown barn-door fowl, or, when younger, of
a European pheasant, which, indeed, the form of the tail, as the
name denotes, greatly resembles, and the neck is smooth like the
partridge of the Old World.[84] Birds of the year are considered good
eating: after their first winter the flesh is so impregnated with the
intolerable odor of wild sage that none but a starving man can touch
it. The prairie-hen, also called the “heath-hen” and the “pinnated
grouse,” affects the plains of Illinois and Missouri, and is rarely
found so far west as the Black Hills: it is not a migratory bird. The
pinnæ from which it derives its name are little wing-like tufts on both
sides of the neck, small in the female, large in the male. The cock,
moreover, has a stripe of skin running down the neck, which changes its
natural color toward pairing-time, and becomes of a reddish yellow: it
swells like a turkey-cock’s wattles, till the head seems buried between
two monstrous protuberances, the owner spreading out its tail, sweeping
the ground with its wings, and booming somewhat like a bittern. Both of
these birds, which are strong on the wing, and give good sport, might
probably be naturalized in Europe, and the “Société d’Acclimatisation”
would do well to think of it.
[84] The trivial names for organic nature are as confused and
confusing in America as in India, in consequence of the Old Country
terms applied, _per fas et nefas_, to New Country growths: for
instance, the spruce grouse is the Canadian partridge; the ruffled
grouse is the partridge of New England and New York, and the pheasant
of New Jersey and the Southern States; while in the latter the common
quail (_O. Virginiana_) is called “partridge.”
[THE WAR-PARTY.]
Returning to the station, I found that a war-party of Arapahoes had
just alighted in a thin copse hard by. They looked less like warriors
than like a band of horse-stealers; and, though they had set out with
the determination of bringing back some Yuta scalps and fingers,[85]
they had not succeeded. On these occasions the young braves are
generally very sulky--a fact which they take care to show by short
speech and rude gestures, throwing about and roughly handling, like
spoiled children, whatever comes in their way. At such times one must
always be prepared for a word and a blow; and, indeed, most Indian
fighters justify themselves in taking the initiative, as, of course, it
is a great thing to secure first chance. However we may yearn toward
our “poor black brother,” it is hard not to sympathize with the white
in many aggressions against the ferocious and capricious so-called
Red Man. The war-party consisted of about a dozen warriors, with a
few limber, lither-looking lads. They had sundry lean, sore-backed
nags, which were presently turned out to graze. Dirty rags formed the
dress of the band; their arms were the usual light lances, garnished
with leather at the handles, with two cropped tufts and a long loose
feather dangling from them. They had bows shaped like the Grecian
Cupid’s, strengthened with sinews and tipped with wire, and arrows of
light wood, with three feathers--Captain Marcy says, two intersecting
at right angles; but I have never seen this arrangement--and small
triangular iron piles. Their shields were plain targes--double folds
of raw buffalo hide, apparently unstuffed, and quite unadorned. They
carried mangy buffalo robes; and scattered upon the ground was a
variety of belts, baldricks, and pouches, with split porcupine quills
dyed a saffron yellow.
[85] The enemy’s fore or other finger, crooked and tied with two
bits of the skin which are attached to the wrist or the forehead,
is a favorite and picturesque ornament. That failing, the bear’s
(especially the grizzly’s) talons, bored at the base, and strung upon
their sinews, are considered highly honorable.
The Arapahoes, generally pronounced ’Rapahoes--called by their
Shoshonee neighbors Sháretikeh, or Dog-eaters, and by the French
Gros Ventres--are a tribe of thieves living between the South Fork
of the Platte and the Arkansas Rivers. They are bounded north by the
Sioux, and hunt in the same grounds with the Cheyennes. This breed is
considered fierce, treacherous, and unfriendly to the whites, who have
debauched and diseased them, while the Cheyennes are comparatively
chaste and uninfected. The Arapaho is distinguished from the Dakotah
by the superior gauntness of his person, and the boldness of his
look; there are also minor points of difference in the moccasins,
arrow-marks, and weapons. His language, like that of the Cheyennes,
has never, I am told, been thoroughly learned by a stranger: it is
said to contain but a few hundred words, and these, being almost all
explosive growls or guttural grants, are with difficulty acquired by
the civilized ear. Like the Cheyennes, the Arapahoes have been somewhat
tamed of late by the transit of the United States army in 1857.
Among the Prairie Indians, when a war-chief has matured the plans
for an expedition, he habits himself in the garb of battle. Then,
mounting his steed, and carrying a lance adorned with a flag and
eagle’s feathers, he rides about the camp chanting his war-song. Those
disposed to volunteer join the parade, also on horseback, and, after
sufficiently exhibiting themselves to the admiration of the village,
return home. This ceremony continues till the requisite number is
collected. The war-dance, and the rites of the medicine-man, together
with perhaps private penances and propitiations, are the next step.
There are also copious powwows, in which, as in the African parlance,
the chiefs, elders, and warriors sit for hours in grim debate, solemn
as if the fate of empires hung upon their words, to decide the
momentous question whether Jack shall have half a pound more meat than
Jim. Neither the chief nor the warriors are finally committed by the
procession to the expedition; they are all volunteers, at liberty to
retire; and jealousy, disappointment, and superstition often interpose
between themselves and glory.
The war-party, when gone, is thoroughly gone; once absent, they love to
work in mystery, and look forward mainly to the pleasure of surprising
their friends. After an absence which may extend for months, a loud,
piercing, peculiar cry suddenly announces the vanguard courier of the
returning braves. The camp is thrown at once from the depths of apathy
to the height of excitement, which is also the acmé of enjoyment for
those whose lives must be spent in forced inaction. The warriors enter
with their faces painted black, and their steeds decorated in the
most fantastic style; the women scream and howl their exultation, and
feasting and merriment follow with the ceremonious scalp-dance. The
braves are received with various degrees of honor according to their
deeds. The highest merit is to ride single-handed into the enemy’s
camp, and to smite a lodge with lance or bow. The second is to take
a warrior prisoner. The third is to strike a dead or fallen man--an
idea somewhat contrary to the Englishman’s fancies of fair play,
but intelligible enough where it is the custom, as in Hindostan, to
lie upon the ground “playing ’possum,” and waiting the opportunity
to hamstring or otherwise disable the opponent. The least of great
achievements is to slay an enemy in hand-to-hand fight. A Pyrrhic
victory, won even at an inconsiderable loss, is treated as a defeat;
the object of the Indian guerrilla chief is to destroy the foe with as
little risk to himself and his men as possible; this is his highest
boast, and in this are all his hopes of fame. Should any of the party
fall in battle, the relatives mourn by cutting off their hair and the
manes and tails of their horses, and the lugubrious lamentations of the
women introduce an ugly element into the triumphal procession.
In the evening, as Mrs. Dana, her husband, and I were sitting outside
the station, two of the warriors came and placed themselves without
ceremony upon the nearest stones. They were exceedingly unprepossessing
with their small gipsy eyes, high, rugged cheek-bones, broad flat
faces, coarse sensual mouths everted as to the lips, and long heavy
chins; they had removed every sign of manhood from their faces, and
their complexions were a dull oily red, the result of vermilion, ochre,
or some such pigment, of which they are as fond as Hindoos, grimed in
for years. They watched every gesture, and at times communicated their
opinions to each other in undistinguishable gruntings, with curious
attempts at cachinnation. It is said that the wild dog is unable to
bark, and that the tame variety has acquired the faculty by attempting
to imitate the human voice; it is certain that, as a rule, only the
civilized man can laugh loudly and heartily. I happened to mention to
my fellow-travelers the universal dislike of savages to any thing
like a sketch of their physiognomies; they expressed a doubt that the
Indians were subject to the rule. Pencil and paper were at hand, so
we proceeded to proof. The savage at first seemed uneasy under the
operation, as the Asiatic or African will do, averting his face at
times, and shifting position to defeat my purpose. When I passed the
caricature round it excited some merriment; the subject, forthwith
rising from his seat, made a sign that he also wished to see it. At
the sight, however, he screwed up his features with an expression of
intense disgust, and managing to “smudge” over the sketch with his
dirty thumb, he left us with a “pooh!” that told all his outraged
feelings.
[SMOKING.]
Presently the warriors entered the station to smoke and tacitly beg for
broken victuals. They squatted in a circle, and passed round the red
sandstone calumet with great gravity, puffing like steam-tugs, inhaling
slowly and lingeringly, swallowing the fumes, and with upturned faces
exhaling them through the nostrils. They made no objection to being
joined by us, and always before handing the pipe to a neighbor, they
wiped the reed mouth-piece with the cushion of the thumb. The contents
of their calumet were kinnikinik, and, though they accepted tobacco,
they preferred replenishing with their own mixture. They received a
small present of provisions, and when the station-people went to supper
they were shut out.
[MORMONLAND NEAR.]
We are now slipping into Mormonland; one of the station-keepers
belonged to the new religion. The “madam,” on entering the room, had
requested him to depose a cigar which tainted the air with a perfume
like that of greens’-water; he took the matter so coolly that I
determined he was not an American, and, true enough, he proved to be
a cabinet-maker from Birmingham. I spent the evening reading poor
Albert Smith’s “Story of Mont Blanc”--Mont Blanc in sight of the
Rocky Mountains!--and admiring how the prince of entertainers led
up the reader to what he called the crowning glory of his life, the
unperilous ascent of that monarch of the Alps, much in the spirit with
which one would have addressed the free and independent voters of some
well-bribed English borough.
We are now about to quit the region which Nature has prepared, by
ready-made roads and embankments, for a railway; all beyond this
point difficulties are so heaped upon difficulties--as the sequel
will prove--that we must hope against hope to see the “iron horse” (I
believe he is so called) holding his way over the mountains.
_17th August. To the Valley of the Sweetwater._
The morning was bright and clear, cool and pleasant. The last night’s
abstinence had told upon our squeamishness: we managed to secure a
fowl, and with its aid we overcame our repugnance to the massive slices
of eggless bacon. At 6 30 A.M. we hitched up, crossed the rickety
bridge at a slow pace, and proceeded for the first time to ascend
the left bank of the Platte. The valley was grassy; the eternal sage,
however, haunted us; the grouse ran before us, and the prairie-dogs
squatted upon their house-tops, enjoying the genial morning rays. After
ten miles of severe ups and downs, which, by-the-by, nearly brought our
consort, the official’s wagon, to grief, we halted for a few minutes at
an old-established trading-post called “Red Buttes.”[86] The feature
from which it derives its name lies on the right bank of, and about
five miles distant from the river, which here cuts its way through a
ridge. These bluffs are a fine bold formation, escarpments of ruddy
argillaceous sandstones and shells, which dip toward the west: they are
the eastern wall of the mass that hems in the stream, and rear high
above it their conical heads and fantastic figures. The ranch was on
the margin of a cold, clear spring, of which we vainly attempted to
drink. The banks were white, as though by hoar-frost, with nitrate and
carbonate of soda efflorescing from the dark mould. Near Red Buttes the
water is said to have a chalybeate flavor, but of that we were unable
to judge.
[86] The French word is extensively used in the Rocky Mountains and
Oregon, “where,” says Colonel Frémont (“Expedition to the Rocky
Mountains,” p. 145), “it is naturalized, and which, if desirable to
render into English, there is no word which would be its precise
equivalent. It is applied to the detached hills and ridges which rise
abruptly and reach too high to be called hills or ridges, and are not
high enough”--he might have added, are not massive enough--“to be
called mountains. _Knob_, as applied in the Western States, is their
most descriptive term in English; but no translation or periphrasis
would preserve the identity of these picturesque landmarks.”
Having allowed the squaws and half-breeds a few minutes to gaze, we
resumed our way, taking off our caps in token of adieu to old Father
Platte, our companion for many a weary mile. We had traced his course
upward, through its various phases and vicissitudes, from the dignity
and portliness of his later career as a full-grown river to his small
and humble youth as a mountain rivulet, and--interest, either in man
or stream, often results from the trouble we take about them--I looked
upon him for the last time with a feeling akin to regret. Moreover,
we had been warned that from the crossing of the North Platte to the
Sweetwater all is a dry, and dreary, and desolate waste.
On the way we met a mounted Indian, armed with a rifle, and habited
in the most grotesque costume. “Jack”--he was recognized by the
driver--wore a suit of buckskin, and a fool’s cap made out of an old
blanket, with a pair of ass-ear appendages that hung backward viciously
like a mule’s; his mouth grinned from ear to ear, and his eyes were
protected by glass and wire goggles, which gave them the appearance
of being mounted on stalks like a crustacean’s. He followed us for
some distance, honoring us by riding close to the carriage, in hopes
of a little black-mail; but we were not generous, and we afterward
heard something which made us glad that we had not been tempted to
liberality. He was followed by an ill-favored squaw, dressed in a kind
of cotton gown, remarkable only for the shoulders being considerably
narrower than the waist. She sat her bare nag cavalierly, and eyed us
as we passed with that peculiarly unpleasant glance which plain women
are so fond of bestowing.
[THE DEVIL’S BACKBONE.]
After eighteen miles’ drive we descended a steep hill, and were shown
the Devil’s Backbone. It is a jagged, broken ridge of huge sandstone
boulders, tilted up edgeways, and running in a line over the crest of
a long roll of land: the _tout ensemble_ looks like the vertebræ of
some great sea-serpent or other long crawling animal; and, on a nearer
view, the several pieces resolve themselves into sphinxes, veiled
nuns, Lot’s pillars, and other freakish objects. I may here remark
that the _aut Cæsar aut diabolus_ of the medieval European antiquary,
when accounting for the architecture of strange places, is in the Far
West consigned without partnership to the genius loci, the fiend who,
here as in Europe, has monopolized all the finest features of scenery.
We shall pass successively the Devil’s Gate, the Devil’s Post-office,
and the Devil’s Hole--in fact, we shall not be thoroughly rid of his
Satanic majesty’s appurtenances till Monte Diablo, the highest of
the Californian coast-range, dips slowly and unwillingly behind the
Pacific’s tepid wave.
[WILLOW SPRINGS.]
We nooned at Willow Springs, a little doggery boasting of a shed and a
bunk, but no corral; and we soothed, with a drink of our whisky, the
excited feelings of the rancheros. The poor fellows had been plundered
of their bread and dried meat by some petty thief, who had burrowed
under the wall, and they sorely suspected our goggled friend, Jack the
Arapaho. Master Jack’s hair might have found itself suspended near
the fireplace if he had then been within rifle-shot; as it was, the
two victims could only indulge in consolatory threats about wreaking
their vengeance upon the first “doggond red-bellied crittur” whom good
fortune might send in their way. The water was unusually good at Willow
Springs; unfortunately, however, there was nothing else.
At 2 30 P.M. we resumed our way through the yellow-flowered
rabbit-bush--it not a little resembled wild mustard--and a thick
sage-heath, which was here and there spangled with the bright blossoms
of the wilderness. After about twenty miles we passed, to the west of
the road, a curious feature, to which the Mormon exodists first, _on
dit_, gave the name of Saleratus Lake.[87] It lies to the west of
the road, and is only one of a chain of alkaline waters and springs
whose fetor, without exaggeration, taints the land. Cattle drinking of
the fluid are nearly sure to die; even those that eat of the _herbe
salée_, or salt grass growing upon its borders, and known by its
reddish-yellow and sometimes bluish tinge, will suffer from a disease
called the “Alkali,” which not unfrequently kills them. The appearance
of the Saleratus Lake startles the traveler who, in the full blaze of
midday upon this arid waste, where mirage mocks him at every turn,
suddenly sees outstretched before his eyes a kind of Wenham Lake
solidly overfrozen. The illusion is so perfect that I was completely
deceived, nor could the loud guffaws of the driver bring me at once to
the conclusion that seeing in this case is not believing. On a near
inspection, the icy surface turns out to be a dust of carbonate of
soda, concealing beneath it masses of the same material, washed out
of the adjacent soil, and solidified by evaporation. The Latter-Day
Saints were charmed with their _trouvaille_, and laid in stores of the
fetid alkaline matter, as though it had been manna, for their bread and
pastry. It is still transported westward, and declared to be purer than
the saleratus of the shops. Near the lake is a deserted ranch, which
once enjoyed the title of “Sweetwater Station.”
[87] According to Dr. L. D. Gale (Appendix F. to Captain Stansbury’s
“Expedition to the Great Salt Lake”), who tested specimens of this
saleratus, “it is composed of the sesquicarbonate of soda, mixed
with the sulphate of soda and chloride of soda, and is one of the
native salts called _Trona_, found in the Northern Lakes, in Hungary,
Africa, and other countries.”
“Three grammes of this salt in dry powder, cleared of its earthy
impurities, gave carbonic acid 0·9030 of a gramme, which would
indicate 1·73239 grammes of the sesquicarbonate. The other salts were
found to be the muriate and sulphate of soda: the proportions were
not determined.”
[ROCK INDEPENDENCE.]
Four miles beyond this “Waterless Lake”--Bahr bila Ma as the Bedouin
would call it--we arrived at Rock Independence, and felt ourselves
in a new region, totally distinct from the clay formation of the
mauvaises terres over which we have traveled for the last five days.
Again I was startled by its surprising likeness to the scenery of
Eastern Africa: a sketch of Jiwe la Mkoa, the Round Rock in eastern
Unyamwezi,[88] would be mistaken, even by those who had seen both,
for this grand _échantillon_ of the Rocky Mountains. It crops out
of an open plain, not far from the river bed, in dome shape wholly
isolated, about 1000 feet in length by 400-500 in breadth; it is 60 to
100 feet in height,[89] and in circumference 1¹⁄₂ to 2 miles. Except
upon the summit, where it has been weathered into a feldspathic soil,
it is bare and bald; a scanty growth of shrubs protrudes, however,
from its poll. The material of the stern-looking dome is granite, in
enormous slabs and boulders, cracked, flaked, seared, and cloven, as
if by igneous pressure from below. The prevailing tradition in the
West is, that the mass derived its name from the fact that Colonel
Frémont there delivered an Independence-day oration; but read a
little farther. It is easily ascended at the northern side and the
southeastern corner, and many climb its rugged flanks for a peculiarly
Anglo-American purpose--Smith and Brown have held high jinks here.
In Colonel Frémont’s time (1842), every where within six or eight
feet of the ground, where the surface is sufficiently smooth, and in
some places sixty or eighty feet above, the rock was inscribed with
the names of travelers. Hence the Indians have named it Timpe Nabor,
or the Painted Rock, corresponding with the Sinaitic “Wady Mukattab.”
In the present day, though much of the writing has been washed away
by rain, 40,000-50,000 souls are calculated to have left their dates
and marks from the coping of the wall to the loose stones below this
huge sign-post. There is, however, some reason in the proceeding; it
does not in these lands begin and end with the silly purpose, as among
climbers of the Pyramids, and _fouilleurs_ of the sarcophagi of Apis,
to bequeath one’s few poor letters to a little athanasia. Prairie
travelers and emigrants expect to be followed by their friends, and
leave, in their vermilion outfit, or their white house-paint, or their
brownish-black tar--a useful article for wagons--a homely but hearty
word of love or direction upon any conspicuous object. Even a bull or a
buffalo’s skull, which, lying upon the road, will attract attention, is
made to do duty at this _Poste Restante_.
[88] I crave the reader’s pardon for referring him to my own
publications; but the only account of this Round Rock which has
hitherto been published is to be found in the “Lake Regions of
Central Africa,” chap. viii.
[89] Colonel Frémont gives its dimensions as 650 yards long and 40
feet high.
I will here take the liberty of digressing a little, with the
charitable purpose of admiring the serious turn with which the United
States explorers perform their explorations.
Colonel Frémont[90] thus calls to mind the earnest deeds of a bygone
day. “One George Weymouth was sent out to Maine by the Earl of
Southampton, Lord Arundel, and others, and in the narrative of their
discoveries he says, ‘The next day we ascended in our pinnace that
part of the river which lies more to the westward, carrying with us
a cross--a thing never omitted by any Christian traveler--which we
erected at the ultimate end of our route.’ This was in the year 1605,
and in 1842 I obeyed the feeling of early travelers, and left the
impressions of the cross deeply engraved on the vast rock, one thousand
miles beyond the Mississippi, to which discoverers have given the
national name of Rock Independence.”
[90] Report of the Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, p. 72.
Captain Stansbury[91] is not less scrupulous upon the subject of
traveling proprieties. One of his entries is couched as follows:
“Sunday, June 10, barometer 28·82, thermometer 70°. The camp rested:
it had been determined, from the commencement of the expedition, to
devote this day, whenever practicable, to its legitimate purpose, as
an interval of rest for man and beast. I here beg to record, as the
result of my experience, derived not only from the present journey, but
from the observations of many years spent in the performance of similar
duties, that, as a mere matter of pecuniary consideration, apart from
all higher obligations, it is wise to keep the Sabbath.”
[91] Stansbury’s Expedition, ch. i., p. 22.
Lieutenant W. F. Lynch, United States Navy, who in 1857 commanded the
United States Expedition to the River Jordan and the Dead Sea,[92] and
published a narrative not deficient in interest, thus describes his
proceedings at El Meshra, the bathing-place of the Christian pilgrims:
[92] Chap. iii. Authorized Edition. Sampson Low, Son, and Co., 47
Ludgate Hill, 1859.
“This ground is consecrated by tradition as the place where the
Israelites passed over with the ark of the covenant, and where
the blessed Savior was baptized by John. Feeling that it would be
desecration to moor the boats at a place so sacred, we passed it, and
with some difficulty found a landing below.
“My first act was to bathe in the consecrated stream, thanking God,
first, for the precious favor of being permitted to visit such a spot;
and, secondly, for his protecting care throughout our perilous passage.
For a long time after I sat upon the bank, my mind oppressed with awe,
as I mused upon the great and wondrous events which had here occurred.”
In strange contrast with these passages stands the characteristic
prophecy, “The time is coming--the beginning is come now--when the
whole worthless list of kings, with all their myrmidons, will be swept
from their places, and made to bear a part in the toils and sufferings
of the great human family,” etc., etc.
I would not willingly make light in others of certain finer
sentiments--veneration, for instance, and conscientiousness--which
Nature has perhaps debarred me from overenjoying; nor is it in my mind
to console myself for the privation by debasing the gift in those
gifted with it. But--the but, I fear, will, unlike “if,” be any thing
rather than a great peacemaker in this case--there are feelings which,
when strongly felt, when they well from the bottom of the heart, man
conceals in the privacy of his own bosom; and which, if published to
the world, are apt to remind the world that it has heard of a form
of speech, as well as of argument, ranking under the category of _ad
captandum vulgus_.
About a mile beyond Independence Rock we forded the Sweetwater. We had
crossed the divide between this stream and the Platte, and were now to
ascend our fourth river valley, the three others being the Missouri,
the Big Blue, and the Nebraska. The Canadian voyageurs have translated
the name Sweetwater from the Indian Pina Pa; but the term is here more
applicable in a metaphorical than in a literal point of view. The water
of the lower bed is rather hard than otherwise, and some travelers
have detected brackishness in it, yet the banks are free from the
saline hoar, which deters the thirstiest from touching many streams on
this line. The Sweetwater, in its calmer course, is a perfect Naiad
of the mountains; presently it will be an Undine hurried by that
terrible Anagké, to which Jove himself must bend his omniscient head,
into the grisly marital embrace of the gloomy old Platte. Passing
pleasant, after the surly ungenial silence of the Shallow River, is the
merry prattle with which she answers the whisperings of those fickle
flatterers, the winds, before that wedding-day when silence shall
become her doom. There is a something in the Sweetwater which appeals
to the feelings of rugged men: even the drivers and the station-keepers
speak of “her” with a bearish affection.
[THE DEVIL’S GATE.--RATTLESNAKE HILLS.]
After fording the swift Pina Pa, at that point about seventy feet wide
and deep to the axles, we ran along its valley about six miles, and
reached at 9 15 P.M. the muddy station kept by M. Planté, the usual
Canadian. En route we had passed by the Devil’s Gate, one of the great
curiosities of this line of travel. It is the beau ideal of a kanyon,
our portal opening upon the threshold of the Rocky Mountains: I can
compare its form from afar only with the Brêche de Roland in the
Pyrenees. The main pass of Aden magnified twenty fold is something
of the same kind, but the simile is too unsavory. The height of the
gorge is from 300 to 400 feet perpendicular, and on the south side
threatening to fall: it has already done so in parts, as the masses
which cumber the stream-bed show. The breadth varies from a minimum
of 40 to a maximum of 105 feet, where the fissure yawns out, and the
total length of the cleft is about 250 yards. The material of the
walls is a gray granite, traversed by dikes of trap; and the rock in
which the deep narrow crevasse has been made runs right through the
extreme southern shoulder of a ridge, which bears appropriately enough
the name of “Rattlesnake Hills.” Through this wild gorge the bright
stream frets and forces her way, singing, unlike Liris, with a feminine
untaciturnity, that awakes the echoes of the pent-up channel--tumbling
and gurgling, dashing and foaming over the snags, blocks, and boulders,
which, fallen from the cliffs above, obstruct the way, and bedewing
the cedars and bright shrubs which fringe the ragged staples of the
gate. Why she should not have promenaded gently and quietly round,
instead of through, this grisly barrier of rock, goodness only knows:
however, willful and womanlike, she has set her heart upon an apparent
impossibility, and, as usual with her sex under the circumstances, she
has had her way. Sermons in stones--I would humbly suggest to my gender.
Procrastination once more stole my chance; I had reserved myself for
sketching the Devil’s Gate from the southwest, but the station proved
too distant to convey a just idea of it. For the truest representation
of the gate, the curious reader will refer to the artistic work of
Mr. Frederick Piercy;[93] that published in Captain Marcy’s “List of
Itineraries” is like any thing but the Devil’s Gate; even the rough
lithograph in Colonel Frémont’s report is more truthful.
[93] Route from Liverpool to Great Salt Lake City.
We supped badly as mankind well could at the _cabaret_, where a very
plain young person, and no neat-handed Phyllis withal, supplied us with
a cock whose toughness claimed for it the honors of grandpaternity.
Chickens and eggs there were none; butcher’s meat, of course, was
unknown, and our hosts ignored the name of tea; their salt was a
kind of saleratus, and their sugar at least half Indian-meal. When
asked about fish, they said that the Sweetwater contained nothing but
suckers,[94] and that these, though good eating, can not be caught
with a hook. They are a queer lot, these French Canadians, who have
“located” themselves in the Far West. Travelers who have hunted with
them speak highly of them as a patient, submissive, and obedient race,
inured to privations, and gifted with the reckless _abandon_--no
despicable quality in prairie traveling--of the old Gascon adventurer;
armed and ever vigilant, hardy, handy, and hearty children of Nature,
combining with the sagacity and the instinctive qualities all the
superstitions of the Indians; enduring as mountain goats; satisfied
with a diet of wild meat, happiest when it could be followed by a
cup of strong milkless coffee, a “chasse café” and a “brule-gueule;”
invariably and contagiously merry; generous as courageous; handsome,
active, and athletic; sashed, knived, and dressed in buckskin, to the
envy of every Indian “brave,” and the admiration of every Indian belle,
upon whom, if the adventurer’s heart had not fallen into the snares of
the more attractive half-breed, he would spend what remained of his
$10 a month, after coffee, alcohol, and tobacco had been extravagantly
paid for, in presents of the gaudiest trash. Such is the voyageur of
books: I can only speak of him as I found him, a lazy dog, somewhat shy
and proud, much addicted to loafing and to keeping cabarets, because,
as the old phrase is, the cabarets keep him--in idleness too. Probably
his good qualities lie below the surface: those who hide a farthing
rush-light under a bushel can hardly expect us, in this railway age, to
take the trouble of finding it. I will answer, however, for the fact,
that the bad points are painfully prominent. By virtue of speaking
French and knowing something of Canada, I obtained some buffalo robes,
and after a look at the supper, which had all the effect of a copious
feed, I found a kind of out-house, and smoked till sleep weighed down
my eyelids.
[94] A common fish of the genus Labio, of which there are many
species--chub, mullet, barbel, horned dace, etc.: they are found in
almost all the lakes and rivers of North America.
_Up the Sweetwater. 19th August._
We arose at 6 A.M., before the rest of the household, who, when
aroused, “hifered” and sauntered about all _desœuvrés_ till their
wool-gathering wits had returned. The breakfast was a little picture
of the supper; for watered milk, half-baked bread, and unrecognizable
butter, we paid the somewhat “steep” sum of 75 cents; we privily
had our grumble, and set out at 7 A.M. to ascend the Valley of the
Sweetwater. The river-plain is bounded by two parallel lines of
hills, or rather rocks, running nearly due east and west. Those to
the north are about a hundred miles in extreme length, and, rising
from a great plateau, lie perpendicular to the direction of the real
Rocky Mountains toward which they lead: half the course of the Pina
Pa subtends their southern base. The Western men know them as the
Rattlesnake Hills, while the southern are called after the river. The
former--a continuation of the ridge in which the Sweetwater has burst
a gap--is one of those long lines of lumpy, misshapen, barren rock,
that suggested to the Canadians for the whole region the name of Les
Montagnes Rocheuses. In parts they are primary, principally syenite and
granite, with a little gneiss, but they have often so regular a line of
cleavage, perpendicular as well as horizontal, that they may readily be
mistaken for stratifications. The stratified are slaty micaceous shale
and red sandstone, dipping northward, and cut by quartz veins and trap
dikes. The remarkable feature in both formations is the rounding of the
ridges or blocks of smooth naked granite: hardly any angles appeared;
the general effect was, that they had been water-washed immediately
after birth. The upper portions of this range shelter the bighorn, or
American moufflon, and the cougar,[95] the grizzly bear, and the wolf.
The southern or Sweetwater range is vulgarly known as the Green-River
Mountains: seen from the road, their naked, barren, and sandy flanks
appear within cannon shot, but they are distant seven miles.
[95] Locally called the mountain lion. This animal (_F. unicolor_)
is the largest and fiercest feline of the New World: it is a beast
of many names--puma, cougar, American lion, panther or painter, etc.
Its habit of springing upon its prey from trees makes it feared by
hunters. It was once in the Kaatskills.
[“ALKALI LAKE.”]
After a four-miles’ drive up the pleasant valley of the little
river-nymph, to whom the grisly hills formed an effective foil, we saw
on the south of the road “Alkali Lake,” another of the Trona formations
with which we were about to become familiar; in the full glare of
burning day it was undistinguishable as to the surface from the round
pond in Hyde Park. Presently ascending a little rise, we were shown for
the first time a real bit of the far-famed Rocky Mountains, which was
hardly to be distinguished from, except by a shade of solidity, the
fleecy sunlit clouds resting upon the horizon: it was Frémont’s Peak,
the sharp, snow-clad apex of the Wind River range. Behind us and afar
rose the distant heads of black hills. The valley was charming with its
bright glad green, a tapestry of flowery grass, willow copses where the
grouse ran in and out, and long lines of aspen, beech, and cotton-wood,
while pine and cedar, cypress and scattered evergreens, crept up the
cranks and crannies of the rocks. In the midst of this Firdaus--so
it appeared to us after the horrid unwithering artemisia Jehennum of
last week--flowed the lovely little stream, transparent as crystal,
and coquettishly changing from side to side in her bed of golden sand.
To see her tamely submit to being confined within those dwarf earthen
cliffs, you would not have known her to be the same that had made that
terrible breach in the rock-wall below. “Varium et mutabile semper,”
etc.: I will not conclude the quotation, but simply remark that the
voyageurs have called her “She.” And every where, in contrast with the
deep verdure and the bright flowers of the valley, rose the stern forms
of the frowning rocks, some apparently hanging as though threatening a
fall, others balanced upon the slenderest foundations, all split and
broken as though earthquake-riven, loosely piled into strange figures,
the lion couchant, sugar-loaf, tortoise, and armadillo--not a mile, in
fact, was without its totem.
The road was good, especially when hardened by frost. We are now in
altitudes where, as in Tibet, parts of the country for long centuries
never thaw. After passing a singular stone bluff on the left of the
road, we met a party of discharged soldiers, who were traveling
eastward comfortably enough in government wagons drawn by six mules.
Not a man saluted Lieutenant Dana, though he was in uniform, and all
looked surly as Indians after a scalpless raid. Speeding merrily along,
we were shown on the right of the road a ranch belonging to a Canadian,
a “mighty mean man,” said the driver, “who onst gin me ole mare’s meat
for b’ar.” We were much shocked by this instance of the awful depravity
of the unregenerate human heart, but our melancholy musings were
presently interrupted by the same youth, who pointed out on the other
side of the path a mass of clay (conglomerate, I presume), called the
Devil’s Post-office. It has been lately washed with rains so copious
that half the edifice lies at the base of that which is standing. The
structure is not large: it is highly satisfactory--especially to a man
who in this life has suffered severely, as the Anglo-Indian ever must
from endless official and semi-official correspondence--to remark that
the London Post-office is about double its size.
[MISS MOORE AND HER HUSBAND.]
Beyond the Post-office was another ranch belonging to a Portuguese
named Luis Silva, married to an Englishwoman who had deserted the Salt
Lake Saints. We “staid a piece” there, but found few inducements to
waste our time. Moreover, we had heard from afar of an “ole ’ooman,”
an Englishwoman, a Miss Moore--Miss is still used for Mrs. by Western
men and negroes--celebrated for cleanliness, tidiness, civility, and
housewifery in general, and we were anxious to get rid of the evil
flavor of Canadians, squaws, and “ladies.”
At 11 A.M. we reached “Three Crossings,” when we found the “miss”
a stout, active, middle-aged matron, deserving of all the praises
that had so liberally been bestowed upon her. The little ranch was
neatly swept and garnished, papered and ornamented. The skull of a
full-grown bighorn hanging over the doorway represented the spoils of
a stag of twelve. The table-cloth was clean, so was the cooking, so
were the children; and I was reminded of Europe by the way in which
she insisted upon washing my shirt, an operation which, after leaving
the Missouri, _ça va sans dire_, had fallen to my own lot. In fact,
this day introduced me to the third novel sensation experienced on the
western side of the Atlantic. The first is to feel (practically) that
all men are equal; that you are no man’s superior, and that no man is
yours. The second--this is spoken as an African wanderer--to see one’s
quondam acquaintance, the Kaffir, laying by his grass kilt and coat of
grease, invest himself in broadcloth, part his wool on one side, shave
what pile nature has scattered upon his upper lip, chin, and cheeks
below a line drawn from the ear to the mouth-corner after the fashion
of the times when George the Third was king, and call himself, not
Sambo, but Mr. Scott. The third was my meeting in the Rocky Mountains
with this refreshing specimen of that far Old World, where, on the
whole, society still lies in strata, as originally deposited, distinct,
sharply defined, and rarely displaced, except by some violent upheaval
from below, which, however, never succeeds long in producing total
inversion. Miss Moore’s husband, a decent appendage, had transferred
his belief from the Church of England to the Church of Utah, and the
good wife, as in duty bound, had followed in his wake whom she was
bound to love, honor, and obey. But when the serpent came and whispered
in Miss Moore’s modest, respectable, one-idea’d ear that the Abrahams
of Great Salt Lake City are mere “sham Abrams”--that, not content with
Sarahs, they add to them an unlimited supply of Hagars, then did our
stout Englishwoman’s power of endurance break down never to rise again.
“Not an inch would she budge;” not a step toward Utah Territory would
she take. She fought pluckily against the impending misfortune, and--_à
quelque chose malheur est bon!_--she succeeded in reducing her husband
to that state which is typified by the wife using certain portions of
the opposite sex’s wardrobe, and in making him make a good livelihood
as station-master on the wagon-line.
After a copious breakfast, which broke the fast of the four days that
had dragged on since our civilized refection at Fort Laramie, we spread
our buffalos and water-proofs under the ample eaves of the ranch,
and spent the day in taking time with the sextant--every watch being
wrong--in snoozing, dozing, chatting, smoking, and contemplating the
novel view. Straight before us rose the Rattlesnake Hills, a nude and
grim horizon, frowning over the soft and placid scene below, while at
their feet flowed the little river--_splendidior vitro_--purling over
its pebbly bed with graceful meanderings through clover prairillons
and garden-spots full of wild currants, strawberries, gooseberries,
and rattlesnakes; while, contrasting with the green River Valley and
the scorched and tawny rock-wall, patches of sand-hill, raised by the
winds, here and there cumbered the ground. The variety of the scene was
much enhanced by the changeful skies. The fine breeze which had set
in at 8 A.M. had died in the attempt to thread these heat-refracting
ridges, and vapory clouds, sublimated by the burning sun, floated
lazily in the empyrean, casting fitful shadows that now intercepted,
then admitted, a blinding glare upon the mazy stream and its rough
cradle.
In the evening we bathed in the shallow bed of the Sweetwater. It is
vain to caution travelers against this imprudence. _Video meliora
proboque_--it is doubtless unwise--but it is also _mera stultitia_
to say to men who have not enjoyed ablutions for a week or ten days,
“If you do take that delicious dip you may possibly catch fever.”
_Deteriora sequor_--bathed. Miss Moore warned us strongly against the
rattlesnakes, and during our walk we carefully observed the Indian
rule, to tread upon the log and not to overstep it. The crotalus, I
need hardly say, like other snakes, is fond of lurking under the shade
of fallen or felled trunks, and when a heel or a leg is temptingly
set before it, it is not the beast to refuse a bite. Accidents are
very common, despite all precautions, upon this line, but they seldom,
I believe, prove fatal. The remedies are almost endless: _e. g._,
hartshorn, used externally and drunk in dilution; scarification and
irrumation of the part, preceded, of course, by a ligature between the
limb and the heart; application of the incised breast of a live fowl or
frog to the wound; the dried and powdered blood of turtle, of this two
pinches to be swallowed and a little dropped upon the place bitten; a
plaster of chewed or washed plantain-leaves--it is cooling enough, but
can do little more--bound upon the puncture, peppered with a little
finely-powdered tobacco; pulverized indigo made into a poultice with
water; cauterization by gunpowder, hot iron, or lunar caustic; cedron,
a nut growing on the Isthmus of Panama--of this remedy I heard, _in
loco_, the most wonderful accounts, dying men being restored, as if
by magic, after a bit about the size of a bean had been placed in
their mouths. As will be seen below, the land is rich in snakeroots,
but the superstitious snakestone of Hindostan--which acts, if it
does act, as an absorbent of the virus by capillary attraction--is
apparently unknown. The favorite remedy now in the United States is
the “whisky cure,” which, under the form of arrack, combined in the
case of a scorpion-sting with a poultice of chewed tobacco, was known
for the last fifty years to the British soldier in India. It has the
advantage of being a palatable medicine; it must also be taken in large
quantities, a couple of bottles sometimes producing little effect. With
the lighted end of a cigar applied as moxa to the wound, a _quantum
sufficit_ of ardent spirits, a couple of men to make me walk about
when drowsy by the application of a stick, and, above all, with the
serious resolution not to do any thing so mean as to “leap the twig,” I
should not be afraid of any snake yet created. The only proviso is that
our old enemy must not touch an artery, and that the remedies must be
at hand. Fifteen minutes lost, you are “down among the dead men.” The
history of fatal cases always shows some delay.[96]
[96] The author of “The Quadroon” (chap. xxxii., etc.) adduces a
happy instance of a “hero” who, after a delay and an amount of
exertion which certainly would have cost him his life, was relieved
by tobacco and cured by the snakeroot (_Polygala Senega_). The
popular snakeroots quoted by Mr. Bartlett are the Seneca snakeroot
above alluded to, the black snakeroot (_Cimicifuga racemosa_), and
the Virginia snakeroot (_Aristolochia serpentaria_).
[A HUBBUB.--“YES, SURR!”]
We supped in the evening merrily. It was the best coffee we had tasted
since leaving New Orleans; the cream was excellent, so was the cheese.
But an antelope had unfortunately been brought in; we had insisted upon
a fry of newly-killed flesh, which was repeated in the morning, and we
had bitterly to regret it. While I was amusing myself by attempting to
observe an immersion of Jupiter’s satellites with a notable failure in
the shape of that snare and delusion, a portable telescope, suddenly
there arose a terrible hubbub. For a moment it was believed that
the crotalus horridus had been taking liberties with one of Miss
Moore’s progeny. The seat of pain, however, soon removed the alarming
suspicion, and--the rattlesnake seldom does damage at night--we soon
came to the conclusion that the dear little fellow who boo-hoo’d for
forty had been bitten by a musqueto somewhat bigger than its fellows.
The poor mother soon was restored to her habits of happiness and hard
labor. Not contented with supporting her own family, she was doing
supererogation by feeding a little rat-eyed, snub-nosed, shark-mouthed
half-breed girl, who was, I believe, in the market as a “chattel.” Mrs.
Dana pointed out to me one sign of demoralization on the part of Miss
Moore. It was so microscopic that only a woman’s acute eye could detect
it. Miss Moore was teaching her children to say “Yes, surr!” to every
driver.
_To the Foot of South Pass. 19th August._
With renewed spirit, despite a somewhat hard struggle with the
musquetoes, we set out at the respectable hour of 5 45 A.M. We had
breakfasted comfortably, and an interesting country lay before us.
The mules seemed to share in our gayety. Despite a long ringing,
the amiable animals kicked and bit, bucked and backed, till their
recalcitrances had almost deposited us in the first ford of the
Sweetwater. For this, however, we were amply consoled by the greater
misfortunes of our consort, the official wagon. After long luxuriating
in the pick of the teams, they were to-day so thoroughly badly “muled”
that they were compelled to apply for our assistance.
We forded the river twice within fifty yards, and we recognized with
sensible pleasure a homely-looking magpie (_Pica Hudsonica_), and a
rattlesnake, not inappropriately, considering where we were, crossed
the road. Our path lay between two rocky ridges, which gradually closed
inward, forming a regular kanyon, quite shutting out the view. On both
sides white and micaceous granite towered to the height of 300 or 400
feet, terminating in jagged and pointed peaks, whose partial disruption
covered the angle at their base. Arrived at Ford No. 5, we began an
ascent, and reaching the summit, halted to enjoy the fine back view of
the split and crevassed mountains.
A waterless and grassless track of fifteen to sixteen miles led us to
a well-known place--the Ice Springs--of which, somewhat unnecessarily,
a marvel is made. The ground, which lies on the right of the road, is
a long and swampy trough between two waves of land which permit the
humidity to drain down, and the grass is discolored, suggesting the
presence of alkali. After digging about two feet, ice is found in small
fragments. Its presence, even in the hottest seasons, may be readily
accounted for by the fact that hereabouts water will freeze in a tent
during July, and by the depth to which the wintry frost extends. Upon
the same principle, snow gathering in mountain ravines and hollows long
outlasts the shallower deposits. A little beyond Ice Springs, on the
opposite side of, and about a quarter of a mile distant from the road,
lie the Warm Springs, one of the many alkaline pans which lie scattered
over the face of the country. From the road nothing is to be seen but a
deep cunette full of percolated water.
Beyond the Warm Springs lay a hopeless-looking land, a vast slope,
barren and desolate as Nature could well make it. The loose sands and
the granite masses of the valley had disappeared; the surface was a
thin coat of hard gravelly soil. Some mosses, a scanty yellow grass,
and the dark gray artemisia, now stunted and shrunk, were sparsely
scattered about. It had already begun to give way before an even
hardier creation, the rabbit-bush and the greasewood. The former,
which seems to thrive under the wintry snow, is a favorite food with
hares, which abound in this region; the latter (_Obione_, or _Atriplex
canescens_, the chamizo of the Mexicans) derives its name from the
oleaginous matter abundant in its wood, and is always a sign of a
poor and sterile soil. Avoiding a steep descent by a shorter road,
called “Landers’ Cut-off,” we again came upon the Sweetwater, which
was here somewhat broader than below, and lighted upon good grass
and underbrush, willow copses, and a fair halting-place. At Ford No.
6--three followed one another in rapid succession--we found the cattle
of a traveling trader scattered over the pasture-grounds, He proved to
be an Italian driven from the low country by a band of Sioux, who had
slain his Shoshonee wife, and at one time had thought of adding his
scalp to his squaw’s. After Ford No. 8, we came upon a camping-ground,
usually called in guide-books “River Bank and Stream.” The Sweetwater
is here twenty-five feet wide. About three miles beyond it lay
the “Foot of Ridge Station,” near a willowy creek, called from its
principal inhabitants the Muskrat.[97] The ridge from which it derives
its name is a band of stone that will cross the road during to-morrow’s
ascent. Being a frontier place, it is a favorite camping-ground with
Indians. To-day a war party of Sioux rode in, _en route_ to provide
themselves with a few Shoshonee scalps.
[97] _Fiber zibeticus_, a beaver-like animal that inhabits the banks
of ponds and streams: it has a strong musky odor in summer only, and
is greedily eaten by the Indians.
[TEMPERATURE.]
We made a decided rise to-day, and stood at least 6000 feet above the
level of the sea. The altitude of St. Louis being in round numbers
500 feet, and reckoning the diminution of temperature at 1° F. = 100
yards, we are already 19° to 20° F. colder than before. The severity
of the atmosphere and the rapid evaporation from the earth cause an
increase of frigidity, to which the salts and nitrates upon the surface
of the soil, by absorbing the hydrogen of the atmosphere--as is shown
by the dampness of the ground and the absence of dust around the
Saleratus Lakes--greatly add. Another remark made by every traveler
in these regions is the marked influence upon the temperature caused
by the presence and the absence of the sun. The day will be sultry
and oppressive, and a fire will be required at night. In the morning,
about 11 A.M., the thermometer showed 80° Fahrenheit; at 4 P.M., the
sky being clouded over, it fell 25°; before dawn, affected by the cold
north wind from the snows about the Pass, it stood at 40°.
[FIRST COME, FIRST SERVED.]
The lowering firmament threatened rain, of which, however, the thirsty
land was disappointed. Moreover, all were agreed that snow was to
be expected in another fortnight, if not sooner. Glacial storms
occasionally occur in July and August, so that in some years the
land may be said to have no summer. In winter the sharpness of the
cold is such that it can be kept out only by clothes of the closest
texture; the mountain-men, like the Esquimaux, prefer to clothe
themselves cap-a-piè in the prepared skins of animals. We were all
animated with a nervous desire for travel, but there was the rub. The
station-master declared that he had no driver, no authority to forward
two wagonsful, and no cattle; consequently, that the last comers must
be last served, and wait patiently at Rocky Ridge till they could be
sent on. They would find antelopes in plenty, perhaps a grizzly, and
plenty of plover, crows, and delicate little ground-squirrels[98] by
the burrowful, to “keep their hands in.” We being the first comers,
a title to preference rarely disputed in this law-and-rule-abiding
land, prudently held ourselves aloof. The Judiciary, however, was
sorely “exercised.” Being a “professor,” that is, a serious person, he
could not relieve his mind by certain little _moyens_ which naturally
occurred to the rest of the party. Many and protracted were the powwows
that took place on this momentous occasion. Sometimes our quondam
companions--we now looked upon them as friends lost to us--would
mysteriously disappear as though the earth had opened and swallowed
them, and presently they would return with woe-begone step and the
wrinkled brow of care, simulating an ease which they were far from
feeling.
[98] I had no opportunity of observing this clean, pretty, and
vivacious little animal, whose chirruping resembles that of
a bird; but it appeared to be quite a different species from
the common striped and spotted prairie-squirrel (_Spermophilus
tredecimlineatus_), or the chipmonk or chipmuk (_S. striatus_).
The station rather added to than took from our discomfort: it was a
terrible unclean hole; milk was not procurable within thirty-five
miles; one of the officials was suffering sorely from a stomach-ache;
there was no sugar, and the cooking was atrocious. With a stray
title-pageless volume of some natural history of America, and another
of agricultural reports--in those days, before reform came, these
scientific and highly elaborate compositions, neatly printed and
expensively got up at the public expense, were apparently distributed
to every ranch and station in the line of road--I worked through the
long and tedious afternoon. We were not sorry when the night came,
but then the floor was knobby, the musquetoes seemed rather to enjoy
the cold, and the banks swarmed with “chinches.”[99] The coyotes and
wolves made night vocal with their choruses, and had nearly caused an
accident. One of the station-men arose, and, having a bone to pick with
the animals for having robbed his beef-barrel, cocked his revolver, and
was upon the point of firing, when the object aimed at started up and
cried out in the nick of time that he was a federal marshal, not a wolf.
[99] The chinch or chints is the Spanish _chinche_--the popular word
for the _Cimex lectularius_ in the Southern States. In other parts of
the United States the English bug is called a bed-bug: without the
prefix it is applied to beetles and a variety of Coleopters, as the
May-bug, June-bug, golden-bug, etc.
_To the South Pass. August 20th._
We rose with the daybreak; we did not start till nearly 8 A.M., the
interim having been consumed by the tenants of our late consort in a
vain palaver. We bade adieu to them and mounted at last, loudly pitying
their miseries as they disappeared from our ken. But the driver bade
us reserve our sympathy and humane expressions for a more fitting
occasion, and declared--it was probably a little effort of his own
imagination--that those faithless friends had spent all their spare
time in persuading him to take them on and to leave us behind. I, for
one, will never believe that any thing of the kind had been attempted;
a man must be created with a total absence of the bowels of compassion
who would leave a woman and a young child for days together at the foot
of Ridge Station.
[WILLOW CREEK.--SOUTH-PASS CITY.]
The road at once struck away from the Sweetwater, winding up and
down rugged hills and broken hollows. From Fort Laramie the land is
all a sandy and hilly desert where one can easily starve, but here
it shows its worst features. During a steep descent a mule fell,
and was not made to regain its footing without difficulty. Signs of
wolves, coyotes, and badgers were abundant, and the _coqs de prairie_
(sage-chickens), still young and toothsome at this season, were at
no pains to get out of shot. After about five miles we passed by
“Three Lakes,” dirty little ponds north of the road, two near it and
one distant, all about a quarter of a mile apart, and said by those
fond of tasting strange things to have somewhat the flavor, as they
certainly have the semblance, of soapsuds. Beyond this point we crossed
a number of influents of the pretty Sweetwater, some dry, others full:
the most interesting was Strawberry Creek: it supplies plenty of the
fragrant wild fruit, and white and red willows fringe the bed as long
as it retains its individuality. To the north a mass of purple nimbus
obscured the mountains--on Frémont’s Peak it is said always to rain
or snow--and left no visible line between earth and sky. Quaking-Asp
Creek was bone dry. At MacAchran’s Branch of the Sweetwater we found,
pitched upon a sward near a willow copse, a Provençal Frenchman--by
what “hasard que les sceptiques appellent l’homme d’affaires du bon
Dieu” did he come here?--who begged us to stop and give him the news,
especially about the Indians: we could say little that was reassuring.
Another spell of rough, steep ground placed us at Willow Creek, a
pretty little prairillon, with verdure, water, and an abundance of the
larger vegetation, upon which our eyes, long accustomed to artemisia
and rabbit-bush, dwelt with a compound sense of surprise and pleasure.
In a well-built ranch at this place of plenty were two Canadian
traders, apparently settled for life; they supplied us, as we found it
necessary to “liquor up,” with a whisky which did not poison us, and
that is about all that I can say for it. At Ford No. 9, we bade adieu
to the Sweetwater with that natural regret which one feels when losing
sight of the only pretty face and pleasant person in the neighborhood;
and we heard with a melancholy satisfaction the driver’s tribute to
departing worth, viz., that its upper course is the “healthiest water
in the world.” Near this spot, since my departure, has been founded
“South-Pass City,” one of the many mushroom growths which the presence
of gold in the Rocky Mountains has caused to spring up.
Ten miles beyond Ford No. 9, hilly miles, ending in a long champaign
having some of the characteristics of a rolling prairie, with scatters
of white, rose, and smoky quartz, granite, hornblende, porphyry,
marble-like lime, sandstone, and mica slate--the two latter cropping
out of the ground and forming rocky ridges--led us to the South Pass,
the great _Wassersheide_ between the Atlantic and the Pacific, and the
frontier points between the territory of Nebraska and the State of
Oregon. From the mouth of the Sweetwater, about 120 miles, we have been
rising so gradually, almost imperceptibly, that now we unexpectedly
find ourselves upon the summit. The distance from Fort Laramie is 320
miles, from St. Louis 1580, and from the mouth of the Oregon about
1400: it is therefore nearly midway between the Mississippi and the
Pacific. The dimensions of this memorial spot are 7490 feet above
sea-level, and 20 miles in breadth. The last part of the ascent is
so gentle that it is difficult to distinguish the exact point where
the versant lies: a stony band crossing the road on the ridge of the
table-land is pointed out as the place, and the position has been fixed
at N. lat. 48° 19′, and W. long. 108° 40′.[100] The northern limit is
the noble chain of Les Montagnes Rocheuses, which goes by the name of
the Wind River; the southern is called Table Mountain, an insignificant
mass of low hills.
[100] Some guide-books place the water-shed between two small hills,
the “Twin Peaks,” about fifty or sixty feet high; the road, however,
no longer passes between them.
A pass it is not: it has some of the features of Thermopylæ or the
Gorge of Killiecrankie; of the European St. Bernard or Simplon; of
the Alleghany Passes or of the Mexican _Barrancas_. It is not, as
it sounds, a ghaut between lofty mountains, or, as the traveler may
expect, a giant gateway, opening through Cyclopean walls of beetling
rocks that rise in forbidding grandeur as he passes onward to the
Western continent. And yet the word “Pass” has its significancy. In
that New World where Nature has worked upon the largest scale, where
every feature of scenery, river and lake, swamp and forest, prairie and
mountain, dwarf their congeners in the old hemisphere, this majestic
level-topped bluff, the highest steppe of the continent, upon whose
iron surface there is space enough for the armies of the globe to march
over, is the grandest and the most appropriate of avenues.
A water-shed is always exciting to the traveler. What shall I say
of this, where, on the topmost point of American travel, you drink
within a hundred yards of the waters of the Atlantic and the Pacific
Oceans--that divides the “doorways of the west wind” from the “portals
of the sunrise?” On the other side of yon throne of storms, within
sight, did not the Sierra interpose, lie separated by a trivial space
the fountain-heads that give birth to the noblest rivers of the
continent, the Columbia, the Colorado, and the Yellow Stone, which
is to the Missouri what the Missouri is to the Mississippi, whence
the waters trend to four opposite directions: the Wind River to the
northeast; to the southeast the Sweetwater and the Platte; the various
branches of the Snake River to the northeast; and to the southwest the
Green River, that finds its way into the Californian Gulf.[101] It
is a suggestive spot, this “divortia aquarum:” it compels Memory to
revive past scenes before plunging into the mysterious “Lands of the
Hereafter,” which lie before and beneath the feet. The Great Ferry,
which steam has now bridged, the palisaded banks of the Hudson, the
soft and sunny scenery of the Ohio, and the kingly course of the
Upper Mississippi, the terrible beauty of Niagara, and the marvels of
that chain of inland seas which winds its watery way from Ontario to
Superior; the rich pasture-lands of the North, the plantations of the
semi-tropical South, and the broad corn-fields of the West; finally,
the vast meadow-land and the gloomy desert-waste of sage and saleratus,
of clay and _mauvaise terre_, of red _butte_ and tawny rock, all pass
before the mind in rapid array ere they are thrust into oblivion by the
excitement of a new departure.
[101] As early as A.D. 1772 (Description of the Province of Carolana,
etc., etc., by Daniel Cox) it was suggested that there was a line of
water communication by means of the “northern branch of the Great
Yellow River, by the natives called the River of the Massorites”
(Missouri River), and a branch of the Columbia River, which, however,
was erroneously supposed to disembogue through the Great Salt Lake
into the Pacific. The idea has been revived in the present day. Some
assert that the upper waters of the Yellow Stone, which approach
within three hundred miles of Great Salt Lake City, are three
feet deep, and therefore navigable for flat-bottomed boats during
the annual inundation. Others believe that, as in the case of the
Platte, shallowness would be an insuperable obstacle, except for
one or two months. This point will doubtless be settled by Captain
W. F. Raynolds, of the United States Topographical Engineers, who,
accompanied by Colonel J. Bridger, was, at the time of my visit to
Great Salt Lake City, exploring the Valley of the Yellow Stone.
[THE SOUTH PASS.]
But we have not yet reached our destination, which is two miles below
the South Pass. Pacific Springs is our station; it lies a little down
the hill, and we can sight it from the road. The springs are a pond of
pure, hard, and very cold water, surrounded by a strip of shaking bog,
which must be boarded over before it will bear a man. The hut would be
a right melancholy abode were it not for the wooded ground on one hand,
and the glorious snow-peaks on the other side of the “Pass.” We reached
Pacific Springs at 3 P.M., and dined without delay, the material being
bouilli and potatoes--unusual luxuries. About an hour afterward the
west wind, here almost invariable, brought up a shower of rain, and
swept a vast veil over the forms of the Wind-River Mountains. Toward
sunset it cleared away, and the departing luminary poured a flood of
gold upon the majestic pile--I have seldom seen a view more beautiful.
From the south, the barren rolling table-land that forms the Pass
trends northward till it sinks apparently below a ridge of offsets from
the main body, black with timber--cedar, cypress, fir, and balsam pine.
The hand of Nature has marked, as though by line and level, the place
where vegetation shall go and no farther. Below the waist the mountains
are robed in evergreens; above it, to the shoulders, they would be
entirely bare but for the atmosphere, which has thrown a thin veil
of light blue over their tawny gray, while their majestic heads are
covered with ice and snow, or are hidden from sight by thunder-cloud
or the morning mist. From the south, on clear days, the cold and
glittering radiance may be seen at a distance of a hundred miles. The
monarch of these mountains is “Frémont’s Peak;” its height is laid down
at 13,570 feet above sea level; and second to it is a hoary cone called
by the station-people Snowy Peak.
That evening the Wind-River Mountains appeared in marvelous majesty.
The huge purple hangings of rain-cloud in the northern sky set off
their huge proportions, and gave prominence, as in a stereoscope, to
their gigantic forms, and their upper heights, hoar with the frosts
of ages. The mellow radiance of the setting sun diffused a charming
softness over their more rugged features, defining the folds and
ravines with a distinctness which deceived every idea of distance. And
as the light sank behind the far western horizon, it traveled slowly up
the mountain side, till, reaching the summit, it mingled its splendors
with the snow--flashing and flickering for a few brief moments, then
wasting them in the dark depths of the upper air. Nor was the scene
less lovely in the morning hour, as the first effulgence of day fell
upon the masses of dew-cloud--at this time mist always settles upon
their brows--lit up the peaks, which gleamed like silver, and poured
its streams of light and warmth over the broad skirts reposing upon the
plain.
This unknown region was explored in August, 1842, by Colonel, then
Brevet Captain, J. C. Frémont, of the United States Topographical
Engineers; and his eloquent descriptions of the magnificent scenery
that rewarded his energy and enterprise prove how easily men write
well when they have a great subject to write upon. The concourse
of small green tarns, rushing waters, and lofty cascades, with the
gigantic disorder of enormous masses, the savage sublimity of the naked
rock, broken, jagged cones, slender minarets, needles, and columns,
and serrated walls, 2000 to 3000 feet high, all naked and destitute
of vegetable earth; the vertical precipices, chasms, and fissures,
insecure icy passages, long moraines, and sloping glaciers--which had
nearly proved fatal to some of the party; the stern recesses, shutting
out from the world dells and ravines of exquisite beauty, smoothly
carpeted with soft grass, kept green and fresh by the moisture of the
atmosphere, and sown with gay groups of brilliant flowers, of which
yellow was the predominant color: all this glory and grandeur seems
to be placed like a picture before our eyes. The reader enjoys, like
the explorer, the fragrant odor of the pines, and the pleasure of
breathing, in the bright, clear morning, that “mountain air which
makes a constant theme of the hunter’s praise,” and which causes
man to feel as if he had been inhaling some exhilarating gas. We
sympathize with his joy in having hit upon “such a beautiful entrance
to the mountains,” in his sorrow, caused by accidents to barometer
and thermometer, and in the honest pride with which, fixing a ramrod
in the crevice of “an unstable and precarious slab, which it seemed a
breath would hurl into the abyss below,” he unfurled the Stars and the
Stripes, to wave in the breeze where flag never waved before--over the
topmost crest of the Rocky Mountains. And every driver upon the road
now can tell how, in the profound silence and terrible stillness and
solitude that affect the mind as the great features of the scene, while
sitting on a rock at the very summit, where the silence was absolute,
unbroken by any sound, and the stillness and solitude were completest,
a solitary “humble-bee”[102] winging through the black-blue air his
flight from the eastern valley, alit upon the knee of one of the men,
and, helas! “found a grave in the leaves of the large book, among the
flowers collected on the way.”
[102] A species of _bromus_ or _bombus_. In the United States, as
in England, the word is often pronounced bumble-bee. Johnson says
we call a bee an humble bee that wants a sting; so the States call
black cattle without horns “humble cows.” It is the general belief of
the mountaineers that the bee, the partridge, the plantain, and the
“Jamestown weed” follow the footsteps of the white pioneers westward.
[GOLD.--GAME.--MUSQUETOES.--A “SMUDGE.”]
The Wind-River Range has other qualities than mere formal beauty to
recommend it. At Horseshoe Creek I was shown a quill full of large
gold-grains from a new digging. Probably all the primitive masses of
the Rocky Mountains will be found to contain the precious metal. The
wooded heights are said to be a very paradise of sport, full of elk and
every kind of deer; pumas; bears, brown[103] as well as grizzly; the
wolverine;[104] in parts the mountain buffalo--briefly, all the noble
game of the Continent. The Indian tribes, Shoshonees and Blackfeet, are
not deadly to whites. Washiki, the chief of the former, had, during the
time of our visit, retired to hilly ground, about forty miles north of
the Foot of Ridge Station. This chief--a fine, manly fellow, equal in
point of physical strength to the higher race--had been a firm friend,
from the beginning, to emigrant and settler; but he was complaining,
according to the road officials, that the small amount of inducement
prevented his affording good conduct any longer--that he must rob, like
the rest of the tribe. Game, indeed, is not unfrequently found near
the Pacific Springs; they are visited, later in the year, by swans,
geese, and flights of ducks. At this season they seem principally to
attract coyotes--five mules have lately been worried by the little
villains--huge cranes, chicken-hawks, a large species of trochilus, and
clouds of musquetoes, which neither the altitude, the cold, nor the
eternal wind-storm that howls through the Pass can drive from their
favorite breeding-bed. Near nightfall a flock of wild geese passed
over us, audibly threatening an early winter. We were obliged, before
resting, to insist upon a smudge,[105] without which fumigation sleep
would have been impossible.
[103] Some authorities doubt that the European brown bear is found in
America.
[104] The wolverine (_Gulo luscus_), carcajou, or glutton, extends
throughout Utah Territory: its carnivorous propensities render it an
object of peculiar hatred to fur-hunters. The first name is loosely
used in the States: the people of Michigan are called Wolverines,
from the large number of _mischievous prairie wolves_ found there
(Bartlett).
[105] This old North of England word is used in the West for a
heap of green bush or other damp combustibles, placed inside or to
windward of a house or tent, and partially lighted, so as to produce
a thick, pungent steam.