WE must move on; we have a long and rough journey before us.
Durham had old friends in New York, Fred Calthorpe hadletters to Colonel Fremont, who was then a candidate for thePresidency, and who had discovered the South Pass; and Mr.
Ellice had given me a letter to John Jacob Astor - THEAmerican millionaire of that day. We were thus well providedwith introductions; and nothing could exceed the kindness andhospitality of our American friends.
But time was precious. It was already mid May, and we hadeverything to get - wagons, horses, men, mules, andprovisions. So that we were anxious not to waste a day, buthurry on to St. Louis as fast as we could. Durham was tooill to go with us. Phoca had never intended to do so. Fred,Samson, and I, took leave of our companions, and travellingvia the Hudson to Albany, Buffalo, down Lake Erie, and acrossto Chicago, we reached St. Louis in about eight days. As asingle illustration of what this meant before railroads,Samson and I, having to stop a day at Chicago, hired a buggyand drove into the neighbouring woods, or wilderness, to huntfor wild turkeys.
Our outfit, the whole of which we got at St. Louis, consistedof two heavy wagons, nine mules, and eight horses. We hiredeight men, on the nominal understanding that they were to gowith us as far as the Rocky Mountains on a huntingexpedition. In reality all seven of them, before joining us,had separately decided to go to California.
Having published in 1852 an account of our journey, entitled'A Ride over the Rocky Mountains,' I shall not repeat thestory, but merely give a summary of the undertaking, with afew of the more striking incidents to show what travellingacross unknown America entailed fifty or sixty years ago.
A steamer took us up the Missouri to Omaha. Here wedisembarked on the confines of occupied territory. From nearthis point, where the Platte river empties into the Missouri,to the mouth of the Columbia, on the Pacific - which weultimately reached - is at least 1,500 miles as the crowflies; for us (as we had to follow watercourses and avoidimpassable ridges) it was very much more. Some five-and-forty miles from our starting-place we passed a small villagecalled Savannah. Between it and Vancouver there was not asingle white man's abode, with the exception of three tradingstations - mere mud buildings - Fort Laramie, Fort Hall, andFort Boise.
The vast prairies on this side of the Rocky Mountains weregrazed by herds of countless bison, wapiti, antelope, anddeer of various species. These were hunted by moving tribesof Indians - Pawnees, Omahaws, Cheyennes, Ponkaws, Sioux, &c.
On the Pacific side of the great range, a due west course -which ours was as near as we could keep it - lay across ahuge rocky desert of volcanic debris, where hardly anyvegetation was to be met with, save artemisia - a species ofwormwood - scanty blades of gramma grass, and occasionalosiers by river-banks. The rivers themselves often ranthrough canons or gulches, so deep that one might travel fordays within a hundred feet of water yet perish (some of ouranimals did so) for the want of a drop to drink. Game washere very scarce - a few antelope, wolves, and abundance ofrattlesnakes, were nearly the only living things we saw. TheIndians were mainly fishers of the Shoshone - or Great SnakeRiver - tribe, feeding mostly on salmon, which they spearedwith marvellous dexterity; and Root-diggers, who live uponwild roots. When hard put to it, however, in winter, thelatter miserable creatures certainly, if not the former,devoured their own children. There was no map of thecountry. It was entirely unexplored; in fact, Bancroft theAmerican historian, in his description of the Indian tribes,quotes my account of the Root-diggers; which shows how littlewas known of this region up to this date. I carried a smallcompass fastened round my neck. That and the stars (wetravelled by night when in the vicinity of Indians) were myonly guides for hundreds of dreary miles.
Such then was the task we had set ourselves to grapple with.
As with life itself, nothing but the magic powers of youthand ignorance could have cajoled us to face it with heedlessconfidence and eager zest. These conditions given, withhealth - the one essential of all enjoyment - added, thefirst escape from civilised restraint, the first survey ofprimordial nature as seen in the boundless expanse of theopen prairie, the habitat of wild men and wild animals, -exhilarate one with emotions akin to the schoolboy's rapturein the playground, and the thoughtful man's contemplation ofthe stars. Freedom and change, space and the possibilitiesof the unknown, these are constant elements of our day-dreams; now and then actual life dangles visions of thembefore our eyes, alas! only to teach us that the aspirationswhich they inspire are, for the most part, illusory.
Brief indeed, in our case, were the pleasures of novelty.
For the first few days the business was a continuous picnicfor all hands. It was a pleasure to be obliged to help toset up the tents, to cut wood, to fetch water, to harness themules, and work exactly as the paid men worked. The equalityin this respect - that everything each wanted done had to bedone with his own hands - was perfect; and never, from firstto last, even when starvation left me bare strength to liftthe saddle on to my horse, did I regret the necessity, ordesire to be dependent on another man. But the bloom soonwore off the plum; and the pleasure consisted not in doingbut in resting when the work was done.
For the reason already stated, a sample only of the dailylabour will be given. It may be as well first to bestow afew words upon the men; for, in the long run, our fellowbeings are the powerful factors, for good or ill, in all ourworldly enterprises.
We had two ordinary mule-drivers - Potter and Morris, alittle acrobat out of a travelling circus, a METIF or half-breed Indian named Jim, two French Canadians - Nelson andLouis (the latter spoke French only); Jacob, a Pennsylvanianauctioneer whose language was a mixture of Dutch, Yankee, andGerman; and (after we reached Fort Laramie) another Nelson -'William' as I shall call him - who offered his servicesgratis if we would allow him to go with us to California.
Jacob the Dutch Yankee was the most intelligent and the mostuseful of the lot, and was unanimously elected cook for theparty. The Canadian Nelson was a hard-working good youngfellow, with a passionate temper. Louis was a hunter byprofession, Gallic to the tip of his moustache - fond ofslapping his breast and telling of the mighty deeds of NOUSAUTRES EN HAUT. Jim, the half-breed was Indian by nature -idle, silent, treacherous, but a crafty hunter. Williamdeserves special mention, not from any idiosyncrasy of theman, but because he was concerned soon after he joined us inthe most disastrous of my adventures throughout theexpedition.
To look at, William Nelson might have sat for the portrai............