evident excitement among people whom I could hear talking on deck. I
rolled out of my cot and stepped out on the gallery. The steamboat
"Kimball" was running head-and-head with us, and so close that one
might have jumped easily from our paddle-box on to her guards. A few
other passengers had turned out besides myself, and most of the waiters
were leaning on the rail of the gallery.
Occasionally a few words of banter passed between them and the waiters
of the "Kimball;" below, the firemen were shouting as they crowded the
furnaces, and some one could be heard cheering them: "Shove her up,
boys! Shove her up! Give her hell!" "She's got to hold a conversation
with us before she gets by, anyhow," said one of the negroes. "Ye har
that ar' whistlin'?" said a white man; "tell ye thar ain't any too much
water in her bilers when ye har that." I laughed silently, but was not
without a slight expectant sensation, which Burke would perhaps have
called sublime. At length the "Kimball" drew slowly ahead, crossed our
bow, and the contest was given up. "De ole lady too heavy," said a
waiter; "if I could pitch a few ton of dat ar freight off her bow, I bet
de 'Kimball' would be askin' her to show de way mighty quick."
[Our traveller missed the experience which in former days made
travel now and then very lively upon the Mississippi,--a blow
up of one or other of the racing boats. A bell was rung to
rouse the cot-sleepers at half-past four, and the rest of the
day was taken up in preparations for and eating the three
meals.]
Every part of the boat, except the black hurricane-deck, was crowded;
and so large a number of equally uncomfortable and disagreeable men I
think I never saw elsewhere together. We made very slow progress,
landing, it seems to me, after we entered Red River, at every "bend,"
"bottom," "bayou," "point," and "plantation" that came in sight; often
for no other object than to roll out a barrel of flour or a keg of
nails; sometimes merely to furnish newspapers to a wealthy planter, who
had much cotton to send to market, and whom it was therefore desirable
to please.
I was sitting one day on the forward gallery, watching a pair of
ducks, that were alternately floating on the river and flying farther
ahead as the steamer approached them. A man standing near me drew a
long-barrelled and very finely-finished pistol from his coat-pocket,
and, resting it against a stanchion, took aim at them. They were,
I judged, fully the boat's own length--not less than two hundred
feet--from us, and were just raising their wings to fly when he fired.
One of them only rose; the other flapped round and round, and when
within ten yards of the boat dived. The bullet had broken its wing.
So remarkable a shot excited, of course, not a little admiration and
conversation. Half a dozen other men standing near me at once drew
pistols or revolvers from under their clothing, and several were firing
at floating chips or objects on the shore. I saw no more remarkable
shooting, however; and that the duck should have been hit at such a
distance was generally considered a piece of luck. A man who had been in
the "Rangers" said that all his company could put a ball into a tree,
the size of a man's body, at sixty paces, at every shot, with Colt's
army revolver, not taking steady aim, but firing at the jerk of the arm.
This pistol episode was almost the only entertainment in which the
passengers engaged themselves, except eating, drinking, smoking,
conversation, and card-playing. Gambling was constantly going on, day
and night. I don't think there was an interruption to it of fifteen
minutes in three days. The conversation was almost exclusively confined
to the topics of steamboats, liquors, cards, black-land, red-land,
bottom-land, timber-land, warrants, and locations, sugar, cotton, corn,
and negroes.
After the first night I preferred to sleep on the trunks in the social
hall [the lobby which contained the passengers' baggage] rather than
among the cots in the crowded cabin, and several others did the same.
There were, in fact, not cots enough for all the passengers excluded
from the state-rooms. I found that some, and I presume most, of the
passengers, by making the clerk believe that they would otherwise take
the "Swamp Fox," had obtained their passage at considerably less price
than I had paid.
[The above are the principal events of this description of
steamboat life before the war. Our passenger's journey ended at
Natchitoches, on the Red River, whence he started on a vagrant
trip through Texas, in which we need not follow him.]
WINTER ON THE PRAIRIES.
G. W. FEATHERSTONHAUGH.
[Of the earlier records of English travel in America one of the
most interesting and informing works is Featherstonhaugh's "A
Canoe Voyage up the Minnay Sotor," a journey made by the author
in 1835, and yielding much useful information on what is now
the ancient history of the great West. The selection given is
devoted to some of his prairie experiences during his journey
through the Sioux country from Lac qui Parle to Lake Travers.]
Renville had procured me a _charette_, or cart, to carry the tent,
baggage, and provisions. I was to ride an old gray mare, with a foal
running alongside; one of the Canadians was to drive the _charette_, and
Miler and the rest were to walk. The morning was exceeding cold, and our
road was along the prairie parallel with the lake. All the country in
every direction, having been burnt over, was perfectly black, and a
disagreeable sooty odor filled the atmosphere. At the end of five hours
of a very tedious march we reached a stream called _Wahboptah_, which
may be translated _Ground-nut_ river, the savages being in the habit of
digging up the _Psoralea esculenta_, a nutritive bulbous root which
grows here. The stream was about thirty feet wide, and had some trees
growing on its banks. Having built up a good fire, the men proceeded to
cook their dinner, while I strolled up the stream and collected some
very fine unios, although I found it bitterly cold wading in the shallow
water to procure them.
Having fed our horses on the grass near the stream which had not been
burnt over, we started again for _Les Grosses Isles_, which we were
instructed were distant about seven leagues, at the foot of Big Stone
Lake. During the first two leagues the strong sooty smell of the country
gave me a severe headache, and the weather became so cold that I was
very uncomfortable; the fire, however, had not extended beyond this
distance, for in about an hour and a half from our departure we came to
the grass again, and I fortunately got rid of my headache. Our cavalry
was exceedingly pleased by the change, the horses repeatedly winnowing
to each other, as if to express their satisfaction. I here perceived a
live gopher, or geomys, feebly running in the grass, and, dismounting,
caught it. It apparently had strayed from its burrow, and had suffered
from the weather. After examining it I let it go again, as it was
impossible to take care of it, and I did not like to consign it to the
men, as I knew they would kill and eat it, for they spared nothing.
As the evening advanced it became excessively cold, and a sharp wind,
accompanied with frozen sleet, set in from the northeast: this soon
became so thick that I could scarcely look up, much more see anything in
the direction in which I was proceeding. Securing my person and ears as
well as I could with my blanket coat, I left it to the mare--who
Renville told me had been more than once to Lake Travers--to take her
own course. At length the sleet became so dense that I lost sight of
everybody except the little foal, which, generally lagging behind in the
wake of its dam, occasionally trotted up to her when in her great
anxiety she called for it. I never saw greater marks of maternal feeling
in an animal than in this poor creature to her young one.
As we advanced my situation became exceedingly painful: the frozen sleet
came in streams upon my face and eyes when I looked up; my feet and
hands were so cold that I had scarcely any power over them; my whole
exterior, as well as the head and neck of the mare, was covered with a
glazing of ice; night was advancing, and we were without a guide, upon
a dreary and shelterless moor of very great extent, and far beyond our
present day's journey, with no prospect of an abatement of the storm.
In the course of a somewhat adventurous life I have occasionally had to
meet with serious privations and to look danger rather steadily in the
face, but I had never been where there was so slight a chance of any
favorable change. I had not even the comfort before me that every
bleak moor in England offers under similar circumstances to the
imagination,--some kind of shelter to receive us at last, if we were
not overpowered by the inclemency of the weather. It became absolutely
necessary to consider what it was best to do, if overtaken before dark
by a deep snow.
My first thought was not to separate myself from my party, which I had
not seen for some time, for they had the cart, the tent, and the
provisions; and if we failed in our attempt to reach the few trees that
grew near Grosses Isles,--the only chance we had of finding materials to
make fire,--we could at any rate burn the _charette_, eat something,
and cover ourselves as well as we could with the tent. This we
inevitably should have to do if we missed the station we were aiming at,
and of which there was imminent danger, as it was too thick for us to
discern any trees at a distance. I therefore stopped the mare for a
while and turned our backs to the storm, which seemed to be a great
relief to us both. I had not heard the voices of the men for some time,
but I knew the cart was slowly following me, and I thought it best to
wait awhile ere I advanced towards them, as it was quite possible that I
might deviate from the direction they were advancing in and separate
myself from them altogether.
In about a quarter of an hour the voices of the men answered to the
shouts I had from time to time made, and soon after they joined me, all
of them covered with ice and icicles. The men were afraid we had got
into the wrong track, having passed one or two that forked different
ways, and this would have been a most serious misfortune. Upon appealing
to Miler, who was covered with ice, his answer was, "N'ayez pas peur,
monsieur; n'ayez pas peur." I was well aware that this opinion of a
sagacious guide like himself, trained to all the difficulties and
incidents of Indian life, was better than that of the others, and I had
more confidence in his prudence and in his conduct than I had in them;
but still I was not without fear that darkness would overtake us; and if
it had been left to myself, should have been inclined to attempt to set
up the tent while it was daylight.
But Miler kept walking on before the _charette_, acting up to his
character of guide in the most thorough manner. I determined, therefore,
to be governed altogether by him, and taking my place in the rear of the
_charette_, thought that, as I had now joined my party, I would alight,
and endeavor, by running a little, to restore the circulation of my
limbs; but my feet and hands were so benumbed that I found it even
difficult to dismount, or to stand when I reached the ground. As to the
poor mare, she had icicles depending from her nose six or eight inches
long, which I broke off; and holding the bridle under my right arm, and
averting my face a little from the storm, I tried to run and draw her
into a gentle trot, but it was all in vain; she was too anxious about
her foal, which was tired and becoming weak, and could scarce come up to
her when she called it. Full of anxiety as I was about myself, I could
not but admire the solicitude of this good mother for her young, so
earnestly does the voice of nature plead even with the inferior animals;
that voice which God has planted in ourselves, no less for the safety of
the species we are bound to protect than to express the intensity of the
love we bear to our offspring.
After trying in vain to get the mare out of her snail's pace without at
all improving my own situation, I perceived that I must be making
leeway, for I had lost sight of the _charette_, so I determined to mount
again and push her into a trot; we had got up a quasi-trot in the
morning, and I hoped I might succeed in doing it again, but it took me a
long time to do it. I was so benumbed that I could not regain my seat in
the saddle until I had made several efforts, and then the adjusting my
blanket-coat, and the covering my face to protect it from the cutting
sleet, lost me so much time, that I was in a worse situation than
ever,--separated from my party, night approaching, and somewhat
apprehensive that in the gray light that was beginning to prevail I
might wander from them and be unable to rejoin them. Being already half
frozen, and feeling rather faint at my stomach, it was clear to me that
in that case I should certainly be frozen to death.
Getting on as well as I could, and ruminating very unsatisfactorily upon
these possible consequences, the storm began to abate, and the wind
veered to the northwest; the mare knew this, and gave immediate signs of
it by improving her pace. As we went on the weather began to clear up,
and as I was straining my eyes to look for the _charette_, I heard the
horse which drew it neigh several times; to this the mare immediately
answered, and soon after came a cheer from the men. Miler was soon seen
advancing to meet me, with the joyful intelligence that the trees at
Grosses Isles were in sight. He said the horse in the _charette_ was the
first to see them and to announce the discovery by neighing; so that,
although horses have not yet reached the art, as some asses have done,
of making long speeches, yet the epithet of dumb animals is not
altogether appropriate to them.
All our anxieties were now at an end, and we soon terminated this
distressing ride, and reached a spot near a marsh, where three or four
trees were standing. Fortunately for us, there was some dead wood on the
ground, and some wild grass for the horses, which we immediately
proceeded to tether and turn loose, that they might choose their own
bite, for the night was too cold for them to stray far. Whilst the men
were collecting wood and pitching the tent, I endeavored to produce a
light, but my fingers were so benumbed that, after breaking several
matches, I gave up the attempt, and began to run backward and forward,
and strike my hands together, to restore my natural warmth. The sickness
at my stomach from exposure and inanition now increased upon me, and I
felt persuaded that I should have perished if I had been obliged to lie
out on the prairie without a fire. At length, the men having got a fire
up, I gradually recovered from my indisposition, and having eaten part
of a biscuit felt much better. I was sorry, however, to receive bad
accounts from the men about the water, which we so much wanted to make
soup for themselves and for my tea. It appeared that the only water that
was to be obtained was from a hole in the swamp, and that it was as
black as ink. On inspecting it, it was so thick and disgusting that I
thought it impossible to use it, but remembering the saying of an old
French fellow-traveller, "Que tout est bon, quand il n'y a pas de
choix," and knowing that nothing but a cup of tea would thoroughly
revive me, and unwilling to send Miler a mile in the dark to Big Stone
Lake to obtain clear water, I determined to make the best I could of it.
I had a large pot therefore filled, and boiled it, skimming it as the
black scum came in immense quantities to the top, and having exhausted
it of everything of that kind that it would yield, the very notable idea
struck me to put a quantity of it into my kettle with some black tea and
boil it over again, which I did, and really, when I poured it out it
looked so like strong black tea, and was so good and refreshing, that I
soon forgot everything about it except that it had restored me to life
and animation. How many dead newts and other animals that had perished
in the desiccation of the swamp that had attended the late drought went
to form this tea-broth would not be easily calculated, but I forgave
them and the sires that begot them.
Whilst we were at our meal, a half-perished Nahcotah Indian came to our
fire, whom I saw at the dance of the braves the day before. I remembered
him the moment he came up, from his having attracted my attention during
the dance by firing his gun over the heads of the dancers, and then
presenting it to one of the braves. Miler had informed me that it was
not unusual upon such occasions for savages who look on to become so
excited as to give everything away that they have. This was what this
poor devil had done; he had parted with his gun and all his little
property, and was now going a journey of six or eight days to the
Cheyenne River to kill buffalo, without any arms, and without anything
to eat by the way. Some one had given him an old pistol without a lock
to it, and seating himself by the fire without saying a word, he after a
while pulled it out, and asked Miler if I would repair it, and give him
some powder and ball? I told Miler to inform him that people could not
make locks for pistols when they were travelling on the prairie in such
stormy weather, but that I would give him something to eat, and directed
the men to give him some of the pork and biscuit out of their pot, which
he seemed to enjoy very much.
Feeling once more comfortable after a hearty supper, I entered my tent,
and remained there to a late hour bringing up my notes, which I had few
opportunities of doing at Lac qui Parle. Before I lay down I could not
help contrasting the cheerless prospect before me at sunset and the
suffering I experienced with the cheerful state of mind and body I had
now returned to, and for which I trust I was most sincerely grateful to
God, who had preserved me in continued health and safety. I felt
completely wound up again, and ready to go on for any length of time,
especially with the reasonable prospect of a good night's rest before
me.
Such are the agreeable excitements attending this kind of life, to those
who can enter without prejudice into the spirit of it. Certainly, whilst
your progress is successful, it is delightful. You have plenty to eat,
and you enjoy what you eat; you are amused and instructed; it is true it
is often cold, but then it is not always so. You encamp when you please;
you cut down as large a tree as you please, and you make as large a fire
of it as you please, without fearing an action of trespass. You kill
deer out of any park you are passing through without being questioned,
and you have the rare privilege of leaving your night's lodging without
calling for the landlord's bill. All law and government proceed from
yourself; and the great point upon which everything turns is the
successful management of the party you are the head of. Prudence,
consistency, firmness, and a little generosity now and then by way of
condiment, will carry such a traveller through everything.
But there is a reverse to the picture. Days and nights exposed to cold,
soaking rains; want of food and water; unavoidable exaggeration of
danger; painful solicitude for those dear to and absent from you, and
most anxious moments when you occasionally feel that prudence is
scarcely sufficient to insure your safety. Even the intense and curious
impatience to push on in the face of apparent danger makes you at times
feel a remorse on account of those you are leading into it. Such are the
contrasts of feeling by which the wanderer in these distant regions,
still unvisited by a ray of civilization, is frequently agitated.
[Reaching Lake Travers, one of the sources of the Red River
of the North, he found quarters with Mr. Brown, the resident
factor of the American Fur Company.]
After breakfast Mr. Brown showed me some very rare furs he
possessed,--several very fine grizzly bear-skins (_Ursus ferox_), one of
which was a bright yellow, a rare variety. He had also an exceedingly
large and rich otter-skin, which, with many other things, I purchased of
him. But my most valuable acquisition here was made from an Assiniboin
chief, who came in about an hour before I departed. This was a fine bow,
made of bone and wood, with a cord of very strong sinew. The chief had
performed a feat with it for which Wanetah, a Nahcotah chief, had been
celebrated. He had killed two buffaloes that were galloping on a
parallel with his own horse at one draft of his arrow, it having passed
through the first and inflicted a mortal wound upon the second.
The chief was very unwilling to part with it. We tried him several times
in vain, and at length I offered him five gold-pieces, or twenty-five
dollars. "_Mahzazhee! Heeyah!_" "Yellow iron! No!" he replied. At last
Mr. Brown produced some brilliant scarlet cloth. The sight of it
overcame his reluctance; it would make such beautiful leggings, and his
squaws would be so delighted with it! So I gave him three yards of the
cloth, and he delivered me the bow, a quiver of arrows, and a skin case,
which contained it. Mr. Brown, of course, got his share of the amount,
though he acted very fairly with me. Money is unknown to these savages,
and they place no value upon it. He would not have taken twenty of these
gold-pieces for his bow, but thought he had made a good bargain with it
for the cloth, although I have no doubt Mr. Brown would have sold it to
any one for ten dollars. It was an affair of barter, where both parties
were satisfied, which, under similar circumstances, is perhaps the best
definition of value.
A HUNTER'S CHRISTMAS DINNER.
J. S. CAMPION.
[Campion's "On the Frontier: Reminiscences of Wild Sports,
Personal Adventure, and Strange Scenes," a work full of
vitality, is the source of our present selection. Some of the
author's adventures with hostile Indians are very interesting,
but the following account of how the author won his Christmas
dinner is likely to prove more attractive reading.]
On the evening of December 23 word was brought into camp by one of the
hands, who had been looking up the mules, that he had come across the
tracks of some twenty-five turkeys, within five or six miles of camp.
This was indeed great news. Hope dawned upon us. We should have the fat
turkey for Christmas, at all events.
At daylight the next day we started for the spot where the turkey-tracks
had been seen; the snow was melted off the low ground, but still lay
thick on the cedar and pinon ridges, and in patches on the bottoms.
On arriving at the place we took the trail, and soon ran it to a
ridge-top, covered with pinon-trees, on the nuts of which the turkeys
had been feeding. Here the tracks spread in all directions, since the
turkeys had wandered about, each on his own hook, searching for nuts,
and, to double the chances of finding them, we also separated, one going
up, the other down, the ridge,--going, too, very carefully, for wild
turkeys are the most wary of all birds, and require to be hunted with,
if possible, more caution than do deer. And we knew not the moment when
we might come upon our game, as it was highly probable they were close
at hand; for turkeys, if unmolested, daily frequent the same range of
feeding-ground, until it is exhausted of food. By and by I came to where
eight of the straggling birds had come together and started off again in
company. The drove had evidently separated into two or more lots, and I
followed the eight turkeys for many miles and for many hours without
seeing fresh sign, until at length I came to the edge of a precipitous
cliff overlooking a wide part of the valley, the river flowing just
below me, and a large grove of big cottonwood-trees in a bottom not far
away.
Evidently I was at the place from which the turkeys had flown off the
night before to go to roost. I quickly descended, and, going under the
cottonwood-trees, searched in the tangle and jungle for sign of their
having roosted above, and soon satisfied myself that they had done so.
The next step necessary was to discover where the turkeys had alighted
in the morning; but this might entail a long search, and, as it was
already past noon, I sat down to rest, eat the luncheon I had provided
myself with, and come to some conclusion as to which direction I had
best choose to make my first cast in.