1 
 
1 
 
K, Moorehasid, 
 
 SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 
 WASHINGTON, 0.0. 
 
LAST RAMBLES AMONGST THE INDIANS 
 
 OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS 
 
 AND THE ANDES. 
 

, r 
 
 J /' 
 
LAST RAMBLES AMONGST 
 
 THE INDIANS OF THE ROCKY 
 
 MOUNTAINS AND THE 
 
 ANDES. 
 
 BY GEORGE CATLIN, 
 
 AUTHOR OF "LIFE AMONGST THE INDIANS," ETC., ETC. 
 
 LONDON: 
 SAMPSON LOW, SON, AND MARSTON, 
 
 MILTON HOUSE, LUDGATE HILL. 
 1868, 
 
 \The right of Translation is reserved.] 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 T was said by a very great man that 
 " Nothing can be more proper than 
 that old people should write books for 
 young folks, and that young folks 
 should read them ; for old people have the greatest 
 amount of experience, and young people have the 
 greatest amount of time to profit by it." 
 
 Considering myself now belonging to the first of 
 this category, and with a good share of the ex 
 perience referred to, I shall take infinite pleasure in 
 presenting this second volume of " Life amongst 
 the Indians" to the readers of my first volume, who 
 now amount, as far as I am able to learn, to some 
 thing approaching 60,000. 
 
 These will doubtless search with avidity, when 
 this volume comes forth, the means of commencing 
 where the other volume left off, and of following 
 me through the rest of the wanderings of my errant 
 and chequered life ; and if it falls into others' hands, 
 they should not cut its pages until they have called 
 
vi Preface. 
 
 upon the publishers for the first volume, that they 
 may appreciate the vast plains and rivers and 
 forests, with their peoples and their animal creations, 
 east of the Rocky Mountains and the Andes, before 
 they undertake to follow me amongst rocks and 
 snows, and through scenes that transpire on the 
 cindered plains and pine-dressed mountains and 
 shores of the Pacific Ocean. 
 
 Without the first volume, the reading of this will 
 be like coming in at the play at the end of the 
 second or third act ; the plot will be misunderstood, 
 as the great and warlike and picturesque tribes of 
 the prairies, the Sioux, the Comanches, the Osages, 
 the Pawnees, &c, and their noble sports in the 
 chase, and the stories of the "Kettle of Gold;' and 
 the " Old Sawmill-Lick!' with " John Darrow" and 
 " Johnny VNeii;' &c, will all be lost ; and much, 
 therefore, that is to be said in this volume would 
 be unappreciated. 
 
 This is all I need say in the Preface, for the 
 reader, with these suggestions, will be able to 
 follow me, and to appreciate what I shall have to 
 say and to show in the following pages. 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 CHAP. I, The Rattlesnakes' Den . * i 
 
 CHAP. II. Gold Hunting in the Crystal Mountains . 46 
 
 CHAP. III. Descent of the Yucayali . . . .78 
 
 CHAP. IV. The Flathead Indians ... . 146 
 
 CHAP V. California .. . . . . .184 
 
 CHAP* VL Rio de Janeiro ..... 206 
 
 CHAP* VII. Buenos Ayres . . . . . 250 
 
 CHAP. VIII. Tierra del Fuego . . . . . 288 
 
 CHAP. IX. The Indians, where from ? . . t . 304 
 
 CHAP. X. The Indians, who are they ? . . . 319 
 
 CHAP. XI. The Indians, where are they'going? . 335 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 6 
 
 RATTLESNAKE TRAP 
 
 THE RATTLESNAKE IN ROWLEY'S TRAP 7 
 
 THE RATTLESNAKES' DEN . . . : 27 
 
 TTACKED BY PECCARIES 67 
 
 A VISIT FROM AN ANT-EATER 83 
 
 BEAUTIFUL CANOES . . . > ... 123 
 
 SORE LIPS" . . . ^ . . . 125 
 
 \AYAS INDIANS .,.,,.. 132 
 
 \ MEDICINE DANCE 136 
 
 TWO PORTRAITS . . . .; . : . ". 137 
 
 BLOCKS OF WOOD FROM THE UNDER LIP, ETC 138 
 
 FLATHEAD INDIANS . . . ;. . . . . i 148 
 
 FLATHEAD INDIANS 149 
 
 BA-DA-AH-CHON-DU, THE JUMPER . . . 157 
 
 A CROW AT HIS TOILETTE 159 
 
 NAH-QUOT-SE-0, SPANISH SPUR, AND NIC-WARRA ... 190 
 
List of Illustrations. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 "TIR-NATIONAL" . . . . . . . '. . . . .. , . 192 
 
 BOTOCUDOS AND PAYAGUAS INDIANS . .... . . . 213 
 
 INDIAN OF THE AMAZON 237 
 
 PENDENT ORNAMENTS 243 
 
 PENDENT ORNAMENTS 245 
 
 UNMARRIED GIRL OF VENEZUELA 246 
 
 INDIAN BEAUX IDEALS 248 
 
 KILLING WILD HORSES WITH BOLAS 265 
 
ERRATA. 
 
 For " Levins " read " Stevens," pages 1 16 and 1 17, 
 and elsewhere. 
 
THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS 
 AND THE ANDES. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE RATTLESNAKES' DEN. 
 
 readers of my first volume will have 
 preserved some impression of the shape 
 and position of my father's plantation 
 in the picturesque little valley of the 
 Ocquago, on the bank of the Susquehana river, 
 hemmed in with huge mountains on either side, 
 and in which was situated the "Old Sawmill 
 Lick," and the scene of the "Kettle of Gold," 
 which have been described in the first volume. 
 
 As has been said, though not the place of my 
 nativity, it was the tapis on which my boyish days 
 were spent, and rife with legends of Indian lore^ 
 its natural features, and its incidents stamped upon 
 my youthful mind impressions which easily be 
 guile me in this, as in my first volume, again to 
 
 B 
 
2 Ocquago. 
 
 loiter a little about it before I start off with my 
 young readers to the vast and boundless regions 
 where the principal scenes of this little book are to 
 be laid. 
 
 " JohnDarrow" is recollected, and faithful "Johnny 
 O'Neil," and their singular and respective characters 
 will be better stereotyped in the little episode which 
 is here to follow. 
 
 Ocquago (Ohk-qua-guh), the Indian name of a 
 straight mountain, of six or eight miles in length, 
 in the southern part of the State of New York, 
 having the cool and limpid river Susquehana 
 gliding along at its western base, and a fertile 
 valley of rich alluvion from one to two miles in 
 breadth on the opposite shore, barricaded by the 
 Randolph Mountains on the west. 
 
 In the middle of this little valley lay my father's 
 plantation, and above and below it, during the days 
 of my boyhood, some eight or ten farms of less 
 dimensions, and also bordering on the river shore, 
 were under cultivation ; which, together with labourers, 
 hunters, fishermen, &c, counted a population of 
 something like two hundred persons. 
 
 This picturesque, but insignificant little valley, 
 which at that time had acquired no place in history, 
 having been settled but a few years, nevertheless 
 had its traditions of an exciting interest, as the 
 rendezvous of "Brant," the famous and terrible 
 Mohawk chief, and his army during the frontier 
 
Ocquago. 3 
 
 war, in which the " Wyoming massacre" took place, 
 and the finale of which was the subsequent deroute 
 of Brant and his Indian forces, through the valley 
 of the Ocquago, and beyond the Randolph Moun 
 tains, to the sources of the Susquehana, by the 
 Pennsylvania militia. 
 
 These events, and their attendant cruelties, both 
 savage and civil, too recent at that time to be 
 called traditions, accounted (as stated in the first 
 volume) for the vivid and unfading impressions 
 which I received, at an early age, of Indians, of 
 " Indian massacres," &c. And the singular adven 
 tures here to follow will show how I received at the 
 same age impressions not less exciting, nor less 
 lasting, but of another kind, indicated in the head 
 ing of this chapter. 
 
 Though the Indians had disappeared, and nothing 
 but their oral history, and their bones, and their 
 implements ploughed up in our fields, remained of 
 them, there was yet another enemy, even more 
 numerous, more cruel, and more deadly, and threat 
 ening to be more unconquerable and' inextermin- 
 able to deal with. 
 
 The banks and the meadows of the Susquehana, 
 in the beautiful valleys of Wyoming, Tioga, Che- 
 nango, Ocquago, and Otsego, were probably more 
 infested than any other portions of the globe, with 
 rattlesnakes of all colours, and various dimensions, 
 that struck at the heels of all that was mortal, man or 
 
4 The Rattlesnakes Den. 
 
 beast,' in the meadows or fields of grain, in which they 
 crawled and wallowed during the summer season. 
 
 Of these localities, the little valley of the Ocquago 
 seemed to be the most cruelly in"flicted by this 
 terrible scourge, and no doubt so, from its limited 
 dimensions and peculiar position, receiving the con 
 centration of these reptiles in the suipmer months, 
 from the desolate mountains surrounding it. 
 
 During the hay-making and harvesting season 
 these poisonous creatures were exceedingly dan 
 gerous to the lives of the labourers, and from my 
 father's fields their frightful carcasses were daily 
 brought in by my father's hired men, with their 
 heads cut off by the scythe, or killed by the cudgel. 
 And every summer, more or less lives of men, of 
 women, or of children, as well as of horses, of dogs, 
 and other animals were destroyed, in the otherwise 
 peaceable and happy little valley, by these hidden 
 and deadly enemies. 
 
 With the habits and peculiarities of an enemy so 
 deadly and so universal (and consequently so 
 "respectable") as this, in the mountains and valleys 
 of America, it may be well for the reader to be 
 made a little more familiar in this place, for they 
 are an enemy more dangerous than Indians, and 
 will probably demand a large space in the narra 
 tions of incidents to be given in the following pages, 
 as well as those mentioned in the former volume. 
 
 As a natural history fact, and known to all the 
 
The Rattlesnakes Den. 5 
 
 inhabitants of those parts where they abound, how 
 curious that these reptiles, after spending the sum 
 mer season in the grassy valleys, and on the banks 
 of the rivers and lakes, at the first indication of 
 frost in the fall of the year, en masse, and simul 
 taneously, from instinct, commence a pilgrimage 
 across rivers, Across lakes, and up the mountain 
 sides, no matter what distance, to the* "Rattle 
 snakes' Den," their winter's rendezvous, where not 
 only hundreds, but thousands, assemble. And in 
 their inapproachable cavern, in a torpid state, they 
 await the coming of spring, and the beginning of 
 summer, when they venture forth again, and descend 
 into the valleys, for another summer's campaign. 
 
 How curious the fact also, that, in their summer's 
 peregrinations, the male and female are always in 
 company ; and how wonderful that instinct that 
 enables them to track each other, and never to lose 
 that company, though, when met, two are never seen 
 together, but are generally within hearing of each 
 other's rattle, or not far distant, following on the 
 trail ! Most generally, if we irritate -the one, and 
 make it sound its rattle, we hear in the distance the 
 sound of the other's rattle, in answer ; and if we 
 kill the one* we meet, and leave its carcass over night, 
 we find the other by its side, or near it, the next 
 morning. 
 
 And a Rattlesnake Trap ! (who has ever heard of 
 it ?) first invented, no doubt, by Buel Rowley, one of 
 
6 Rattlesnake Trap. 
 
 my father's labouring men ; the same who ploughed 
 up the " kettle of gold," and the rusty tomahawk, 
 which it will be recollected left its indelible mark 
 on my left cheek-bone. 
 
 Well, the " Rattlesnake Trap," here it is 
 
 A simple log of wood, some three or four feet in 
 length, and the size of a man's leg, or larger, with a 
 hollow through it, large enough for the reptile to 
 crawl through, but not sufficiently spacious for it to 
 turn about ; its forward extremity being partially 
 closed, to prevent the snake from passing out. 
 Rowley, from a practical knowledge he had gained 
 of the close manner in which this creature follows 
 the trail of its mate, conceived the plan of conduct 
 ing it into a hollow tube from which it could not 
 escape, being unable to retreat in its straitened 
 and confined position, and checked by the reversed 
 position of its scales. 
 
 This ingenious machine was lodged in my father's 
 woodhouse, 1 and when a rattlesnake was killed in 
 
 1 An open shed, in which wood for the winter is stored. 
 
Buel Rowley. 7 
 
 any of his fields, the trap was transported to a posi 
 tion near the spot, when the carcass of the snake 
 was gently dragged towards it through the grass, by 
 a thong, and pulled through the hollow of the log. 
 After which a tenpenny nail or two driven into the 
 forward end was sufficient to prevent the living 
 snake from passing through, and at the same time 
 to allow the light to enter. 
 
 The carcass of the dead snake was then lifted 
 from the ground and carried away ; and on 
 Rowley's shoulder the next morning the rattlesnake 
 trap was almost invariably transported back to the 
 woodhouse ; the tail of the snake, with its rattles, 
 hanging out, a harmless and amusing toy for the 
 women and children to play with, for by touching 
 them, or striking the log, they were instantly set in 
 motion, and the expression and crescendo of their 
 music controled by the harmless rage that was 
 boiling within. 
 
 Curiosity satisfied (and that curious propensity of 
 the most of mankind " to finger danger when it is 
 iron bound "), Rowley's pincers withdrew the nails 
 in front of the cage, which was then passed between 
 the bars of the fence, enclosing a field containing a 
 number of hogs, and clipping the tail with its rattles 
 as a trophy, the imprisoned reptile lost no time in 
 launching itself out of its prison, and into the jaws 
 of " the old sow," which stood ready, and whose fore 
 feet were instantly upon it and held it, whilst she 
 
8 Rattlesnake Trap. 
 
 exhibited her swinish taste, by tearing it to pieces 
 and devouring every morsel of it ! 
 
 My father had learned (I don't know how) that 
 the bite of a rattlesnake was not poisonous to the 
 flesh of swine, and that those reptiles were invari 
 ably devoured by hogs that happened to come 
 upon them ; both of which singular facts I often saw 
 confirmed in my father's fields of swine, when he 
 had ordered these living serpents to be thrown 
 amongst them. 
 
 Rowley's trap, for which he had no patent, was 
 soon adopted in the other parts of the valley, and 
 his enviable standing, as a public benefactor, was 
 soon evident from the number of tails with rattles 
 which were sent to him, and which he had demanded 
 as a sort of Royalty for his invention. 
 
 And yet, a greater trap than this awaited those 
 poisonous beasts, which were at that time almost 
 threatening the existence of the otherwise happy 
 little colony of the valley of the Ocquago a 
 trap which, by way of comparison, might be called 
 a wholesale trap a cataclysm a catastrophe, as 
 will be seen, which rescued the valley from its 
 dangers, and gained for its inventor, honours, though 
 not immortal, yet of an enviable character, while 
 they lasted. (We shall see anon). 
 
 " Darrow " (recollect the empire which his Nim- 
 rodic celebrity had gained over my youthful mind 
 my consummate admiration of his deer-stalking 
 
John Darrow. 9 
 
 and panther-hunting qualities), Darrow, not a long 
 time after the scene at the " Old Sawmill Lick," 
 and, I think, early in the spring of 1810, said to me 
 one day whilst he and I were working in the field 
 together, " George, I intend to play the devil with 
 the rattlesnakes this spring they've had it all in 
 their own way long enough. You recollect poor 
 Mary Judkins, George ?" 
 
 " Yes, Mr. Darrow, I was close by her when she 
 was bit last summer. I heard her scream when she 
 was struck. There was a whole wagon-load of us, 
 boys and girls, out on Bowman's ridge picking 
 whortleberries ; she was reaching her hand forward 
 when the snake jumped from a rock before her, and 
 about even with her face, and bit her right in the 
 vein of her neck ! She gave one scream, and fell 
 backwards, close by me, and never got up. All the 
 party gathered around her, and put her into the 
 wagon, quite dead, and carried her home : and her 
 neck and her arms were just the colour of the rattle 
 snake itself, which we found under the rocks and 
 killed." 
 
 "And that good soul, Heth, George, bitten on 
 the floor of his own house !" 
 
 " Yes ; that I didn't see, Mr. Darrow, but I heard 
 of it." 
 
 " It's getting too bad, George. These devils are 
 increasing at such a rate that it's almost as much as 
 a man's life is worth to work in the fields amongst 
 
io John Darrow. 
 
 them. Now, George, I know where all these beasts 
 come from ; I know the very house they all live in ; 
 and you and I will make a smash among 'em, 
 George, before many days come around." 
 
 Darrow then related to me what at that time was 
 new to me, and which has been mentioned in a 
 former page, that these reptiles all leave the valley 
 at the first appearance of frosty nights in the fall of 
 the year, and congregate in one immense cavern, 
 where they spend the winter in a torpid state, and 
 start off in pairs for the valleys as soon as the 
 weather is warm enough in the spring of the year ; 
 and that for a week or two before the nights are 
 warm enough for their travels, during the warmth 
 of the sun in the middle of the spring days, they 
 come out of their den, not only in hundreds, but by 
 thousands, and lie for several hours in front of 
 it basking in the sun, and return into their cave 
 before the coldness of the evening approaches. 
 
 "Why, that's the * Rattlesnakes' Den,' that I 
 have heard my father talk about." 
 
 "Yes," said Darrow, " the ' Rattlesnakes' Den;' 
 it's in the top of Steele's Mountain, back of Hil- 
 bourns, under the high ledge looking off into 
 Hemlock Hollow. About ten years ago these 
 devils got to be so bad, that Joe Snidigar, Atwill, 
 and myself, and several others, went out in a spring 
 day and thrashed about three hundred of them 
 to death whilst they lay sunning themselves in 
 
The Rattlesnakes' Den. 1 1 
 
 front of their den ; and they are now getting to be 
 so bad again, that you and I must make another 
 row among 'em, George. Say nothing of it yet, 
 but on Sunday, if it should be a sunny day, when 
 neither of us have any work to do, we'll go and 
 merely take a peep at them, and lay our plans as 
 to the time and mode of attack." 
 
 Sunday came, and it was a fine and sunny day ; 
 and though I had difficulties of a very peculiar and 
 embarrassing kind to contend with, I met Darrow 
 as arranged, "in the lower barn," with my little 
 single-barrelled fowling-piece, and he in his hunting 
 shirt and fox-skin cap, and rifle in hand, a model to 
 which my whole soul aspired. 
 
 My dear mother was a Methodist, and a devout 
 and professing Christian, and my father a philo 
 sopher, professing no particular creed, but keeping 
 and teaching the Commandments. My incurable 
 propensity for trout-fishing, under the unfortunate 
 conviction that they "took the fly" better on Sun 
 day than on other days, had gained me the con 
 demnation of those good parents, and on several 
 occasions severe floggings, for disobeying their po 
 sitive commands as to fishing and shooting on that 
 day. 
 
 It had been a long time since I had had one of 
 these, and though, old as I was getting, I still was 
 under the injunction, and with the certain conviction 
 that the penalty would be inflicted in case of dis 
 obedience. 
 
1 2 The Rattlesnakes' Den. 
 
 Darrow assured me that our mission was one fa 
 the public good, offering to plead my case with rm 
 father; and leaving the "lower barn" with ou 
 pieces trailed, and following the bed of the " 
 Creek," so as not to be seen from the house, w 
 soon reached, through my father's meadows, th 
 river-side, where we got a canoe to land us on the 
 other shore, at the foot of the mountain, into th 
 thick forest of which we were soon ensconced, am 
 our day's enjoyment (whatever might come after it! 
 was now secure before us. 
 
 We sat down upon a large log, and whilst Darrov* 
 was knocking the priming out of the pan and re 
 priming his gun, which he always did on entering 
 upon promising hunting-ground, he said : 
 
 " George, we are now going to pass through onci 
 of my best ranges. Many a fine buck " Old Ben " 
 has knocked over on this side of the ridge, and w< 
 have full two miles to go before we reach the* 
 " Rattlesnakes' Den." Keep some five or six rods 
 behind me, George, and don't break a stick ; watch 
 me close, and if you see me on my hand and kne< 
 (or on my belly, which is sometimes necessary) 
 don't move an inch. On the first ledge we shal 
 rise, about half a mile from here, is a famous buck 
 who always lies chewing his cud from nine or ten 
 in the morning until near sundown. I've tried him 
 
 1 His rifle. 
 
The Rattlesnakes' Den. 1 3 
 
 several times, but he's always too wide-awake for 
 me. I've let fly at him two or three times, when 
 nothing but his white flag was seen bounding 
 through the bushes'; but those were random shots, 
 only sent for amusement. I'll give him a call, how 
 ever, as we pass up the hill ; and a little beyond 
 that, at the foot of the second ridge, I'll show you, 
 George, the spot where I shot the beautiful painter, 
 whose skin, you know, lies on the floor in your 
 father's hall, in front of the parlour-door." 
 
 At this, with his rifle trailed in his right hand, 
 and his wiper 1 in the left, and an extra bullet 
 in his mouth, more quickly handled than if drawn 
 from his pouch, and his body was seen gliding 
 through the bushes and between the rocks without 
 moving a leaf. Oh, how beautiful to my young and 
 aspiring vision the cautious and graceful movements 
 of this stalking teacher ! What pupil ever watched 
 the magic touches of his master's pencil with more 
 admiration than I watched the movements of this 
 master-hunter as he led me through the forests and 
 rocks and ravines of the mountain's side ? No time 
 or circumstances have ever yet effaced the slightest 
 impression then made upon my youthful mind, nor 
 will they leave me while recollections last. 
 
 We passed the lair of "Old Golden" (as the fa- 
 
 1 An extra ramrod, which hunters carry in their left hand, 
 for facility in loading and cleaning their rifles. 
 
i 4 " Old Golden." 
 
 mous "Big Buck" was called) without finding him 
 at home ; and getting near to the top of the last 
 ridge, I saw Darrow carefully sinking down upon his] 
 left knee, with his rifle drawn to his face. What a 
 palpitation ! I heard my heart distinctly beat ! 
 Was it a panther, or an Indian (for reports were 
 that they were still lurking about) ? Was he to fire, 
 or not ? And if he did, and should miss, or should 
 wound I was charged with small shot only, and 
 what might the next moment disclose ? 
 
 Darrow held his position without moving for 
 a minute or two, when he gradually lowered his 
 body to the ground, and, getting his face around so 
 as to see me, beckoned with his hand for me to 
 come on my hands and knees to him. I applied 
 my first ideas of stalking as well as I could in my 
 agitated state, and getting by the side of him, with 
 a large log before us, which screened us from its 
 view, he whispered to me : 
 
 " George ! it's a fine large doe. What a pity to 
 harm the poor thing! She's big, and I haint the 
 heart to draw a bead 1 upon her. Look at her, but 
 be cautious." 
 
 I raised my forehead above the log as gradually 
 and cautiously as I could ; and at the instant that 
 my eyes were above the surface of the log, I disco 
 vered the deer about a hundred yards from us, 
 lying down, and with nose and ears pointed, looking 
 
 1 To take sight. 
 
 
The Rattlesnakes Den. 15 
 
 me full in the face ! She sprang upon her feet, and 
 bounded off, and "Old Golden," lying behind a 
 bunch of fern at a few paces distant, rising as it 
 were into the air, and waving his white flag to and 
 fro, accompanied her ! 
 
 " Zounds ! what a fool I've been, George ! " ex 
 claimed Darrow, " that old fellow has played me 
 many a trick, but I never expected him in company 
 with his wife at this season of the year. He don't 
 get off in that way another time, I assure you." 
 
 Poor Darrow (I never shall forget it), how he was 
 chapfallen ; his face became wrinkled and creviced 
 in a minute, and he sighed and groaned as he con 
 templated the beautiful position in which "Old 
 Golden" had laid under the range of his rifle, " if he 
 only had known.it." However, the misfortune was 
 irreparable, and we moved on towards the " Rattle 
 snakes' Den." 
 
 On the top of the mountain, which was barren 
 and level for a long distance, Darrow shouldered his 
 rifle, and said : 
 
 " George, we can talk here as much as we please 
 no game lives here." He then said, " We are now 
 close to the ' Den.' That tall pine you see yonder 
 stands right upon the rock where the snakes come 
 out ; and probably they go under the rocks as far 
 as where we now stand. There's not another word 
 to be said, but you keep a little back of me, and 
 watch my signs." 
 
 Darrow advanced on his hands and knees towards 
 
1 6 The Rattlesnakes Den. 
 
 the brink of the precipice, and, getting within a few 
 yards of it, laid down his rifle, and then, lying 
 closer to the ground, and advancing more slowly, 
 got so as to look over and down upon the level 
 platform of rock below. After gazing for a minute 
 or so, by reaching back with his right hand he made 
 signs for me to come to him, which I did, creeping 
 in the same manner he had done, and leaving my 
 gun behind. Getting by the side of him, and both 
 of us permanently fixed and motionless, we had to 
 gether the strange view of some five or eight hun 
 dred of the reptiles (devils, as he called them) 
 spread out on the surface of a level rock of some 
 four or five rods in diameter, and twenty-five feet 
 below us, in coils, in knots and bunches, basking 
 in the sun, and all were motionless, and apparently 
 asleep. Their scales, fresh from their damp cavern, 
 and not yet soiled by their summer's travels, were 
 glistening in the sun, of all colours yellow, black, 
 and white, and the breathing motions of their bodies 
 gave them the sparkling effect of moving diamonds. 
 In the midst of these groups were here and there 
 harmless black snakes of some ten or twelve feet in 
 length, intertwined and coiled with them as if 
 members of the same venomous family. There 
 were rattlesnakes of all sizes some were black, 
 some brown, and others of a bright yellow. Some 
 were lying on their backs, perfectly straight, and 
 others were hanging from the limbs of the adjoining 
 
The Devil's Pulpit. 17 
 
 trees, and others coiled around their trunks. Oh ! 
 what a beautiful sight, and what a perdition, if, by a 
 slip of the foot, one were to have been launched into 
 the midst of it ! 
 
 Darrow at length gave the signal, and slowly 
 withdrawing his head, and I following, we were in a 
 moment beyond their view, and safe for the remarks 
 which Darrow was prepared to extemporise and I 
 to ejaculate. I have no sort of recollection what 
 they were, but whilst we were descending the moun 
 tain, on our way home, and had got about halfway 
 down, Darrow said, " There, George, we are now at 
 the 'Devil's Pulpit.'" 
 
 I had some vague recollections of stories I had 
 heard about the " Devil's Pulpit," and being just old 
 enough to know the meaning of a pulpit, I was cu 
 rious to know what the devil had to do with a 
 pulpit. 
 
 " Well," said Darrow, " George, I don't exactly 
 know the whole history of the place myself, but 
 that rock you see standing out in front of the wall 
 there is shaped like a pulpit, and has just room for 
 a man to stand in it and make a speech or preach a 
 sarment. And I've hearn say that when the Indians 
 had made the ' Massacre of Wyoming,' the great 
 Mohawk chief Brant held his army "of 2000 Indian 
 warriors here encamped, on the very ground where 
 we now stand, in front of the pulpit, to guard the 
 narrows below, in case the Pennsylvania militia at- 
 
 C 
 
1 8 The Devil's Pulpit. 
 
 tempted to follow the Indians through. Brant was 
 a terrible warrior, though only a half-Indian : he 
 had brought a number of white prisoners to this 
 place who had been taken in the battle of Tunk- 
 hannock, and some of them who afterwards escaped 
 said that he every morning preached a sarment to 
 his warriors from this pulpit, and everybody, know 
 ing him to be a very devil, called the rock the 
 ' Devil's Pulpit.' But your father, George, can tell 
 you more about it." 
 
 We were, in a little time, from the " Pulpit Rock" 
 down to the river's side, which we crossed, and 
 entered my father's fields. Now was approaching 
 the tribunal, the awful retribution for me. Darrow 
 had engaged to plead my cause with my parents, 
 and Sunday not yet being passed, we halted awhile 
 at the " lower barn," where my little fowling-piece 
 was secreted ; and Darrow fearlessly shouldering 
 his rifle, we successfully entered my mother's kitchen, 
 without being noticed by any one. 
 
 Darrow, after waiting awhile for my trial to come 
 on, gave me these consoling words, 
 
 " I don't believe your father is going to say any 
 thing about it to-night, George, and I shall see him 
 early in the morning." 
 
 He then departed for his own home, half a mile 
 distant, where he was living with his family ; and I 
 soon after slipped into bed. Before I had got to 
 sleep, however, a light entered my room. It was 
 
The Water-beech Sprouts. 19 
 
 my father, with a candle in his hand. He took a 
 seat by the side of my bed. Oh what a moment ! 
 
 " My dear son/' said he, " you never tell me a 
 falsehood. I have looked everywhere to-day, and 
 your mother also, for the * little musket.' Do you 
 know anything about it ? Where is it ? " 
 
 " It's at the ' lower barn/ father." 
 
 " How came it there, George ?" 
 
 " I left it there, father." 
 
 " It was missing this morning at an early hour, 
 and you have been absent all day with it?" 
 
 " Yes, father." 
 
 " You recollect what I promised you if you ever 
 broke the Sabbath again in that way, old as you 
 now are ?" 
 
 " Yes, my dear father." 
 
 "You never knew me to break my promise, 
 George?" 
 
 " No, father." 
 
 " Would you wish me to break a promise, my 
 dear son ?" 
 
 " No, dear father." 
 
 " Then get up and put on your clothes, and go 
 down to the bank of the creek, below the wheat- 
 stacks, and cut a good bunch of water-beech 
 sprouts, 1 about three feet long, and lay them in 
 
 1 Water-beech, a sort of beech that grows by the water's 
 edge, and is very wiry and tough. 
 
20 The Water-beech Sprouts. 
 
 your mother's cheese-room until morning, which 
 will give you time to reflect upon the truant you 
 have been playing this day." 
 
 Trusting to my advocate to speak for me, and 
 my mind overloaded with what I had seen during 
 the day, I failed to make any defence, and started 
 off for the " beech sprouts," which I procured, and 
 went to bed. In vain I attempted to lie in bed in 
 the morning until I could hear Darrow's voice 
 below, for I was called up at an early hour ; and 
 my father waiting for me at the bottom of the 
 stairs, with the "beech sprouts" in his hand, said 
 to me, as I came down, " Walk this way, George," 
 as he went through the kitchen and into the wood- 
 house, where we were alone together. 
 
 " My dear son," said he, " you are old enough 
 now to know the meaning of this, and the painful 
 necessity of it ; that I do it not because I hate you, 
 but because I love you ; and I am sure it will be 
 the last time." 
 
 " It shall be, dear, dear father." 
 
 ***** 
 Darrow came in, but too late ; my case had been 
 tried judgment, sentence, and retribution ! How 
 much and what he said to my father, and how far 
 he succeeded in exciting any repentant feeling, I 
 never learned, though I thought for several days I 
 discovered a sort of ex post facto signs of a partial 
 forgiveness, arising from the plea that my friend 
 
The Rattlesnakes Den. 2 1 
 
 and master, Darrow, had put in for me, the public 
 importance of our expedition, which had led us to 
 the " Rattlesnakes' Den" on Sunday, and now 
 admitted by all. 
 
 However, I was silent, and determined to be so, 
 though Darrow, with the countenance of my father 
 and all the neighbours, was proceeding with his 
 plans for a grand onslaught on the " devils," in the 
 course of a few days. Darrow was everywhere 
 listened to in his descriptions of what we had seen, 
 and I was called on as a witness to the facts, but I 
 was imim, having resolved to have no further hand 
 in the affair. 
 
 But when my father said to me, 
 
 " George, my dear son, did you see, with Darrow, 
 at the 'Rattlesnakes' Den,' what he has de 
 scribed?" 
 
 " Yes, dear father," (I said it in a sort of convul 
 sion, and before I willed it), " I saw it all, father ; 
 it is all true." 
 
 " Then, my dear boy, you shall go with us. We 
 shall have a grand holiday on Wednesday, if the 
 weather is fine. Captain Brush is going, and 
 Medad, and Jonas. The Snidigars are going 
 Rowley and O'Neil, and half-a-dozen others, and 
 you shall join us, and carry the little musket for 
 your weapon." 
 
 What a concession ! I soon forgot the ordeal I 
 had passed, and was inflated with the most im- 
 
22 Old Golden. 
 
 patient ambition for the catastrophe that was pre 
 paring. Wednesday (after a long time) came ; a 
 fine sunny day. The Snidigars (old hunters) were 
 on the spot, Atwill was there, and Heth, and 
 Captain Brush, and all assembled at my father's 
 house at ten o'clock in the morning, and all, in 
 Heth's ferry-boat, crossed the river, and Darrow 
 (with me by his side) taking the lead, we penetrated 
 the forest on the mountain side, and soon arrived 
 at the " Devil's Pulpit," which was considered half 
 way. 
 
 My father, to make it a real holiday, had freighted 
 Johnny O'Neil, his faithful hired man, with a number 
 of bottles of cogniac brandy from his cellar, and a 
 good boiled ham, and other accompaniments for a 
 comfortable lunch after the grand feat should be 
 accomplished, and we should be on our return 
 march. A bottle of this being used at the halt, 
 and Johnny having safely secreted the rest in the 
 "Devil's Pulpit," for our return, the party were 
 about resuming their march, when Darrow said, 
 
 " Hold on, my friends ; ' Old Golden' sleeps only 
 a little above here, and right in our way." 
 
 This required no explanation for any one present, 
 for "Old Golden" was a famous deer of an enor 
 mous size, known to all the hunters of the valley, 
 who had each in their turn followed him, and been 
 foiled in all their attempts to come round him. The 
 name of "Old Golden" had also been for years in 
 
Old Golden. 23 
 
 the mouths of even the women and children of the / 
 valley, and many had seen his tracks, nearly the 
 size of those of an ox. He had been followed from 
 one side of the valley to the other, sleeping on the 
 mountains on one side or the other, just as his 
 security might demand it, and now had established 
 his lair a little above the " Devil's Pulpit." 
 
 " Hold on a bit," said Darrow ; " the cunning old 
 fellow played George and me a shabby trick last 
 Sunday, and I want to see if he will do the same 
 thing to-day. You know him well, Snidigar ?" 
 
 " That I do. The old fellow has slipped through 
 my fingers often enough. I know exactly where he 
 lies, Darrow." 
 
 Darrow had his plans all laid, and now, assuming 
 the spokesman, he said to my father, 
 
 " Squire, I want you to take charge of the party, 
 and keep them all where they are, and without 
 much noise, for about a quarter of an hour ; and if 
 ' Old Golden' is in his bed to-day, it is gone case 
 with him : he will make fools of us no longer. 
 Snidigar and I both know where he sleeps, and we 
 know exactly where he runs when put up. George 
 and I will go round and take our stand at the foot 
 of the ' Eagle's Nest,' close to which he generally 
 runs ; and Snidigar will go round and stand at the 
 ' South Pass.' One or t'other of those places he 
 must go out at ; and we will see to-day what he is 
 made of. Wait here about a quarter of an hour, 
 
24 Death of Old Golden. 
 
 Squire, giving us time to get to our stands, and then 
 Atwill, who knows the way, will lead you up the hill." 
 
 Darrow and I swung around a mile or so to get 
 to our stand, and Snidigar started for the " South 
 Pass," a famous run-way, known to the hunters, and 
 often used by them for driving the deer through. 
 
 Darrow took a tree, and placed me behind an 
 other close by, charging me to keep my body hidden 
 whilst looking around the tree ; and if I saw the 
 deer coming in the distance, not to stir an inch, as 
 the deer pay little attention to a man if he stands 
 still. He had directed my attention to the quarter 
 where the deer would first be seen, if he came. 
 
 We had not stood many minutes before I heard 
 the heavy tramp of his feet amongst the leaves and 
 sticks, as he was bounding over the logs, and was 
 approaching ; and at length the dodging of his white 
 flag amongst the bushes showed that he was close 
 at hand, and in an instant leap, his full and frightful 
 figure plunged out of the thicket into the open 
 timber ; and just before he was to have passed us, 
 " Ma!" said Darrow, in an under and tender tone, 
 and he stopped, with his legs braced out, ready for 
 another spring ; but it was too late, for bang ! went 
 Darrow's rifle, and that spring he never made, but 
 reeled backwards and fell, and was dead in an in 
 stant ! Darrow ran up to him as quick as he could, 
 and drawing his long knife from his belt, cut his 
 throat, whilst I was cautiously advancing up. 
 
Death of Old Golden. 25 
 
 "That's the way, George!" said he. " ' Old 
 Golden' don't play any more of his tricks." 
 
 A place has been kept clear on my retina for the 
 impression of that picture then made, which nothing 
 in the whole course of my life has effaced or in the 
 least obscured. 
 
 The horns of this noble buck, which at that sea 
 son were growing, were in the velvet, and, when run 
 ning, they looked like a chair carried on his head. 
 
 Darrow had set his rifle against a tree, and, with 
 his knife in his hand, was giving me some lessons 
 for my future guidance in deer-hunting. 
 
 " To stop a deer, George, when running, always 
 call " Ma !" they are sure to stop ; if you whistle, it 
 is apt to frighten them, and make them run faster. 
 And when your deer is down, always cut its throat 
 as quick as possible, to bleed it properly ; if you 
 don't, you have the blood all inside, which is awk 
 ward in dressing it, and hurts the meat also." And 
 pointing to the mark of his bullet, " The old fellow 
 stopped with his head and shoulders right behind 
 that beech-tree, so I took him in the kidneys. The 
 best place to aim, George, is always at the heart, 
 just back of the fore-shoulders, and rather low down ; 
 and next to that the kidney ; it's a small mark ; but 
 if you can hit it, it is just as fatal as to strike the 
 heart. It's just forward of the hip-bone, and a little 
 above the centre." 
 
 Darrow now* went a little around the po'nt of 
 
26 The Rattlesnakes Den. 
 
 rocks, and sounded his whistle, the hunter's call, 
 which he always carried, and in a little time Snidi- 
 gar, who had heard his rifle, and now knew what 
 was the result, soon came up, and soon followed 
 Atwill, with the whole of the party. " Old Golden" 
 down was a splendid sight for all, and in a few 
 minutes his skin was off, and his heavy quarters 
 were on the hunters' shoulders, and were carried 
 and suspended in our route to the " Rattlesnakes' 
 Den," to be taken up on our return from that en 
 terprise. 
 
 On our route again ; we were soon on the top of 
 the mountain, where a sort of council of war was 
 held, when Darrow and Jo. Snidigar, who had been 
 parties in the onslaught ten years before, laid the 
 plans of attack and took the lead. 
 
 I was to creep cautiously up to the brink of the 
 precipice from which Darrow and I had viewed the 
 reptiles a few days before, and getting into my 
 position, to be perfectly still and ready to fire ; 
 until Darrow, and Snidigar, and Atwill, and the 
 rest of them, had got round on the hill-side below 
 the den, and below the level platform on which the 
 reptiles were sleeping. 
 
 From that point the hill descended with a steep 
 declivity, up which the invading parties were cau 
 tiously to advance, unseen, except by me, and 
 within a few paces of where the snakes were lying ; 
 each armed with a heavy club of six or eight feet 
 
The Rattlesnakes Den. 27 
 
 in length, to be wielded with both hands, and paid 
 on to the group when the concerted signal . should 
 be given. For this Darrow had ordered me to 
 watch his fox-skin cap, and when he gave the 
 signal of " ready," I was to fire into the thickest of 
 them, and the discharge of my gun was to be the 
 signal for all to rush on. 
 
 Though my father had indicated that I might 
 carry the "little musket/' a light one-barrelled 
 fowling-piece belonging to me, I had, without his 
 knowledge, designed something more destructive 
 for this particular occasion, and had borrowed of 
 Captain Beebe, our nearest neighbour, an old 
 Revolutionary rusty musket, of larger calibre and 
 of greater power, and charged it before starting 
 with an exorbitant charge of duck-shot ; and just 
 before getting to the brink of the precipice, to be 
 sure that my explosion should lack nothing, had 
 rammed down an extra charge of shot on top of 
 the others. And with this, which required my 
 utmost strength to elevate, I was peeping over the 
 brink of the precipice. (Plate No. 2). 
 
 To my astonishment and extatic delight, in the 
 midst of the group there was a knot of these reptiles 
 the size of a bushel basket, wound, twisted, and 
 interlocked together, with their heads standing out, 
 just the mark I wanted for the old musket. I got 
 exceedingly timid and nervous while waiting for 
 the signal, but when it came I " let fly I" 
 
28 The Rattlesnakes Den. 
 
 I knew nothing, for some time afterwards (when 
 I was picked up), what had transpired from that 
 moment. I saw nothing of the grand melee that 
 ensued, nor ever knew anything of it, except what 
 I got from tradition. 
 
 The old Revolutionary musket, doubly (if not 
 trebly) charged, and filled with the rust of many 
 years, and pointed down hill when I fired, had 
 made a tremendous rebound, slapping me on the 
 side of my head, and pitching over, a rod or so 
 behind me. I was found lying on my back after 
 the fracas was over, by several of the party, who 
 had gone around and ascended the ledge to where 
 I was. I was put upon my legs, but covered with 
 blood, which was running quite into my shoes ! 
 However, I was soon on the battle-field, and helped 
 to count the scalps. My double charge of shot had 
 cut the knotted mass (perhaps from fifty to one 
 hundred) to pieces, and the party rushing on with 
 their clubs, had thrashed some hundreds more to 
 death, whilst hundreds were saving themselves by 
 running under the rocks into their den. 
 
 In a council of war again held on the battle 
 field, while counting the scalps of some five or six 
 hundred slain, and whilst Darrow and Snidigar and 
 Atwill, and others, were pulling off the glistening 
 skins and rattles of some of the most beautifully 
 coloured of them, the rattle of one was heard, 
 which, in the death-struggle, had escaped over the 
 
The Rattlesnakes Den. 29 
 
 edge of the rock, and slid down the mountain-side 
 for a considerable distance. It was a huge speci 
 men ; and Snidigar cut a pole with a crotch at the 
 end of it, which was put upon the reptile's neck, 
 when Darrow took it by the throat with his hand, 
 and brought it alive on to the battle-ground. 
 
 An instant thought struck me, and I said, 
 " Father, if a horn of powder was fastened to the 
 fellow's tail, and a slow match applied to it, and he 
 allowed to drag it into the den, wouldn't the whole 
 lot of them be destroyed ? " 
 
 "Good!" said Darrow. "George, you are now 
 the best hunter in the valley of the Ocquago." 
 Snidigar took the idea, and my father also, and the 
 rest of the party. Snidigar had an immense pow 
 der-horn attached to his bullet-pouch, which was 
 taken off for the purpose, and the other hunters 
 emptying their horns into it, filled it to the brim. 
 A string of four or five feet in length was tied to 
 the rattlesnake's tail, and a* the end of it the 
 powder-horn, with a slow match of a yard or more 
 in length, which Snidigar made of some- wetted 
 and twisted tow, filled with powder, dragging after 
 it. 
 
 This fatal appendage all ready, and Darrow still 
 holding the reptile by the neck, laid it upon the 
 ground near the mouth of the den. When all 
 hands, excepting Snidigar and Darrow, ran down 
 the hill some distance, and most of them, like 
 
3O The Explosion. 
 
 myself, took positions behind large trees. Snidigar 
 set fire to the fuse, and Darrow let go, and both ran 
 for secure quarters, when the powder-horn could 
 be heard, rattling amongst the rocks, as the snake 
 was carrying it home to its defeated comrades. 
 
 A breathless silence of a minute or so, and bang ! ! 
 (like an instant clap of thunder) went the horn of 
 powder, shaking the very earth on which we stood, 
 and sending up blue streams of smoke through the 
 crevices opened in the solid rock of twenty-five feet 
 in thickness overlaying the den ! The smoke rose 
 in clouds amongst the trees, and when cleared away 
 all hands ventured again on the scene of action, 
 where not the sound of a rattle, even in distress, 
 could be heard, and where no mortal being could 
 have escaped destruction. 
 
 " I'll be blathered, Squeer Cathlin " (as he called 
 my father), said Johnny O'Neil, " if iver thase var 
 mints mahks us iny mare trooble, they've all gan 
 to the Divil, Squeer ! " and turning to me 
 " They've cast you a lackin, Garge, and a bloody 
 noase, but that's nathin." 
 
 A look of approbation from my father was even 
 more encouraging than the speech of Johnny ; and, 
 what was still more satisfactory to my pride, was 
 the unanimous applause of the model hunters, 
 Da.rrow and Snidigar, and which all the rest of the 
 party gave me, as the inventor of the scheme by 
 which the pests and the terror of the inhabitants of 
 
The Bloody Run. 31 
 
 the flourishing and happy little valley of the 
 Ocquago were disposed of, undoubtedly, for several 
 years to come. 
 
 Before commencing to descend the mountain, I 
 recollect all hands were for a while seated in the 
 shade of some large oaks, when several pipes were 
 lit, and a bundle of cigars distributed, which my 
 father had brought in his pocket. From the spot 
 where we sat, we had an extensive view to the 
 East, overlooking the "Stumtkker" and the "Hem 
 lock Hollow." 
 
 The "Sturrukker" (or "bloody run"), a large and 
 dashing stream, emptying into the Susquehana at 
 Hilbourns, three or four miles distant from where we 
 were sitting, said to have " run red with blood " 
 during the Indian war, waged but a few years 
 before ; and since, equally famous for the incredible 
 quantity of trout taken in its black waters, and in 
 the taking of which several lives were said to have 
 been recently taken by the Indians of Hemlock 
 Hollow, in which dark and dreary solitude the stream 
 rises. 
 
 During our ascent of the mountain, and even 
 when taking off the skin of " Old Golden," from 
 remarks made by Darrow and Snidigar, I learned 
 that the party were ascending these mountains 
 under a sort of presentiment that their day's sport 
 might be intercepted by lurking and revengeful 
 Indians, said to be still hanging about the Ocquago 
 
32 Hemlock Hollow. 
 
 and Randolph Mountains ; and the fact seemed to 
 be well known by Darrow and Snidigar, and other 
 hunters, that, since the defeat and expulsion of 
 Brant, a lingering and marauding party of Oneidas 
 were still remaining ensconced in the dark and 
 almost impenetrable forest of the " Hemlock Hollow" 
 a constant terror to the border inhabitants, and 
 game, occasionally, for the rifles of the hunters 
 which they had to contend with. 
 
 Though nothing as yet had transpired to affect 
 the nerves or apprehensions of the party as to 
 Indians, and whilst they were enjoying their tobacco, 
 I saw Snidigar's corrugator muscles drawn down, 
 and his long forefinger of the left hand pointing to 
 the dark green "Hemlock Hollow "which lay beneath 
 us, and to which Darrow's eye was being directed, 
 "There," said he, "there are those devils again 
 there's their smoke rising above the hemlocks ! 
 ' Red Feather ' is there, Darrow, and ' Yellow 
 Mocasins ;' I'll be bound those fellows are back 
 again, and very likely a party with them the poor 
 people at Hilbourn's Landing are in great danger 
 they may all be cut off." 
 
 " I know," said Darrow, " we'll have to give it to 
 those chaps again." 
 
 " And I howp," said Johnny O'Neil, who was lis 
 tening to the conversation, " I howp, gintlemin, 
 ye'll nat be dowen of it to-day. I thank we'd 
 batter be gangin' tow-ards howm, for won't the 
 
Jubilee at the Devil's Pulpit. 33 
 
 thunder and the smohk we've been a raisin' bring 
 thase divils upon us ?" 
 
 The party seemed mostly to incline to Johnny's 
 opinion, and were soon on the march, descending the 
 mountain, as they were evidently not prepared for 
 an Indian fight. 
 
 Poor Johnny was no doubt influenced by a double 
 thought of the smoke of the Indians in " Hemlock 
 Hollow," on the east side of the mountain, and the 
 "bottles of brandy" he had secreted at the " Devil's 
 Pulpit," on the west side, towards which we were'all 
 now progressing. 
 
 On our way, the quarters and skin of " Old 
 Golden" were again taken on to the shoulders of 
 the hunters ; and, arrived at the " Devil's Pulpit," 
 the party were seated on some large logs on a level 
 plain in front of the pulpit, and ever good-natured, 
 Johnny brought forth with great alacrity and some 
 grace, his hidden bottles of brandy, and his boiled 
 ham, &c. 
 
 As in the celebrations of most great victories, 
 where jocose hilarity, boasting, threatening, and 
 defying are mixed with the cup that's passing 
 around, so with Johnny's tin cups of brandy and 
 slices of ham, which were dealt about, were ejacu 
 lated the most unqualified exultations for the 
 conquest of "Old Golden," the most unfeeling 
 huzzas for the fate of the poor rattlesnakes, and 
 boasts of the unerring truth of " Old Ben" and 
 
 D 
 
34 An Ambuscade. 
 
 " Long Polly," 1 and fearless contempt for the " Red 
 Feather" and his party of marauders, whom Johnny 
 O'Neil had " supposed" might be coming upon them 
 from " Hemlock Hollow." 
 
 In the midst of this jubilee lunch, in which some 
 were seated on logs and others upon the ground, 
 and the conversation was, of course, on rattlesnakes 
 and Indians, bang ! went a rifle on our left, and at 
 a distance of some twenty-five or thirty rods, the 
 smoke of which was seen amongst a thicket of 
 bushes, and the ball of which was heard as it went 
 whizzing over our heads. 
 
 Darrow at the time was sitting on a log, some 
 what higher than the rest of us. All of us sprang 
 to our feet, or on to our hands and feet, and amongst 
 the last were Darrow, Snidigar, and Atwill, the only 
 ones who had rifles with them. 
 
 " That's a close shave," said Darrow ; " he knows 
 my old fox-skin cap, but it was only a graze, any 
 how." 
 
 "That's 'Red Feather,'" said Snidigar. 
 " No doubt of it," said Darrow. " I know the 
 crack of his rifle ; it's not the first time that I have 
 heard it. He's snatched many a fine buck out of 
 my hands on these mountains, and you and I know 
 the music of his rifle, Snidigar, and we shall have 
 more of it. Look wild !" 
 
 " Lie close there, every one of you," said Snidi- 
 
 1 Barrow's and Snidigar's rifles. 
 
The Attack. 35 
 
 gar, as Darrow was creeping forward on the ground,' 
 as close as a rattlesnake would crawl, to the roots 
 of a large beech tree, poising his rifle in his left 
 hand before him in a horizontal position. 
 
 "Take the pine-log there, near its root," said 
 Darrow to Snidigar, " and see every leaf that stirs 
 in that direction." 
 
 The rest of the party were dropped under or by 
 the side of the logs, and as whist as mice, all except 
 Johnny O'Neil, who had also been flat, but had 
 conceived the plan of pushing down a handfull of 
 buck-shot into my old musket, and which he was 
 doing by resting on one elbow. 
 
 I got my head sufficiently raised to see my friend 
 and master, Darrow, whose every motion I was still 
 studying, as important to the education I was re 
 ceiving. His motions at that time were all so slow 
 as to be almost imperceptible, and on either side of 
 the tree, before advancing his head far enough to 
 see, his fox-skin cap was held a little in advance, so 
 as to receive the bullet when it should come. I saw 
 him at length lying perfectly still for a 'minute or 
 so, when his cap was lowered down, and his rifle 
 gradually raised to his face. He didn't fire, and in 
 a moment lowered it again, but before taking up 
 his cap, he raised it quickly up and fired ; and in 
 stantly, from amongst the logs, with a tremendous 
 crash, Johnny O'Neil let off the old musket with 
 its charge of buck-shot in the same direction. 
 
 Darrow at this time was flat on his back, and 
 
36 The Attack. 
 
 with his wiper was pushing down another ball, when 
 in a low whisper he said, " It's nothing it was only 
 a shaking leaf." Johnny O'Neil, however, actually 
 saw an Indian, and saw him quail before the handful 
 of buck-shot! 
 
 " I've kilt one of the divils!" said Johnny. 
 
 Snidigar whispered to him to hold his tongue, 
 and he could shoot no more, for his buck-shot had 
 given out. 
 
 Darrow was on the lookout again, and all the 
 party resting in breathless anxiety, when "spang!" 
 said another rifle behind us (and exactly in the op 
 posite direction, the Indians' mode precisely, and on 
 the level platform on which we were resting, below, 
 and in front of the pulpit rock), and whew ! went 
 the ball over our heads. 
 
 Snidigar, from the beginning of the fight, had 
 placed Atwill on the lookout in that direction, ap 
 prehending, from Indian modes of warfare, that we 
 should be attacked on both sides simultaneously. 
 
 Atwill could see nothing to " draw a bead" upon, 
 though the smoke of the Indian's gun, as in the 
 other case, was seen rising out of the bushes. Dar 
 row was steady at his post, and looking out, and 
 Snidigar's eagle eyes were roaming about in all 
 directions, and not a leaf moved without his 
 seeing it. 
 
 The Indians had decidedly the advantage, being 
 sheltered by the thickets on each side of us, when 
 
The Attack. 37 
 
 our warriors were obliged to stand exposed, compa 
 ratively in open ground. 
 
 The most of our party being unarmed, and we 
 being surrounded, it was evident that our best 
 chance was to lie as still and close as possible, and 
 meet what might come in the best manner we could, 
 with the three rifles of famous hunters to protect us. 
 
 There was no use in advancing, which would only 
 expose us to the Indians' fire, and the suspense be 
 came awful, waiting for the attack to be resumed. 
 In the midst and silence of this, I heard my father 
 whispering to Johnny O'Neil, on the other side of 
 the log, and, from what I could understand, he was 
 sending Johnny off into the valley for help : 
 " From the very first leap that you make," said my 
 father, " don't even turn your head to look back, 
 but go straight to the river to Atwill's house ! 
 tell his brother and tell him to bring the Hil- 
 bourns ! Send some one to Heths ! Take Atwill's 
 canoe and cross over tell Rowley and the other 
 men in the field ! jump on to the sorrel mare 
 in the south stable and go up the valley at 
 the utmost speed ! Go to the Buels ! go to the 
 Smiths ! At the Devil's Pulpit the Devil's Pulpit! 
 Mind!" as I saw Johnny taking his tremendous 
 kangaroo leaps down the hill, when I peeped over 
 the log. 
 
 Johnny was out of sight in an instant, and, for 
 one, out of danger ; and the instant thought came 
 
3 8 " Squeer Cathlin kilt" 
 
 that / too, in the like way, could save one, and 
 perhaps help in bringing succour to the besieged 
 and doomed party. And as quick as thought, a 
 bound and a leap or two took me out of the sight 
 and hail of the party, and, like a rolling hoop, I 
 was bounding and rebounding down the mountain 
 side for a mile or more. 
 
 Atwill's wife, where Johnny had been and re 
 ported as he passed that "Squeer Cathlin" (no 
 doubt to make the alarm more exciting) was " kilt," 
 and to Mrs. Atwill and others whom I met, that 
 "Garge" was wounded (for I was still covered with 
 blood from the bruise of the old musket, and had 
 no time then to explain the cause of), and that he 
 had himself " kilt one of the divils." 
 
 Johnny was soon across the river, and, astride of 
 the sorrel mare, was electrifying the people of the 
 valley as he advanced towards its head, and rallying 
 the rifles into the field. Men were everywhere 
 seen running, some on horseback and others on 
 foot ; and in a little time the river was spotted with 
 canoes, with their glistening paddles and rifles, on 
 their hurried way to the scene of action, to land at 
 Atwill's, as Johnny had said, and proceed to the 
 " Devil's Pulpit," where the battle was waging. 
 
 Horsemen were started across the mountains for 
 the rifles of Randolph Valley ; and horns were 
 blowing, women were screaming, and dogs were 
 howling, and even the very atmosphere of the little 
 
Johnny O* Neil recruiting. 39 
 
 valley seemed to be aware of the horrid scene that 
 was transpiring at the " Devil's Pulpit," and to breathe, 
 in unison with the voices of the living, " Death to 
 the Indian devils, every one of them !" 
 
 What a piece of good luck for Johnny O'Neil and I 
 that in an instant's thought we bounded off and 
 escaped as we did ! And how little, two hours 
 before, was dreamed of in this quiet little valley, 
 and by the jovial party at the " Rattlesnakes' Den," 
 of the scenes now to be related ! I would stop here 
 if I could, but the whole must be told. Who had 
 expected the dread sound of the frightful war- 
 whoop, and the relentless blows of the tomahawk 
 and scalping-knife ? Who had thought that these 
 things were to be unburied, and stained again with 
 the blood of the innocent and quiet inhabitants 
 of the little valley of the Ocquago ? 
 
 What reader who has ever read the history of the 
 ill-fated valley of Wyoming, of its " Indian Mas 
 sacre," the battles at " Bloody Run," of " Ooster- 
 houts Narrows," and of " Tunkhannock," will lack 
 the patience to bear with me a few moments until 
 we can arrive at the end of this gathering storm, 
 or lack the means of appreciating its anticipated 
 horrors when they are made known ? The mind 
 shudders at scenes of blood, of massacres, and 
 murder when they transpire, and that is enough ; 
 and therefore the finale of these descriptions must 
 await the result. 
 
40 Approaching Volunteers. 
 
 I, as I have said, luckily scaled the mountain's 
 side, crossed the river, and got home. My dear 
 mother met me with screams, as I was covered yet 
 with blood ; and learning from me that " Squeer 
 Cathlin" was not yet "kilt," she washed off the 
 blood, and put me into a clean shirt. And gallant 
 Johnny O'Neil at this time was galloping down the 
 valley with his scattered volunteers, and the canoes 
 of the river were landing their heroic cargoes at 
 " Atwill's Landing," where Johnny and myself had 
 first arrived in our stampede from the " Devil's 
 Pulpit." 
 
 There had been no Devil to preach to the poor 
 affrighted group packed away under the logs, or 
 watching, with their rifles, on their hands and knees, 
 or bellies, for the show of a red feather or a string 
 of wampum. 
 
 Whilst weary and nearly exhausted, and im 
 patient for the battle or a rescue, the awful silence 
 was at last broken by a terrible, a wicked, and a 
 cruel laugh that broke out from the summit of the 
 rock above the Pulpit, higher up than the affrighted 
 group had been looking, from the stretched mouths 
 of two giggling country lasses of their familiar ac 
 quaintance, who sat overlooking the unhappy and 
 imprisoned group, having their two sweethearts 
 seated behind them, and joining in the laugh, with 
 their rifles on their shoulders. 
 
 The prostrate group gradually arose from their 
 
End of the Battle. 4 1 
 
 painful lairs, and Darrow, rising upon one knee, , 
 and bringing his rifle to his face, exclaimed, " Bo- 
 gard, you'll not play that trick again." But Bogard's 
 head was lowered out of sight, and that of Trow- 
 bridge, his companion, and their damsels departed 
 with them. 
 
 The Indian battle, of course, with all its horrors, 
 terminated here. Bogard and Lyman Trowbridge 
 had been engaged to join the party to the " Rattle 
 snakes' Den," but mustering their sweethearts to 
 accompany them, were behind time, and left be 
 hind. They had followed on the trail, and travelling 
 slow, with petticoats, through the thickets, had met 
 the returning party, without being themselves disco 
 vered, near the " Devil's Pulpit," and resolved to 
 give them a "sensation," which had been done in 
 the manner described ; one firing his rifle over their 
 heads from the right, and the other from the left, 
 from which points, unseen, they had mounted the 
 precipice and joined their damsels, and with them 
 sat amusing themselves by overlooking the splendid 
 and warlike manoeuvres, transpiring below, of pre 
 paring for an Indian battle. 
 
 Darrow had laid until his legs were stiff, and the 
 strained eyes of Snidigar had become bloodshot. 
 The rest of the party, stowed away under the logs, 
 came forth in better condition, and in the midst of 
 an excited dialogue as to the infamous trick, and 
 the manner in which it should be eventually 
 
42 Jo Snidigar and Bill. 
 
 punished, the undevoured crumbs were gathered 
 up, and a bottle or two of brandy yet remaining, 
 their suddenly broken lunch was resumed with in 
 creased appetites. 
 
 In the midst of this, Snidigar's long forefinger 
 was seen pointing down the hill. " Look ! there's 
 Bill" (his brother, also a celebrated hunter), " there's 
 a fellow always ready." Bill Snidigar was a man 
 six feet and a half high, and with his head and 
 shoulders rising out of the fern (for he was on his 
 hands and knees), with his rifle in his hand, and at 
 thirty or forty rods distance, where he had arrived, 
 he was ready for the fight, for the rescue. 
 
 At a less distance, and further to the right, and 
 from behind an oak tree, "Tom Ely" gradually 
 showed out his ugly face ; and within a few rods, 
 and further to the left, appearing like mermaids look 
 ing out of the sea, were discovered the uncovered 
 foreheads of "Jake and Jim Seeley," never behind ; 
 their bodies hidden in the mass of fern in which 
 they were embedded. These were the foremost for 
 the rescue, and first on the ground, like serpents, 
 silent and unseen, they were on the spot, and ready 
 for action. 
 
 The "up river boys" had landed at Atwill's 
 ferry, and were now spread out, and entering the 
 forest in position, and ready for a tree fight, sound 
 ing the frightful war-whoop, and advancing from 
 tree to tree, as the forest rang with the echo of their 
 yells a-head of them. 
 
Triumphal Procession. 43 
 
 The besieged party at this time were gathered 
 up, with their rattlesnakes' skins bandaging their 
 hats, their waists, and their arms, and others were 
 carried on poles as flags and trophies. 
 
 The beautiful and silent vanguards then rose from 
 their hidden lairs in the fern all around, came up, 
 got a drink of cogniac brandy, raised the war-whoop 
 over the saddle of " Old Golden," with whom all had 
 been acquainted, helped to transport his remains, 
 and meeting the advancing columns, turned them, 
 and all together descended the mountain's side to 
 the river shore, where boats were ready to cross 
 them over, and other boats of riflemen were just 
 arriving. 
 
 Across, all hands met upon my father's meadows, 
 and my father taking the lead, the little army was 
 soon upon the lawn of my father's house, on which 
 all were seated. A bottle or two more of brandy 
 added to the merriment of that picturesque scene, 
 in which I was put forward in a white shirt, and 
 with a clean face, as the hero of the day. 
 
 At this moment two poor young men -came up 
 from " down the river," each one bringing a string 
 of several dozens of fine trout. " Jo Still," who 
 was spokesman for the two, said, " Squire Catlin, 
 what will you give ?" holding them up. 
 
 " Do you mean for all ?" 
 
 "Yes, squire." 
 
 " What do you expect for them ?" 
 
44 The Rattlesnakes Den. 
 
 " Well, we'll take a dollar, squire." 
 
 There it is, said my father. " Still " (inquired 
 my father, as all the party were listening), " where 
 did you catch these ?" 
 
 "In Hemlock Hollow, squire. The Sturrukker 
 is full on 'em there, and yesterday bein a showery 
 day, they bit uncommonly well." 
 
 " But I thought there were Indians there ? " 
 
 " We thought we saw their smoke there to-day. 
 We feared that ' Red Feather and ( Yellow Moccasin' 
 were there." 
 
 "No," (said the second fisherman, as he advanced 
 forward, and drew his shirt-sleeve from his elbow 
 to his wrist of each arm across his face, beneath 
 his nose), "no, squire, I'll be darned if that's so, 
 there haint been an Ingin there these five years ! 
 ' Jo Still' and I has each on us got a nice little 
 faVm a cummin on there in ' Hemlock Holler.' 
 We've been burnin logs there for some days, and I 
 think that was the smoke you seed, squire. We 
 was gitten a little afraid this mornin howsomsever, 
 when we saw a smoke on Steele's mountain, or 
 somear thar abouts, and thinkin it might be Ingins 
 (though I think they dasent come to Hemlock 
 Holler any more), we still thought twas best to take 
 our wives and little ones down to Hilbourn's land 
 ing for a day or two, and from there we've just 
 cummed up here, squire." 
 
 My father explained to these men the cause of 
 
The Rattlesnakes Den. 45 
 
 the smoke they had" seen on Steele's mountain, 
 and twilight approaching, with a few united war- 
 whoops, the party dispersed, giving "three cheers 
 for 'Garge' " (which Johnny O'Niel proposed), "who 
 has been lacked, and been hacked, but has blawn the 
 pison manufactury to the divil !" 
 
 So much, and nothing would have answered short 
 of it, for the affair of the " Rattlesnakes' Den," a 
 legend not before known in history, but rife with the 
 name of its hero in Susquehana lore. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 GOLD HUNTING IN THE CRYSTAL MOUNTAINS. 
 
 ,N the past chapter we have halted a 
 little, and I hope not too long, amongst 
 the scenes of my boyish life ; in this, I 
 shall retrace some of the interesting 
 steps of my elder days ; and stopping occasionally 
 for scenes which I too hurriedly passed by in the 
 first volume of this work, will bring the reader to 
 where that left off, with a field vast and boundless 
 before us, in which again to view the Indians and 
 the incidents of Indian life. 
 
 In the first volume the reader learned that I had 
 travelled eight years amongst the tribes of North 
 America, east of the Rocky Mountains, and made 
 a collection of more than 600 portraits of Indians 
 and paintings illustrating their modes of life ; and 
 that I made an Exhibition of the same in New 
 York, in Paris, and in London. 
 
 That Exhibition was very popular, and gained 
 
Daniel Webster s Speech. 47 
 
 me great applause, and money also ; but, like too 
 many fast men, I was led into unfortunate specula 
 tions, and, like them, suffered injurious conse 
 quences. 
 
 At that time, however, the Senate of the United 
 States was considering a Bill for the purchase of 
 my collection, for the sum of 65,000 dollars. A 
 committee had reported a bill in favour of the pur 
 chase, and in their report had stated that they con 
 sidered the price of 65,000 dollars to be a moderate 
 compensation for it ; and I had encouraging as 
 surances of its success. 
 
 Messrs. Webster, Seward, Foote, and the other 
 Federal members were in favour of the appropria 
 tion, and voted for it ; and the democratic members 
 voted against it. Mr. Webster advocated the pur 
 chase, in a long and eloquent speech, of which the 
 following is a brief extract : 
 
 EXTRACT FROM THE SPEECH OF THE HON. 
 DANIEL WEBSTER, ON A MOTION IN THE 
 SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, FOR THE 
 
 PURCHASE OF "CATLIN'S INDIAN COLLECTION," 
 IN 1849. 
 
 " MR. PRESIDENT : The question is, whether it 
 does not become us, as an useful thing, to possess in 
 the United States this collection of paintings, etc, 
 made amongst the Indian tribes ? Whether it is not 
 a case for the exercise of large liberality / will not 
 
48 Daniel Webster s Speech. 
 
 say bounty, but policy ? These tribes, sir, that have 
 preceded us, to whose lands we have succeeded, and 
 wJw have no written memorials of their laws, their 
 habits, and their manners, are all passing away to 
 the world of forgetfulness. Their likeness, manners, 
 and customs, are portrayed with more accuracy and 
 truth in this collection by Catlin than in all the other 
 drawings and representations on the face of the earth. 
 Somebody in this country ought to possess this collec 
 tion that is my opinion ; and I do not know who 
 there is, or where there is to be found, any society or 
 any individual, who, or which, can with so much 
 propriety possess himself, or itself, of it, as the 
 Government of the United States. For my part, 
 then, I do think that the preservation of " Catlin's 
 Indian Collection " in this country is an important 
 public act. / think it properly belongs to those ac 
 cumulations of historical matters respecting our pre 
 decessors on this continent, which it is very proper for 
 the government of the United States to maintain. 
 As I have said, this race is going into forgetfulness. 
 They track the continuation of mankind in the present 
 age, and call recollection back to them. And here 
 they are better exhibited, in my judgment, better set 
 forth and presented to the mind, and the taste and 
 the curiosity of mankind, than in all other collections 
 in the world. I go for this as an American stibject 
 as a thing belonging to us to our history to 
 the history of a race wJwse lands we till, and over 
 
General C ass s Letter. 49 
 
 whose obscure graves and bones we tread every day. 
 I look upon it as a thing more appropriate for us 
 than the ascertaining of the South Pole, or anything 
 that can be discovered in the Dead Sea or the River 
 Jordan. These are the grounds, sir, tipon which I 
 propose to proceed, and I shall vote for the appropria 
 tion with great pleasure" 
 
 The following letter also, which I received at that 
 time, I have a right to introduce in this place : 
 
 LETTER FROM GENERAL CASS, SECRETARY OF 
 STATE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 
 
 " DEAR SIR : No man can appreciate better than 
 myself the admirable fidelity of your Indian Collec 
 tion and Indian book, which I have lately examined. 
 They are equally spirited and accurate : they are true 
 
 to nature. Things that are are not sacrificed, 
 
 as they too often are by the painter, to things as (in 
 his judgment} they should be. 
 
 " During eighteen years of my life I was super 
 intendent of Indian affairs in the north-western 
 territory of the United States ; and during more 
 than five I was Secretary of War, to which depart 
 ment belongs the general control of Indian concerns. 
 I know the Indians thoroughly. I have spent many 
 a month in their camps, council-houses, villages, and 
 hunting grounds ; I have fought with them, and 
 against them ; and I have negociated seventeen 
 E 
 
5 Jefferson Davis, Senator. 
 
 treaties of peace or of cession with them. I mention 
 these circumstances to show you that I have a good 
 right to speak confidently upon tJie subject of your 
 drawings. Among tJiem I recognize many of my old 
 acquaintances, and everywhere I am stmck with the 
 vivid representations of tliem and tJieir customs, of 
 their peculiar features, and of their costumes. Un 
 fortunately, ttiey are receding before the advancing 
 tide of our population, and are probably destined, at 
 no distant day, wholly to disappear ; but your collec 
 tion will preserve tJiem, as far as human art can 
 do, and will form the most perfect monument of an 
 extinguished race that tJie world has ever seen. 
 
 " To Geo. Catlin." " LEWIS CASS. 
 
 Mr. " Jefferson Davis," at that time (previous to 
 the Rebellion), a member of the Senate, before 
 giving his vote, made, in a speech of two news 
 paper columns in length, and now matter of record, 
 the most complimentary eulogy that has ever been 
 passed on my works, stating that I was " the only 
 artist who ever had painted, or could paint, an 
 American Indian ; that he had been a campaigner 
 with me for several months amongst the Osages, the 
 Comanches, Pawnee Picts, &c, whilst he was an 
 officer in the 1st Regiment of mounted Dragoons, 
 that he had sat by me and seen me paint many 
 of my portraits from the life, and knew their ac 
 curacy, that the collection was one of great interest 
 
Jefferson Davis, Senator. 51 
 
 and value to our country, and that it would be a 
 shame if it were sold in a foreign land." And 
 yet, when the stage of the .voting showed that his 
 vote was to turn the scale, stated that, " from prin 
 ciple, he was bound to vote against the appropria 
 tion," which he did, and defeated the bill. 
 
 This unexplained "principle" I construed to be 
 clearly the principle adopted and proclaimed by 
 President Jackson many years before, of removing 
 all the southern tribes of Indians west of the Mis 
 sissippi River, that their two hundred and fifty 
 millions of rich cotton lands might be covered with 
 slave labourers ; and which principle, with an ac 
 companying hostility to everything Indian, had been 
 and was being carried out by the successive ad 
 ministrations, convincing me that I had nothing 
 further to expect or to claim from my country for 
 the labours I had expended and the collections I 
 had made in the Indian countries. 
 
 This discouragement, and the explosion of my 
 pecuniary affairs in London, came upon me to 
 gether, and both contributed to impede my return 
 to my native country, which I had contemplated at 
 that time ; and, as will be seen, to my subsequent 
 wanderings, to be briefly narrated in the following 
 pages. In this dilemma I was lost ; but my collec 
 tion was saved to my country by an American 
 gentleman, an act so noble and so patriotic that I 
 cannot believe my country will forget it. 
 
5 2 Gold Hunting in 
 
 My " occupation gone," and with no other means 
 on earth than my hands and my brush, and less 
 than half of a life, at best, before me, as with all 
 that is human and mortal, my thoughts tended 
 towards Dame Fortune, to know if there was there 
 anything yet in store for me. The thought was an 
 extremely unpromising and visionary one, and yet, 
 without a superstition, seemed worthy of a trial. 
 
 In this state of mind, therefore, into one of the 
 eccentric adventures of my chequered life I was 
 easily led at that time, by the information got by a 
 friend of mine, a reader in the Bibliotheque Im- 
 periale of Paris, from an ancient Spanish work, 
 relative to gold mines of marvellous richness, said 
 to have been worked by Spanish miners some 300 
 years since, in the Tumucumache (or Crystal) moun 
 tains, in the northern part of Brazil. 
 
 According to this tradition the Spanish miners, 
 after having accumulated great riches, were attacked 
 by the Indians and massacred in their houses, or 
 driven out of the country, leaving their gold behind 
 them. This wonderful relation, with other cor 
 roborating legends I had received, had enough of 
 probability (with the additional circumstances al 
 ready narrated) to excite my cupidity, and what 
 follows is a brief account of my singular enterprise 
 entered upon at that time. 
 
 In my wandering contemplations, ten years, at least, 
 of solitudes in voluntary exile, with my pencils and 
 
the Crystal Mountains. 53 
 
 sketch-books, were before me as agreeable realities. 
 Nuggets of gold of all sizes appeared in my dreams, 
 and in my waking hours I had allowed a half super-r 
 stition to intimate to me that Dame Fortune might 
 have something precious in store for me, and which 
 she could not bestow without the suitable oppor 
 tunity. As traditions had said that the gold 
 miners of the Crystal Mountains had accumulated 
 vast amounts in gold dust and nuggets, imagination 
 naturally and easily depicted these riches left be 
 hind, buried within the walls of their adobe houses 
 when the miners were destroyed, or obliged to flee 
 from their villages. 
 
 The wealth of London was to be at my command 
 if I succeeded ; a company, with unbounded capital, 
 was to be formed, and a concession was to be ob 
 tained from the government of Brazil for the right 
 of working the mines and carting the gold away ; 
 and I had yet the stimulus of an unexplored 
 country before me. 
 
 With such reflections and anticipations I started, 
 in 1852 fourteen years ago for the Crystal Moun 
 tains, in Brazil. I sailed to Havannah ; from thence 
 I went to Carraccas, in Venezuela, to see the won 
 derful "Silla," described by Baron de Humboldt 
 From Carraccas to the Orinoco and Demerara, 
 designing to ascend the Essequibo to the base of 
 the Crystal Mountains. 
 
 Learning from friends in Demerara the jealousy 
 
54 Sir Robert Shombergk. 
 
 with which the unsettled boundary between British 
 Guiana and Brazil was at that time guarded, and 
 the consequent difficulty, if not impossibility, of 
 passing the frontier post at the Grand Rapids of 
 the Essequibo, I obtained a British passport for 
 Brazil, and an incognito cognomen, as kings and 
 emperors sometimes do, resolved to leave the river 
 below the " Sabo " or great cataract, and approach 
 the mountains by a land route, taking a guide and 
 escort from some of the Arowak or Taruma villages 
 I should have to pass through. 
 
 Having previously met my old acquaintance, Sir 
 Robert Shombergk, returning from his second ex 
 ploring expedition to the sources of the Essequibo, 
 he also had explained to me the uncertainty of 
 getting permission from the post-holder to pass the 
 Grand Rapids, and also of the extreme difficulty of 
 ascending the Essequibo from that to the moun 
 tains, owing to the numerous rapids, requiring a 
 strong force of men He approved my plan of 
 taking the eastern route ; and having learned from 
 me the object I had in view, stated that he had long 
 since heard legends of the Spanish gold mines in 
 those mountains, and that were it not that he was 
 at that time executing a special command of Her 
 Majesty the Queen, he would have accompanied me 
 in the enterprise. 
 
 Joined in Georgetown by an enterprising young 
 man by the name of Smyth, an Englishman, a good 
 
The Tumucamaches. 55 
 
 shot, and carrying a first-rate minie rifle ; and, 
 armed myself with Colt's revolving carabine, we left 
 the Essequibo below the grand cataract, and after 
 a desperate encounter with rivers and swamps, 
 reached an Arowak village. Received in this vil 
 lage with great kindness (as has been described in 
 the first volume), we procured hired horses and 
 mules, on which, with an Indian guide, passing 
 several Indian villages, and a country of three or 
 four hundred miles, we reached the base of the 
 mountains, and then, with a half-caste interpreter 
 and guide, who knew the route, and a mule to carry 
 our packs, we trusted to our legs for a passage 
 across the mountains into the valley of the Amazon, 
 which we accomplished, but with great fatigue and 
 some distress, to the forks of the Trombutas, from 
 which we descended in an Indian pirogue to the 
 Amazon, to Santarem, and to Para, as has been 
 more fully narrated in the first volume of this work. 
 Instead of finding the Tumucamache (or Acarai) 
 a single mountain ridge, which I had contemplated, 
 we found ourselves in the midst of a series of moun 
 tains of palaeozoic rocks of the most frowning and 
 defying aspect for a breadth of fifty or sixty miles. 
 In the midst of these our poor mule gave out, and 
 we were obliged to leave it and most of our packs, 
 and trust to our weapons for subsistence. Food 
 and life and progress now became subjects of more 
 importance than gold ; and in our jaded and ex- 
 
56 Gold Hunting in 
 
 hausted condition we were but miserable nugget 
 hunters. We hunted, however, passing over exten 
 sive beds of auriferous quartz, and in some instances 
 distinctly exhibiting to the naked eye the precious 
 metal. 
 
 In a beautiful valley amongst the mountain 
 ranges we struck upon an ancient waggon-road, 
 which we followed for several miles, intelligible 
 proofs of mining operations. This, however, we 
 lost, from the thick overgrowth of a sort of thorn, 
 not unlike a compact hedge, extending in some 
 places for miles together, and entirely impenetrable 
 to man or horse, until cut away. 
 
 From such causes all my nugget fever for the 
 time passed away, and I was happy to be again at 
 my old vocation, and safe and sound in the valley 
 of the Amazon. 
 
 Near the close of the first volume, I gave some 
 account of the valley of the Amazon, its rivers, its 
 forests, and inhabitants ; but, for want of space, was 
 obliged to make it brief and very incomplete. Other 
 features of it, which I was then obliged to pass by, 
 will now be taken up, and the end of this chapter 
 will bring us to the Pacific, where we will have a 
 new region to pass into. 
 
 In my boarding-house in Para I made the agree 
 able acquaintance of Senor L , to whom I gave 
 
 a description of my long voyage, and the object I 
 had had in crossing the Crystal Mountains. He told 
 
the Crystal Mountains. 57 
 
 me he had long heard traditions of those gold mines; 
 and the massacre of the miners by the Indians ; and 
 he added that he had no doubt of the facts, nor any 
 doubt but that great wealth had been left concealed 
 in or about the miners' adobe houses. 
 
 He informed me that he lived on an island in the 
 Amazon, some hundreds of miles above Santarem, 
 which he had stocked with several thousand head 
 of cattle and horses ; that he was returning by 
 steamer in a few days ; and that if I would accom 
 pany him, he would fit out another expedition at 
 his own house, and at his expense, approaching the 
 mountains from a different direction, and in a dif 
 ferent place ; and, he thought, with a better chance 
 of success. 
 
 I accepted this gentleman's kind offer, and in 
 three days we were prepared for our coming cam 
 paign. At Para we obtained each a tunique and 
 leggings of strong buckskin, and other articles neces 
 sary for our tour, and various trinkets and other 
 presents for the Indians. 
 
 I had at the time in my employment a first-rate 
 negro man (a maroon), six feet and two inches in 
 height, " Cczsar Bolla" who had freed himself from 
 bondage by leaving his master, Senor Bolla, in 
 Havannah, and had proved to me his value in a 
 tour of five or six weeks which we had just made 
 together amongst the Xingu Indians, on the river 
 by that name. 
 
5 8 Gold Hunting in 
 
 My former companion, Smyth, having left me in 
 Para, I purchased of him his minie rifle, which I 
 had put into Caesar's hands, and of which he was 
 very proud. 
 
 Senor L proposed to take two of his own 
 
 negroes, and employ a couple of friendly Indians 
 living in the vicinity of his residence, as guides and 
 interpreters, making in all a party of seven. 
 
 This hospitable gentleman had on his island ten 
 thousand cattle and horses, and fifteen negroes. He 
 told me before starting, that, as we were going into 
 a section of country known to be rich in minerals, 
 and guarded with great jealousy by the Govern 
 ment, we should be more or less liable to fall into 
 the hands of one of three garrisons of bare-footed 
 soldiers, stationed at the Barra and at the base of 
 the mountains ; and that in such an event he should 
 much rather answer to. the name of Senor Novello 
 than that of Senor L . 
 
 His motive for this he knew I could correctly 
 appreciate when I showed him my passport, and at 
 the same time told him my real name, with which 
 (when he heard it) he said he had been for some 
 years familiar. He spoke the Portugais, the Spanish, 
 and the " lingua geral" (the language of the country), 
 and Caesar spoke the Spanish and the English, and 
 our two Indian guides spoke the "geral," and the 
 Indian language of the tribes where we were going ; 
 so that on the score of languages we had nothing 
 to fear. 
 
the Crystal Mountains. 59 
 
 The route proposed was to descend the Amazon ' 
 some fifteen or twenty miles in a huge and unwieldy 
 pirogue ; then ascend a small and sluggish stream 
 some twenty or thirty miles, leave the pirogue, and 
 traverse the vast and gloomy forest until we reached 
 the llanos (prairies), where we would hire mules of 
 the Indians to take us to the mountains. 
 
 We were several days -making the necessary 
 preparations ; laying in salt and dried meats, coffee, 
 sugar, biscuits, tea, salt, &c, and a few culinary 
 articles ; and amongst them a large tin pan from his 
 wife's pantry, for washing gold, and a heavy hammer 
 for breaking the rocks, and a cold chisel for cutting 
 the nuggets which we might find, too large to be 
 transported entire ! 
 
 Embarked in our heavy pirogue, with all our stores 
 and equipments laid in, we were venturing on a 
 tour which probably no white man had ever made 
 before (and of which we had no knowledge except 
 that obtained from our two Indians, who had 
 traversed it several times before), of wading, of 
 creeping and crawling, through the vast and sunless 
 and pathless solitudes which lie between the Amazon 
 and the llanos that spread out at the foot of the Tu- 
 mucamache, or Crystal Mountains. And those who 
 would appreciate the grandeur, the vastness, the 
 intricacy, and the mysteries of the Amazon forests 
 without seeing them, now listen ! 
 
 Gently and easily we floated down the northern 
 
60 An Amazon River, 
 
 shore of the river for the distance of fifteen or 
 twenty miles ; most of the way, the banks, the 
 shore, and the trunks of the lofty trees were entirely 
 hidden by the outrolling and outstretching masses 
 of foliage of various hues and various patterns, 
 which seemed to be tumbling over our heads into 
 the river. 
 
 Without discovering the least appearance of a 
 landing-place, or mouth of a river or stream, " Ya- 
 ka, ya-ka" (there it is, there it is), cried out one of 
 our Indians, and pointing to it, when our pirogue 
 was steered about, and plunged by force of paddles 
 amidst the hanging boughs that were dipping in the 
 water. In a moment we were out of sight of the 
 mighty Amazon, and ascending a deep and sluggish 
 stream of unknown width, for the hanging foliage 
 was everywhere bathing in the stream, and hiding 
 the muddy shores and the trunks of the trees from 
 our view. 
 
 A sort of " Lingua-geraV boat-song was now 
 raised as the negroes were plying the paddles ; and 
 the two Indians, in the bow, with their paddles were 
 dividing and lifting the drooping boughs out of the 
 water and passing them over our heads as the boat 
 moved on. When raised, they were struck with the 
 paddle, and most of their water discharged, but 
 enough still filled the air, like a mist or a gentle 
 shower of rain. 
 
 The little Indians, with their entirely naked 
 
An Amazon River. 61 
 
 bodies, who were thus nicely and comfortably 
 cooled, were laughing at our buckskins, in which 
 we were completely drenched. 
 
 The song progressed, the paddles were plied, and 
 we still went on, whilst the artificial rain was falling, 
 and the sun was shining. Night approached ; and 
 we found a comfortable landing-shore, where our 
 hammocks were slung, and between two tremendous 
 fires we passed the night, amidst the howling of 
 monkeys and hooting and screaming of nocturnal 
 birds. 
 
 The third day of this perpetual shower-bath 
 brought us to the head of navigation of this little 
 river without a name, where there were lying three 
 other pirogues belonging to Indians, each one 
 fastened to the shore with a thong of raw hide, and 
 claimed by the owner's totem and the figure of a 
 knife drawn on a piece of bark with blood-red 
 paint and fastened to the raw hide thong. 
 
 Here was a little spot of open timber, comfortable 
 for an encampment, and we remained two days, 
 arranging our packs, and preparing for our march 
 through the forest, leaving our canoe for our return, 
 labelled and claimed in the manner of those of the 
 Indians ; and our Indian guides assured us that no 
 Indians would ever remove it. 
 
 Now our mighty task began. So far the pirogue 
 had carried our " bags and baggage," but now we 
 had to divide them amongst ourselves ; each one 
 
62 An Amazon Forest. 
 
 carrying his load upon his back as he squeezed and 
 crept through the mazy network of shrubbery and 
 twisted vines. Our Indian guides professed to be 
 "following a road;" but what a road! A road 
 here, is where the Indians have with their knives 
 cut away the vines and made an opening large 
 enough for a man's body, as he stoops, to pass 
 through ; and this, in a few months or weeks, 
 requires the same process repeated to make it pass 
 able again. 
 
 Strapped upon Caesar's back was always my large 
 portfolio, containing a large number of cartoon 
 portraits of North American Indians, and blank 
 cartoons for other portraits to be made, protected 
 by a waterproof covering. Over that was fastened the 
 tin pan for gold washing. On his left shoulder his 
 minie rifle, and in his right hand the sledge-hammer 
 for getting at large nuggets, for which my cupidity 
 was now, for a second time, becoming roused. 
 
 Sefior N - and myself carried our rifles, and 
 each his knapsack of provisions, &c ; and the other 
 articles were divided amongst the two negroes and 
 the two Indians, the two last of whom were armed with 
 their sarbacanes (or blow-guns) with poisoned arrows. 
 
 Thus freighted, and thus equipped, we started on 
 our long and painful campaign, little knowing of, 
 and little caring for, the toils and difficulties ahead 
 of us those of an Amazon forest, and yet to be 
 described. The earth, shrouded with an endless 
 
An Amazon Forest. 63 
 
 impenetrable mass of green leaves, of twisting vines', 
 and wild flowers of various hues, penetrated, where 
 we walk, or stand, or creep, by the trunks of the 
 stately moras, hackeas, and palms, and fifty other 
 sorts of trees, but whose tops, and even branches, 
 are lost in the chaotic mass of foliage that embraces 
 them. 
 
 Man wanders under and through these vast cano 
 pies without finding a log or a stone, or even the 
 roots of a tree, to rest his weaned limbs upon. No 
 tree, even in its natural decline, falls to the ground, 
 but, like the masts of vessels with their cordage, they 
 are held and braced up by twisting vines, whilst 
 their decaying trunks are wasting away in the moist 
 alluvion, and they gradually settle down (as they 
 arose) to the earth from which they came. 
 
 No stone has been dropped here from a drifting 
 iceberg, or tumbled along in a mountain torrent, 
 and the roots of trees, to be seen, must be dug for, 
 so rapid is the accumulation of soil around them, 
 that the trunks of trees have the shape of piles 
 driven into the ground. 
 
 Owing to the shade and perpetual dampness of 
 those solitudes, fire never makes any progress, and 
 the heaviest showers of rain generally fail to reach 
 the ground, otherwise than in a light mist, or by 
 creeping down the branches, trunks, and twisting 
 vines by which it is broken and conducted. 
 
 In the fresh air and sunshine at the tops of the 
 
64 An Amazon Forest. 
 
 trees, which we never can see, there is a busy and 
 chattering neighbourhood of parrots and monkeys, 
 but all below is a dark and silent matted solitude, 
 in which a falling leaf, for want of wind, may be a 
 month in reaching the ground, and where a man 
 may be tracked by the broken cobwebs he leaves 
 behind him. 
 
 On, on we go, from day to day, in " Indian file," 
 cutting our way, without the slightest change, en 
 camping at night between our fires, always serenaded 
 by the frightful ariguatos (howling monkeys), whilst 
 we are beating off the mosquitos, or shaving our 
 legs to the knees with our knives to destroy the 
 thousands of red ticks that fasten their heads in 
 the skin. 
 
 Our progress is slow, perhaps some ten or twelve 
 miles per day. If man were but knee high, or, like 
 a serpent, could crawl upon his belly, he might 
 travel further. Not only are we impeded by the 
 vines that are twisting about our necks and our 
 legs, but the ground we walk on is painful and 
 fatiguing owing to the vast quantity of leaves that 
 fall, which have neither winds nor heavy rains to 
 flatten them down, or fire to burn them. 
 
 Nuts, and shells of nuts, are dropping on our 
 heads, disengaged by monkeys and birds engaged in 
 the tops of the trees, the chattering of which we con 
 stantly hear, though we don't see them. The falling 
 nuts are lost to the eye when they reach the ground, 
 
An Amazon Forest. 65 
 
 owing to the depth and looseness of the leav'es 
 amongst which they are hidden. The peccaries, in 
 search of these, throw up the leaves around their 
 sides until they are often nearly lost sight of, but the 
 troupe thus engaged always keep sentinels on the 
 look out, to give the alarm when an enemy is 
 approaching. 
 
 On the fifth day of our march, getting into a region 
 a little elevated, and with more open timber, we 
 passed a large gang of these little fellows busy in 
 their furrows ; and a short time after, our little 
 Indian "Bok-ar" announced that they had taken 
 up the line of march, and were following us, and 
 that we were in great danger unless we could reach 
 a small stream that was a few miles a-head of us. 
 At his request we relieved him of as much of his 
 load as we could, and he went back to meet them, 
 and keep them at bay by some sort of charm that 
 he was master of, and which I did not learn, the 
 same, he told us, that the jaguar uses to decoy them 
 up to a leaning tree or other place where he can 
 pounce upon the fattest of the herd, and, with it, 
 leap to a nook above their reach. 
 
 About three or four o'clock in the afternoon we 
 reached the anticipated stream, and forded it, the 
 mud and water reaching to our waistbands. All 
 hands safe over, we came to a halt, and laid our 
 packs upon the ground, the Indians assuring us that 
 our enemies would not enter the water for us. 
 
 F 
 
66 Attacked by Peccaries. 
 
 Our daring little Bok-ar was in full view, dancing 
 backwards towards us, singing, and now and then 
 squeaking like a young peccary, but staring at 
 them as they were advancing in a solid phalanx 
 upon him, chafing their tusks and preparing for 
 battle. 
 
 Bok-ar waded the stream, and joined the party, 
 whilst the band of nut-gatherers advanced to the 
 edge of the stream, and in a body as thick as they 
 could stand, little else being seen than their heads, 
 with their noses pointed towards us. 
 
 Thus they stood, chafing their ivory, the sound 
 of which was like that in a marble yard when stone 
 cutters are chipping marble ; their eyes were blood- 
 red with rage, and a white froth was dropping from 
 their jowls. 
 
 As near as I could judge, there were from five 
 to six hundred of these bristly little warriors in the 
 group, and the reader will easily imagine that so 
 wild and savage a spectacle could not escape a 
 place in my sketch-book. 
 
 This done, we were resolving to give them a 
 broadside with our rifles, when I saw the little 
 Bok-ar slipping a poisoned arrow into his blow-gun. 
 We lowered our rifles, and gave the two Indians a 
 chance to exhibit the powers of their insignificant 
 looking weapons. They seemed very proud of the 
 compliment thus paid them, and smiled as they 
 slipped the fatal knitting-needles into the slender 
 reeds. 
 
An Amazon Forest. 67 
 
 The distance across the stream was some twelve 
 or fifteen yards. The little Bok-ar asked me which 
 one he should hit, and I pointed to one of the 
 largest, standing with its feet at the water's edge, 
 and with its head elevated, exposing its breast and 
 the veins of its neck. A sudden whiff! and the 
 deadly missiles were off. 
 
 Bok-ar s pig pitched forward into the mud, and 
 never moved, the arrow having struck the jugular 
 vein ; the other victim, shot in the side, wheeled 
 about, and after reeling and staggering for two or 
 three seconds, gave a squeak or two and fell, when 
 a scene commenced that baffled all description. 
 The sagacious group around the falling animal 
 seemed to know that it was dying, when they pitched 
 upon it, ripped and tore it, and tossed it in all direc 
 tions. 
 
 I ordered Caesar to fire his minie rifle over their 
 heads, when the whole group took fright and disap 
 peared in an instant, and we saw no more of them. 
 
 The Indians waded the stream, and both reco 
 vered their arrows, and returned them to their 
 quivers, and (as they told me) as ready and efficient 
 for battle as if they had not been fired ! How won 
 derful this poison, and what can it be ? Some have 
 thought it extracted from the rattlesnake's tooth, 
 but that can't be, for the poison of a serpent's tooth 
 produces immense swelling the poisoned arrow's 
 victim never swells at all. 
 
68 An Amazon Forest. 
 
 In the first volume of this work I have given a 
 fuller account of this wonderful weapon and its 
 effects, from experiments I witnessed and made 
 while amongst the Connibo Indians. When the 
 Indian requires for such deadly effects but an almost 
 imperceptible quantity of the poison on the point of 
 his needle-arrow, I would ask what awful havoc 
 would be produced in war if an army or regiment 
 of men were armed with the ancient bell-muzzled 
 arquebuses charged with duck-shot that had been 
 rolled in this liquid and dried, and driven by powder 
 instead of the Indian's feeble breath ? or if small 
 field-pieces were charged with such missiles ? No 
 surgeons would need to follow, no wounded would 
 be left upon the field of battle, for where one drop 
 of blood is drawn, death must ensue. 
 
 A conique rifle-ball, charged at its point with this 
 poison, entering the body of an ox, a tiger, or an 
 elephant, would, in my opinion, produce death as 
 instantaneous as the flash of a gun. 1 
 
 1 Six or seven years after my adventures in that country, a 
 correspondent in Para states in one of his letters : " Since 
 your visit to the Upper Amazon, several agents have been 
 traversing the whole country, both on the Amazon and in 
 Guiana, and buying up all the Indian poison, at any price, 
 but for what purpose no person has been able to ascertain, 
 God forbid that it should be used for the advancement of 
 civilization, for the Indians themselves have long since ceased 
 to use it in Indian warfare." 
 
An Amazon Forest. 69 
 
 To proceed on our voyage. The surface of the 
 country over which we were now passing was begin 
 ning evidently to rise, and after some five or six 
 days' further march the forest became more open, 
 its twisting vines and other impediments in a mea 
 sure disappeared, and its true grandeur and beauty 
 more fully developed, showed us that we were on 
 the divide between water-sheds, and that we were 
 consequently approaching the llanos (prairies), which 
 we should soon meet, pointing into the forest. 
 
 Encouraged, we marched easier and further each 
 day, and on the eleventh day from our start we be 
 held the opening to the prairie the sun shining 
 upon it, the smoke from a Zurumati village and the 
 blue Acarai (or Crystal) Mountains in the distance. 
 Our Indians soon found their acquaintances ; our 
 views were made known to them, and we were re 
 ceived with hospitality and kindness. Caesar soon 
 got my portfolio open in a suitable place, and began 
 his usual lectures on the portraits of their "Red 
 bredren" in North America, as he held them up one 
 by one to their view. Great excitement and amuse 
 ment were produced by the pictures, but all were 
 afraid to be painted when it was proposed, and no 
 one would consent to the operation. 
 
 The women had not yet come forward, and one 
 of the chiefs very respectfully inquired if the women 
 could be allowed to look at the portraits. He said 
 he knew that the white men did not like to see 
 
70 A Beautiful Group. 
 
 women naked, for he had been in some of the white 
 men's large villages, and he saw that they kept 
 their women all covered ; and if their women could 
 be allowed to look at the portraits the next day, 
 they should be dressed properly for the occasion. 
 
 The next day about noon, some fifteen or twenty 
 of them came, mostly young and unmarried girls. 
 They had no clothing whatever on them, though 
 their ordinary habit is to wear a sort of apron of 
 skins or of bark, extending from the waist down 
 nearly to the knees. 
 
 On this occasion, to be, as they had proposed, in 
 full dress, they had left off their aprons, and very cu 
 riously (and, indeed, in some cases very beautifully) 
 painted their round and pretty limbs with vermilion 
 and other bright colours, and ornamented their 
 bodies and limbs with long and sweet-scented grass, 
 parts of it plaited in beautiful braids, forming kilts 
 that extended from the waist to the knee. Braids of 
 this grass also ornamented their ankles, their wrists, 
 and their necks ; and wreaths of evergreen boughs 
 tastefully arranged encircled their heads and waists, 
 enlivened with orchids and other wild blossoms of 
 the richest hues and odours, whilst their long and 
 glossy black hair, which is generally kept in braids, 
 was loosened and spread in beautiful waves over 
 their naked breasts and shoulders. 
 
 Gaiety, modesty, and pride were imprinted on 
 every one of their faces, and evinced in all their 
 
Zitriimati Indians. 7 1 
 
 movements, which were natural and exceedingly 
 graceful. And oh, that a photographic impression 
 could have been taken of this singular and pretty 
 group, which would have vanished like a flock of 
 antelopes had I attempted to have made a sketch 
 of it. Caesar was embarrassed, but with his Lingua 
 Geral, which these Indians partially understood, he 
 got along tolerably well in showing them the 
 pictures. 
 
 With a dozen or two of knitting-needles for 
 arrows to their blow-guns, and some other little 
 presents, we easily engaged men with mules to con 
 vey us with our packs to the base of the mountains, 
 a distance of forty or fifty miles ; and, if anything 
 on the face of the earth could properly be called a 
 paradise, it was the beautifully rolling prairies, with 
 their copses and bunches of graceful leaning palms 
 and palmettos, encircled with flowers of all colours, 
 spotted here and there with herds of wild cattle and 
 horses, and hedged in a hundred directions with the 
 beautiful foliage bordering the rivulets and rivers 
 wending their serpentine courses through them. 
 
 We had no time or disposition for the chase, and 
 the only gun fired in our course was fired by myself, 
 and much to my regret. A wild cow, lying directly 
 before me, shook her head and seemed to dispute 
 the right of way with me. I raised my rifle and 
 shot her dead ; and, on approaching, found the 
 poor creature had been watching over the body 
 
72 Crystal Mountains. 
 
 of her calf, which had been some days dead, and, 
 from its swollen condition, we supposed from the 
 bite of a snake. 
 
 In this ride we forded several streams, and, 
 amongst them, the west fork of the Trombutas ; 
 and, if the Indians informed us rightly, something 
 like one hundred miles from its junction with the 
 eastern branch, where I struck it six months before, 
 as related in the first volume of this work. 
 
 After two days' ride, the blue of the mountains 
 became grey, and green as we were at their base. 
 In some places, for many miles together, they were 
 in perpendicular palisades, like shore cliffs of ancient 
 seas, with higher mountains rising above and behind 
 them ; and, at their base, sloping descents of clay, 
 with gullies of great depth and a thousand curious 
 forms winding down and blending with the 
 prairies. 
 
 With no instruments to determine our meridian 
 or latitude, we supposed we were here directly under 
 the equator, and something like two hundred miles 
 north-east of the Barra, at the mouth of the Rio 
 Negro. 
 
 The " nugget fever" was now raging on us. Our 
 Indian employes, with their mules and with our 
 hammocks and other packs which we should not 
 want, went back, as they were afraid of the Woy-a- 
 way Indians in the mountains, and their mules being 
 of no further service to us amongst the rocks, which 
 
A Beautiful Valley. 73 
 
 we were obliged to scale on our own bones and' 
 muscles. 
 
 A sad occurrence here embarrassed us very much. 
 One of the mules, on the night before they left, had, 
 by accident, stepped its foot into our "tin pan," our 
 only gold-washer, and completely broke its bottom 
 through, and rendering it irreparably useless, and 
 narrowing our "golden" prospects to the chances 
 there might be of nuggets alone. 
 
 Gates were here and there opening into these 
 mountain escarpments, into one of which we en 
 tered, and found ourselves in one of the most 
 beautiful valleys in the world, surrounded by high 
 ridges on the north, the east, and the west, the 
 slopes of which were beautifully ornamented with 
 vines, and with natural orchards of orange and fig 
 trees, bending down with their fruit. 
 
 Here we established our head-quarters, building 
 a sort of cabin with rocks and covering it with palm 
 leaves. This valley, of some six or eight miles in 
 length, and varying from two to three in breadth, 
 was filled with boulders of granite, and gneiss, and 
 quartz, not transported by icebergs from foreign 
 sources, but descended from the mountain slopes 
 around it, and which were consequently an unerring 
 index to the minerals of the beds from which they 
 came. 
 
 Several days were spent amongst these by Senor 
 N and myself, but with no success. A few 
 
74 Gold Hunting in 
 
 days' rest, and our next expedition was to strike 
 for the ancient road which I had before discovered 
 and crossed, or to meet the Woy-a-way or other 
 Indians of the mountains, from whom we might 
 obtain some information of the ancient mines and 
 the remains of the adobe houses to which I have 
 before alluded. 
 
 For this, leaving in Cache a part of our provisions 
 to fall back upon in case of emergency, we started, 
 with our knapsacks on our backs, in a north-easterly 
 direction. We scaled the rugged mountain behind 
 us to get a glance at the country beyond it, but then 
 a deep and desolate ravine succeeded, and beyond 
 that another mountain range of greater height than 
 the one we had ascended. We gained the summit 
 of this, and then beheld the field for all our labours 
 spread out before us. 
 
 Not a "crystal mountain," but a succession of 
 mountains hills peeping o'er "hills and Alps on 
 Alps arising," until they were blue and lost in the 
 distance. Their summits were capped, not with 
 snow, but some with naked granite, and others with 
 grass and rhododendrons, their sloping sides and 
 deep ravines seeming to sink down, down, far below 
 the earth's surface, were covered with evergreen 
 thickets that tried the nerves of the boldest and 
 bravest who undertook to penetrate them. 
 
 In this pictured landscape, long and broad valleys 
 were seen, and lakes reflecting the white Equatorial 
 
the Crystal Mountains. 75 
 
 sky that was over them ; and glistening waterfalls 
 and cascades were seen in various directions : but not 
 the smoke of an Indian's wigwam could be dis 
 covered with the most patient telescopic examina 
 tion. How desolate ! and yet how beautiful ! 
 
 We kept on our course for several days, crossing 
 ravine and ravine, and mountain and mountain, 
 having nothing but a pocket-compass and mountain 
 landmarks to guide us. As the naked rocks were 
 chiefly granite and gneiss, and the others covered 
 with impenetrable vegetation, and our means of 
 washing in the earthy deposits were gone, our only 
 remaining chances for discoveries were in the beds 
 of the deep ravines, where the rocks descended from 
 the mountain sides were exposed and washed by 
 the running streams. 
 
 Many of these streams we traced for long dis 
 tances with various success. One of these, a large 
 and dashing stream its course, where we struck it, 
 from east to west, and probably one of the sources 
 of the Essequibo presented us many huge blocks 
 of a greyish rose-coloured quartz, containing fre 
 quent speculae of gold, easily apparent to the naked 
 eye. 
 
 These blocks were undoubtedly from a vein of 
 quartz in the slope of the mountain above, but 
 which we were too feeble to uncover, or even to get 
 sight of. 
 
 In one of these blocks of several hundred tons 
 
76 Nuggets of Gold. 
 
 weight, lying in the bed of the stream, I discovered 
 a cluster of nuggets, from the size of a pin's head 
 to the size of a pea, washed bare and polished 
 by the action of the water. We now believed we 
 had arrived at or near our " El Dorado :" all hands 
 were gathered around it, until these, by chisels, 
 screwdrivers, &c, were extracted, when Caesar set 
 to work with the sledge-hammer, in hopes to make 
 an opening into further and richer discoveries. 
 
 In one of his tremendous swings, when all hopes 
 were high (as if Dame Fortune was set against us), 
 the hammer slipped from its handle and plunged 
 into the foaming stream, dashing amongst the rocks 
 below us ! Every possible search was made for its 
 recovery, but from the depth and maddening force 
 of the water amongst the rocks, our efforts were in 
 vain. Various smaller nuggets were afterwards 
 secured with our lighter tools, and others were 
 picked up in the sands and gravel of the stream. 
 
 The beds of several other streams presented us 
 similar quartz rocks, and in some instances lesser 
 evidences of their auriferous character. 
 
 Nuggets having been our only chance for the 
 last few days, and that chance now reduced to a 
 failure, and our supplies running low, we swung 
 around for two or three days in desperate marches, 
 in hopes still to re-discover the " ancient road," or 
 to strike upon some Indian villages or Indian paths, 
 but none of which could we discover ; when we 
 
Results of the Expedition. 77 
 
 turned our faces again towards the valley of the 
 Amazon, which we entered some forty or fifty miles 
 from where we had left it. 
 
 We reached our hidden stores in a few days in a 
 starving condition ; after that the friendly Zuru- 
 mati village, our pirogue, and at last the mighty 
 Amazon, more ragged than FalstafFs men, and 
 actually richer in gold than when we started, two 
 months before, by just two ounces ! 
 
 MORAL. In this wise Dame Fortune's kind fa 
 vours were solicited ; and if she bestowed not upon 
 me the visioned mines of gold, should I complain ? 
 She has given me what is better life, and health, 
 and wisdom, and greatly added to my only wealth, 
 .my portfolios, to which she has long been a liberal 
 and kind contributor. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 DESCENT OF THE YUCAYALI. 
 
 ( HE " gold fever " having thus been cured, 
 and two weeks of delightful convalescence 
 passed in the hospitable hacienda , of 
 
 Seflor N , an ascending steamer 
 
 snatched Caesar and myself, with scarcely a moment 
 to shake hands, from this scene of enchantment to 
 the " Barra," at the mouth of the Rio Negro ; from 
 thence we went to Tabatinga, and to Nauta ; and 
 after visiting the surrounding tribes, the Muras, the 
 Marahuas, the Yahuas, the Ore/ones, the Angus- 
 turas, the Mayoroonas, the Iquitos, the Omaguas, 
 the Ccocomas, the Ticunas, the Conuibos, the Se- 
 pibos, the Chctibos, and a dozen other " bos " and 
 "guas" of the Yucayali and Upper Amazon, we 
 crossed by the mail route, with many jovial and 
 agreeable passengers, the rocks, the snows, the 
 ravines, and the frightful dug-ways of the Andes, 
 . to Lima, where I took leave of my readers in my 
 
Descent of the Yucayali. 79 
 
 first volume, and said I was in " the most beautiful' 
 city of the world." 
 
 We have now a starting-point, and here this 
 volume begins. But, before we proceed, let us halt 
 a little ; the steamer is not ready to start. In the 
 last chapter I was bringing up incidents passed by 
 in the first volume, as I have said, for want of space 
 to recite them ; and of the hundreds and thousands 
 that are yet left, those of the shores of the Yucayali 
 demand our attention yet for a few moments, and 
 we will go back. 
 
 After our ride on the Pampa del Sacramento, 
 and our visit to the Connibos, where we saw them 
 manufacturing the beautiful pottery described in 
 the first volume, and where the facetious and trou 
 blesome old medicine-man contended that my 
 painting of their portraits was " only an ingenious 
 mode of getting their skins for museums." Caesar 
 and I, with a faithful Indian canoeman, who knew the 
 river, and a young man by the name of Goiau, a Spa 
 niard, from one of the missions on the head waters 
 of the Yucayali, and on his way to Para, started in 
 a pirogue for Nauta, on the Amazon, near the 
 mouth of the Yucayali, a distance of 300 miles. 
 
 In our down-river voyage we went at a rapid rate, 
 and keeping in the middle of the current, to get 
 greater speed, exposed us so constantly to the rays 
 of the sun, that I became sick, and slinging my ham 
 mock on a high bank, and under a tremendous and 
 
80 Taming a Monkey. 
 
 open forest, we remained for a week, with provi 
 sions enough, and a great variety of fish, taken 
 whenever we required them. 
 
 The crumbs of hard biscuit that' I was in the 
 habit of throwing to some monkeys from my ham 
 mock, while eating, seemed to be telegraphed in 
 some mysterious way, for in a day or two the 
 hordes of these begging and beseeching creatures 
 became so numerous and so extorting, that we were 
 somewhat alarmed, and were about to change our 
 encampment ; but a circumstance, droll enough, at 
 length afforded us relief. 
 
 One of the animals, of tremendous size, and, in 
 fact, the first one which had introduced himself to 
 us, was in the habit of approaching a little and a 
 little nearer every morning to my hammock, whilst 
 I was taking my coffee, and receiving the bits of 
 biscuit, dipped in coffee, which I was in the habit 
 of tossing to him, became so jealous of the unin 
 vited flocks that were gathering around us, that he 
 pitched upon the nearest of them, and from tree to 
 tree leaped and bolted on to them, till the whole 
 multitude fled and stood aghast at his bristled and 
 frightful aspect ! It was a complete " coup dc 
 singeT a ctiroute a victory, and he had for the 
 rest of the time the ground to himself. 
 
 I applauded him for his gallant services, and re 
 warded him by larger bits of biscuit, which he 
 seemed perfectly to understand. His adversaries 
 
Taming a Monkey. 81 
 
 were afterwards always more or less in sight, but in 
 the distance ; and if anyone attempted to come 
 nearer, the hair on his ugly face and on his back 
 stood on end, the meaning of which they evidently 
 understood ; and turning his face towards me, every 
 hair was laid smoothly down ; and as he approached 
 me, the motions of his mouth and his lips seemed 
 as if he was talking, but in a language that had no 
 sounds. 
 
 This rational creature was present regularly at 
 all of my meals, and particularly docile and agree 
 able in the morning, when his crumbs were dipped 
 in coffee, and the sweeter the better. 
 
 At every meal he ventured a little nearer, and 
 got so at length as to reach up and catch the crumbs 
 from my hand as I dropped them ; and at length, 
 to be more familiar, and probably to feel more secure 
 from Caesar, (as they were occasionally showing 
 their teeth at each other), he took his position in the 
 crotch of a little sapling tree to which the headrope 
 of my hammock was fastened, and there, a little 
 above, and within arm's reach of me, sat, and took 
 his crumbs from my hand, and evidently either as 
 an expression of gratitude, or for the sugar on 
 them, licked the ends of the fingers that gave 
 them. 
 
 Caesar and the other men, cooking and eating at 
 a little distance, tried him in vain with food of 
 various kinds ; and when Caesar even looked at him 
 
 G 
 
82 Quarrel with a Monkey. 
 
 he showed his teeth, and seemed to take it as an 
 insult. I must say I felt somewhat vain of his ex 
 clusive attachment, and I believed (and I still be 
 lieve) that a few days more would have enabled me 
 to have got the fellow into my arms, and a harmless 
 bed-fellow in my hammock, but for an unfortunate 
 occurrence that I could not explain to him, and 
 which led to a different result. My dried biscuits 
 gave out ; and as he neither ate fish nor meat, 
 mutuality of sympathy was at a stand still. 
 
 I offered him coffee, but he knew not how to 
 drink it, and tendering to him a piece of boiled 
 meat, of which he smelled, the creature stepped 
 backwards into the crotch of the tree, and looking 
 me full in the face for a minute, without the move 
 ment of a muscle, made an instant spring upon me 
 with all his force, breaking my hammock-rope, and 
 falling with me to the ground, and with a horrid 
 growl and a snap, bit me through the joint of my 
 thumb on my right hand ; and in a leap or two, was 
 among the trees and out of sight, with screams, and 
 afterwards howlings, so frightful and so horrible at 
 every leap, that neither itself nor a monkey of any 
 grade or caste showed itself again whilst we re 
 mained in our camp ! 
 
 (How acceptable are kindnesses and caresses 
 whilst they last ; and how disastrous they are apt 
 to be when stopped) 
 
 My compagnons de voyage, moved, I believe, by 
 
An Ant-eater. 83 
 
 jealousy, rather than anything else, were very merry 
 at the sudden termination of our growing intimacy, 
 not knowing that I was suffering everything but lock 
 jaw itself, from the severed joint. My Indian guide, 
 who seemed to be somewhat of a medicine man, 
 told me he had feared from day to day that our 
 intimacy would come to that ; and tracing the 
 river shore, he collected some herbs, of which he 
 made and applied a poultice, which soon gave me 
 relief. 
 
 Our little camp seemed to be destined to the 
 intrusions of inquisitive visitors, and the next morn 
 ing, whilst I lay dozing in my hammock, and Caesar 
 was boiling the coffee and frying some fish and 
 Senor Goyau and the Indian were fishing in the 
 canoe, I was instantly alarmed by Caesar's vehement 
 and startling exclamation, 
 
 " Well, de Lord o' massie ! wot you call dis, 
 Massa Catlin ?" 
 
 I looked out, and he was startling back from the 
 fire, where he had been sitting, with one hand on 
 the ground, and holding his frying-pan, in the other, 
 whilst a huge ant-eater was advancing upon the 
 other side of the fire, with its long nose almost in 
 the embers. 
 
 My rifle, which was hanging over my hammock, 
 I took down, and shot the stupid beast through the 
 heart. Poor Caesar, who never had been in museums, 
 had never even imagined so curious a creature, was 
 
84 Descent of the Yucayali. 
 
 agitated at first by fear ; but his nerves were still 
 more convulsed after fear was over, by the inex 
 pressible drollness of this outlandish animal, which 
 anyone may laugh half an hour at without an 
 effort ; and as soon as he got his nerves in a condi 
 tion to express anything, he exclaimed, 
 
 " Well now, affer dat, I wonder wat de Lord eber 
 make nex !" 
 
 I took the measure of this ugly, stupid, and 
 harmless creature, and found its length, from the 
 end of its nose to the end of its long, bushy tail, to 
 be twelve feet ! 
 
 After our encampment of a week we took to our 
 canoe again, and after paddling a few hours, I was 
 taken again excessively ill with vertigo and vomit 
 ing. We went ashore, and landed again in a noble 
 forest, and were preparing our encampment, though 
 in a thick undergrowth of grass and weeds. 
 
 I was too helpless, from vertigo, to walk, and 
 being assisted up the bank, had laid down on a mass 
 of long grass and weeds, that bent down as I re 
 clined back upon them. Whilst in this position I 
 was rendered doubly sick by a stench that was 
 evidently rising from under me, and which I at 
 first attributed to some noxious weeds that I had 
 crushed. It became so bad, however, that I could 
 bear it no longer, and I called Caesar to help me 
 move to some other spot. 
 
 Our Indian companion, seeing my distress, came 
 
The Indian and the Rattlesnake. 85 
 
 with Caesar, and the moment he got over me he 
 exclaimed, " Buccare-kul-be, buccare~hul-be !" "A 
 rattlesnake, a rattlesnake!" They lifted me up, 
 and by the direction of the Indian's eyes and the 
 expression of his face, I saw that he considered the 
 snake which he smelled, but had not seen, was under 
 the grass and weeds, and that I had been lying on it. 
 
 I got seated on a bare piece of ground at a little 
 distance, when the Indian, with his paddle lifted up 
 the weeds, and showed me a huge rattlesnake that 
 I had been lying on ! nearly suffocated, I suppose, 
 from my weight, and of course ready for the most 
 deadly battle. 
 
 Caesar sprang for his rifle, and was going to shoot 
 it, when the poor Indian threw himself forward, and 
 in so imploring an attitude, begged for its life, that 
 I told Caesar not to fire or to harm it, knowing the 
 superstitions of most of the tribes of Indians, who 
 never kill a rattlesnake, but, on the contrary, pay 
 it a sort of devotion, lest their heels may be in 
 danger from some of its surviving relations. 
 
 This was new to Caesar, and when I had explained 
 it to him, he exclaimed, 
 
 "Well, I don't wonder ; dat berry good reason." 
 
 Sefior Goyau, wha was at this time overhauling 
 some of his luggage in the canoe, and who under 
 stood the language of the Indian, learned from his 
 excited remarks, and from seeing Caesar with his 
 rifle in his arms, that something was wrong on shore, 
 came running up the bank,, and pitching down by 
 
86 Bitten by a Rattlesnake. 
 
 the side of me, exclaimed, in Spanish and in 
 Indian, " I am bitten by a rattlesnake !" 
 
 All got around him, and his half-boot, apparently 
 of sheepskin, and reaching half-way to his knee, 
 being taken off, the wounds by two fangs were 
 easily perceptible in the lower part of the calf of his 
 leg, but apparently in the fleshy part only, without 
 striking a vein or artery. 
 
 The Indian, in a moment, was flat upon his belly, 
 and seizing the calf of the leg a few inches above 
 and below the wounds, in both hands, as tight as 
 he could possibly grip them, commenced sucking 
 the wound, and spitting the blood from his mouth 
 at short intervals. 
 
 Between his two hands and around the wounds 
 the flesh of the leg became the same colour, and 
 bore the same marks as the skin of a rattlesnake 
 itself; but after an operation of a quarter of an 
 hour in this manner, without letting go with his 
 hands, or ceasing his suctions, the flesh took again 
 its natural colour, when the Indian let go of his 
 patient, and triumphantly exclaimed, 
 
 " It is all done ; there is no more danger." 
 
 Goyau seemed convinced of this, though I had 
 still some fears. The snake that I had laid upon 
 was still coiled and ready for battle, and emitting 
 the most sickening odour imaginable. 
 
 Goyau had not seen the snake that had struck 
 him as he was rising the bank, nor had he the least 
 disposition to go and look it up ; for I found that 
 
Descent of the Yucayali. 87 
 
 his superstition was the same as that of the Indian. 
 And he told me that both he and the Indian knew 
 from the smell that we were in the midst of a nest of 
 these creatures, and the sooner we were off the 
 better. 
 
 Either from inhaling the poisonous effluvia arising 
 from these reptiles, or from the excitement, my 
 vertigo had at this time entirely left me, and I 
 could walk as straight as ever ; and taking the 
 Indian's paddle, and annoying the snake that I had 
 laid on, and which was in no way disposed to re 
 treat, it began a most frightful shaking of its rattles, 
 when we heard several others in the grass and weeds 
 in different directions, answering it, which convinced 
 all that we were in bad company, and that, as 
 Goyau had said, "the sooner we were off the better." 
 And not to wound any superstitious feeling, Caesar 
 and I agreed (and possibly, on my part, in a mea 
 sure, from recollections of the wholesale murder at 
 the " Rattlesnakes' Den ") to bruise no serpents' 
 heads on this occasion. 
 
 My disease seemed completely cured by this 
 day's excitements, but poor Goyau was sick all the 
 way to Nauta, and we left him sick there when the 
 steamer took us from that place, though apparently 
 not in any danger. 
 
 Now we start. The field is new, and vast, and 
 fresh, before us. Between Lima and San Francisco 
 there are many Indians inhabiting the coast, but 
 
88 Sun Francisco. 
 
 we go by sea, and necessarily must leave them, at 
 least till we come back. 
 
 San Francisco is a highly civilized place, so we 
 have little interest there. There are a plenty of 
 books written about it. They are all for gold there, 
 and I am shy of gold y having just recovered from it. 
 Some straggling Apachee Indians come in there at 
 times ; but we will probably see better specimens 
 of them by-and-bye, on our return. We are now on 
 our way to Oregon, the mouth of the Columbia. 
 Our craft is small, and sails slow ; and when the 
 sea is smooth, gives me a good chance to finish up 
 my sketches, and to prepare my cartoons for others 
 to be made. 
 
 The schooner Sally A nne (she was built in New 
 York) doubled Cape Horn in 1843, and is now sailed 
 by Sefior Pedro Pasto, a Spaniard, who goes once 
 a year to Astoria, to Victoria, to Queen Charlotte's, 
 to the Alaeutian Islands, and to Kamskatka, and 
 returns with sheepskins, wool, dried fish, and other 
 products of those countries. 
 
 J. Paulding, of New York, L. Simms, of Missouri, 
 J. Stevens, of Ohio, then living in San Francisco, 
 (who had got an idea in their heads that nuggets of 
 goldvtzre. larger on the Columbia coast, and per 
 haps in the Alaeutian Islands), and I (who was quite 
 sure that Indian portraits in any quantity could be 
 got there), agreed to pay to Captain Pasto 200 
 dollars each to take us safe to Queen Charlotte's 
 Island to Liska, on the Alaeutian Islands and to 
 
An "Understanding" 89 
 
 Kamskatka, and back to Victoria, on Vancouver's! 
 Island (my man Caesar to be carried free, but a ser 
 vant to all, when required). And did Captain Pasto 
 do it, and what did we find, and what did we see ? 
 
 Before we enter further upon this, it will be well 
 for the reader to understand upon what conditions 
 we sallied forth on the broad ocean for so long 
 and so critical a voyage. An " understanding " (as 
 agreements are called in that country) was definitely 
 agreed to, and an off-hand article for all to sign 
 was drawn up in the following form and words, by 
 Simms, whose extraordinary tact and dispatch in 
 draughting contracts and other documents of those 
 countries, to be executed by revolvers and bowie- 
 knives, if not otherwise, will be visible on the' face 
 
 of it. 
 
 " Understanding. 
 
 "Agreed the Sally Anne, Captain Pasto, bound 
 for Nishnee Kamskatk, to take us 4, and found, 
 whole way and back to Queen Charlotte's Sound 
 and Victoria, at 200 dols. each, one half down ; salt 
 pork and beans to last ; owner's risque ; arid Catlin's 
 nigger to go free." 
 
 " (Signed) " J. Paulding. 
 
 " V. Simms. 
 
 " J. Stevens. 
 
 " Geo. Catlin. 
 
 " Pedro Pasto, Capt. Sally Anne" 
 
 Each contracting party, armed with a copy of the 
 
90 An "Understanding" 
 
 above " agreement," a six-shot revolver, a rifle, and 
 a bowie-knife in the belt, in a country where there 
 are no courts of justice, or even magistrates, feels 
 abundantly able to defend his rights, and to enforce 
 the performance of all engagements so solemnly 
 and definitely undertaken as this. 
 
 These documents pocketed (which, by the way, 
 were not rights, but only indications of rights), we 
 move on; all is jocularity, mutual confidence, and 
 good fellowship, or sure to be so, at least, in the outstart. 
 
 A long voyage, with no other absolute misfortunes 
 than the total exhaustion of all our " salt pork and 
 beans," and alarming symptoms of scurvey, brought 
 our little bark to the mouth of the Columbia, with 
 the safe harbour of Astoria close before us. Here, 
 however, when the dangers of the sea seemed over, 
 our difficulties began. 
 
 Captain Pedro Pasto (for the owner was captain 
 of his own craft), about to glide from the rough 
 waves of the ocean into the smooth waters of the 
 Columbia, ran his ship upon the bar her bow in 
 the sand, and the waves dashing against her stern, 
 and driving her farther on, as the tide was rising. 
 
 Night approaching, our position was critical ; but 
 morning showed us, at full tide, driven quite over 
 the bar, and at anchor in the quiet water of the 
 river, with loss of rudder only. 
 
 Captain Pasto, with Paulding and Stevens, in a 
 small craft, went up the river to Astoria for ship- 
 carpenters to make repairs, and to replenish the 
 
Mouth of Columbia. 91 
 
 exhausted requisite of "salt pork and beans," and 
 other provisions, and Simms and myself remained 
 on board. 
 
 At low tide the schooner laid upon her side on 
 the sands, and Simms, with his hawk-eye, in walk 
 ing around her, discovered that the name of the 
 vessel, the Santa (I forget what) de Callao, in large 
 yellow-ochre letters, was chiefly all washed off by 
 the force of the driving waves against her stern, 
 and the remainder of them peeling off under the 
 rays of the sun, and underneath them, covered with 
 a thin coat of paint, the " Sally Anne, of N. York" 
 was quite conspicuous. 
 
 I opened my paint-box, and with a brush, and a 
 tube of yellow chrome spread upon my palette, I 
 touched the letters up a little. 
 
 When the captain returned, the vessel was afloat, 
 and Simms, taking him around astern in the yawl, 
 said to him, " Look there ! by the eternal, sir, I can 
 disfranchise you, when we get back, for changing 
 the name of your vessel when at sea. It is a very 
 grave offence." 
 
 Getting on deck, Simms said, " We have no idea, 
 captain, that you stole the vessel, and Sally Anne 
 being a favourite Yankee name of ours, we shall 
 christen her so, for this voyage at least, and you 
 bringing out a couple of bottles of wine for the 
 occasion, we will agree to say nothing about it." 
 
 With his wine, the good-natured captain brought 
 on to the table his papers, showing that he bought 
 
92 Nootka Soimd. 
 
 his schooner of a couple of Americans in the port 
 of Callao ; and it was at this moment that the 
 famous "understanding" on the previous page was 
 first reduced to writing and signed. 
 
 A few days making the necessary repairs, and 
 we sailed out, all in good humour, passing outside 
 of Vancouver, and coasting along its western shore 
 of huge rocks and pine-covered mountains, towards 
 Queen Charlotte's Sound, the grand anticipated 
 field for the gold-hunters, and also for the opera 
 tions of my brush. 
 
 Nootka Sound took us up. A strong north-west 
 wind, increasing to a gale, held our schooner three 
 days wind-bound in this snug and quiet little 
 shelter, with the picturesque island of Nootka on 
 one side of us, and the dark green pine forests and 
 overtowering black piles of upheaved rocks, and 
 blue, and then snow-covered mountain peaks of 
 Vancouver, on the other. 
 
 Nothing ever surprised me more than the infor 
 mation I here got, and demonstrated to my eyes, 
 that mountains covered with perpetual snows were 
 standing in the island of Vancouver ! And nothing 
 that I ever before heard, or ever should have heard, 
 would have conveyed to me an adequate idea of the 
 singular appearance (and beauty, I may say) of its 
 vast and ever-changing (in form, but not in colour) 
 hills, and mountains, and ravines, not only clothed, 
 but robed, and mantled, and belted, with dark green 
 and gloomy pines and cedars, throwing out their 
 
Klah-o-quat Indians. 93 
 
 long and drooping arms over rocks and streams,' 
 and even over the waves of the ocean. 
 
 The first day that we laid here we had amuse 
 ment enough on deck of our little vessel in studying 
 the scenery around us, and the darting (and seem 
 ingly leaping} canoes that were passing around, and 
 the Klak-o-quat Indians, and their wives and little 
 pappooses, that we invited on board. 
 
 A remarkably fine looking man, whom I supposed, 
 from his appearance, was a chief; with his wife, 
 carrying her infant in its cradle on her back, and 
 their daughter, came on board, after getting per 
 mission, for which he was asking by smiles and 
 intelligible signs. His manner was that of an in 
 telligent man and a gentleman ; and when he raised 
 his hand and presented its palm towards the throng 
 that was endeavouring to follow him, I was con 
 vinced that he was a chief, and was going to use his 
 authority to protect us from an uncomfortable crowd 
 on deck. 
 
 It was but half an hour's sail from here to the 
 place where the " Tonquin" John Jacob Astor's 
 brig, was destroyed, some years before, by the 
 Indians, and the crew destroyed, and Captain Pasto 
 began to feel fears for ourselves and his vessel. The 
 chief seemed evidently to be aware of this from the 
 captain's manner, and leading his wife and daughter 
 up to me, easily explained by signs that he would 
 leave them with me until he would go in his canoe 
 
94 Nootka Sound. 
 
 and bring some one who could talk with me. And 
 I said to Caesar, 
 
 " This is a fine old fellow ; jump into his canoe 
 with him, and take the wife's paddle, and help him ; 
 and if he runs away with you, I will hold on to his 
 wife and daughter, and easily get you exchanged 
 after a while." 
 
 " Agreed, massa ! I no fea !" 
 
 They paddled off rapidly, and soon turned round 
 a point and were out of sight. And in half an 
 hour they came back, with a brigade of canoes fol 
 lowing them, and bringing with them an intelligent 
 mulatto boy, who spoke English very well, and also 
 the Klah-o-quat, and several other Indian languages 
 of the coast. 
 
 This young man told me that he swam ashore 
 there from a whaling vessel, two years before, be 
 cause they flogged him too much, and was now 
 making his living by interpreting for the Indians, 
 and for vessels coming into the Sound ; and that he 
 lived most of the time in one of the Indian villages ; 
 and that the Indian who had come for him was the 
 chief, and a very good man. 
 
 Then, said I, the first thing I wish you to tell 
 him is, that I knew by his actions that he was a 
 chief, and by the expression of his face, that he was 
 a good man. And tell him that I am very much 
 obliged to him for going in search of you. This 
 being interpreted, a hearty shake of the hand took 
 place all around. 
 
Klah-o-quat Indians. 95 
 
 My three gold-seeking companions, who had rather 
 shunned him at first, now came forward, and shook 
 hands with him also, and Simms went to his luggage, 
 and brought and gave to him a bundle of about a 
 dozen cigars. The chief was so pleased with the pre 
 sent, that he seized hold of Simms, and embraced him 
 in his arms. " Well, by G , Catlin," said Simms, 
 " that's a very fine old fellow that man is a gentle 
 man! I'd trust myself anywhere with that man !" 
 
 Always carrying with me a quantity of little 
 trinkets and ornaments for the Indians, on such 
 occasions, I went to my trunk and got a handsome 
 string of blue and white beads, which I placed on 
 his daughter's neck ; and a little looking-glass, which 
 I gave to his wife in return for his kindness in go 
 ing for the interpreter. This explained to the chief 
 we were all friends, and under a sudden and toler 
 ably good understanding. 
 
 There were at this time a great number of canoes 
 from the Vancouver shore around the vessel, and 
 the crowds that were in them were generally a poor- 
 looking set poor-looking as to clothing, weapons, 
 &c, but at the same time with faces full of spright- 
 liness and intelligence. A great proportion of the 
 women had their heads flattened ; and occasionally 
 a man was seen with a flattened head, but very 
 seldom. 
 
 They were beckoning and whining, and some of 
 them were crying to be allowed to come on board ; 
 
96 Nootka Sound. 
 
 but the chief, by showing them the palm of his 
 hand, quieted them, and kept them back. I told 
 the interpreter to say to him, that if there were any 
 whom he would like to indulge by permitting them 
 to come on board, he could do so, as the captain of 
 the vessel had agreed to it. 
 
 He then called to several whom he thought 
 deserved the privilege, and they came on board, 
 and amongst those there came several with baskets 
 of dried salmon, whale blubber, and oysters, to 
 barter, and the captain and mate at once had 
 something to do in replenishing our larder. 
 
 The interpreter I engaged to be with us as long 
 as we should remain in the harbour, and he agreed 
 to take us the next day to the Klah-o-quat village, 
 where the chief had invited us to go. 
 
 Leaving Caesar to amuse the Indians on deck 
 and in their canoes around the vessel, I got the 
 chief, with his wife and daughter, and the in 
 terpreter, below, and as each of us compagnons de 
 voyage had laid in at San Francisco a certain num 
 ber of bottles of cogniac brandy for emergencies, 
 I uncorked one of these on this especial occasion. 
 I explained to the chief that we were all temperate 
 men, but that we carried a few bottles for medicine 
 if we get sick, and, once in a while, to those whom 
 we loved, not to make them drunk, but to give them 
 a pleasant drink, as a mark of respect. 
 
 He replied, through the interpreter, that he per- 
 
Klah-o-quats. 97 
 
 fectly understood my meaning, and, taking up his 
 glass, took me by the hand, and bowing his head, 
 " My friend, I drink your love." This was a little 
 different from the usual form of salutation ; but what 
 could be better ? more expressive ? Simms, whose 
 heart was always ready for anything from the heart, 
 was quite touched at this, and swore it was some 
 thing " new, and ten times better than the old and 
 hackneyed and worn-out expression." 
 
 I learned from this intelligent man, to my great 
 surprise, that there were about twenty different 
 tribes of Indians on the island of Vancouver, and 
 containing some six or seven thousand persons, 
 though, after all, they are but different bands of the 
 great flat-head tribe, and speaking languages, though 
 dialectic, oftentimes almost entirely different. 
 
 The greater portion of these practise the abomin 
 able custom of flattening the head, which will be 
 described anon. 
 
 " On that western coast of Vancouver," the chief 
 continued, " besides the Klah-o-quats, there are the 
 To-quahts living in Barclay Sound, further south ; 
 and several other tribes living on the coast between 
 Nootka Island, and Cape Scott, the northern cape 
 of Vancouver that they all believe in a Great Spirit, 
 who created them and all things, and that they all have 
 times and places when and where they pray to that 
 Spirit, that He may not be angry with them. That 
 they live chiefly on fish of various sorts, salmon, 
 
 H 
 
9 8 Nootka Sound. 
 
 halibut, blubber of whales, oysters, clams, &c, which 
 they can always get in abundance ; and that they 
 had but one fear, that was that ' King George,' as 
 they had been told, was soon going to drive them all 
 from the coast into the mountains and rocks, and 
 in that case," he said " they would all get sick, and 
 soon starve to death." 
 
 I told him " King George " had long been dead, 
 and that there was a queen in England, who was 
 kind-hearted and good, and I knew she never would 
 allow her Red children to be treated so cruelly; 
 which seemed to please him very much ; and his 
 wife, hearing it translated, cried out in a most ex 
 pressive tone, "la la la a," (good, good, good). 
 
 After the chief had drunk about half of his wine 
 glass of brandy, and which he told me he never 
 had tasted before (though he had sometimes drunk 
 whisky), I took a large glass, and with brandy and 
 water, and sugar, made a " brandy toddy," which 
 he said he liked much better, and which I got him 
 to share with the old lady, and her daughter. All 
 were delighted with it, and after that I opened my 
 portfolio of cartoon portraits of Indians. These 
 surprised and amused them very much, and after 
 an hour or so the interpreter took canoe with them, 
 and paddled towards their village, as night was 
 approaching, the interpreter having promised to 
 come on board the next morning, and conduct 
 Caesar and me to their village. 
 
A "Dug-out." 99 
 
 The next morning, if we were still wind-bound, 
 the captain had promised me the use of the yawl ; 
 but at the hour appointed, the chief himself came 
 with the interpreter, paddling his own canoe, which 
 was a compliment that I could not decline ; and 
 Caesar and I got into it, taking the portfolio and my 
 sketching apparatus, and leaving my gold-hunting 
 companions at cards with Captain Pasto, and the 
 gale outside of the Sound still blowing. 
 
 The canoe the canoe of the chief, in which we 
 were n&ng floating, not flying, though it seemed 
 so. A shell, apparently as thin and as light as bark, 
 and made from the trunk of a huge cedar a "dug 
 out " yes, strictly a dug-out. And I must tell you 
 how it was dug out. Large enough and strong 
 enough to carry thirty men, yet its sides so thin and 
 light that the paddles of two men, with us four in 
 it, sent it like a bird flying through the air. The 
 gala-boat, the gondola, the water-phaeton of a 
 nobleman, kept dry except on fete days, saluted by 
 the multitude when it passed, and a beautiful orna 
 ment fora palace park, or a royal museum. 
 
 " Dug-out," I have said ; but how ? not from the 
 patriarchal cedar as it stands in the forest, on trie 
 mountain's side it must lie prostrate on the ground 
 for that ; it must be " chopped down." But how ? 
 These people have no axes! Listen, and say if 
 there is not industry and tact in this ? Wapiti, a 
 noble animal and shy, with immense horns, feeds 
 
ioo Making a Canoe. 
 
 under those stately cedars on the mountain sides ; 
 they must be brought down to bring the cedar 
 down. And how? not with rifles (these people 
 know nothing of gunpowder and of rifles) but by 
 motive power sinewy not explosive. Missiles are 
 designed and shaped in wood, made light and 
 steered in the air by feathers on their sides, and 
 their points of flint or bone one about as good as 
 the other. Bows are made to throw them, and 
 strained by sinews, not by gunpowder. The stately 
 elk (or wapiti) falls before them. His horns the 
 broadest, hardest parts are cut with knives and 
 hatchets of flint into the form of chisels. With 
 these chisels in the left hand, and a heavy mallet 
 made of a stone encompassed in a withe for its 
 handle, the &xe-men and axe-women, on their 
 knees, set to with "hammer and chisel" at the 
 trunks of these stupendous trees; and doomed, they 
 are cut near to the centre, and left ; and, when the 
 wind is in the right direction to lay them on the 
 ground best suited for their excavation, a few blows 
 with the hammer and chisel send them tumbling to 
 the ground. 
 
 The monster tree is down ! What next ? Why, 
 a hundred labourers, both men and women, with 
 the same tools and others, mount upon it, and work 
 at the same time. The bark is stripped off, and the 
 work laid out and marked by master workmen, and 
 all even women and children dig, and cut, and 
 drill to the lines marked out, and no further. 
 
Making a Canoe. 101 
 
 For digging out, a species of mussel-shell of a 
 large size, found in the various inlets where fresh 
 and salt water meet, are sharpened at the edge and 
 set in withes of tough wood, forming a sort of adze, 
 which is used with one hand or both, according to 
 its size, and the flying chips show the facility with 
 which the excavation is made in the soft and yield 
 ing cedar, no doubt designed and made for infant 
 man to work and ride in. 
 
 But, felled and dug out, this is but brute force and 
 industry. The beaver can do this, and all Indians ; 
 but the architect, the naval constructor who con 
 ceives in the log and lays out those beautiful lines 
 that are to balance and ease it through the water 
 -those "lines of beauty" what artist ? Where did 
 he get his art ? And where is he ? Is he gone ? 
 He can't be a savage. And the soft, and smooth, 
 and polished finish, outside and in, how done? And 
 the painter the artist who designed and drew those 
 ornamental lines and figures on its sides, its bow, and 
 its stern ; and for what, and what do they mean ? 
 Maybe we shall find out. 1 At present we get in 
 and we ride ; and a chief who " drinks my love " 
 paddles me to his house his humble dwelling. 
 
 1 This beautiful canoe was a present from a Nayas chief, 
 of Queen Charlotte's Island, to the Klah-o-quat chief; though 
 the interpreter informed me that, amongst the Klah-o-quats 
 and the To-quahts, there were others of their own make, 
 quite as handsome. 
 
IO2 Nootka Sound. 
 
 What is it ? It is a shed made of heavy posts stand 
 ing in the ground, with long and immense timbers 
 resting on their tops, and covered with planks for a 
 roof. Its floor is the ground ; trodden and swept, 
 it becomes hard, and dry, and polished. The fire 
 place is a circular enclosure of stones in the centre, 
 and the chimney the raising of a short plank in the 
 roof directly over it. Their food is served and eaten 
 on the floor, and their beds without feathers cribs 
 eighteen inches above the ground, made of small 
 elastic poles and covered with rush mats ; and 
 pillows made of a solid block of wood excavated so 
 as to receive the head, with soft matting underneath ; 
 the best sleeping contrivance ever yet invented, as 
 it holds the head elevated and inclined forward, and 
 keeps a man, in his sleep, always on his back, as he 
 ought to be. 
 
 This chief, not like the chiefs of the Crows, the 
 Sioux, or Mandans, clad in skins fringed with scalp- 
 locks and ermine, with painted robes of buffalo 
 skins, and headdresses of war-eagles' quills but 
 with a simple breech-cloth around his waist, and a 
 blanket over his shoulders, his hair parted on his 
 forehead and falling over his shoulders without or 
 nament. He is quite their equal in war or in coun 
 cils, and no less the gentleman. 
 
 What evidence of this ? In his hospitable wig 
 wam, where he had invited me, he had assembled the 
 worthiest of his tribe who were at the time near 
 
An Indian Reception. 103 
 
 him; and when I entered he brought them to me 
 one by one and presented them, not according to 
 ribands, or medals, or other decorations, for they 
 have none; but according to their rank for honour 
 able deeds, which he explained to me as he intro 
 duced them. What could be more gentlemanly 
 than this ? And he gave us a humble feast. It 
 was the best he had ; and, whilst we ate, he ate no 
 thing, but waited upon us as we were eating, and 
 charged and lit the pipe for us to smoke when we 
 had done. Humble and unpretending, but what 
 could be more polite, more gentlemanly than this ? 
 Is such a man, who has had none but nature to 
 teach him, a brute ? 
 
 He had invited a dozen or more of his friends to see 
 me, and to see my portraits of Indians, which were 
 now opened, to their astonishment and amusement. 
 
 The wigwam of this man was an immense thing, 
 one hundred feet or more in length, and twenty-five 
 feet in width, in several apartments, with inter 
 vening partitions of planks, lodging the different 
 branches of his numerous family. 
 
 As our time was to be very short, I set Caesar at 
 work in a corner of the wigwam, amusing them with 
 the portfolio, and the inteVpreter to explain, whilst I 
 went to work upon a sketch of the chief and his 
 wife and child, which I got tolerably well before 
 night ; and just at the time when I had got about 
 through, an instant excitement arose, which I was 
 
"A Whale Ashore." 
 
 at a loss to understand, and which I must say, for 
 a few seconds, gave me a degree of alarm, accus 
 tomed as I have been to Indian modes. I heard 
 the shouts first in the village, at a distance, and the 
 next moment bursting forth from the whole multi 
 tude in the house and around it. All sprang upon 
 their feet ; some leaped in the air, and others 
 clapped their hands and danced, and I then in 
 stantly saw, by the expressions of their faces, that 
 it was a jubilee rather than an alarm ; that there 
 was no bad news, for every face, even in its asto 
 nishment, teemed with joy, and vociferated and 
 echoed in all parts (though in Indian), "A whale 
 ashore! a whale ashore!" The interpreter ran to 
 me, and echoed again, "A whale ashore!" News 
 had just arrived that the north-west gale had 
 landed a sperm-whale on the sands, near the en 
 trance of "Hope Canal," at the head of Nootka 
 Island. 
 
 Here was a "Godsend" for these poor people, 
 and every throat was stretched with " A whale 
 ashore ! a whale ashore ! " and all was " helter- 
 skelter." The wigwams were all emptied, for " out 
 doors " was a larger and freer space for the circula 
 tion of the mutual expressions of joy that rang 
 from every mouth. The dogs caught the excite 
 ment and howled, and knew as well as their 
 masters that something had happened, but probably 
 knew not what. 
 
"A Whale Ashore." 105 
 
 The chief came to me with the interpreter, and 
 told me that news had just arrived that a whale 
 was struggling on the sands at the head of the 
 strait, and that every canoe of the village would be 
 in a few minutes on the way to the spot to se 
 cure it. 
 
 He had told me in the morning that the north 
 west gale would drive many fine fish into the sound, 
 and in the inlets and coves, where the water was 
 calm, there would be fine spearing that night by 
 torchlight ; that salmon and halibut would be taken 
 in great quantities, and it had been arranged that I 
 should go and see the sport ; but the sudden news 
 of " a whale ashore " silenced every other excite 
 ment for the time, and engrossed everybody and 
 everything that could be handled or moved. 
 
 Every canoe was starting off, filled with men, 
 women, and children, and with harpoons, and cords, 
 and spears, and everything that their wigwams con 
 tained that could be used in securing the monster 
 on the sands. The wind was still blowing a gale 
 outside, and yet their flying canoes were starting 
 off and up the strait, through which, a distance 
 of fifteen or twenty miles to the spot, they could 
 creep along the shore, and in quiet water. 
 
 " A whale ashore " is surely a gift from Heaven 
 for these poor people, and they receive it and use it 
 as such. They believe it is sent to them to be re 
 ceived and used by all alike, and, no matter how 
 
io6 "A Whale Ashore." 
 
 many tribes assemble on the occasion, all share 
 alike in their efforts to secure it, and all share 
 equally of its flesh, its sinews, and bones when it 
 is dissected. A great proportion of its flesh is 
 eaten ; other parts produce oil for their lamps, 
 sinews, bones, skin, and fifty other things useful for 
 Indian existence. 
 
 Not only the canoes from this little village were 
 on their way, but the coves and inlets of the sound 
 were alive with canoes darting about, and wending 
 their way to the whale wreck. 
 
 The chief sent the interpreter with us in a canoe 
 to our vessel, and, night arriving, we lost sight of 
 the Indians. The next morning the wind had so 
 much abated that Captain Pasto put his schooner 
 in motion, and sailing out of the Sound, and outside 
 of the island, we were on our course, and had Hope 
 Canal, at the head of the island, before us, and 
 almost exactly in our route. 
 
 Getting off the northern cape of the island, with 
 glasses we had at once a view, at several miles dis 
 tance, of the monster lying high and dry on the 
 beach, and the group of Indians, like ants around a 
 sugar-bowl, moving in all directions about it. We 
 were all curious alike, and prevailed on Captain 
 Pasto to steer in towards the shore, and to give 
 us his yawl for landing. 
 
 He ran us within two or three hundred yards of 
 the shore, and, the yawl manned, Simms and Levens 
 
"A Whale Ashore!' 107 
 
 and Caesar and myself got in, and Captain Pasto 
 agreed to lie off and wait for us. 
 
 The beach looked smooth and sandy and the sea 
 calm, but it being ebb-tide, and a current running 
 off, we had a tremendous hard pull to reach the 
 sands, and a tremendous sea-bath in landing. We 
 got ashore, however, but drenched, and pulled our 
 boat on to the sands. 
 
 Then the sight ! the spectacle ! The monster 
 lay embedded in the sand, yet a long distance from 
 us, and we started towards it. On our way we met 
 our mulatto boy interpreter and several Indians 
 coming to meet us. We approached the monster 
 on the sea side, and in the immense furrow which 
 in its struggles it had grooved out in the sand, as 
 the waves of the rising tide had forced it towards 
 the land, the sight was imposing when we came 
 near to it, but not until we came around it on the 
 shore side had I any idea of the scene we were to 
 witness. 
 
 Some hundreds, if not thousands of Indians of all 
 ages and sexes, and in all colours, were gathered 
 around it, and others constantly arriving. Some 
 were lying, some standing and sitting in groups ; 
 some were asleep, and others eating and drinking, . 
 and others were singing and dancing. 
 
 At our approach the women commenced crying, 
 and a mournful murmur ran through the crowd ; 
 eating and dancing and sleeping were all stopped. 
 
io8 "A Whale Ashore:' 
 
 The women covered their mouths with their hands, 
 and cried and howled in piteous tones, and the men 
 were silent. I asked our fine little interpreter if the 
 chief whom we had seen the day before was there, 
 and he said that he had not yet arrived, but that he 
 would be there in a little time. I asked him what 
 the women were crying about, and he said they had 
 seen us coming from the ship, and they knew that 
 we were some of "King George's" men coming to 
 claim the whale. I asked him if he thought he 
 could interpret what I wanted to say, so that they 
 could all hear and understand it, and he said yes. 
 
 " That's right," said Simms, " make a speech to 
 them, Catlin." 
 
 Several immense baskets which had been brought 
 to carry blubber, &c. in were lying near, and placing 
 two or three of these one within the other, and bot 
 tom side upwards, our little interpreter we lifted on 
 to them, so that all could see and hear him. 
 
 I stood upon another by the side of him, but not 
 quite so high, and began, making significant signs 
 which they all understood, that what I should say 
 I spoke from my heart. 
 
 I told them that I was sorry to learn that their 
 women were crying because they thought we had 
 come from our ship to claim the whale ; and if that 
 was what they were crying for they need not cry 
 any more, or have any fears of us ; that we were 
 not "King George's" men, as they had thought, 
 
"A Whale Ashore!' 109 
 
 but that we were all friends of the Indians, and had 
 come to see the whale, and to shake hands with 
 them if they wished. 
 
 "Tell them," I said to Joseph, "that I consider 
 the Great Spirit loves them, and has sent this large 
 fish to them as an evidence of it ; that it therefore 
 belongs to them, and to nobody else." 
 
 This interpreted to them, there was a shout of 
 applause from the whole crowd with uplifted hands. 
 
 " Tell them, Joseph, that we are only passing by 
 on the ocean, never to see them again, and that we 
 shall leave here in a few minutes, and wish them 
 well." 
 
 Another uproar of applause, and Joseph got 
 down. A great many of the chiefs came up and 
 shook hands with us, and all troubles were ended. 
 
 The scene was now curious. No stones, no tim 
 bers, or anything of the sort were placed about the 
 monster to secure it ; but on the shore side some 
 twenty or thirty harpoons had been thrown into its 
 side during its struggles on the rising tide by the 
 first who were on the spot, and with long cords, 
 some reaching to the trunks of the trees on the 
 shore, and others fastened to stakes driven into the 
 ground. These were watched, and at every lift of 
 a wave moving the monster nearer the shore, they 
 were tightened on the harpoons, and at low tide 
 the carcass is left on dry land, a great distance from 
 the water. 
 
i io "A Whale Ashore!' 
 
 The whale, to Simms and Levens, was the curio 
 sity; and they took the measure length and 
 breadth of it ; to me, the curiosity was the crowd of 
 poor humans who were gathered about it, and of 
 them I could take no other measure than by the 
 naked eye ; for though I had put a sketch-book in 
 my paletot-pocket, in the drenching which we got 
 in landing every leaf of it, like everything else upon 
 us, was soaked. 
 
 The dissection of this monstrous creature, and its 
 distribution amongst the thousands who would yet 
 be a day or two in getting together, the interpreter 
 informed us would not be commenced until all the 
 claimants arrived, and I therefore lost one of the 
 curious scenes of my life which I should have been 
 glad to have witnessed. 
 
 Their mode of slaughtering such a beast and di 
 viding it would have been curious in the extreme. 
 A per capitum division is always the mode of the 
 Indians in such cases the poorest of the tribe and 
 the youngest infant drawing the same as a chief. 
 
 I could have studied for hours, without pencil or 
 sketch-book, amongst the curious group, and those 
 studies I never could forget. The beach, for half a 
 mile, was almost literally covered with something 
 with reclining groups of women and children with 
 baskets, and bags, and cribs, and pouches, and every 
 sort of vehicle they possessed, for transporting their 
 respective proportions of the prize, and the drying 
 
"A Whale Ashore!' m 
 
 of blankets, red, blue, and green, and white, wet 
 like ourselves in landing their canoes, made a carpet 
 for the sands in the distance of the most extraor 
 dinary hues. 
 
 Not like the Sioux, or the Crows, or the Chay- 
 ennes, covered, and plumed, and mocasined in full 
 and handsome dresses, but poor, and naked, except 
 ing their breech-cloths and blankets, they were yet 
 human painted in a thousand forms and of all 
 colours, and thus were subjects for a picture, and 
 subjects for a sermon or a lecture. 
 
 Our drenched condition and signals from Captain 
 Pasto terminated our visit here. A crowd of these 
 poor people followed us to our boat, took it up 
 bodily, and entered the water with it, and took us 
 up in their arms one by one, and waded through 
 the surf with us, and put us into it, and bade us a 
 civil and affectionate farewell. 
 
 Sailing out of Nootka Sound, and again on our 
 way to the visioned fields of gold and Indians, maps 
 and charts' were mustered out upon the table, cor 
 respondences relating to nuggets of fabulous sizes 
 that had been seen amongst the Nayas Indians, 
 and supposed localities in which they had been 
 found, were brought out and referred to, and the 
 second and last great effort to raise another "gold 
 fever " on me was strenuously tried, but decidedly 
 failed. 
 
 This, however, in no way impaired my influence 
 
ii2 Queen Charlottes Sound. 
 
 in the consolidated strength of the expedition at 
 that place, for the very field which was soon to be 
 come the scene of action for them, the actual 
 " El Dorado" of America, was the very point to 
 which my ambition led me, that coast being thickly 
 inhabited by tribes of Indians of the most inte 
 resting character, and as yet but little known or 
 appreciated. 
 
 Passing the picturesque shores of Vancouver, we 
 were soon in Queen Charlotte's Sound, and gliding 
 along in front of the ever-varying mountain barriers 
 of the mainland, covered alternately with rhodo 
 dendrons and honey-suckles, or capped with moss- 
 covered rocks enclosed by deep and dark ravines 
 shooting up their tall and pointed pines and cedars. 
 
 At the shore of the sea, huge blocks from the 
 mountain tops stood in relief, like houses, and 
 sometimes like immense ramparts and castles rising 
 out of the water, and behind and around them 
 quiet glades overshadowed by outstretched arms of 
 pines and hemlocks, and overhung by long-leafed 
 laurel, under, and through, and around which, bri 
 gades of the Nayas' painted canoes, with their car 
 goes of red shoulders, and glistening paddles, were 
 darting, and easily keeping us opposite company. 
 
 On our left, and towards the setting sun, and blue 
 and purple in the distance, rose the shining summits 
 of Queen Charlotte's island ; and near its base, a 
 blotched mass of deep green (its pines and cedars), 
 
Liska, Alaeutian Islands. 113 
 
 underlined by a streak of white, the sands of its 
 shore, at ebb-tide. No imagination could paint, and 
 few artists' pencils ever have painted, scenes so 
 grand and so picturesque as these. 
 
 We are gliding along from day to day, with our 
 glasses beholding the " rocks that are doubtless full 
 of gold," and my Indian subjects flying about in 
 their light canoes, and the smokes of their villages 
 on the shore, which, by our " agreements," we are 
 bound to pass by, and leave for our homeward 
 voyage. What temptations, and what glorious 
 fields were beckoning us back ! 
 
 These left behind, what then is before us? Liska 
 is the chief town of the Alaeutian islands ; a little 
 village of some sixty or eighty Russian and Indian 
 houses and huts, where Captain Pasto goes once a 
 year, gets skins, gets wool, and other products, for 
 which he trades cotton and woollen cloths, hard 
 ware, cutlery, &c. The Russians here are half 
 Indians, and the Indians are Americans, not Kams- 
 katkans, nor Mongol Tartars ; not an expression 
 or feature of either, as my portraits will show. 
 
 What next? The captain's business done, we 
 are on the sea, and a few days' sail brings us to the 
 coast of Siberia, and the river Kamskatka, of twenty 
 miles, transports us to the town of Nishna-Kams- 
 katk, or Petropolovski. What a town! How droll. 
 Russian houses built of pine poles and mud, adobes 
 and mud ! and huts of Koriak Indians, somewhat 
 
 I 
 
ii4 Kamskatka, Siberia. 
 
 like the Mandan wigwams, earth-covered, but the 
 doors in their tops how strange men, women, 
 and dogs walk down a ladder to get into 
 them ! 
 
 There's Che-nish-ka Wabe (a mountain on fire), 
 the volcano of Avatcha ; its smoke stands up in a 
 vast column leaning to the right, and softening 
 away in the distance in a long and straight cloud 
 towards the western horizon. The mountain is 
 blue in the distance, and yet we must look into its 
 sulphurous crater. Mud, and then snow, and then 
 the most frowning and defiant rocks are in our way, 
 but we go on. We get to the brink of the awful and 
 boiling lake, when nature is completely exhausted. 
 
 Sulphur is glazed over everything we touch and 
 everything we see. Excepting smoke, we see 
 nought but rocks ; we tread upon them, and lean 
 against their slippery sides, and tremble at the 
 awful sight that is before us ; and rage and fret too, 
 for all beyond, below, and all around us is smoke, 
 smoke ! and nothing else. 
 
 Hissing like a thousand furnaces at work is con 
 stant ; a hollow and consumptive cough is frequent ; 
 and now and then a sneezing, ejecting jets of stones 
 and gravel, coated with liquid, blazing sulphur, 
 whizzing past our heads, and rattling amongst the 
 rocks around and over us. These significant moni 
 tors determine us to retrace our steps and get a 
 view from the valley several miles below, for nothing 
 
Volcano of Avatcha 115 
 
 of the Avatcha can be seen, at this season, from Its 
 fumy head and sides above. 
 
 What a day of toil was spent to see a sight un 
 seen ! And yet, as we are sailing off, upon the 
 green waters of the bay, how splendid to gaze upon 
 the snow-clad sides (yet blue in the distance), and the 
 rising clouds from the crater of the Avatcha. Good 
 bye, ye icy, muddy, willowy, cedared, rocky coast of 
 Siberia, and ye Koriaks y fine fellows, whose por 
 traits I slipped into my portfolio ! 
 
 " Back to Queen Charlotte's," said the captain, 
 and so said our " agreements ; " " but stop a 
 codicil ! " said our attorney, Simms. " Captain, we 
 have agreed to see Petropetrovski, the Russian 
 capital, and you must run us to it ; and then we 
 will sail for Queen Charlotte's, and not before. 
 And we four have agreed to give you thirty dollars 
 each." 
 
 " I can't do it," said Captain Pasto. " You have 
 all seen my papers, and you know if I leave my 
 track I risk my insurance." " Curse the risk and 
 curse the insurance," said Simms ; " we will insure 
 your vessel, and a better insurance you can't find 
 on the face of the earth. Bring forward your agree 
 ments, all hands," said he ; and in ten minutes the 
 following " codicil " was appended : 
 
 " CODICIL, off the Coast of Kamskatka, 1853. 
 "Further agreed, to run the Sally Anne to 
 
u6 A "Codicil" 
 
 Petropetrovski, and thence to Queen Charlotte's 
 Sound ; no risques ; enough to eat, and nigger free. 
 
 " Signed, J. PAULDING, 
 "V. SIMMS, 
 "J. LEVENS, 
 "GEO. CATLIN, 
 " CAPT. PASTO, of the Sally Anne." 
 
 The thirty dollars each were put down, and the 
 vessel headed for Petropetrovski. " You do things 
 quick," said Captain Pasto to (Squire) Simms, as 
 we called him. "Yes, by G , sir, when I know 
 I am right I go ahead. I've been a Missouri at 
 torney for ten years I take but little time to do 
 up such things as this. I have sat three times as 
 Judge Lynch, and signed death warrants in half 
 the time. Brevity is the life and strength of all 
 business, and when I know I'm right I lose no time." 
 
 Each one pocketed his agreement again, and the 
 captain went to the deck, evidently under a strong 
 conviction of the necessity of following to the letter 
 the meaning and intention of the document he had 
 put in his pocket. 
 
 Petropetrovski had very little interest for any of 
 us ; the captain had no business there ; and the 
 prospect of " gold " was a dead one. I saw, how 
 ever, during the four days that we remained there, 
 a group of Esquimaux Indians, and a number of 
 
A Sailor s Narrative. 1 1 7 
 
 Athapascas, who come in there occasionally. These 
 were interesting to me, and I got my sketches of them. 
 
 My gold-hunting companions were getting im 
 patient ; and all hands, the captain included, were 
 sighing for wind, as we were sailing down the coast 
 and aiming for Queen Charlotte's. 
 
 There was now another overhauling of papers 
 between my fellow voyagers ; who, it seems, had 
 before but partially informed me on the subject of 
 their grand design, and the excitements which had 
 turned their attention to it. 
 
 " Catlin," said Levens (as they had got me to the 
 table), " you must know all about our plans before 
 we go any further." A number of letters were read 
 to me, and amongst them one from a brother of 
 Levens, in New Orleans, who had drawn from a 
 sailor, some years before, something like the follow 
 ing extraordinary narrative : 
 
 " After a fatal shipwreck in Queen Charlotte's 
 Sound, in 1825, he and one other sailor succeeded 
 in reaching the land, on the mainland shore, and in 
 a state of starvation got into an Indian village, 
 where they wore large round blocks of wood in 
 their lips, and were very kind and friendly to them. 
 
 " That they remained there two years, when one 
 of them died, and the other one, who gave the 
 narrative, got permission to go with a party of 
 Indians, in their canoes, to Nootka Sound, where 
 he got on board of a vessel sailing for Panama." 
 
 The surprising and only supposed available part 
 
1 1 8 Gold Nuggets of 
 
 of this narrative was the astounding description of 
 lumps and masses of pure gold which he had seen 
 in the possession of the Nayas Indians ; and 
 amongst these, belonging to the chief, "a solid 
 block, the full size of a man's head, and as much as 
 one man could lift !" 
 
 What a cause for an epidemic or a contagion ! 
 Who would not catch the gold fever unless he had 
 had a touch of it before at a recital like this ? 
 
 No precise' locality for this wonderful discovery 
 was given ; nothing more definite than that it be 
 longed to one of the great chiefs, and was seen 
 amongst the Nayas Indians, on the mainland side 
 of Queen Charlotte's Sound, which has an extent of 
 several hundreds of miles on the coast and some 
 hundreds of miles in the rear. 
 
 The "gold fever," however, has the wonderful 
 power of shortening distances and of solving the 
 most embarrassing difficulties. " Such wonderful 
 nuggets as this," I was informed, "must be known 
 throughout the tribe, and the way, therefore, could 
 easily be found to it ; and the bed from whence it 
 came must be known also to 'the Indians. That's 
 what we want, Catlin, more than the big nuggets ; 
 but we'll get at them both, you may rely upon it." 
 
 The cool and perfect state of health I was in as 
 to "gold" seemed to check a little the fever 
 that was raging around me, but not to allay it, 
 for I said, " Gentlemen, I am yours for any expe- 
 
the Nay as Indians. 119 
 
 dition we can agree upon into the interior of this 
 interesting country; there are many things in it 
 which I have heard of, and which I want. But, 
 hold," said I, " do you know that the whole of this 
 country and its populations have been for these 
 fifty years in the possession and under the control 
 of, the Hudson's Bay Company, who are gold- 
 hunters as well as yourselves ? They have their 
 trading houses amongst these people ; and has it 
 occurred to you that such a wonderful nugget 
 would probably have found its way into their hands 
 before this, if it actually existed amongst the Nayas 
 Indians ? I do not suggest this to discourage you, 
 but I will go ashore with you and use all my en 
 deavours to assist you in discovering these wonder 
 ful treasures." 
 
 The third day of sailing brought us into the 
 Sound, and nearing the coast, the smoke of an In 
 dian village was soon in view ; and getting near to 
 it, the roofs of houses, which at once informed us 
 that we were in front and in full view of one of 
 the Hudson's Bay Company's factories. All hands 
 suggested, and I agreed, that we had better proceed 
 further down the coast, and land at some of the vil 
 lages which we had passed on our northward passage. 
 
 My comrades seemed evidently surprised at the 
 information I had given them as to the Hudson's 
 Bay Company, and their influence in that country, 
 and began to show symptoms of fear lest they 
 
I2O Qtteen Charlottes Sound. 
 
 should excite an enemy more fatal to their enter 
 prise than the Indians themselves. They evidently 
 were approaching a country that they had known 
 little about, and which, they had believed, with all 
 its treasures, lay open and free to all comers. 
 
 I explained to them as near as I could the vast 
 influence the Company had over the whole of that 
 country, from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific 
 Ocean the great number of trading houses they 
 had, that one or more of their employes would pro 
 bably be found in every Indian village, and that the 
 present existence amongst the Indians of such a 
 block of gold as had been described was a matter 
 of impossibility, or that rich mines of gold known 
 to the Indians could have escaped their acquisitive 
 investigations. 
 
 My advice and suggestions, which were less pa 
 tiently listened to at first, were now being more 
 thankfully received, as I reiterated with them my in 
 tention to use my best efforts and all my influence, 
 under any circumstances, to promote their views, 
 whilst any chance of success remained. 
 
 We were running on, and sundown and twilight 
 approaching, we ran into a deep cove, sheltered by 
 a high and precipitous rock escarpment, and the 
 "Sally Anne" cast anchor and laid till morning. 
 At sunrise, and before coming on deck, I heard dis 
 tinctly Caesar's loud voice and broad laugh, as he 
 was ejaculating English, Spanish, and the Lingua 
 
Nay as Indians on Deck. 121 
 
 Geral, all in rapid succession, convincing me that 
 we had visitors on board. I got on deck (the gold- 
 hunters yet fast asleep), and found our forward deck 
 half covered with a party of Indians, and double the 
 number resting on their paddles, in their painted 
 canoes, lying around us. Fresh salmon and dried, 
 in great abundance, and oysters and whortleberries, 
 were brought on board for barter, and the captain 
 and mate were busily engaged in laying in supplies, 
 while Caesar, a head taller than all the group, and 
 the sun shining on his glistening cheek-bones and 
 forehead, stood, with his rifle in his arms, a model, 
 vainly endeavouring by his Lingua Geral and 
 Spanish to get some clue to conversation with the 
 curious group around him ; but all in vain, and for 
 the first time I had seen him put to his trumps 
 completely. 
 
 All eyes were upon him, and the Indians were as 
 much surprised and perplexed at his sudden advent 
 and novel appearance as he was perplexed with the 
 total unintelligibility of their language. It required 
 but a coup d'ceil to see that shining, glistening 
 black Caesar was to be the lion, the paragon of the 
 enterprise. The Indians on deck all shook hands 
 with him, and, in total default of his Spanish and 
 Geral, he had got into a partial conversation with 
 them by signs manual, of which he was master, and 
 which (a curious fact) are much the same amongst 
 all the tribes, both in North and South America ; 
 
122 Cczsar and the Nay as. 
 
 and by the time I got on deck he was becoming a 
 tolerable interpreter for me. 
 
 "Well, dear me, Massa Catliri," said Caesar, 
 " dem dar berry curious people. I b'lieve dey berry 
 good. I guess you go ashore, Massa ?" 
 
 " Yes, Caesar ; we are going to land here for a 
 while, after the other gentlemen get up." 
 
 We were lying about four hundred yards from 
 the shore at this time, and though no signs of a 
 village could be seen, their light and bounding 
 canoes were constantly putting out from the nooks 
 and crevices in the rocks overhung with cedar and 
 impenetrable masses of red, and white, and purple 
 rhododendrons, and gathering in a gay and dancing 
 fleet around us. 
 
 Though I had heard of the beauty of their canoes, 
 and their dexterous mode of handling them, I had 
 formed but an ignorant notion of them. The 
 sluggish logs and tubs that Caesar and I had been 
 knocked about in on the Amazon and the Xingu,gave 
 us no clue to the light, the gay, the painted gondolas 
 now dancing on the ocean's waves about us. Exca 
 vated from the trunks of the immense cedars of 
 that country, they were fashioned with grace and 
 lightness, and painted of all colours, and so were 
 the naked shoulders that were seen within them. 
 
 Like a flock of goats playing up and down upon 
 a group of hillocks, upon the rising and sinking 
 waves they were sporting and vaulting in all direc- 
 
Beautiful Canoes. 123 
 
 tions, and seemed, at times, actually rearing, as if 
 to leap upon the deck. Their paddles were all 
 painted with similar designs as those upon their 
 boats, and their robes, when worn, showed characters 
 the same, and all seemed like some system of 
 hieroglyphic signs yet to be understood. 
 
 In Plate No. 5, two of these canoes, with paddles, 
 are represented. 
 
 In the midst of the group now assembled on the 
 deck, our attorney, Simms, emerged from the cabin 
 below, exclaiming 
 
 " Good God, Catlin, we are prisoners ! " 
 " Oh, no ; we are in the midst of one of the most 
 friendly receptions, and it is a great pity that you, 
 and Paulding, and Levens, should lose any part of 
 
124 -An Excitement. 
 
 it. We are in the midst of the Nayas Indians, and 
 their largest village is just around the point ahead 
 of us." 
 
 " Halloa, below there, fellows !" exclaimed Simms, 
 putting his head as far down the hatchway as he 
 could. " You are losing everything ! " 
 
 Half-awake, and misunderstanding the two last 
 words, and hearing the voices of Indians on deck, 
 and catching a glimpse of the group through the 
 sky-lights, they advanced most bravely, and at a 
 jump were on the deck, with their rifles up and 
 their revolvers ready ! Simms sprang at one, and I 
 at the other, and, just in time,- saved the carnage 
 that was at the instant of commencing. 
 
 The Indians, unarmed, flew to the bow of the 
 vessel, and a number of them overboard. And well 
 they might, from the frightful aspect of the two 
 gladiators, but half dressed, and rising, like demons, 
 from below, at the signal call, for their extermi 
 nation. 
 
 I spread my hands forward and over the Indians, 
 and made signs for them to come back, whilst 
 Simms and myself were cooling down the two fire- 
 . brands ; when Caesar threw himself between the two 
 groups, and, a figure like the Colossus of Rhodes, 
 he stood, explaining by signs to one party, and by 
 tolerably good English to the other, that " it was 
 only a little mistake, and dat we were all berry 
 good friends." 
 
" Sore Lips." 125 
 
 This little sensation over, others of the Indians 
 began climbing on board from their canoes, and, 
 last of all, some half a dozen of their women, whose 
 eyes were riveted on Caesar ; and he began to loom 
 up, as he used to do amongst the Muras, the Con- 
 nibos, and the Chetibos, and other tribes of the 
 Amazon, 
 
 He was naturally a tremendous gallant, and, 
 stimulated by the gaze of these fair, and oftentimes 
 half and three-fourths naked, beauties, he was fre 
 quently in the clouds, and almost beyond the reach 
 of all control. 
 
 Frequent instances showed me that his sym 
 pathies, at last, were with the damsels ; and the 
 singular appearance of one of them, whom he had 
 observed, brought him to me at this instant. 
 
 " Well, de Lord be praised, Massa Catlin. I 
 
126 Nay as Village. 
 
 berry sorry for dat poor gal dar, she got mighty 
 soalip!" 
 
 " Yes, Caesar, it's a great pity ; for she seems, 
 from her dress and manners, to be a very nice girl ; 
 I should say, the belle of the village." 
 
 Breakfast was ready below, and Caesar and the 
 hands of the vessel amused the group on deck 
 whilst we were taking our coffee, and discussing the 
 movements of the day, to be made on the land. 
 
 Caesar had learned that their village was just 
 around the point, and, at the request of the mate, 
 the Indians were returning to their village, where 
 they were informed we should follow them when 
 our breakfast was over. 
 
 About nine o'clock we four, with Captain Pasto 
 (with only our revolvers, our rifles being left on 
 board), and Caesar, carrying my portfolio on his 
 back, and his minie rifle in his hand, got into the 
 yawl and went ashore, and were conducted to the 
 village, which was at the head of a little cove, a 
 half a mile or so from the shore. 
 
 The Indians, informed of our visit, had all 
 gathered into their huts, and the chief, a very dig 
 nified man, was seated in his wigwam and ready, 
 with his pipe lit, to receive us. We were seated on 
 mats spread upon the ground, and whilst the pipe 
 was being passed around, the first ceremony on all 
 such occasions, the Indian dogs (half wolves), of 
 which there were some hundreds, got upon our 
 
Indian Dogs. 127 
 
 tracks, and completely invested the chief's wigwam, 
 and set up the most hideous and doleful chorus of 
 yells, and howls, and barks. The sentinel whom 
 the chief had placed at the door of his wigwam, to 
 prevent all access except by his permission, drew 
 his bow upon one of the foremost of the gang, and 
 shot it through the heart, when the throng was 
 silenced and dispersed by the Indian women, who 
 set upon them with their paddles. 
 
 Our position was rather awkward, having no 
 other interpretation than the imperfect knowledge 
 of signs named, of Caesar and myself, brought 
 from South America and the valley of the Mis 
 souri. However, we effected a general understand 
 ing, and learned from the chief that he had sent to 
 another village not far off, and would have an 
 excellent interpreter in a little time. 
 
 I told my companions I thought they had better 
 not say a word of trieir object in visiting the country 
 until the interpreter arrived, when it could be clearly 
 explained without being misunderstood, and in the 
 mean time I would not lose a moment's time in 
 making a sensation, and of exciting a friendly 
 interest. 
 
 " Good," said Simms, " I know what it is, Catlin, 
 go a-head ! Show him your pictures." 
 
 I had beckoned Caesar, who was at that moment 
 unstrapping the portfolio from his back, and ad 
 vancing towards me. I opened it before the chief, 
 
128 Showing Indian Portraits. 
 
 and sat by the side of him explaining the portraits, 
 as I turned them over. He was a very deliberate 
 and dignified man, and exhibited no surprise what 
 ever, but at the same time evidently took a deep 
 interest in them. 
 
 I showed him several chiefs of the Amazon, and 
 also several of the Sioux, Osages, and Pawnees, 
 and the last one turned up, a portrait, full length, 
 of Caesar Bolla. He could not hold his muscles 
 still any longer, but burst out in the most uncon 
 trollable and vociferous laugh, and turning around 
 to Caesar, who was sitting at the further side of the 
 lodge, extended his hand, which Caesar advanced 
 and shook, and at the chief's request, took a seat 
 by the side of him. 
 
 The book of portraits was creating such an ex 
 citement, that three or four sub-chiefs came in and 
 took their seats. And the wigwam being in two 
 sections, and divided by a door made by a hanging 
 bearskin, which was put aside, two women and a 
 young man entered, and also took their seats on 
 the ground, to get a peep at the portraits ; one of 
 these was the wife of the chief, and the other his 
 daughter, an unmarried girl. 
 
 Caesar had his attention at this time fixed upon 
 one of the men who had taken his seat, with the 
 block of wood in his under lip, and the chief's 
 daughter was decorated in the same way. 
 
 " Caesar," said I, " here are more sore lips/' 
 
Cczsars Portrait. 129 
 
 "Well, now, I do deck, Massa Catlin, dea me, 
 I think it is ketchin ! " 
 
 I turned the portfolio through again, to the 
 amusement and astonishment of all, and when 
 Caesar Bolla was turned up, there was a roar of 
 laughter again, all eyes were upon him, and turning 
 his face one side, and a little down, he whispered to 
 me, "Well now, Massa Catlin, I neber felt so shame 
 in all my life afoa." And when he had mustered 
 courage to raise his head, and cast his eyes around, I 
 said, "Caesar, your portrait has cured the sore lips" 
 (the two wearing blocks of wood in their lips 
 having slipped them out in order to enable them to 
 laugh). 
 
 About the instant that Caesar had observed that 
 the blocks were out, and the broad laugh was over, 
 they were slipped in again, when he exclaimed, 
 " Well, Massa Catlin, affer dat, I neber know wat 
 I will see nex." 
 
 Though this curious and unaccountable custom 
 was known to me, my companions had been as 
 ignorant of it as Caesar was, and evidently were 
 regarding it with equal astonishment. I said to 
 them and to Caesar, "Of the 'sore lips' take no 
 more notice until the interpreter comes, and then 
 we will learn all about it." 
 
 My attention was then fixed on a beautiful mantle 
 worn by the chief 's daughter, made, as I learned, 
 of mountain sheeps' wool and wild dogs' hair, won- 
 
 K 
 
130 Indian Curiosities. 
 
 derfully knitted with spun-yarn of beautiful colours, 
 and so assembled as to exhibit the most eccentric 
 and intricate figures, and bordered with a fringe of 
 eighteen inches in length, the work of three women 
 for one year, I was told, and its price, five horses. 
 
 The bowl of the pipe which the chief had been 
 passing around was full fourteen inches in length of 
 pot stone, jet black, and highly polished, the whole, 
 a group of figures, human and animal, interlocked 
 and carved in the most ingenious manner. 
 
 Of these pot-stone pipes I saw many, and obtained 
 several, and the eccentric designs on them, on their 
 robes, their canoes, their paddles, their leggings, 
 and even the paintings on their faces and limbs, 
 are peculiarly tribal, and their own, differing from 
 anything seen in the other tribes of the continent. 
 
 The same extraordinary characters are written 
 on their spoons, their bowls, their vases, their war- 
 clubs ; on their pottery, of which they make great 
 quantities, and on everything else that they manu 
 facture, and seeming to be a system of hierogly 
 phics not yet explained, and which for the archaeolo 
 gist and ethnologist may yet be a subject of pecu 
 liar interest. 
 
 Instead of the stupid, superstitious fears and ob 
 jections which generally stood in the way of my 
 painting their portraits in the valley of the Amazon 
 and other parts of South America, this intelligent 
 and rational man at once said, when I asked him 
 
Painting a Chief. 131 
 
 " Yes ; if you find any of us worthy of so great ah 
 honour, and handsome enough, we will all be ready 
 to be painted." 
 
 "Good!" said I (by intelligible signs); "I love 
 such a man. Caesar, bring my painting-box and 
 easel from the vessel, and I will begin this noble 
 fellow's portrait this afternoon." 
 
 "Catlin!" said Simms, "you are getting al 
 together ahead of us." 
 
 " Never mind," said I, " I am on the right track 
 the right vein. I know these people better than 
 you do ; they must be pleased first, amused, com 
 plimented ; and the compliment I am now paying 
 to the chief will make him the friend of all. I will 
 secure his goodwill first for the whole party, and 
 when the interpreter comes to-morrow, you may 
 put in your claims in the best manner you can 
 devise." 
 
 The afternoon came, and my paint-box and the 
 chief were before me, and with him his lovely daugh 
 ter. He told me he loved her, and always made it 
 a rule to have her by him, and he thought I had 
 better place them both in the same picture. I told 
 him I loved him for that ; it was natural and noble. 
 
 Vanity is the same all the world over, both in 
 savage and civilized societies. Good looks in por 
 traiture and fashions, whatever they are crinoline 
 of the lip or crinoline of the waist (and one is just 
 as beautiful and reasonable as the other), or rings 
 
1^2 Nay as Indians. 
 
 in the nose or rings in the ears, they are all the 
 
 same. 
 
 Night came, and my picture was taken on board 
 
 " Catlin," said my companions, " you are leaving 
 us all in the background." 
 
 " Never mind," said I again, " I am introducing 
 you where you never could have got a foothold for 
 
A French Interpreter. 133 
 
 an hour. We will have a council to-morrow in the 
 chief's lodge, and, his interpreter present, your plans 
 will progress as well as mine." 
 
 During the night the wind veered about, and, 
 very nearly being driven on to the rocks, the cap 
 tain set sail, and crossing the sound, got shelter 
 under the lee of Queen Charlotte's Island. The 
 wind abating the next day, we were able in the after 
 noon to return to our anchorage in front of the 
 Indian village. 
 
 The Indians were all on the shore, and received 
 us with shouts, and many in their canoes gathered 
 around us whilst we were coming to anchor ; and 
 amongst them came on board the interpreter who 
 had been sent for by the chief. He was a young 
 man, a Frenchman, by the name of Fre"nie, an em 
 ploye in the fur company, and met us with much 
 civility. 
 
 From him we soon got an account of the nume 
 rous tribes of Indians along the coast, and on Queen 
 Charlotte's Island, over which also the fur com 
 pany's business extended. The interpreter had 
 learned from the chief that I had painted his por 
 trait, and it being brought on deck, he was exces 
 sively delighted with it, holding it up over the gun 
 wale and showing it to the Indians paddling about 
 in their canoes. 
 
 Csesar was on the spot with my cartoon portraits, 
 and ready to make a further sensation. "Yes," 
 
134 Ccesar lionized. 
 
 said I, " Caesar, bring it forward." We had a look 
 at the portraits, and the interpreter then asked my 
 name. When I wrote it for him with my pencil, he 
 said my name had been familiar to him for ten years 
 past, and that there was not a man in the Hudson's 
 Bay Company nor an Indian between the Rocky 
 Mountains and the Pacific coast who had not heard 
 my name, and of the collection of Indian paintings 
 I was making, though he believed I never was in 
 that part of the country before. 
 
 He told us that the chief expected myself and 
 my companions to eat and to smoke with him in 
 his wigwam that afternoon, and that at night the 
 doctors were going to give us a medicine dance. 
 Simms agreed with me that "all was going right," 
 and that it would be best not to start the inquiries 
 about gold until these festivities were over. 
 
 We were soon ashore, all excepting Captain Pasto 
 and his crew, he having hinted to me that there 
 might be a plot in all this to get all ashore, and 
 then take possession of his vessel. I was quite 
 agreed to this, as the festivities would now be ten 
 dered to us alone who could appreciate them. 
 
 As we approached the village a great throng 
 came out to meet us, and I observed the mass (and 
 particularly the women) were siding up to Caesar, 
 who was marching at his fullest height, with the 
 portfolio of portraits strapped on his back. 
 
 The concourse of people seeming to me too large 
 
A "Medicine Dance" 135 
 
 for so small a village, led me to make the sugges 
 tion to the interpreter, who replied that " the news 
 of our arrival and the masquerade dance to be given 
 that evening had brought a great number from 
 Jaurna's village, and that others were coming." 
 
 "Soa lips" now began to thicken around Caesar, 
 who had got the portfolio off from his back, and 
 was carrying it under his left arm, whilst the other 
 was constantly employed in answering the questions 
 put by signs. He was evidently the lion, and as 
 soon as I could I got him and his portfolio into the 
 chiefs lodge, to be subject to the chief's orders. 
 
 My companions found enough for their amuse 
 ment amongst the throng whilst I was sketching 
 two other portraits, and at sundown we sat down to 
 a feast of venison in the chief's wigwam. This and 
 "a smoke" kept us till some time after dark, when 
 a dozen or more flaming torches, with yelping, and 
 barking, and singing, approached his wigwam, and 
 in front of it commenced the masquerade dance. 
 
 Bizarre is but a lame word for the startling 
 eccentricity and drollery that were then before us. 
 Caesar was not in the midst of it, but by the side of 
 it, and overlooking it. I had serious apprehensions 
 that I should lose him, from the hysterical bursts 
 and explosions of laughter that fell in bolts and 
 half-strangled hiccups from his broad mouth. 
 
 Some fifteen or twenty, all men, were engaged in 
 in this singular affair, all masked and otherwise 
 
1 36 Masks of the Dancers. 
 
 dressed in th most strange and curious taste, and 
 many of the lookers-on, in the front ranks, both 
 men and women, were masked and dressed in a 
 similar manner. 
 
 The leader of the dance, a medicine man, the 
 drollest of the droll, was the " King of the Bustards ;" 
 another was "King of the Loons ;" another was 
 the " Doctor of the Rabbits ;" one was the "Devil's 
 Brother" one was " the Maker of the Thunder" one 
 was " the White Crow" one was " the Bear that 
 travels in the nigJit" and another " the Cariboo s 
 Ghost" &c. &c. until the names of the animal and 
 feathered tribes were chiefly exhausted. 
 
 The masks which the dancers wore (and of which 
 I procured several), were works of extraordinary 
 ingenuity. Carved in a solid block of wood, ex 
 cavated in such a manner as closely to fit the face, 
 and held to the dancer's face by a transverse strap 
 of leather, from corner to corner of the mouth of 
 the mask, inside, so that when the mask was on, 
 and close to the face, the strap of leather was taken 
 between the teeth, counterfeiting thereby, not only 
 the face, but the voice, a perfection in masking 
 yet to be learned in the masquerades of civilized 
 frolickings. 
 
 Besides the ingenuity exhibited in the forms and 
 expressions of these masks, they were all painted 
 of various colours, and with the most eccentric 
 designs. These masks (with the exception of that 
 
Page 136. 
 
 A .MEDICINE DANCE. 
 
Indian Citstoms. 
 
 137 
 
 worn by the leader of the dance), were all made to 
 imitate the mode of the people, of wearing a block 
 of wood in the under-lip. 
 
 The custom of masking and of masquerade 
 dancing is by no means peculiar to the Nayas In 
 dians, for in many of the tribes, both in South and 
 North America, I have witnessed similar amusements. 
 
 9- 
 
 In plate (No, 9), copies of two of my portraits 
 illustrate the mode of wearing the blocks of wood 
 in the under-lip, and also of slitting and elongating 
 the cartilage and lobes of the ears, in which large 
 blocks also are worn as ornaments. 
 
138 Nay as Customs. 
 
 The ornament of the lip is a mode belonging 
 chiefly to the women, though there are some ec 
 centric men who also practise it. And of the 
 women, it is but a portion of them who perforate 
 the lip, and even by them it is only on particular 
 
 (a) A block worn by a child of three or four years' old. 
 
 (b) A block worn at the age of seven or eight years. 
 
 (c) A block worn by a young woman at maturity. 
 
 (d) A block worn by the men only, in the cartilage of the 
 
 ear. 
 
 occasions that they wear the blocks, to be seen, as 
 they term it, in full dress. When eating and sleep 
 ing the blocks are removed, and also when much 
 
Lip-blocks. 139 
 
 use of their tongues is required ;~for, with the block' 
 in the mouth there are many words not pronounced. 
 
 In Plate (No. 10), I have given the exact dimen 
 sions and shapes of three blocks for the lip and one 
 for the ear, which I procured of the people whilst 
 amongst them. 
 
 The perforation for the block in the lip is made 
 at a very early age, and is kept open through life, 
 and is scarcely perceptible when the block is out. 
 
 For inserting the block, the thumb of the left 
 hand is forced upwards through the aperture, and 
 by the side of it the thumb of the right hand, and 
 the block is delivered into its place by the fingers, 
 from above, as the thumbs are withdrawn. 
 
 The whole of the next day after the masquerade 
 I was painting, and Caesar was showing and des 
 canting on the portfolio ; and my three companions, 
 with the interpreter, were discussing gold nuggets 
 and gold placers ; and as near as I could ever learn 
 it, the total of their discoveries led to this : that 
 there had been, about two years before, a party of 
 gold-hunters from California in that country, having 
 heard marvellous accounts of gold nuggets in the 
 possession of the Indians, and that they had been 
 ordered out of the country by the Hudson's Bay 
 Company, and were obliged to leave in a great 
 hurry ; that there had, no doubt, been some nuggets 
 in the hands of some of the Indians, but that they 
 had been found at a great distance off, near the 
 
140 Smittis Inlet. 
 
 mountains, on the bank of a great river (supposed 
 to be Frazer's river, where the rich mines are now 
 being worked). 
 
 The Frazer River mines, at that time, were just 
 becoming known ; and my companions very ju 
 diciously decided that their best way would be to 
 return to Victoria, and take the track of the flood 
 of Frazer River miners at that time ascending the 
 Frazer's river. 
 
 This resolution suited the captain of our little 
 craft exactly, as time was precious to him, and his 
 vessel more or less at risk whilst lying along the 
 coast. Victoria, which was then but a town of 
 some forty or fifty houses, was our next aim ; and 
 stopping a day or two in several villages of Hydas 
 and Bella Bellas, on the coast, we were safe at 
 anchor in Smith's Inlet, opposite to the northern 
 cape of Vancouver's Island. Its shores were alive 
 with the smokes of Indian villages, and there was 
 no need of leaving the vessel to see Indians. We 
 were at all hours of the day surrounded by their 
 bounding and galloping pirogues, and often had 
 more than the captain was disposed to accommo 
 date on deck, mostly a miserable, almost naked 
 and squalid-looking multitude, bringing fish and 
 oysters to barter for rum or whatever else they 
 could get. Amongst these were Skidegates, 
 Stickeens, Bella Bellas, Hydas, and several other 
 tribes inhabiting the coast and islands in the 
 
Coast of Vancouver. 141 
 
 vicinity. Some were flat heads, and others wer 
 not. 
 
 It mattered little to me what the shapes of their 
 heads were, and for a couple of days I was gather 
 ing them into my portfolio, whilst Caesar kept all 
 comers, and of all languages, amused with the por 
 traits, which he was lecturing on alternately in 
 English, in Spanish, and Lingua Geral, from which 
 they learned just as much as they would have 
 learned from the squalling of a paroquet or cockatoo. 
 
 It seemed a perfect mystery to my impatient com 
 panions, "how I could sit out two whole days with 
 out my dinner, painting those ill-looking Indians." 
 They killed time, below the deck, with the captain, 
 at cards ; and during the third night sails were up 
 to pass the straits and run to Victoria, which our 
 chart showed us was but a short run. 
 
 Morning came, and where were we ? not in the 
 harbour of Victoria, nor near it, but in front of 
 Nootka Island, where we had been before, off the 
 west coast of Vancouver, and its tall pines and 
 rocky peaks but just discernible ! And -for what ? 
 nobody could tell, unless the captain's reasons were 
 correct, that the shape and character of the winds 
 made it hazardous to run the Strait and the Sound, 
 and that an open sea and fair sailing, which he was 
 making, was apt to be the quickest and the safest. 
 
 A forty-eight hours' run brought us around the 
 southern cape of the island, and into the Strait of 
 
142 Wreck of the "Sally Anne." 
 
 Juan de Fuca, and hugging the shore, and heading 
 towards Victoria. And hugging a little too close, at 
 low tide, the keel of the Sally Anne was rubbing on 
 the sands, and losing her headway, and hitching in 
 wards a little at every wave, as the tide was rising. 
 She was hitched up, and hitched up, until, at high 
 tide, she was lying, and was left, broadside upon 
 the sands in a little sandy cove, between huge and 
 frowning rocks. 
 
 We remained on board until another flood tide, 
 which only lifted us higher up and left us again, a 
 few rods further on to the island, and, of course, a 
 few rods nearer to Victoria. All chances of getting 
 his little craft nearer to Victoria harbour being now 
 apparently ended, and with due sympathy for the 
 poor captain, which we all felt, as we were taking 
 leave, we each agreed to leave him a bonus of thirty 
 dollars, and each signed his "agreement" to take 
 us to Victoria, " executed'' We got some Flathead 
 Indians on the shore to carry our luggage, and at 
 their guidance we trudged through the forest to 
 Victoria. 
 
 * In Victoria all was confusion, complete pell-mell ; 
 houses were filled, steamers and vessels were full, 
 and men and women were sleeping in carts and 
 wagons in the streets, and others were not sleeping 
 at all, but, with bonfires built upon the bank, or 
 under the pines, were dancing away the nights in 
 wild and frantic whirls. 
 
Victoria. 143 
 
 Frazer River had just debuted as the El Dorado of 
 the world, and it seemed as if California had emptied 
 itself, "neck and heels" its men, its mules, and its 
 steamers into the Sound of Vancouver. 
 
 Reports were hourly arriving from the mines, and 
 all was on on ! " pull Dick and pull Devil," and 
 "bad luck to the hindmost." 'The "Celestials" 
 were there, with two oblique sabre cuts and two 
 gimlet holes for eyes ; New Yorkers and Londoners 
 were there, and all the nations of the earth seemed 
 to be assembling. The Omnipotent hand had 
 spread nuggets and sands of gold in such profusion 
 over the new-discovered fields, that it required but 
 the hand of industrious man to pick and scrape it 
 up, and load his pockets with it. 
 
 The midst of this grand meteewas the place exactly 
 for my three impatient companions, and the mere 
 hurried " Good-bye, and God bless you, Cat.," was 
 about all that I could get from them as they 
 disappeared ; and all that I can say of them, un 
 less in a more appropriate place, and in a more 
 advanced part of this little book, I may be able to 
 do it. 
 
 The poor Indians living in the vicinity of Vic 
 toria, on Vancouver's Island, and all belonging to 
 the Flathead family, seemed alarmed, and withdrew 
 their encampments into the forests. 
 
 In the midst of such an epidemic, after having 
 had the fever myself, one can easily imagine my 
 
i 4 4 The "Dalles." 
 
 position anything but agreeable, and in a few days, 
 by a returning San Francisco steamer, Caesar and I 
 got a passage to Astoria, and from thence, by an 
 other craft, to Portland, the head of navigation on 
 the Columbia River. 
 
 This thrifty little beginning of a town has the 
 prospect of wealth and greatness before it. 1 
 
 The "Dalles" (and we soon made it) was the 
 next and the last destination foreshadowed in that 
 direction, thirty miles above, and on the same river. 
 This famous place, from time immemorial the 
 living, the life, and support of tens of thousands of 
 surrounding Indians, from the endless quantities of 
 salmon taken in it, is a bold and furious rapid, for 
 several miles dashing and foaming through com 
 pressed channels in the rocks, in the eddies of 
 which the fatigued fish, in their laborious ascent, 
 stop to rest, and are pierced by the harpoon arrows 
 of the overleaning and overlooking Indian, and 
 lifted out. 
 
 The fresh fish for current food, and the dried fish 
 for their winter consumption, which had been from 
 time immemorial a good and certain living for the 
 surrounding tribes, like everything else of value 
 belonging to the poor Indian, has attracted the 
 
 1 Whilst halting a few days in this little seaport town, I 
 learned by accident that Captain Pasto had got his schooner 
 afloat, and had put out to sea. 
 
The "Dalles." 145 
 
 cupidity of the " better class," and is now being 
 " turned into money," whilst the ancient and real 
 owners of it may be said to be starving to death ; 
 dying in sight of what they have lost, and in 
 a country where there is actually nothing else 
 to eat. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE FLATHEAD INDIANS. 
 
 UST at this time another epidemic was 
 raging, and not less prolific in its victims 
 than the scourge of the country I had 
 just escaped from ; the crusade from 
 the States across the Rocky Mountains to Oregon, 
 by wagons, by ox-carts, and by wheelbarrows, spot 
 ting the prairies and mountains with recent graves, 
 and strewing the wayside with carcasses of oxen and 
 horses, and broken wagons and abandoned house 
 hold furniture. 
 
 The greater portion of this disastrous and almost 
 fanatic pilgrimage crossed the mountains at what 
 is known as the " south pass," that is, south of the 
 terrible and impassable piles of twice-upheaved rocks 
 where the Salmon River Mountain traverses the 
 Rocky Mountain range, and over, or through, the 
 mountains, descended through the valley of the 
 Shoshonee (or Snake) River to the Columbia. 
 
Flathead Indians. 147 
 
 Learning by some of the most recent of these' 
 arrivals that the Paunch (Grosventres), a band of 
 the Crow Indians, had crossed the mountains north 
 of the Salmon River Mountain, and were encamped 
 in the Salmon River Valley near its sources, I made 
 the instant and desperate resolve to reach them, if 
 impossibility were not in the way. 
 
 I asked Caesar how he would like to take a trip 
 on horseback and see the Rocky Mountains. 
 
 " Well, dat ar just wat suit me now, zactly. Lor 
 me ! you guess you go ? " 
 
 " Yes, if I can get a horse and a couple of good 
 mules. This I can't do here, Caesar, but at Fort 
 Walla Walla, further up the river, I think it can be 
 done." 
 
 Flatheads we were now in the midst of, and for 
 the time I had my work to do. The Klatsops, the 
 Chinooks, the Clickatats, the Walla Wallas, and the 
 Nez Perces and Spokans, constituting the principal 
 bands of 'the Flathead family, I was there in the 
 midst of, and had enough to do. Some of these 
 flatten the head, and others do not, yet - all speak 
 the Flathead language, or dialects of it. 
 
 The Flathead tribe, so called from their singular 
 practice of flattening the head, is one of the most 
 numerous (if not the most numerous) west of the 
 Rocky Mountains, occupying the whole country 
 about the lower Columbia, including the island of 
 Vancouver. It is altogether a canoe race, living in 
 
148 
 
 Flathead Indians. 
 
 a country where there is little else than fish to live 
 upon. The tribe is divided into something like 
 thirty bands, speaking nearly the same language, 
 and generally spoken of (but erroneously) as so 
 many different tribes, the names of the principal of 
 which I have already mentioned. 
 
 The strange and unaccountable custom of flat 
 tening the head in this tribe is confined mostly 
 to the women, and amongst them it is by no means 
 general, and ornamentation, singular as it may seem, 
 appears to be the sole object of it. In Plate No. 1 1 
 I have given copies of two of my portraits of women, 
 showing the artificial shapes produced by that 
 
Flathead Indians. 
 
 149 
 
 strange custom; and in Plate No. 12 portraits of' 
 a Flathead chief curiously wrapped in his blanket, 
 and his wife, with her infant in its crib (or cradle) 
 
 12. 
 
 on her back, undergoing the process of flattening. 
 The infant, at its birth, is placed in its cradle dug 
 out of a solid log of wood, and fastened down with 
 bandages, so that it cannot move, and the frontal 
 
150 Flat head Indians. 
 
 process is pressed down by an elastic lever, which 
 is tightened daily by strings fastened to the sides of 
 the cradle. The bones of that part of the head, at 
 that period, being cartilaginous, are easily pressed 
 into that unnatural form, and after two or three 
 months of this pressure the required shape is ob 
 tained, which lasts through life. By pressing the 
 frontal region back, the head is pressed out on the 
 sides to an unnatural extent, as seen in the illus 
 tration (No. n). If this were a natural deformity, 
 stultility would undoubtedly be the result ; but as 
 it is an artificial deformation, no such result is pro 
 duced, nor need it to be looked for, as it is only a 
 change in the form and position of the mental organs, 
 without interfering with their natural functions. The 
 evidence of this is, that those with their heads flat 
 tened are found to be quite as intelligent as the 
 others in the tribe ; and it would be a monstrous 
 supposition to believe that the fathers of families 
 and chiefs would subject their infants to a process 
 that was to stultify them. 
 
 Near Fort Walla Walla, for the first time in my 
 life, I procured a tolerable horse, a stout mule for 
 Caesar, and a pack-mule, at a fair and honest price ; 
 and in company with three young men who had 
 recently arrived from the States, and were going 
 back to meet and aid the sick and disabled of their 
 party that had been left behind, we started, with 
 our faces towards the mountains. 
 
 After five days' march together, their course being 
 
Crows in Salmon River Valley. 151 
 
 to the right, and through the Snake River Valley, 
 we were obliged to part company, and Caesar and 
 I, with an Indian guide, took to the left, hugging as 
 near as we could the ragged and frightful, and all 
 but impassable, southern bank of the Salmon River, 
 until, at length, after many days of deep repent 
 ance, we entered the more calm and beautiful mea 
 dows and prairies of the Salmon River Valley. 
 
 Our ride (or rather walk, for we had to walk and 
 climb most of the way, leading our horses) was one 
 which I deeply regretted from day to day, but 
 which I never have regretted since it was finished. 
 The eighth day opened to our view one of the most 
 verdant and beautiful valleys in the world ; and on 
 the tenth a distant smoke was observed, and under 
 it the skin-tents, which I at once recognized as of a 
 Crow village. 
 
 I was again amongst my old friends, the Crows ! 
 men whose beautiful forms and native, gentlemanly 
 grace had not been deformed by squatting in canoes, 
 nor eyes bridled by scowling on the glistening sun 
 reflected on the water, or heads squeezed into wedges, 
 or lips stretched around blocks of wood. 
 
 As soon as we were dismounted, and in the midst 
 of the crowd around us, I was struck more forcibly 
 than ever with the monstrous and pitiable defor 
 mities of man which the peculiar necessities of life 
 often drive him to, as seen amongst the squatted, 
 paddling tribes of the Amazon, Vancouver, and the 
 Columbia coast and river. 
 
152 Crows in Salmon River Valley. 
 
 It was a pleasure that I cannot describe to find 
 myself again amongst mankind as Nature made 
 them, the Crows, whom I had long since thought I 
 had seen for the last time. 
 
 The Crows (as they are called by their neigh 
 bours), Belantsea, of whom I gave some account 
 in the first volume of this work, are probably the 
 most unbroken, unchanged part of the original stock 
 of North American Man. Their numbers, at the 
 time when I was amongst them, in 1832, were about 
 10,000, living on the head waters of the Yellow 
 Stone River and in the Rocky Mountains. 
 
 From their traditions, which are very distinct, 
 they formerly occupied the whole range of the 
 Rocky Mountains and the beautiful valleys on 
 each side, from the sources of the Saskatchewan 
 in the north, and as far south (their traditions say) 
 as the mountains continue : that would be to the 
 Straits of Panama. 
 
 They say that their people were a great nation 
 before the Flood, and that a few who reached the 
 summits of the mountains were saved when all the 
 tribes of the valleys were destroyed by the waters. 
 
 That they were the most ancient American stock, 
 and the unique, original American type, I believe ; 
 and that they were the original Toltecs and Aztecs, 
 who, history and traditions tell us, poured down 
 from the mountains of the north-west, founding the 
 cities of Mexico, Palenque, and Uxmal. 
 
Crows in Salmon River Valley. 153 
 
 My portraits of Crows, made in my first series of ' 
 voyages, in 1832, and exhibited in London, from 
 their striking resemblance to those on the sculp 
 tured stones of Mexico and Yucatan, excited sug 
 gestions to that effect by many of my friends ; and 
 the first of these, and the most enthusiastic, my 
 untiring and faithful friend, Captain Shippard, an 
 indefatigable reader amongst the ancient archives of 
 the British Museum ; and of my friend the Baron 
 de Humboldt, who told me also that the subject 
 was one of profound interest to science, and well 
 worthy of my further study. 
 
 These reiterated suggestions, added to my own 
 intelligence, have kept alive, for many years, my 
 anxiety on that subject, and undoubtedly were the 
 uncombatible arguments which determined me, 
 when hearing, at the Dalles, of a band of Crows 
 encamped in the Salmon River Valley, west of the 
 Rocky Mountains, to " make shift" (coute qui coute), 
 and with Caesar, to throw myself amongst them. 
 
 I have said that " we were there," and whatever 
 I found amongst them in customs and contour, and 
 traditions, as well as amongst other tribes that I 
 visited in more southern latitudes, between them 
 and the Straits of Panama, tending to establish the 
 belief above advanced, that they were the Toltecs 
 and Aztecs of Mexico and Yucatan, will be noticed 
 in a subsequent part of this work. 
 
 The Crow-village that we were in, consisting of 
 
154 The Chief, " Yellow Mocasin" 
 
 some forty or fifty skin tents, had crossed the 
 mountains on to the head waters of Salmon River, to 
 take and dry salmon, there being no salmon on the 
 east side of the Rocky Mountains. 
 
 The chief of the band, a sub-chief, called the 
 " Yellow Mocasin" was a very intelligent man, and 
 gave me a clear, and, no doubt, a true account of 
 the recent history of the tribe, as he had received 
 it from his father and grandfather. According to 
 this, the Crows were originally confined to the 
 mountains and their valleys, from which their 
 enemies of the plains could never dislodge them ; 
 but that since horses have made their appearance 
 in the plains, a great portion of their people have 
 descended into the prairies, where they have been 
 cut to pieces by the Sioux, the Blackfeet, and other 
 tribes, and their former great strength destroyed. 
 
 I was received with great kindness by these people> 
 and told by the chief that I should be welcome, and 
 that his young men should watch and guard my 
 horses. The incidents here, enough in themselves 
 for a small book, must be passed over, for there are 
 yet many adventures a-head of us. 
 
 One thing, however, cannot be passed by. Whilst 
 seated in the chief's lodge, where there were some 
 six or eight men besides the chief, and endeavour 
 ing, as the necessary preliminary in all first inter 
 views with Indians, to make the object of my visit 
 distinctly known, I opened the portfolio of cartoon 
 
" Yellow Mocasiris" Wigwam. 155 
 
 portraits, which all were examining with great 
 interest and astonishment, and on turning up the 
 fifth or sixth portrait, one of the party gave a 
 sudden piercing yelp, and sprang upon his feet and 
 commenced dancing in the most violent jumps and 
 starts, and vociferating, " Bi-eets-e-cure ! Bi-eets-e- 
 cure!" (the name of the young man), whose portrait 
 I had painted at the mouth of the Yellow Stone 
 twenty years before, and was now holding up. 
 
 The portrait was recognized by all, and on their 
 feet, and darting out of the wigwam, were three or 
 four of the party, and through the village to where 
 the women were drying fish, on the bank of the 
 river, and back, re-entered the chief's wigwam, and 
 with them, out of breath, and walking as if he was 
 coming to the gallows, entered Bi-eets-e-ctire (the 
 very sweet man). 
 
 I instantly recognized him, and rising up, he took 
 about half a minute to look me full in the eyes, 
 without moving a muscle or winking, when he 
 exclaimed, " how ! how /" (yes, yes), and shook me 
 heartily by the hand. I took up his portrait, and 
 showing it to him, got the interpreter to say to him 
 that I had "kept his face clean!" 
 
 The reader can more easily and more correctly 
 imagine the pleasurable excitement, and the curious 
 remarks amongst the party at this singular occur 
 rence, than I can explain them ; for, not knowing 
 their language, I was ignorant of much that passed, 
 myself. 
 
156 Crows in Salmon River Valley. 
 
 "One thing, I'm sua, Massa Catlin," suddenly 
 exclaimed Caesar, who had not before opened his 
 broad mouth, " I quite sua dat ar man knows you, 
 Massa!" 
 
 All eyes were now turned for a moment upon 
 Caesar, who was sitting a little back, and evidently 
 looked upon by most of the party as some great 
 chief, until the interpreter explained that he was my 
 servant 
 
 During this interlude, and which required some 
 little exchange of feelings and recollections between 
 the " very sweet man" and myself, I had shut the 
 portfolio, to begin again where we left off ; and pro 
 ceeding again with the portraits, after showing them 
 several of their enemies, the Sioux and Blackfeet, 
 Ba-da-ah-chon-du (the Jumper), one of the chiefs 
 of the Crows, whose portrait also was painted at 
 Yellow Stone twenty years before, turned up ! All 
 recognized him, and Bi-eets-e-cure told them that he 
 saw me when I was painting that picture twenty 
 years before. 
 
 Through the interpreter, I told them that more 
 than 1 00,000 white people had seen the chief's face, 
 and, as they could see, there was not a scratch upon 
 it ! The chief then arose upon his feet, and making 
 signs for me to rise, embraced me in his arms, and 
 each one of the party saluted me in the same affec 
 tionate manner. 
 
 See Ba-da-ah-chon-du (the Jumper, Plate No. 
 
Crows in Salmon River Valley. 157 
 
 13). His head-dress of war-eagles' quills his robe 
 the skin of a buffalo, with his battles painted on it, 
 his lance in his hand, his shield and quiver slung on 
 
 his back, his tobacco-sac suspended from his belt, 
 and his leggings fringed with scalp-locks. 
 
 In conversation which I had with Bi-eets-e-cure, 
 he informed me that the chief Ba-da-ah-chon-du, 
 
158 Crows in Salmon River Valley. 
 
 whose portrait we had just seen, was dead that he 
 died soon after I painted his portrait, and many of 
 his friends and relations believed that the painting 
 of the portrait was the cause of his death ; " But," 
 said he, " I told them they were very foolish that 
 I had no fears when mine was painted, and here I 
 am alive, after so many years ! " 
 
 I told them that no man of good sense could see 
 any way in which the painting could do them an 
 injury, and that amongst the white people we all 
 had our portraits made, and it did us no harm. 
 They all gave their assent in a " How, how, how!" 
 and the next day I slipped off the " skin," as they 
 called it, of two or three of them; and, amongst 
 them, and the first, 'that of the young chief whose 
 hospitality I was enjoying. Plate No. 14. 
 
 I painted him at his toilette, as he was letting 
 down his long hair and oiling it with bear's-grease, 
 which his wife was pouring into his hand from a 
 skin bottle ; and she, poor woman, from a custom 
 of the country, not to compete with her husband in 
 a feature so ornamental, was obliged to have her 
 hair cropped close to the head. 
 
 In the first volume of this work I have given a 
 more detailed account of this striking peculiarity 
 of the Crow tribe, in which there are many men who 
 trail two and three feet of their natural hair on the 
 ground as they walk. 
 
 Reader, our journey is yet long, and our halts 
 must be short. What else transpired during the 
 
A Crow at his Toilette. 159 
 
 ten days that I remained in the Crow-village must 
 await the appearance of a larger work which is in 
 progress. 
 
 14. 
 
 The day before I left, a report was brought, by 
 one of the Hudson's Bay Company's men, that a 
 party of Blackfeet their deadly enemies was 
 preparing to march upon them from the north. All, 
 
160 Salmon River Mountain. 
 
 of course, was excitement and confusion ; and they 
 were preparing to move into a defile in the moun 
 tains, where they could protect themselves if at 
 tacked ; and whatever was the result of this move 
 ment I never heard. 
 
 With a faithful guide, who knew the route, recom 
 mended by the chief, we started to cross the Salmon 
 River Mountain into the Snake River Valley a 
 pass difficult to traverse, and requiring the most 
 desperate resolution. Ravine after ravine, amidst 
 the most frowning and defiant rocks of all sizes, 
 which had tumbled down from the snow-capped 
 summits on either side of us. Our guide entered 
 us well into them, and, sleeping with us one night, 
 instructed us how to proceed, and left us to our fate, 
 returning to his village. 
 
 We had an ample supply of dried salmon for our 
 five or six days' march, which was to bring us to 
 Fort Hall, one of the Company's fur factories, near 
 the source of the Snake River. We might have re 
 turned to the Dalles by the same route by which 
 we had come, and escaped the terrible task we were 
 now performing, but for two reasons I had for not 
 doing it the first, that in all the travels of my life 
 I have had a repugnance to return by the same 
 route ; and the second, that I had an unconquerable 
 desire to cross this range of Palaeozoic rocks, and 
 to examine the strange confusion produced by a 
 mountain lifted by a rising mountain. 
 
 This mountain range, running from west to east, 
 
Salmon River Mountain. 161 
 
 traversing the Rocky Mountains, and becoming the 
 "Black Hills" on the Eastern side, is known to geo 
 logists to have been a mountain under the sea before 
 the continent of America arose, and to have been re- 
 lifted up at the intersection by the Rocky Mountains 
 rising underneath at a later date. How sublime ! 
 A stupendous mountain with its hidden treasures, 
 from the bottom of the sea, lifted up to the heavens 
 and crumbling to pieces, is tumbling into the valley 
 and ravines below ! And what a field for the 
 geologist to get at the deepest productions of the 
 earth's hidden material! 
 
 Gneiss and granites, from their deepest beds in the 
 earth, raised in stupendous mountain piles under the 
 sea, and, risen with a continent, have again been 
 shoved up by deeper beds of granite underneath, 
 until their sub-aqueous, cavern-formed limestones of 
 all colours of snow-white, of green, and blue, and 
 grey, and their associated felspathic rocks ana mas 
 sive blocks of felspar are turned out upon their 
 tops and tumbled down their sides. 
 
 What a field for geologists, and why. are they 
 not there ? 
 
 Amongst these immense and never-ending blocks 
 I was reading an instructive book, and making 
 notes, which Caesar could not understand ; he had 
 enough to do to take care of the horses, whilst I 
 was sometimes for hours out of his sight and hear 
 ing ; and coming back, and waking him and the 
 
 M 
 
1 62 Salmon River Mountain. 
 
 mules from their sleep, all I would hear was : 
 " Well, Massa Catlin, you bery strange man, dat's 
 all I got to say." He was getting sick on dried 
 salmon and no excitement ; and our poor animals 
 were all but starving to death, there being some 
 times, for miles together, not one solitary blade of 
 grass for them to crop. What a time to study 
 geology ! 
 
 We had a sort of a path a track to follow, which 
 we could keep to only with the greatest difficulty. 
 The tracks of horses shod convinced me that the 
 men of the trading houses were in the habit of 
 passing from one trading post to another by it, and 
 it was our only confidence that we should sooner 
 or later discover the valley of the Snake river. 
 
 This we did on the fifth day ; and even our poor 
 and jaded animals neighed and brayed when we 
 saw, through a ravine, the blue of the valley, and 
 the " Trots Buttes" three beautiful and stupendous 
 natural pyramids though blue in the distance, 
 standing in the centre of it. 
 
 Getting out, and upon the flank of the mountain, 
 green grass was in abundance and shady trees ; 
 and I spent several hours in revising and re-writing 
 my hasty notes on the rocks and the minerals we 
 had passed, whilst our poor animals were luxuriat 
 ing, and Caesar was sleeping. 
 
 At a great distance, and before us, where a forest 
 of shrubbery seemed evident, a smoke was seen 
 
Snake River Valley. 163 
 
 rising, which I decided was Fort Hall, to which we 
 were aiming, and minuting its bearing by my 
 pocket compass, we launched off into the (not 
 grass, but sand covered) valley towards it. 
 
 We started at noon, and hoped to reach it before 
 night The Trois Buttes, three conical hills of 
 granite, and of great height, standing in a group, 
 and at many miles distance, were on our right. 
 We travelled slow and night overtook us, and we 
 encamped, not in sand, but in cinders and pulverized 
 pumice, and without vegetation for our horses. 
 
 The valley, though beautiful to look into, like too 
 many things in this world, when seen at a distance, 
 is anything but beautiful when we get into it. The 
 surface is generally without grass and without 
 timber, or even bushes, excepting here and there 
 bunches of artemisia, and everywhere covered 
 with volcanic ashes and pumice, which are wafted 
 by the winds ; and all roads, and all tracks of living 
 beings before us are obliterated before we see them. 
 
 No living animal or fowl is seen, to afford us 
 food ; not even a rabbit or a prairie hen > and the 
 tail of our last dried salmon for us, and nothing for 
 our poor horses, put us to sleep upon this barren 
 and desolate waste. 
 
 Our course was continued in the morning, and 
 about noon we came upon the bank of a small 
 stream covered with luxuriant grass ; and here we 
 were obliged to stop, for our poor animals would 
 
164 Emigrants to Oregon. 
 
 have gone no further ; and who could have had the 
 heart to push them beyond it ? But we had 
 nothing to eat, and our only chance to get anything 
 was to lay down and quietly wait till our animals 
 were satisfied, and able to carry us, and then move 
 on, which we did ; and a little before sundown we 
 approached the patch of timber we had seen, and 
 soon after (not Fort Hall, but) the encampment of 
 some twenty or twenty-five emigrants from the 
 States, who had crossed the Rocky Mountains at 
 the South pass, and were on their way to Oregon. 
 
 When we rode up to their tents, or wagons and 
 carts (for these were mostly used for tents), they 
 seemed as much surprised as ourselves ; and if not 
 the first sentence that I pronounced (certainly the 
 second was), "Have you got anything to eat?" 
 " Well, neighbour," (said one of them, a middle- 
 aged man, who stepped forward as spokesman), 
 " we are pretty hard up ; our flour has long since 
 gin out ; but we have a plenty of hard biscuits, and 
 some good salt pork." " Don't say any more, my 
 dear sir," said I, "that's enough; we are just 
 starving to death." 
 
 " Oh, dear ME," said his tidy and red-cheeked 
 wife, as she jumped down from one of the wagons 
 and came up to my stirrup, her face beaming with 
 sympathy, " Dear sir, if you had come a little 
 sooner ! We had a nice pot of boiled beans and 
 pork to-day, and I don't know Sally ! my dear, 
 
Emigrants to Oregon. 165 
 
 look into the iron pot and see if any of them beans 
 is left!" Sally, without running to look, came to 
 her mother, ejaculating, with a sort of a hiccup, 
 " Oh yes, mother ; I know there is a heap left ; we 
 didn't eat a half on 'em ; and there's a large lot o' 
 pork, too !" 
 
 Here my young readers must again imagine (to 
 save space), how comfortable Caesar and I were 
 made when there was a pot of boiled pork and 
 beans all ready, and a plenty of hard biscuits, and 
 good grazing for our horses ; and in the midst of 
 twenty-five intelligent persons, old and young, 
 male and female, with all their traps and accoutre 
 ments, from the State of New Hampshire, on their 
 way to a new and unseen home in Oregon. 
 
 What Caesar and I first did was to discuss the 
 pork and beans, and how we did it need not be 
 described ; and other matters discussed in the 
 course of the evening must be brief, if noticed at 
 all in this place. 
 
 Thirty-six days before, this party had started 
 from Fort Leavenworth, on the Missouri river, in 
 eight wagons and two carts, drawn by oxen, and 
 using no horses. Their wagons, which supported 
 hoops covered with sail-cloth, were all made new 
 and of great strength, expressly for the purpose. 
 Their oxen were shod like horses, to preserve their 
 feet, and grain was transported for their food, to 
 be used in places where the grass should give out. 
 
1 66 Horrors of Emigration. 
 
 In rising from the prairies on to the arid plains of 
 the mountain regions, the wood of their wagon- 
 wheels shrunk, and the tires were loosened ; and 
 without smithing utensils their misfortunes became 
 irreparable, and all but fatal to their existence. 
 Wheels that went to pieces were left by the way 
 side ; wheels were withed and mended as well as 
 ingenuity could devise, and changed from axle to 
 axle until wagons were left, and at length oxen 
 after oxen, as they died, or fell and gave out from 
 fatigue which they could no longer endure. And 
 when we met them, but three of their wagons re 
 mained, and less than half of their oxen were living. 
 
 Substantial food they had transported enough of; 
 and their little children, as well as the rest of the 
 party, were in good health ; and all, yet in unbroken 
 spirits, approaching, with a prospect, their new 
 homes. 
 
 They had met that day a half-caste interpreter 
 from Fort Hall, to which they had been steering, 
 from whom they learned that the trading post was 
 yet twenty miles in advance, which showed me how 
 far Caesar and I had mistaken our course in enter 
 ing the valley. 
 
 These people told me that, since they entered 
 Sweet River Valley in the mountains, they had 
 passed over one hundred and fifty carcasses of oxen 
 lying by the wayside ; some partly devoured by 
 wolves and bears, and others not in the least de- 
 
Horrors of Emigration. 167 
 
 cayed, though they had been dead for weeks and', 
 perhaps, months. Such was the unaccountable and 
 almost incredible pilgrimage, in those days, from 
 the States to the " promised land " on the Colum 
 bian coast. 
 
 This party, where we found them, had left the 
 travelled road for several miles to get grass for their 
 cattle, and they assured me that, for fifty miles which 
 they had last passed, there was not a blade of grass 
 left for poor oxen or horses to live upon ; and, by the 
 interpreter they had met, they were informed that, 
 such had been the crowd of emigrants over the moun 
 tains, that, for the distance of ten miles around Fort 
 Hall, every particle of grass had been exhausted, 
 and the people in the fort, as well as their horses, 
 were in a state of almost absolute starvation, and 
 had notified all emigrants and travellers to keep at 
 a distance from them, where they and their animals 
 might possibly find something to subsist upon. 
 
 This little caravan started the next morning on 
 their route, in good spirits, leaving Fort Hall on 
 their right, and steering for Fort Boissey, another 
 trading house, one hundred and forty miles further 
 west, towards their destined home. 
 
 Caesar and I " saddled up," and, to their great de 
 light, started in company with them, our destination 
 being the same. We were soon on the emigrants' 
 road, and both they and we in absolute apprehen 
 sions of losing our animals conveying us, the poor 
 
1 68 A Snake Indian. 
 
 creatures getting but here and there a bite of short 
 grass that had been twenty times bitten by other 
 animals before them. 
 
 The stench exhaling from the carcasses of oxen 
 and horses that we passed on the wayside became 
 sickening and almost unendurable. I did not count, 
 but, I believe, that, in the two days, we passed more 
 than fifty ; and, in one of these instances, two of 
 these poor creatures lay dead in the yoke together ! 
 Such was the lamentable fate of these poor and 
 faithful beasts ; after dragging man and his effects 
 over the vast prairies and arid mountains, a distance 
 of 1 400 miles, and not even getting their food for it. 
 
 On the second day, the interpreter of whom I 
 have spoken overtook us, galloping on a very fine 
 horse a half-caste Snake (or Shoshonee) Indian 
 a rakish looking young man, speaking French, 
 English, and several Indian languages ; dressed out 
 in all the flaming colours that broadcloths and rib 
 bons could give him, and carrying in his hand a 
 first-rate rifle. 
 
 I at once suspected, and soon learned from him, 
 that his business was that of galloping about 
 amongst the lost, the straggling, and suffering 
 parties that were traversing the country at that time, 
 guiding them and interpreting for them, and de 
 pending upon their generosity for compensation. 
 
 Learning from him that one day's ride would 
 bring us to the great, or " smoky " falls of the 
 
Snake River Valley. 169 
 
 Snake River, the vicinity of which he told me was< 
 his native place, and with the whole localities of 
 which he was familiar; I made an arrangement with 
 him to conduct me there the next day, which he did, 
 we having procured several days' provisions of the 
 little, and as yet, stout-hearted colony ; and taken 
 leave of them, at all events, for a few days. 
 
 They travelled so slow that we could easily cal 
 culate on spending a day or two about the falls, and 
 overtake them before they reached the settlements. 
 Our ride to the falls took us the most of two days, 
 instead of "one," over a sandy and barren waste; 
 but, with a guide who knew the way and the modes 
 of the country, we felt secure, and rode it with tole 
 rable ease. 
 
 The great, or "smoking," falls of the Snake River 
 may well be classed amongst the greatest natural 
 curiosities of the wo rid. Not that they resemble, in 
 character or magnitude, the chtlte of Niagara ; but, 
 from a character peculiarly their own, of an awful 
 grandeur which strikes the beholder in quite a dif 
 ferent way. 
 
 For a hundred or two miles around, in different 
 directions, the country is chiefly as barren a waste 
 as the deserts of Arabia. The earth is everywhere 
 almost entirely destitute of vegetation, and even of 
 birds and insects, and covered with a light and 
 moving sand or dust, composed of pulverized 
 pumice and volcanic ashes. 
 
170 The Smoky Falls 
 
 In the midst of this vast plain of desolation we 
 discovered, at many miles distance not a pyramid 
 of spray rising, forming and piling away a mass of 
 clouds in the heavens, as we see above the fall of 
 Niagara but a chain, of several miles in length, of 
 jets of spray, rising apparently out of the level ground, 
 not unlike the smoke of the camp-fires of an army 
 of men ; and, approaching it, we can scarcely realize 
 its origin until we are quite upon the brink, and the 
 awful abyss, with all its grandeur, is beneath us ; 
 and, even then, it is but here and there that we can 
 approach near enough on the sand-covered brink, 
 with no tree or rock to cling to, to catch more than 
 a partial view of the scene before us. 
 
 Instead of looking upwards, as we usually do, 
 to see a waterfall, or of seeing it leaping off from 
 the rock on which we are standing, all is here below 
 us, at the bottom of an awful chasm, and the very 
 surface of each successive fall is several hundred feet 
 below us. 
 
 The term " Great Fall," and which has been 
 known for more than half a century, is applied to a 
 succession of leaps which the river makes within the 
 space of three or four miles, dashing and foaming 
 from side to side, in a zig-zag channel cut in the 
 solid rock, varying from six hundred to eight hun 
 dred feet in width, with precipitous and, much of 
 the way, perpendicular walls of basaltic rocks 
 on either side, from one hundred and fifty to two 
 
of Snake River. 1 7 1 
 
 hundred feet in height, and with here and there an , 
 avalanche or graded way, where, with great fatigue, 
 and with somewhat of danger, we can descend to 
 the bottom of the chasm, and, at the water's edge, 
 behold with wonder and enchantment the spirit of 
 these wild scenes. 
 
 Owing to the zig-zag shape of the channel, the 
 views from these points are exceedingly limited ; 
 but the frantic rage (or play, for it seems to par 
 take of both) of the leaping, bounding, and foaming 
 torrent, dashing alternately from wall to wall, with 
 the overhanging rocks on either side, furnish for 
 the artist's pencil scenes of spirit and wildness which 
 I never have been able to see anywhere else, and 
 which no imagination could create. 
 
 Comparatively but a small portion of the cataract 
 can be viewed from below, owing to the few chances 
 there are of descending to the river's bed ; and 
 where we descend we are obliged to retrace our 
 steps, as we can neither follow the shore nor cross 
 the stream. 
 
 From the top of the wall, with great fatigue, and 
 with the guidance of our good cicerone, I was 
 enabled to see the whole extent of this wonderful 
 scene. Owing to the depth of the chasm, when 
 looking down from the top of the wall, the water 
 seemed to be running nearly on a level, though its 
 tremendous leaps and bounds, as well as the corre 
 sponding decline of the brink of the opposite wall, 
 
172 Snake River Falls. 
 
 gave us something like an estimate of descent in 
 the various chtites. 
 
 The trappean bed through which this wonderful 
 gorge is cut slopes to the west, and as the heights 
 of the walls on either side are generally about the 
 same, the gradual descent of the summit surface, 
 for the distance of four miles, would indicate a near 
 estimate of the descent of the river in that distance ; 
 and judging as well as I could from these premises, 
 without the use of instruments, I was led to believe 
 that the whole descent in four miles was something 
 like three or four hundred feet. 
 
 I have seen some statements, recently made pub 
 lic, of travellers who reported the great perpendicular 
 fall of Snake River to be 198 feet ; "thirty-five feet 
 higher than the fall of Niagara, and the volume 
 of water quite equal to that of Niagara River." 
 This statement is certainly quite Quixotic, and de 
 mands contradiction, if it were only for the benefit 
 of school-boys' education. 
 
 The Snake River has its extreme source but 
 about 150 miles above these falls, and has no large 
 tributaries above the falls to swell it ; therefore the 
 statement that this volume of water is equal to that 
 of the Niagara is necessarily incorrect. There is one 
 point of view from which, looking up the stream, 
 four or five successive leaps are seen in the dis 
 tance, so ranged one above the other as to appear 
 at the first glance to be one entire fall of great 
 
Snake River Falls. 173 
 
 height ; but from other points these are seen to be 
 separated by intervening distances of a quarter or 
 half a mile. 
 
 In all the cataracts which compose what is called 
 the great or " smoking" fall on the Snake River, 
 however terrific and picturesque they are, there is 
 not amongst them, I should think, a perpendicular 
 leap of more than forty feet. And the Columbia 
 River at the Dalles, 400 miles below, after uniting 
 the Snake and Salmon Rivers with the north fork 
 of the Columbia, contains, from the nearest estimate 
 I could make, but about one-fifth of the volume of 
 water that passes over the fall of Niagara ; and the 
 Snake River, at the great (or smoking) falls, probably 
 not more than one-twelfth or one-fifteenth part. 
 
 Few travellers who visit the fall of Niagara are 
 aware of its real magnitude ; no subject on earth 
 more completely deceives the human eye. In 1830, 
 I spent six months at the falls, making a survey 
 and estimates for a model ; and even then I was in 
 ignorance of its real magnitude until I went to 
 Black Rock Ferry, twenty-five miles abpve, where 
 I ascertained by measurement the width of the river 
 to be seven-eighths of a mile, and its average depth 
 eighteen feet, and its surface movement four and a- 
 half miles per hour; which, as the river at that 
 place glides over the smooth surface of a level rock, 
 would give a mesne movement of four miles per 
 hour. Such a moving mass of water, at the rate of 
 
174 Snake Indians. 
 
 a man under a fast walk, is easily contemplated ; 
 and with pen, ink, and paper, one can soon bring 
 into cubic feet and avoirdupois weight, the quantity 
 of water per minute, per hour (and per annum, if 
 figures can define it), which pours through the 
 rapids at Niagara, and leaps down a precipice of 
 163 feet. 
 
 Such is the might, and such the magnitude of 
 Niagara, which, amongst waterfalls (like this little 
 book amongst Indian books), still will stand with 
 out a rival on the globe ! 
 
 After having examined all the features of the 
 great falls, and made my sketches, we laid our 
 course for Fort Boissey, following the course of the 
 river for many miles, which still ran through a deep 
 and rocky canon, and from the summits of its banks 
 we had often views of its deep-bedded and foaming 
 waters, still dashing amongst rocks and down preci 
 pices, with a continuous wall on either side, of 
 several hundred feet in height. 
 
 Near a ford which we were to make, we met an 
 encampment of Shoshonee (or Snake) Indians, 
 about thirty in number, and being all men, and 
 without women, I supposed them to be a war party ; 
 but our guide said no that they had no enemies 
 near them to fight, and had been down to Fort 
 Boissey to trade. He knew them all was amongst 
 his relatives, and introduced us without any dificulty. 
 
 I had previously seen but a specimen or two of 
 
Snake Indians. 175 
 
 this tribe, and when meeting face to face this fine 
 and elegant troupe of young men, I said to myself, 
 "These are Crows!" The impression was instant 
 and complete. I then said to our interpreter that 
 these people resembled the Crows, whom I had just 
 been amongst. " Well they may," said he. " The 
 Crows are our friends and relations, and we know 
 them all." I said, " then you are Toltecs." This 
 I could not make him understand, as he never had 
 heard of Mexico or Yucatan ; but as the Snake 
 Indians occupy a great portion of the mountains 
 lying between the Crows and Mexico, it made a 
 strong impression on my retina, as regards the 
 origin of the Toltec and Aztec tribes, which history 
 says poured down from the mountains of the North- 
 West into Mexico and Yucatan. 
 
 These handsome young men had been playing a 
 desperate game of ball at Fort Boissey, and having 
 their ball-sticks and balls with them, were proud to 
 show us what they could do with them. The ground 
 was not good, but from the beautiful catches and 
 throws which they made, I consider them quite a 
 match for the Sioux or the Choctaws, and their 
 rackets are formed much in the same way. 
 
 We spent a day very pleasantly with them, Caesar 
 showing the pictures, and I painting three -of the 
 ^young men, their names Yau-natt-shaw-pix, Naw- 
 en-saw-pic (he who runs up hill), On-da-wout (smooth 
 bark). 
 
176 Snake Indians. 
 
 All objected to being painted until the portrait 
 of the Crow chief, Ba~da-ah-chon~du, was shown 
 them ; they all recognized him, and the gallant 
 little fellow, " Yau-nau-sJiaw~pix" then sprang upon 
 his feet, and throwing a beautiful Crow robe over 
 his shoulder exclaimed, " There ! you may paint 
 me / am not afraid." 
 
 The rest then all agreed to be painted, but I 
 selected the three named above, and got the rest to 
 wait until I should come again. 
 
 We parted, but not without regret, from our 
 friends the Snakes (not /fo///^snakes), who went 
 on their way to their village, near the base of the 
 mountains, and commenced our winding and dan 
 gerous descent of some hundreds of feet, to the 
 river shore, where we were to make the ford. There 
 was no other place for a great many miles, where it 
 was possible to descend to the bed of the river, or 
 to ford it if we could get to it. 
 
 I had engaged our gay and dashing chevalier to 
 lead us safely across the river, and to put us fairly 
 in the track, for the frontier settlements, instead of 
 Fort Boissey, which I felt a confidence in reaching 
 from that place, without a guide, there being a well- 
 beaten road to follow. 
 
 Down at the bottom of the terrible gulf, the 
 river, with its transparent waters, was smoothly, but 
 rapidly gliding along before us. The next thing was 
 to cross it, and the thing next to that, to reach the 
 
Fording Snake River. 177 
 
 opposite shore above, a huge point of perpendicula'r 
 rocks projecting into the stream, and below which 
 our interpreter said there was no chance of getting 
 out. 
 
 The river here was some eighty or a hundred 
 yards in width, with a pebbly bottom ; and from the 
 various contortions of the surface of the water, evi 
 dently of unequal bottom, and full of bars. Our 
 guide explained to us, as well as he could, the cir 
 cuitous route we were to take, after we should get 
 into the stream, not to fall into the troughs and 
 currents ; and to show us the course, dashed in and 
 led the way. 
 
 We stood and watched him closely, and seeing 
 the water nowhere higher than his stirrups, our ap 
 prehensions were all at an end. He mounted about 
 half way up the opposite cliff, and dismounting 
 from his horse, sat overlooking our movements. We 
 had but one fear, and that was for our pack-mule, 
 which was a little creature ; and Caesar, a tremen 
 dous tall fellow, said, " Massa Catlin, I radder wade, 
 and den I take 'Nelly' moa safe." 
 
 " Well," said I, " Caesar, do so give me the 
 portfolio (which I slung on my own back), and I 
 will lead your mule when I see you and Nelly safe 
 over." 
 
 He handed me his pantaloons, and was on his 
 way, his rifle in his left hand and his donkey in the 
 other, whilst I was sitting on my horse and watch- 
 
 N 
 
178 Ccesar drowning! 
 
 ing the result. When about the middle of the 
 river, I observed they were at a halt ; the mule was 
 pulling one way and he the other. Instead of the 
 laso around its neck, he was leading it by a halter 
 with a rawhide headstall, somewhat in the shape of 
 a bridle. After mutual and stubborn pulling in this 
 way for a minute or so, I saw Caesar, who had been 
 standing up to his navel in the water, fall suddenly 
 back, and quite under the surface of the water ! 
 The bridle had slipped from the animal's head, and 
 they at once took different directions. 
 
 Caesar, it seems, falling backwards, was thrown 
 from the shoal water into a deeper channel, where 
 the current was stronger, and off from his feet, he 
 was rapidly drifting away, his head and his hands 
 now and then above the water ! 
 
 I instantly threw my portfolio and my rifle to 
 the ground, and dropping the rein of the mule I 
 was holding, I plied my spurless heels with all the 
 muscle that was in me, to the sides of my slow and 
 stubborn " Rozenante " and thought, " Oh (not my 
 ' kingdom,' but) my ' collection,' for a horse ! for 
 1 Charley' for my ' Ancient Charley!"' But I be 
 lieve my convulsive kicks and blows frightened my 
 poor beast into untried leaps and bounds, which 
 soon passed me over the bar of shoal water into 
 swimming depth, where Caesar, ahead of me, and 
 not able to swim, was paddling with his hands, and 
 keeping his head, most of the time, above the water. 
 
Ccesar saved. 179 
 
 He saw me coming, and I hailed him "Hold 
 on, my brave fellow you are safe." 
 
 " Well, de Lord o' massie ! " I heard him ex 
 claim. 
 
 My horse was all below the water but its head 
 and tail, and I was down to my armpits. There 
 was but one way and as I got near to him I said 
 " Now mind ! as I pass by you, don't touch me, 
 but seize my horse by the tail, and hold on !" 
 
 I passed him, and looking back over my right 
 shoulder and seeing nothing of him, I instantly 
 exclaimed, u Oh, mercy ! he's lost ! " when added 
 to that, without a period or a comma 
 
 " Dat ar berry good, now I guess I go ashoa !" 
 And looking over my left shoulder, with an aston 
 ishment that nearly threw me from my saddle, I 
 saw he had both hands clenched to the tail of his 
 own riding mule, which, it seems, had plunged in 
 when I threw down its bridle, and without my ob 
 serving it, had swam by my side, and a little back 
 of me, to the rescue of poor Caesar, who it was now 
 pulling to the shore ! I reined my horse towards 
 the shore, and Caesar, holding on, was gliding along 
 by the side of me 
 
 " Well, Massa Catlin, dis ar beat all ; I no feas 
 now!" 
 
 Our horses' feet were now getting hold on the 
 bottom, and at that moment came down the shore 
 at full gallop, and dashing through the water, our 
 
1 80 Safe across. 
 
 faithful guide, who, thoughtless of any accident, had 
 placed himself too far from us sooner to lend a 
 helping hand. 
 
 We were all upon the beach, and safe, and our 
 little pack-mule, with all our baggage soaked, had 
 swam to the same shore from which it started, but 
 half a mile below, and was standing in a nook of 
 rocks, from which it did not know how to escape. 
 
 Our demi-" Snake " dashed into the river to re 
 cover it, and I hailed him pointing to my rifle and 
 portfolio, left on the beach. He soon had them 
 strapped on his back, and the donkey in his hand ; 
 and, with little difficulty and without fear or danger, 
 was soon with us. 
 
 " Now," said I, " Caesar, we are all saved, and 
 there is but one thing that I see missing, that is the 
 old minie." 
 
 Caesar, whatever might have been his education, 
 or want of education, was a very moral and a reli 
 gious man a Catholic ; and in all my travels with 
 him, under the hundreds of instantaneous excite 
 ments and vexations which we had met together, I 
 never heard him use a profane or an indecent word ; 
 but his sudden exclamations were, "De Lord o' 
 massie ! Oh, de goodness me ! My soul alive ! " &c ; 
 and on this occasion, such was his attach-ment to 
 the minie rifle, "Well, as I am a libbin being, I 
 guess, Massa Catlin, dat ar gun is neber seen no 
 moa ! I no recollection ; but wen I slip in de deep 
 
Snake River Canon. 181 
 
 water, I guess de minny has slip from my hands 
 widout my know it ; I berry sorry." 
 
 The fact luckily was, that the eyes of our guide 
 had been upon it when it slipped from Caesar's hand, 
 and, marking the place where it sank, he was now 
 wading his horse to the spot, and with his eagle eye 
 was scanning the bottom through the clear water, 
 and, after wading and then swimming awhile, he gave 
 a piercing yell and a wave of his hand, signifying 
 that he had discovered it. He instantly rose, with 
 his feet upon his horse's back, and making a plunge 
 headforemost, brought it up ; and then, not swim 
 ming for his horse, made his horse swim to him, for 
 he had a long laso of raw hide of ten yards in 
 length, fastened around its neck, and its other end 
 in his hand. 
 
 "Well, now, dat ar de mose wondeful man I 
 eber saw yet ! I neber see de like afoa ! " 
 
 There is no sunshine in the deep and gloomy 
 canon of this part of the river ; and rising the 
 avalanching cliff, and fairly on its top and in the 
 sun, our soaking packs were spread out to dry. We 
 all took a lunch and a sleep, and our animals found 
 a little grass to regale upon. 
 
 Our guide gave us instructions for the ride that 
 Caesar and I were to make alone ; and, putting into 
 his bullet-pouch what he acknowledged as a liberal 
 compensation for his services, he galloped off, in 
 tending to overtake his party of Snake warriors 
 during the day. 
 
1 82 Selling our Horses. 
 
 In our course, after riding a mile or two, I halted, 
 and said to Caesar, " Have you got your rifle dry 
 and in order?" 
 
 "Yes, massa ; and loaded." 
 
 " Then," said I, pointing to a bunch of wild sage 
 at a little distance, " go and fetch that rabbit ; 
 it is a very large one, and has set down behind 
 those weeds. Be careful, and don't touch anything 
 but its head." 
 
 " Yes, Massa ; you hold de mule." 
 
 This rabbit, the first fresh meat we had had for a 
 long time, came in admirably well with our salt 
 pork, and was the first creature of the kind that we 
 had seen since we left the coast of the Pacific. 
 
 Six or eight days of hard work, and fording the 
 Snake River at two different places on our way 
 (but why should I stop to narrate more particularly 
 here ?) brought us to the border settlements near 
 Fort Walla Walla. I had then a horse and two 
 mules to dispose of an affair that, as well as buy 
 ing, I have always approached with a displeasure ; 
 for, until now, in all my travels, when I have wanted 
 to buy horses, I have been " a little too late ; there 
 were a plenty here for sale a few days since, but the 
 last of them have been bought up and taken away." 
 And, when wishing to sell, "They would have 
 brought you a good price a little back, sir ; but so 
 many have been brought in lately, that they are a 
 mere drug now. You may be able to give them 
 
A Good Bargain. 183 
 
 away, but I am not sure that you will even get a 
 thankie for that." 
 
 However, in this instance, I was not long in look 
 ing up Thompson, the man of whom I bought the 
 animals for my campaign to the Salmon River 
 Valley. I said to him, "What will you give ? they 
 are all in tolerable trim, and as valuable as when I 
 bought them." I expected him to name about 
 half the price I had given him for them, and I 
 was quite ready to have taken it. 
 
 " Well, I know the animals, and I don't care to 
 give you the same that you gin me for them." 
 
 "Agreed," said I ; and, having the money in his 
 pocket, the affair was soon ended. I said, "Thomp 
 son, you are a very prompt dealer, and I like to 
 deal with such men." 
 
 " Well," said he, " I'm glad you are satisfied, sir. 
 You see, sir, there's just now sich a crowden into 
 the diggins, that they've taken up the last crittur ; 
 and, notwithstandin' that, horses is about at a stand 
 still, but mules has riz." 
 
 He got about double the price for his " critturs " 
 an hour afterwards. They went to the "diggins/" 
 and Caesar and I steamed from Portland to Cali 
 fornia. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 CALIFORNIA. 
 
 V HE reader must not think that because 
 we were again in California, we were at 
 home, and our Indian peregrinations 
 finished. In California we were on the 
 wrong side of the mountains ; and, as I hinted in a 
 former chapter, that though a straggling Apachee 
 was once in a while seen there, better specimens of 
 that interesting tribe would probably be seen on our 
 return. 
 
 The Apachee Indians, at this time probably the 
 most powerful and most hostile tribe in America, 
 hunt over and claim a vast extent of country within 
 the Mexican lines, through the province of New 
 Mexico, and extending northward nearly to the 
 Great Salt Lake, and westward quite to the Pacific 
 Ocean, embracing the silver mines of Sonora, and, 
 until quite lately, the gold mines of California. 
 At this last point continued struggles, with much 
 
Apachee Indians. 185 
 
 bloodshed, have resulted from the claims of white < 
 people to the gold mines on the Sacramento River, 
 and in and east of the Sierra Nevada. These 
 Indians, met by the California miners, are known 
 by various names, and so the Indians from San 
 Francisco to St. Diego, and the peninsula of Lower 
 California, though, they are but bands of the great 
 family of Apachees, speaking dialects of the 
 Apachee language. 
 
 The aggregate of this great tribe, when counted 
 altogether, is something like 30,000 ; and the tra 
 veller who only meets a few of their border bands, 
 or the gold-digger who sees only those bands on 
 whose rights he is trespassing, gets but a partial 
 knowledge of their real numbers, or of their actual 
 strength. 
 
 I learned from one of their chiefs, the " Spanish 
 Spur," that they could muster 8000 men, well 
 mounted, and equipped in the same manner as a 
 war party of 300, which I saw him review. This 
 gallant fellow had gained his laurels in his battles 
 with the Mexican troops on the Mexican frontier ; 
 and his name, from a pair of huge spurs which he 
 often wore as trophies, taken from the heels of 
 a Spanish officer whom he had killed in single 
 combat. 
 
 The greater portion of this tribe are strictly 
 migratory, changing the sites of their villages 
 several times in the course of the year. And to 
 
1 86 Apachee Indians. 
 
 reach the village of this chief's band, at present 
 some thirty miles north of the Ghila, the voyagcur 
 should cross the Rocky Mountains from Santa Fe, 
 taking the "Pony Express" route, or start, as 
 Caesar and I did, from Santa Diego, on the Pacific 
 Coast, with a strong mule under him, and a light 
 mule to carry his packs, and ride to La Paz, on the 
 Rio Colorado, and thence to the great village of 
 the Ghila Apachees north bank of the Ghila, some 
 sixty or eighty miles from La Paz, and thence cross 
 the mountains to Santa Fe. 
 
 The Apachees, like the Snakes, are a part of the 
 Great Crow or Toltec family. As with the Snakes, 
 from a wandering specimen or two I was not struck ; 
 but looking about me in the centre of the tribe, I 
 was instantly impressed with the conviction of the 
 relationship, and unity of type which I was regularly 
 tracing from the Belantsea (or Crow) to the moun 
 tains of Mexico. 
 
 Like the Crows, their tradition is, that " their 
 tribe is the father of all the existing races that 
 seven persons only were saved from the Deluge by 
 ascending a high mountain, and that these seven 
 multiplied and filled again the valleys with popula 
 tions ; and that those who built their villages in the 
 valleys were very foolish, for there came a great 
 rain, which filled the valleys with water, and they 
 were again swept off." 
 
 The Apachees in Mexico, being mostly in the 
 
Making Flint Arrow-Heads. 187 
 
 vicinity of the Catholic missions, have made some 
 progress in civilization, and are clad in pontchos, 
 in leggings and tuniques of cotton-stuffs or of bark, 
 and broad-brimmed hats of grass, of Spanish manu 
 facture. In the province of New Mexico, and the 
 vicinity of the Ghila, and the mountains of the 
 North-East, they are dressed in skins, when dressed 
 at all, and in their costumes and weapons bear a 
 strong resemblance to the Comanches. 
 
 Their manufacture of flint arrow and spear heads, 
 as well as their bows of bone and sinew, are equal, 
 if not superior, to the manufactures of any of the 
 tribes existing ; and their use of the bow from their 
 horses' backs whilst running at full speed, may vie 
 with the archery of the Sioux or Shyennes, or any 
 of the tribes east of the Rocky Mountains. 
 
 Like most of the tribes west of, and in the Rocky 
 Mountains, they manufacture the blades of their 
 spears and points for their arrows, of flints, and also 
 of obsidian, which is scattered over those volcanic 
 regions west of the mountains ; and, like the other 
 tribes, they guard as a profound secret the mode 
 by which the flints and obsidian are broken into the 
 shapes they require. 
 
 Their mode is very simple, and evidently the only 
 mode by which those peculiar shapes and delicacy 
 of fracture can possibly be produced ; for civilized 
 artizans have tried in various parts of the world, 
 and with the best of tools, without success in copy 
 ing them. 
 
1 88 Making Flint Arrow-Heads. 
 
 Every tribe has its factory, in which these arrow 
 heads are made, and in those, only certain adepts 
 are able or allowed to make them, for the use of 
 the tribe. Erratic boulders of flint are collected 
 (and sometimes brought an immense distance), and 
 broken with a sort of sledge-hammer made of a 
 rounded pebble of horn-stone, set in a twisted withe, 
 holding the stone, and forming a handle. 
 
 The flint, at the indiscriminate blows of the 
 sledge, is broken into a hundred pieces, and such 
 flakes selected as, from the angles of their fracture 
 and thickness, will answer as the basis of an arrow 
 head ; and in the hands of the artizan they are 
 shaped into the beautiful forms and proportions 
 which they desire, and which are to be seen in most 
 of our museums. 
 
 The master workman, seated on the ground, lays 
 one of these flakes on the palm of his left hand, 
 holding it firmly down with two or more fingers of 
 the same hand, and with his right hand, between 
 the thumb and two fore-fingers, places his chisel (or 
 punch) on the point that is to be broken off ; and a 
 co-operator (a striker) sitting in front of him, with 
 a mallet of very hard wood, strikes the chisel (or 
 punch) on the upper end, flaking the flint off on the 
 under side, below each projecting point that is 
 struck. The flint is then turned and chipped in the 
 same manner from the opposite site ; and so turned 
 and chipped until the required shape and dimensions 
 
Flint Arrow- Heads. 189 
 
 are obtained, all the fractures being made on the 
 palm of the hand. 
 
 In selecting a flake for the arrow-head, a nice 
 judgment must be used, or the attempt will fail : a 
 flake with two opposite parallel, or nearly parallel, 
 planes is found, and of the thickness required for the 
 centre of the arrow-point. The first chipping reaches 
 near to the centre of these planes, but without quite 
 breaking it away, and each chipping is shorter and 
 shorter, until the shape and the edge of the arrow 
 head are formed. 
 
 The yielding elasticity of the palm of the hand 
 enables the chip to come off without breaking the 
 body of the flint, which would be the case, if they 
 were broken on a hard substance. These people 
 have no metallic instruments to work with, and the 
 instrument (punch) which they use I was told was 
 a piece of bone ; but on examining it, I found it to 
 be a substance much harder, made of the tooth 
 (incisor) of the sperm-whale, or sea lion, which are 
 often stranded on the coast of the Pacific. This 
 punch is about six or seven inches in length, and one 
 inch in diameter, with one rounded side 'and two 
 plane sides ; therefore presenting one acute and two 
 obtuse angles, to suit the points to be broken. 
 
 This operation is very curious, both the holder 
 and the striker singing, and the strokes of the mallet 
 given exactly in time with the music, and with a 
 sharp and rebounding blow, in which, the Indians 
 
1 90 Apachees. 
 
 tell us, is the great medicine (or mystery) of the ope 
 ration. 
 
 The bows also of this tribe, as well as the arrow 
 heads, are made with great skill, either of wood, and 
 covered on the back with sinew or of bone, said to be 
 brought from the sea-coast, and probably from the 
 sperm-whale. These weapons, much like those of 
 the Sioux and Comanches, for use on horseback, 
 are short, for convenience of handling, and of great 
 power, generally of two feet and a half in length, 
 and their mode of using them in war and the chase 
 is not surpassed by any Indians on the continent. 
 
 In Plate No. I4*are copies of three of my por 
 traits made in their great village (a), the chief, 
 "Spanish Spur" wrapped in a beautiful buffalo-robe, 
 with his battles painted on it ; (b). Nah-quot-se-o 
 ("the Surrounder") ; (c). Nic-war-ra ("the Horse- 
 catcher"), two distinguished warriors, in war cos 
 tume and war-paint, armed, and ready for battle. 
 
 We remained several days in this village, and 
 found abundance of curious customs and things for 
 our amusement ; and on the day before we left we 
 had the luck to witness an excitement of curious 
 interest, and which might, with propriety, be called 
 " Tir-national." 
 
 Much like the Sioux and Comanches, this tribe 
 are all mounted, and generally on good and fleet 
 horses, and with their simple bows and arrows, from 
 their horses' backs, while at full speed, they slay 
 
" Tir-National" 191 
 
 their animals for food, and contend with their 
 enemies in mortal combat. With their short bows, 
 which have been described, as they have but a few 
 yards to throw their arrows (the rapidity of their 
 horses overcoming space), their excellency in archery 
 depends upon the rapidity with which they can get 
 their arrows upon the string and off, and the accu 
 racy with which they can throw them whilst their 
 horses are at full speed. Their practice at this 
 is often and very exciting, and certainly more pic 
 turesque than rifle-shooting of volunteers in the 
 educated world. 
 
 For this day's sport, which is repeated many 
 times in the year, a ground is chosen on the 
 prairie, level and good for running, and in a semi 
 circle are made ten successive circular targets in 
 the ground by cutting away the turf, and making 
 a sort of " bull's-eye" in the centre, covered with 
 pipe-clay, which is white. Prizes are shot for, and 
 judges are appointed to award them. Each warrior, 
 mounted, in his war costume and war paint, and 
 shoulders naked, and shield upon his back, takes 
 ten arrows in his left hand with his bow, as if going 
 into battle, and galloping their horses around in a 
 circle of a mile or so, under full whip, to get them 
 at the highest speed, thus pass in succession the ten 
 targets, and give their arrows as they pass (Plate 
 No. 15). 
 
 The rapidity with which their arrows are placed 
 upon the string and sent is a mystery to the by- 
 
192 " Tir-Nationar 
 
 stander, and must be seen to be believed. No re 
 peating arms ever yet constructed are so rapid, nor 
 any arm, at that little distance, more fatal. Each 
 arrow, as it flies, goes with a yelp, and each bow is 
 bent with a " wuhgh ! " which seems to strain its 
 utmost sinew, and every muscle of the archer. 
 
 This round and its scoring done, a little rest, and 
 the same strife repeated. And after the tenth 
 round, when each warrior's arrows have been 
 claimed by his private mark in their feather, and 
 the scoring done, the stakes and honours (not 
 medals) are awarded, and a feast is given to the 
 contending archers. I have seen "tirs-national" 
 and " tirs-zVz/^rnational," but amongst them all, 
 nothing so picturesque and beautiful as this. 
 
 Taking leave of the great Apachee village, our 
 little party (now consisting of two Santa Fe traders 
 acquainted with the route two brothers Gleeson, 
 of Texas, Caesar, and myself) laid its course for the 
 " Santa Fe Pass," in the Rocky Mountains, un 
 known at that time as the " Pony Express" route, 
 being, twelve years ago, but known to Kitt Carson 
 and other guides in the habit of conducting parties 
 through those dark and dreary solitudes. 
 
 The first mountain passed, in a beautiful valley 
 we were in another Apachee village ; and another 
 mountain passed, we found another village of 
 Apachees ; and fifteen days of riding, of walking 
 and leading, and prying and lifting on sides of 
 
Crossing the Rocky Mountains. 193 
 
 hills, on avalanches of snow and mud, and through 
 ravines, and in the beds of roaring and dashing 
 torrents, with overhanging rocks, and gloomy hem 
 locks and pines, we crept out of, and began de 
 scending, the eastern slopes of the Rocky Moun 
 tains, with the Spanish town of Santa Fe a great 
 way ahead of us, and in the valley near it, the Rio 
 del Norte (if we should ever get to it), an easy and 
 safe highway to the Gulf of Mexico. 
 
 Descending from the base of the mountains into 
 the plains, and rising out of a deep ravine, which 
 we had followed for some miles, we came instantly, 
 and without a moment's warning, on to a group of 
 human beings, lying mostly stretched upon the 
 grass, in a sunny place, without fire, and apparently 
 seeking the warmth of the sun. Nothing could 
 surpass the expressions of astonishment and fear 
 exhibited on their faces when they arose, and see 
 ing the inutility of trying to escape, they were, with 
 uplifted hands, imploring for mercy, as we were 
 all mounted and armed, and white men, their 
 enemies. 
 
 The little party, about twenty, were all women 
 and children but two, who were old men, and rheuma 
 tic, and were almost unable to walk. From our signs 
 they soon saw that we did not wish to harm them ; 
 and riding up to them, we saw that they had not a 
 weapon of any sort with them, and, from their 
 haggard looks and signs, that they were in a state 
 
 O 
 
194 ^ Pitiable Group. 
 
 of starvation. We dismounted, and one of our 
 Santa Fe companions, who understood something 
 of the Apachee language, learned from them that 
 they were the wives and children of a little village 
 of Apachees that had been a few days before de 
 stroyed, and all their warriors killed, by a large 
 army of white soldiers, after many terrible battles 
 that they had fled so far, and had nothing to live 
 upon but roots from the ground, and no one to hunt 
 for them that the whole country to the north and 
 the east was full of white soldiers, and that the 
 whole Indian race were being killed off! 
 
 This was the first knowledge we had of a border 
 war that it seems was then raging between the 
 United States dragoons and volunteers, and the 
 Apachees, united with the Yutahs, their allies ; and 
 from which we drew the instant inference of the 
 danger we were facing in moving further in the 
 direction of Santa Fe ! 
 
 We had no alternative but to leave those poor 
 and helpless and pitiable objects, with their little 
 children, as we found them, dividing with them our 
 provisions, which were then running low, and laying 
 our plans to save ourselves in the best way we 
 could. I gave to one of the old men part of a box 
 of lucifer matches I had, and showed him how to 
 make fire with them, to warm their children by, for, 
 from the snowy atmosphere from the mountains, 
 the weather was very cold there ; he thanked me 
 
Meeting Indian Messengers. 195 
 
 as he took them, but said, "to make a smoke 
 would be our certain destruction !" They all came 
 up and shook hands with us, with the pitiful " Ya, 
 ya," as we were mounting our horses ; and with 
 tears in our eyes, I believe all felt as I exclaimed, 
 "Would to God that we could save those poor 
 creatures ! " 
 
 Our trail leading to the north-east, right into 
 the hostile ground, was now a -dangerous one, and 
 I said to our Santa Fe companions, " Is it possible 
 that these are Apachee Indians, and that a nation 
 of Apachees is living on the east side of the moun 
 tains ?" "Most assuredly, sir," said the Santa Fe 
 gentlemen, " the Jiccarilla Band, and half a dozen 
 other bands ; they are everywhere, and the greatest 
 set of thieves and rogues in the world." 
 
 Our course was towards Santa Fe, but we rode 
 in trembling and doubt ; and a couple of hours 
 after we left the group of women and children, 
 whilst passing through a narrow and rocky defile, 
 two dashing and naked Indians on high-mettled 
 horses plunged into our view and in our path, some 
 forty or fifty rods ahead of us. They halted for a 
 moment, and evidently were alarmed, seeing us all 
 with our rifles in our hands. There was no escape, 
 except by retreat, which they seemed unwilling to 
 attempt. We all agreed to move on without 
 changing our course or halting ; and they, no 
 doubt discovering from our costumes and our pack- 
 
196 News of Indian War. 
 
 mules that we were a party of travellers, and not 
 soldiers, advanced slowly, lowering their rifles, and 
 we did the same, and made the signs of friendship 
 at the same time. 
 
 We met and shook hands, and the foaming state 
 of their horses showed us at once that they were 
 riding on an express, the object of which we sus 
 pected, and our Santa Fe companions soon drew 
 the same from them, and, also, that the whole 
 country to the north-east was in a state of the 
 most bloody warfare, that the country was filled 
 with soldiers, and that several hundreds of the 
 Jiccarilla Apachees and Yutahs had already been 
 killed, and their villages burned, and that they 
 two, one an Apachee and the other a Yutah, were 
 on an express to the great Apachee villages west of 
 the mountains, to call for reinforcements. Their 
 halt with us was very short, and they rode off, 
 suggesting to us very distinctly that the course we 
 were pursuing was in a very dangerous direction. 
 On emerging from this mountain defile, we struck 
 upon a strong trail leading to the south-east, which 
 was known to lead to St. Diego, a small village on 
 the bank of the Del Norte. 
 
 Here, from the intelligence obtained from the 
 two unexpected interviews we had just had, a sort 
 of council of war was held, in which it was decided 
 that the two Santa Fe traders and the elder Glee- 
 son would continue on their route to Santa Fe, 
 
Council of War. 197 
 
 and run all the risks of meeting the Apachee 
 and Yutah war parties ; and that Caesar and I, who 
 had no particular desire to see Santa Fe, should 
 take the trail leading to St. Diego, and with us 
 the younger Gleeson, who, like ourselves, was 
 destined for Matamoras, at the mouth of the Rio 
 del Norte. 1 
 
 Our tracks here diverged ; the one leading to 
 Santa Fe tending to the north-east, and ours to the 
 south-east. Ours was but an Indian trail, and dif 
 ficult to follow, and was still over mountains, through 
 valleys, and across rivers and swamps ; and yet we 
 kept it, not learning from any landmark, or from 
 any human being, whether one day or one week 
 would bring us to the bank of the Rio Grande, and 
 knowing only by my faithful and never-failing little 
 pocket-compass that we were advancing in the 
 right direction. 
 
 Impressions are daily and hourly made in rides 
 through such vast and dreary solitudes as these, 
 that are never effaced from memory ; and one, at 
 the end of our first day's march, that was curious 
 
 1 After reaching the frontier settlements I learned that a 
 most relentless and bloody war had been waged for several 
 months past between the United States forces and the 
 Apachee and Yutah Indians ; that Lieutenant St. Vrain and 
 Colonel Fontleroy, with large forces, had destroyed a great 
 many of the Apachees, and that our position had been one 
 of great danger. 
 
198 C<zsar and Grizzly Bears. 
 
 enough for narration. On a little plateau of a few 
 rods in breadth, covered with grass, and near the 
 bank of a small stream, with a tremendous and 
 dreary forest of rocks and pines behind us, we had 
 bivouacked at sundown, and for the night. 
 
 Gleeson had taken the lasos off the animals, and 
 gone down a little descent, nearer the stream, where 
 the grass was more abundant and fresher for the 
 horses. Caesar had collected dried wood and made 
 a rousing fire, and was boiling the pot, whilst I, at 
 a distance of ten or fifteen rods from him, seated 
 on the bank of the stream, and with my back 
 towards him, was making a sketch of the pic 
 turesque landscape before me. "My soul alive! 
 wat you want dar?" suddenly exclaimed Caesar; 
 and turning round, I saw him on one hand and 
 one knee, by his fire, swinging around and over his 
 head a flaming firebrand ; and in the direction 
 where he was aiming it, and but a few rods from 
 him, two grizzly bears of the largest kind, one 
 seated, and the other in advance, and galloping 
 upon him ! 
 
 The firebrand fell a few feet before it, when the 
 beast sprang upon it with both paws, and seized it 
 in its mouth ! He dropped it, and wheeling about, 
 and crying in the most piteous manner, retreated, 
 wiping his nose and his paws upon the grass. 
 
 The female, with the curiosity (perhaps) natural 
 to her sex, must have a smell of it too, and was 
 
The Trail lost. 199 
 
 advancing for the purpose. An instant snuff (and 
 I think a taste) was enough for her too, and they 
 both galloped off together, whining in the most 
 doleful manner as they disappeared amongst the 
 rocks ! 
 
 Gleeson knew nothing of the affair until he heard 
 our relation of it ; and all of us, without our wea 
 pons in hand, were spared the necessity of asking 
 mercy of those unmerciful beasts, only by the 
 whirling of a firebrand which Caesar happened to 
 have in his hand at the moment, instead of vainly 
 attempting to run for his rifle! 
 
 Delivered thus from the jaws of those monstrous 
 animals, which had gone off evidently with a distaste 
 for us, we began collecting wood for the night, each 
 of us carrying a firebrand in his hand, as a precau 
 tion ; and, between two rousing fires, and our horses 
 close picketed to our heads, and one of the three 
 always on sentry, we slept tolerably well. 
 
 After several days from this, and continuing our 
 course over hills and valleys, and, in the latter part 
 of the way, having lost the trail, we at length ap 
 proached a conical hill of considerable height, and 
 with the appearance of a low, level country beyond 
 it, which we had reason to believe was, at last, the 
 valley of the Rio Grande del Norte, and that we 
 must necessarily be nearing the settlements on its 
 borders. 
 
 It was agreed that Gleeson should turn it on the 
 
2oo A Squatter s Cabin. 
 
 right, and that Caesar and I would flank it on the 
 left ; and that, as our horses were shod, and a sandy 
 plain with thin grass was around it, we could not 
 cross each other's tracks without recognizing them ; 
 and, in this way, with a certainty of joining com 
 pany again somewhere beyond the mound, one or 
 the other of us would probably stumble upon some 
 trail leading to the settlements. 
 
 Caesar and I, after a few miles, came upon a well- 
 beaten track of shod horses, showing us beyond 
 doubt that we were near the settlement ; and, in a 
 little time, following it, we turned a small hillock 
 and came upon a settler's hut a well-built log 
 house and its smoking chimney showed us that it 
 was occupied. We rode up in front of it, and a 
 nice and tidy middle-aged woman, with two little 
 children, came to the door. 
 
 I addressed her in Spanish, inquiring how far we 
 had yet to ride to reach the Mission of St. Diego, 
 or any other town on the Rio del Norte. She 
 replied, in English, that she did not understand 
 Spanish. I then asked her in English, when she 
 promptly answered that we could not get to the 
 river that night. 
 
 " Then," said I, " good woman, can we get lodging 
 here to-night, and something to eat ; for our provi 
 sions are entirely out ? " 
 
 " Well, sir," said she, " I am very much ashamed ; 
 we have been here but a very short time, and we 
 
A Squatters Cabin. 201 
 
 hain't got things a goin' very well yet ; but you shall 
 be welcome to the best we have got, if you can put 
 up with it." 
 
 " Don't have any fears, madam," said I ; " we are 
 not very particular, and I know what allowance to 
 make. We don't require beds ; we have each a 
 good buffalo robe, and all we will ask will be a part 
 of the floor to spread them on where the planks are 
 not too hard." 
 
 " Well, I'm sorry to say, sir, we hain't got our 
 floor laid yet. We've nothin' but some birch bark 
 for floors now, but I think you will find 'em dry." 
 
 " That's enough, madam ; the principal thing we 
 want is shelter." 
 
 We dismounted, and Caesar picketing the horses, 
 for there was abundance of good grass I then 
 sat down in conversation with the good-natured 
 woman. 
 
 " I can give you a steak," said she, " and pan- 
 baked bread, and a cup of coffee, but we have no 
 sweetening for it but molasses." 
 
 " Never mind," said I ; " that's quite enough we 
 don't wish to fare better." 
 
 From a few minutes' conversation, I learned 
 that she was a native of Ohio; that she was married 
 in Texas, and, a year or two previous, had, with her 
 husband, moved to Santa Fe ; and, not satisfied 
 with Santa Fe life, they had squatted on the fine 
 little prairie of rich land on which they were living, 
 
2O2 A Squatter's Cabin. 
 
 which cost them nothing ; and that they had no 
 neighbours nearer than three miles. 
 
 Caesar and I had supped on the steak and coffee 
 promised us, and we had enjoyed it very much ; and 
 night had approached. " But Gleeson, where is he? 
 he has not arrived, he has not struck our trail ! 
 May-be a grizzly bear has chewed him up, or that 
 some of those Navaho Indians have taken his scalp 
 in order to get his horse. We have got to go back 
 in the morning and look him up." 
 
 The morning seemed to come very quick ; and, 
 having taken a steak and our coffee the same as the 
 evening before, Caesar led up our animals, and, as 
 we were saddling them, Gleeson turned the little 
 hillock and rode up. 
 
 His circuit the day before had been so much 
 longer than ours, and having been impeded by a 
 difficult stream to cross, he had struck our trail too 
 late in the day to overtake us, and had slept in his 
 saddle all night, without anything to eat. I pre 
 sented him to our kind landlady, and told him I 
 believed he could get a steak for his breakfast. 
 But the poor woman, who seemed embarrassed at 
 this, replied that she was sorry she could not give 
 him a steak ; " for," said she, " I cooked the last I 
 had for your breakfast. We can't get any meat 
 here, gentlemen, except what my husband kills 
 with his gun. All game is very scarce now, and he 
 has had very bad luck lately ; he was out all the 
 
" The Painter's Tail." 203 
 
 day before yesterday and got nothing ; and yester 
 day he went out again, and hasn't got back yet ; 
 and, to tell the plain truth, we have had no meat 
 but ft&\. painter for the last two weeks." 
 
 " Painter!" said I, "what painter?" 
 
 " Well, dear me ! now, I'm afraid I forgot to tell 
 you that them steaks was painters meat. I should 
 have mentioned it ; and if I forgot it, I hope you 
 will excuse me." 
 
 Gleeson, who was standing by, and starving, re 
 lieved the poor woman in a measure from her em 
 barrassment by exclaiming, "Why, my good woman, 
 I am nearly starved to death ; I could eat anything ! 
 Have you not got the tail of the panther left ? I 
 could make a breakfast on that, without any cere 
 mony." 
 
 "Well, no, sir; I am sorry also to say that the 
 animal was very fat, and we roasted the tail the 
 first night when it was brought in." 
 
 I helped the kind woman as well as I could, by 
 assuring her that the steaks which we had eaten 
 were very good, and that I should be glad if I 
 could get another like them for my supper. And 
 sympathetic Caesar, who had been listening, put in, 
 " Well, I guess, missus, no harm is done, anyhow." 
 
 Gleeson took a turn at the pan-baked bread and 
 coffee, after which we took leave of the good and 
 hospitable woman, by leaving with her what Caesar 
 called "a silber dolla," though she positively 
 
204 Rio Grande del Norte. 
 
 refused to make any charge for what we had 
 eaten. 
 
 We reached the Rio Grande del Norte, sold our 
 jaded animals in my accustomed way for less 
 than half the price we had paid for them, took a 
 "dug-out "* and paddles, and began drifting towards 
 Matamoras, then eight hundred miles ahead of us. 
 
 This, being in the spring of 1855, was five years 
 before the civil war in the United States, and seven 
 years before the French invasion of Mexico ; so that 
 all was peace and goodwill on the banks of that 
 noble and beautiful river, of which I may say some 
 thing more near the end of this book, if there should 
 be space enough for it. From Matamoras, a sailing 
 vessel took Caesar and I to Sisal, in Yucatan ; and, 
 after a very short visit to Uxmal, and some points 
 of interest on the coasts of Campeachy, I started 
 for Liverpool. 
 
 Discoveries I had made, not amongst Indians, but 
 amongst rocks, decided me to make a visit to my 
 friend and correspondent, the Baron de Humboldt; 
 and, in July of 1855, I started for Berlin. I was 
 received with great kindness by that great philo 
 sopher, and by him was presented to the King and 
 Queen of Prussia, at " Sans Souci." 
 
 The Baron.de Humboldt approved, without ex- 
 
 1 A pirogue. 
 
Baron de Humboldt in Berlin. 205 
 
 ceptions, the theory I had come to advance with re 
 gard to the rocks of America, and which interesting 
 subject was then determining me to make a second 
 voyage to South America and the West India 
 Islands. 
 
 Of my interviews with him, and the objects 
 I had in view in visiting the greater and lesser An 
 tilles, more will be said in a future chapter of this 
 book. Enough at present. With letters from him 
 to his old travelling companion, " Bonpland," then 
 living in Uruguay, and others, I sailed for Cuba ; 
 and, having visited most of the lesser Antilles, 
 steamed for Rio de Janeiro; and, with Patagonia 
 and Terra del Fuego ahead of me, there were rocks 
 and Indians enough yet in advance for long and 
 patient investigations. 
 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 RIO DE JANEIRO. 
 
 ASCRIPTIONS of long voyages, in a 
 short book, must necessarily be discur 
 sive and disjointed; and with jumps 
 like those of kangaroos, they must leap, 
 not creep) from. points to points, that voyage inci 
 dents and the end of the book may terminate to 
 gether. 
 
 Under this necessity, from the beginning of the 
 first volume, I have had the somewhat painful task 
 of inviting the reader to imagine the intervening in 
 cidents, which the want of space has often prevented 
 me from narrating. In this dilemma we now are. 
 After a long and interesting voyage or series of 
 voyages we are at Rio de Janeiro, in Brazil ; a 
 beautiful city, with its overtowering escarpments of 
 black and frowning rocks behind it, and the mar 
 vellous bay of Botafogo, like a beautiful apron, in 
 front of it. Its foaming and dashing cascade of the 
 
Rio Janeiro. 207 
 
 Corcovado is a fixture, and, like the rest, an orna- ' 
 ment eternal. But what are more beautiful 
 or, at all events, more exciting and interesting are 
 its grand, and mighty, and impenetrable forests, 
 and rivers, and swamps, and mosquitos, and fireflies, 
 and butterflies, and alligators, and tigers, and mon 
 keys, and parrots, and Indians, that lie west and 
 south of it. 
 
 Rio, I have said, is a beautiful city ; its rocky 
 walls are grand, its Botafogo charming, its Plaza 
 amusing, and its museum ; its inhabitants are gay 
 and rich, and its ladies are beautiful ; its civilization 
 is of a high and noble cast. But what of all this ? 
 why should we stop here ? The Bay of Botafogo, 
 and these dark and frowning escarpments of rocks, 
 and the glistening cascade of the Corcovado will be 
 the same a thousand years hence ; the Plaza will 
 be better built, its inhabitants will be more rich, its 
 civilization will be higher; and its ladies, not more 
 beautiful, but there will be more of them. Then 
 why detain us now ? We travel to see the perish 
 able, not the eternal. 
 
 These grand and sublime forests which we are to 
 enter will soon fall by the axe ; these beautiful, 
 crouching, creeping, spotted, and glistening tigers, 
 and the muddy alligators, will soon be seen, with glass 
 eyes, in our museums ; these thousands of leaping, 
 vaulting, and peeping monkeys, and chattering par 
 rots and parroquets, and gilded butterflies, and ana- 
 
2o8 Buenos Ay res. 
 
 condas will be there also ; and all those endless 
 clusters and bouquets of wild flowers, and everything 
 else of Nature's blossoming and breathing works, 
 including the wild and frolicsome Indian, who now 
 exultingly smiles as he draws his long and unerring 
 bow amidst the jungle, or paddles his light canoe, 
 are soon to be metamorphosed to be spoiled, if 
 not obliterated, by the ruthless march of civiliza 
 tion. 
 
 Why, then, stop to see the imperishable and 
 the progressive, which can be seen a hundred years 
 hence as well as now? We are of a different caste 
 and a different taste. We travel to see the perish 
 able and the perishing ; and let us see them before 
 they fall ; let us hie away then to Buenos Ayres. 
 There are no Indians, no tigers, no alligators, no 
 anacondas, here. The steamer leaves to-morrow for 
 Buenos Ayres. I'll take this little book along, and 
 my pencils. The Uruguay, with its clear and blue 
 waters comes in there, and on it, in their light canoes, 
 the tall and handsome Payagtias, the Tobos, the 
 Lingiias, and the Bocolis, and the Botocudas. 
 
 The mighty Paraguay comes rolling along there 
 also, with the waters of the long Parana, both rising 
 in the mountains in the centre of the empire ; and, 
 in their course of 1800 miles, afford a highway and 
 food for more than fifty tribes of Indians, and their 
 waters and their shores, localities for 50,000 tigers, 
 150,000 alligators, 1,000,000 of monkeys, 5,000,000 
 
Parting with Ccesar. 209 
 
 of parrots, tens of thousands of anacondas and rattle 
 snakes, and, now and then, a boa-constrictor. 
 
 What a delightful field have we then before us at 
 Buenos Ayres ! And yet, not far off, to the south, 
 the Aucas, the Puelc/ies, the Attracanos, the Pata- 
 
 gons and Fuegians. Oh, how inviting and how ex 
 citing ! I cannot crowd them all into this little book, 
 I am sure of it ; but I will abridge when I can, and 
 go on while the paper lasts. 
 
 Caesar left me a year ago, at Sisal, and I am lost. 
 The vessel that took us from Matamoras was going 
 from Sisal to Para, and there he was impatient to 
 unfold to "Sally Bool," a beautiful mulatto girl, 
 
 . who sells oranges at the head of the quay, the won 
 ders of his voyages. Our parting was sorrowful, as 
 my young readers can easily imagine he going to 
 see his old sweetheart, " Sally Bool!' and I going to 
 my old friend, the Baron de Humboldt. We shook 
 hands three times, and, at the end of the last shake, 
 he exclaimed, "Oh, de Lord preserb you, good 
 Massa Catlin ! " I never will forget it. 
 
 My friend Thomas, in whose house J was made 
 welcome whilst in Buenos Ayres, recommended to 
 me a faithful servant man Jose Alzar (pronounced 
 Althar) whom he had employed for several years, 
 and whose native place was Corrientes, some hundreds 
 of miles up the Paraguay, and at the mouth of the 
 Rio Parana. His knowledge of the country, and of 
 several of the Indian tribes, and of their languages, 
 
 p 
 
2io Corrientes. 
 
 was just the thing for me ; and, with Jose Alzar, I 
 was again soon ready, by steamer and canoes, and 
 without horses, for Indian peregrinations. 
 
 I put into Alzar's hands the now famous minie 
 rifle, first carried on the Essequibo and the Trom- 
 butas, as has been described, by my worthy com 
 panion Smyth, and afterwards by Caesar, for more 
 than ten thousand miles. I reduced the number of 
 cartoon portraits, in the portfolio, to about a dozen, 
 and, strapping it on to his back, we started on a 
 steamer for Corrientes. 
 
 Of Corrientes, which is a large and flourishing 
 town on the right bank of the river, I have little 
 other recollection than that of seeing from the deck 
 of the steamer, before we landed, several groups of 
 tents of Indians lining the shore of the river, above 
 and below the town. 
 
 I recollect landing and taking my luggage to an 
 hotel ; but my subsequent and stronger impressions 
 were got in the wigwams, to which I was a quick 
 and constant visitor. 
 
 One can easily imagine the facilities and the con 
 fidence rendered me by my new employe, who was 
 now in his native town, and with the Indians of his 
 personal acquaintance around him. Three families 
 of the Payaguas tribe were there, and several tents 
 of the Botocudos, who had made long voyages in 
 their canoes, and were soon to return to their native 
 countries. 
 
Payaguas Indians. 2 1 1 
 
 The Payaguas, the representatives of a tribe 
 nearly extinct, and whose modes were purely pri 
 mitive, were chiefly naked both men and women 
 wearing but a "fig-leaf" the width of the palm of 
 one's hand, made of cotton-cloth or of bark made 
 a new impression upon me, of native man in physi 
 ological development and dignity. Not even the 
 Osages or the Shyennes of North America were 
 equal in stature to them, nor man whom I ever saw 
 in any society. Six feet and nine inches, six feet 
 and seven inches, and six feet and six inches, were 
 the measurements of the three men of the party, 
 and six feet the measure of a boy of sixteen years. 
 
 My interpreter, who had seen the whole of the 
 tribe, assured me that these were about an average 
 of the tribe ; and these men told me there were 
 many others taller than themeslves. And until I 
 shall see the Patagons, I shall believe them the 
 tallest race in America. They are canoe Indians, 
 and, like all of that class, from the constant use of 
 their brachial and pectoral muscles, are broad and 
 muscular in the chest and shoulders, but, in propor 
 tion, slight in their legs, from their habitual squatted 
 positions and little use of their nether limbs. 
 
 The Payaguas live on the right bank of the Para 
 guay, and have, on the opposite bank, the Ckacos, a 
 race of horsemen, who have extensive prairies for 
 the chase, and consequently, like the prairie Indians 
 of North America, exhibit a different symmetry in 
 
212 Chaco and Botocudo Indians. 
 
 proportions. These two tribes, though always at 
 war with each other,. and inveterate enemies, have 
 been unable mutually to inflict more than partial in 
 juries on each other the canoe-men too wise to be 
 caught upon the prairies, and the horsemen unable 
 to contend upon the water. 
 
 The Payaguas live chiefly in one long cabin or 
 tent (tolderia), in the form of a shed, standing on 
 the bank of the river, of some thirty or forty rods in 
 length, built of upright posts at equal distances, set 
 in the ground and covered with a curious and 
 beautiful thatching of palm leaves a roof merely, 
 and no walls, with a curtain of palm leaves or of rush 
 mats forming a hanging partition between the dif 
 ferent families. A community excessively droll, and 
 too closely associated to be otherwise than social 
 and peaceably disposed. 
 
 They live principally on fish and turtle, with 
 which the river abounds, which are easily taken, and, 
 at all seasons of the year, without the slightest 
 danger of default. 
 
 The Botocudos, who come from near the sources 
 of the Uruguay, are quite a different race in appear 
 ance and in language ; the remnants of a warlike 
 and numerous tribe, recently reduced to a few hun 
 dreds by those universal pests of the American In 
 dians rum, and whiskey, and the small-pox. Of 
 ordinary stature, they are a better proportioned race 
 than the Payaguas, and with an approach to civili 
 zation, are in a measure clad, with tuniques and 
 
Botocudos and Payaguas Indians. 213 
 
 ceintures of cotton-cloth, which they barter for with 
 the border traders. 
 
 Both the Botocudos and Payaguas wear the 
 block of wood in the under-lip as an ornament, like 
 the Nayas Indians of Queen Charlotte's, in North 
 
 1 6. 
 
 America, and already spoken of. How surprising 
 this fact! that, on the north-west coast of North 
 America and on the south-east coast of South 
 America, almost the exact antipodes of each other, 
 the same peculiar and unaccountable custom should 
 be practised by Indian tribes, in whose languages 
 there are not two words resembling, and who have 
 no knowledge of each other. Such striking facts 
 
214 Payaguas Indians. 
 
 should be preserved and not lost, as they may yet 
 have a deserved influence in determining ultimately 
 the migration and distribution of races. In plate 
 No. 1 6 I have given copies of three of my portraits 
 of Botocudos, illustrating the singular customs 
 above described. 
 
 Who can imagine, who can understand, but my 
 self, the astonishment and also the amusement 
 which my portfolio produced amongst these poor 
 people, when I showed them a couple of portraits 
 of the Nayas Indians, with the block of wood in their 
 under-lips, whom, as I told them, I had recently visited, 
 and who were at least three hundred days' march 
 (their only mode of computing long distances) from 
 them, and also on the exact opposite side of the 
 earth, which was round a new idea to them ? 
 
 What a pity poor Caesar lost this ! By the por 
 traits w r hich I showed them, I explained also that 
 the custom of slitting and elongating the ears, and 
 wearing in them oval blocks of wood, was precisely 
 the same, when the chief of the party pronounced 
 them " brothers," and a facetious old medicine-man, 
 with his head painted white, disposed to be witty, 
 observed that he thought " the Nayas Indians were 
 very distant relations." 
 
 By going to my hotel and opening my luggage, I 
 was able to return in a little time to these astonished 
 people, with three of the blocks which I had brought 
 from the Nayas tribe, and which were polished by 
 
Payaguas Indians, 215 
 
 long use. At the sight of these, which they 
 could take in their hands, they seemed to draw 
 more practical proof, and all the men set up a ter 
 rific howl, started by the medicine-man, whilst the 
 women covered their mouths with both hands. This, 
 my interpreter told me, was their mode of recording 
 a truth, an established, proved fa&> which no one was 
 allowed afterwards to deny. A recorded fact. 
 
 I explained to them the slight difference in the 
 shape of the blocks those of the Nayas, as seen in 
 plate No. 10 (page 138), being of an oval form, and 
 concave on the upper and lower sides, and grooved 
 around the rim, whilst those of the Payaguas and 
 Botocudos were round, and both surfaces and the 
 rim perfectly plane. 
 
 The chief replied to this, that he could recollect 
 perfectly well when the Payaguas shaped their 
 blocks in the same manner as the Nayas ; but, foi 
 the greater facility of slipping them in and out, and 
 also to save the labour of excavating them, for 
 which their tools were very bad, they changed their 
 shapes to what they now are. On inquiring what their 
 object was in wearing such things in the lip and in the 
 ear, I met at once some difficulty, which seemed to 
 be raised by the fidgety old medicine-man. He 
 seemed to meet the inquiry with some suspicion, 
 or to treat it, at least, as he suggested/as a thing 
 which I ought to have learned from my friends, the 
 Nayas, " on the other side of the world," a queer 
 
216 Block in the Lip. 
 
 thing running still in his head ; and, as I learned 
 through the interpreter, had fed him to doubt, in 
 some measure, my strict sanity. 
 
 The chief, however, took a different view of the 
 affair, and gave me in a very few words, as well as 
 he could, an answer to my inquiries. He said, in the 
 first place, he believed the reason why the custom 
 was practised was that their ancestors had practised 
 it before them ; that he had always thought it a 
 very foolish practice, and, as it was chiefly confined 
 to the women, it was not likely to do any harm ; 
 that the women seemed to think it improved their 
 appearance, and that, in such things, the men 
 generally let the women have their own way. 
 
 He said, there was now and then a man to be 
 seen with the block in his lip, but that in such cases 
 it only got him the name of an " old woman." The 
 men of his tribe, he said, all have the under-lip 
 pierced, so as to wear ornaments of various kinds. 
 " This we can't avoid," said he, " for it is done by 
 our mothers, when we are infants and under their 
 sole control ; and there are many men in our tribe 
 whose ears and lips have been thus cut, and who 
 never have worn an ornament of any kind in them, 
 and I think it is much the best way." 
 
 In speaking of this strange custom amongst the 
 Nayas Indians of British Columbia, I described the 
 manner in which the orifice in the lip was produced, 
 as well as the mode of slitting and elongating their 
 
Block in the Lip. 217 
 
 ears, by wearing weights in them, and the mode - 
 seems to be precisely the same here. 
 
 After having expressed my surprise at finding 
 two peoples, on opposite sides of the globe, practis 
 ing alike this unaccountable custom, it is not less 
 surprising that the Rev. Dr. Livingstone should 
 have found a native tribe in the centre of Africa 
 wearing blocks exactly similar in shape and dimen 
 sions in the upper-lip, and called by the natives, 
 Pe-le-le (pronounced Pay-lay-lay). 
 
 From his description, the blocks are from one- 
 and-a-half to two inches in diameter, and the mode 
 of perforating the lip in childhood, and increasing 
 the size of the blocks as the wearer advances in age, 
 are the same as I have described above ; and he 
 adds, that the only object for which they are worn, 
 as far as he could learn, was that of ornament. 
 
 Now if, in my eccentric peregrinations, I should 
 stumble on to a tribe, or meet an individual Indian 
 lady, ingenious enough to have united the two 
 wearing a block both in the upper and the under- 
 lip what a beautiful and useful improvement it 
 would be, and w^hat a wonderful addition to the 
 honourable discoveries of my roving life a double 
 Pay-lay-lay! The very thought of its being a possi 
 bility ahead of me, stimulates me, and Alzar and I 
 will move on. 
 
 A sort of barge, not unlike the keel-boats of the 
 Missouri, propelled by eight oars, and freighted, not 
 
2i8 Ascending the Rio Parana. 
 
 unlike the crafts of that river, with stuffs, and hardware, 
 &c, (and, no doubt, in the bottom of the hold, with 
 rum and whiskey), was starting for the upper waters 
 of the Parana ; and Alzar agreeing to handle an oar, 
 and myself to lend a hand in rapid water, got us an 
 agreeable and amusing passage to the mouth of the 
 Iguazu River a distance of 500 miles from which 
 point we designed to cross the country to the upper 
 waters of the Uruguay, and descend that river to 
 Buenos Ayres, visiting many tribes of Indians on its 
 banks, and killing some of the black tigers that 
 fatten on the peccaries and soft-shelled turtles that 
 abound along its shores. 
 
 Alzar, with these boatmen, was at home ; and 
 his acquaintance with them and their modes of life 
 made the boat, though a rough one, an agreeable 
 home for me. 
 
 I had promised him, at the end of our campaign, 
 in addition to his monthly wages, to leave him, as a 
 present, the minie rifle; and one can imagine better 
 than I can describe it, the infinite pleasure he was 
 taking in cleaning, polishing, and handling it, and 
 " heaving his lead ashore," as Smyth used to do on 
 the banks of the Trombutas and Essequibo. Alli 
 gators, peccaries, swans, wild geese, and ducks, were 
 constantly marks for him ; and his long and deadly 
 shots were not only amusement, but astonishment 
 for his comrades, who never before had seen a minie 
 rifle, or even dreamed of its long range and accuracy. 
 
Banks of the Parana. 2 1 9 
 
 The high and perpendicular walls of red sand 
 stone, and overtowering forests of lofty trees, alter 
 nating from one side to the other, and fronted by 
 islands and the opposite shore, covered with forests 
 of orange and wild peach trees, bending down with 
 their yellow and red fruit, and interspersed and 
 interwoven with the deep green of rhododendrons 
 and the massive purple of thorn blossoms, presented 
 a picture as new to me, as if the river and mountain 
 scenes of my former voyages I had passed blind 
 folded. 
 
 " Sam," a name not made known even to Alzar 
 as yet "Sam Colt," a six-shot carabine, made ex 
 pressly for me by my old friend, Colonel Colt, and 
 which has answered to the nick-name of " Sam " in 
 my former travels, had been so far under cover ; but 
 the constant flapping of wings about and over us, 
 and the total nothingness else for me to do, brought 
 it out, and a new excitement and a new astonish 
 ment amongst the boatmen, who had barely heard 
 the word "revolver" pronounced, but never in those 
 days had had the chance of seeing one. 
 
 But why should I spend time and space here, 
 with the thousands of incidents that took place on 
 this beautiful river ? We have a long journey be 
 fore us, Indians in abundance, and, perhaps, a 
 double Pay-lay-lay ; and, getting towards the end 
 of my little book, I may have yet to strike, out the 
 fifty last pages that have been written. One thing, 
 
22O " Entre Rios" Mountain. 
 
 however ; by the way, rowing against the stream, 
 we saw few tigers not even their heads for, at the 
 grunting of our boatmen and the noise of their oars, 
 they lowered themselves in the weeds, and peccaries 
 stood in the shade as we passed ; but the wild-fowl, 
 unused to the sound of a gun, sufficient for our 
 larder, I daily seduced with " Sam," from my com 
 fortable seat a keg which made me a sort of 
 " figure-head " in the bow of the boat. 
 
 Rapids became frequent, and laborious, and 
 tedious, and were said to be more so ahead of us, 
 and the sun insupportably hot; and, before our 500 
 miles were finished, we were at Candeloria, a small 
 town on the east bank of the river, where our 
 trading companions had business to do, and an en 
 campment of Botocudos promised work for me, and 
 Alzar and I halted. After a couple of days, our trad 
 ing companions continued on their course, and we 
 got conveyed across the " Entre Rios " mountain to 
 the small village and mission of Conception, on the 
 upper waters of Uruguay. 
 
 Alzar renewed old acquaintances there, and with 
 the " old minie " in his hands and the portfolio of 
 Indian portraits on his back, and the tact and facetiae 
 of a son of a Portugese father and a Creole mother, 
 one can easily imagine rapidly gaining new ones, 
 and raising a sort of furore in the peaceable and 
 silent little village into which we had entered. 
 
 No Indians were there, and after sleeping two 
 
Conception. 2 2 1 
 
 days ahead, whilst Alzar was stipulating for a " dug- , 
 out " canoe, and laying in salt meat, coffee, sugar, 
 salt, &c, for our voyage down the river, I stepped 
 with him into our lazy, ugly, but solid and steady 
 little craft, in which he had seated a stout and first- 
 rate paddlerof his old acquaintance, who was wanting 
 to go to Buenos Ayres, and was willing and glad of 
 the chance if he could be allowed to " work his 
 passage." 
 
 To this lucky occurrence there was no objection ; 
 and with three good paddles and three good pad- 
 dlers (not peddlers) from Conception a very good 
 starting point ? we started off. 
 
 To go down stream in a solid and dry canoe, in 
 such a climate, and on so clear and beautiful a 
 river, with hard biscuits enough, and coffee, and 
 sugar, and salt, and a few pounds of salt pork for 
 cooking, and plenty of powder and ball and fishing- 
 tackle, is one of the delightful things of this world. 
 To paddle or to sleep, as we choose, we still go on, 
 and the stillness with which we can travel brings us 
 within pistol-shot, if we wish it, of the staging tigers, 
 whose heads are above the grass and weeds on the 
 bank. 
 
 As Smyth and I had been tiger-shooters on the 
 Trombutas, so Alzar and I, with the same weapons, 
 were tiger-slayers on the shores of the Uruguay. 
 And why not ? It costs nothing, no apprenticeship 
 is necessary; no courage, or rashness, or recklessness 
 
222 Descending the Uruguay. 
 
 is called into question ; no great skill in shooting 
 is requisite, for they hold ther heads perfectly still 
 there is a beautiful mark in the centre of their 
 foreheads, the right spot exactly, where the black 
 lines radiate the smooth current does not in the 
 least interfere with our range, and brings us within 
 fifty paces if we desire it. 
 
 The whole cost, therefore, is the price of a conique 
 ball and a charge of powder. And for these, if the 
 animal be fat, which is generally the case, the tail 
 itself pays a hundred times over, and leaves us the 
 skin, which is worth twenty dollars. 
 
 "A tiger's tail, ha ! you eat a tiger's tail ?" 
 Yes, to be sure, a tiger's tail but it cannot be 
 cooked in a kitchen it would be useless to try it. 
 It must be bandaged in the leaves of the wild 
 cabbage (or wapsipinnican), and roasted under the 
 embers of a camp fire, on the ground. Nothing 
 that ever was cooked exceeds it in deliciousness of 
 flavour, and pleasure of digestion. These often 
 weigh some six or eight pounds, and an evidence 
 that they are, by the Indians, considered the 
 choicest of food, is, that, in my South American 
 travels, I have met at least a dozen Indians of the 
 highest rank, surnamed the " Tigers Tail" from 
 some peculiar excellence ; and I have myself twice 
 received this high and flattering distinction from 
 those poor people who have hearts, but no decora 
 tions, to give. 
 
Shores of the Uruguay. 223 
 
 Like the Rio Trombutas, the banks of this beau 
 tiful river are chiefly covered with dense and mag 
 nificent forests, abounding in monkeys and parrots, 
 and peccaries and tigers, and the bed of the stream, 
 from their emptied shells on the beach, would seem 
 to be paved with soft-shelled turtles. Fish of many 
 kinds, and of delicious flavour, and for the names 
 of which I was obliged to appeal to Alzar, were 
 constantly raised by our trolling lines. And ducks 
 and geese and swans and pelicans if we wanted 
 them were constantly at our service, and an easy 
 prey ; and the islands of the lower half of the river, 
 like those of the Parana, covered with oranges and 
 wild peaches of delicious flavour. 
 
 We generally slept on islands, for on them tigers 
 more seldom walk, and rattlesnakes generally fail 
 to reach them ; but on these, as on the main shore, 
 like the islands and shores of the Missouri and the 
 Amazon, those invulnerable and unconquerable 
 pests, as universal and as omnipresent in that 
 country as the air itself, the relentless mosquitos, 
 were always at war with us as soon as the sun was 
 down. 
 
 On the shore at that time it was necessary to be, 
 to boil the pot and cook our food, but that done, 
 and each one armed with a bunch of bushes, our 
 provisions and culinary articles were taken into our 
 canoe, and pushing into the stream, and whipping 
 off, the flying, whirling cloud was soon ashore ; and 
 
224 Mosquitos. 
 
 casting anchor, we had till ten o'clock, or there 
 abouts, a quiet and delightful time to get our first 
 nap in our canoe. At that hour, by some police 
 that those creatures have, and which I never could 
 exactly understand, hungry or not hungry, they are 
 all housed until near sun-down of the next day. 
 
 So at ten o'clock, or a little after, we always went 
 quietly to the shore and slept "where?" Not in 
 hammocks, but in our strong and dry canoe, ready, at 
 a moment's warning, if danger was at hand, to push 
 off upon the boiling current. And if it rained, by 
 an unrolled mat, constructed of palm-leaves by 
 Alzar and his passenger, as we floated along, cover 
 ing the canoe from stem to stern, we were perfectly 
 protected from the entrance of a drop of water. 
 The heaviest thunder-showers pelted us, and poured 
 on to us, but in vain ; but against mosquitos our 
 roof was no proof, for where air comes, in South 
 America, there will come (during their daytime) 
 mosquitos also. 
 
 And how strange ! What a mysterious order of 
 nature! The billions on billions of millions of these 
 sanguiniverous insects created to exist but a few 
 weeks of time, with a taste for blood, and a pro 
 boscis for boring, and for drawing it through the 
 thickest of hides, and, probably, not one in a hun 
 dred millions ever tastes the food they were made 
 to procure and enjoy ; and from which, if they are 
 allowed to be gorged by it, they are known to die 
 in a few minutes. 
 
Mosquitos. 225 
 
 How strange also, that the beautiful provision o'f 
 nature, given them for penetrating the skin, and 
 drawing the food which nature has indicated for 
 them, should inflict such insupportable pain as 
 completely to defeat their efforts to procure it ! 
 No animals of the country allow a mosquito to 
 bite ; and man, at the few points where he is exposed, 
 though he often feels the sting, allows the insect no 
 time to draw his blood. 
 
 Is it then that here is an order of nature frus- 
 'trated, or was it the intention of nature that the 
 probosces of these murderous creatures should have 
 been used for a different purpose, and that the 
 cruel and sanguinary use they are making of them 
 is but a wicked perversion of an instrument in 
 tended for a different object ? 
 
 How strange, also, that the proboscis of this 
 insect, which will go through the thickest clothing 
 and the skin of a white man, and even at times 
 through his buckskin leggings, has little or no 
 effect upon the naked Indian, not that it lacks the 
 power, or that the blood is not as easily' drawn, for 
 the Indian's skin is as soft and as thin as that of a 
 white man. 
 
 There have been various theories advanced on 
 this subject. Some have supposed some peculiar 
 quality in the Indian's blood make it unpalatable 
 to the mosquitos. And others have thought that 
 the Indians had some oil or drug which they rubbed 
 
 Q 
 
226 Mosquito Soup. 
 
 over their bodies and limbs as a protection ; but it 
 is more probable that the constant smoke they live 
 in, and which mosquitos always avoid, forms a 
 surface on the skin repugnant to the olfactory 
 nerves of the insect. 
 
 The Indians of South America, and particularly 
 those of the Amazon, sleep under sheds, in the 
 open air, and entirely naked, unmolested by mos 
 quitos, where a white man, bound with cords, and 
 naked, could not possibly exist one hour; not loss 
 of blood, but inflammation, would be the death 
 of him. And if the whole human (civilized) race 
 of the globe were spread over the valley of the 
 Amazon and its tributaries, and exposed in the 
 same way, one day, from sundown to ten o'clock at 
 night, would end the whole of them. 
 
 But enough of tigers and mosquitos. I fear I 
 shall have to strike them all out of my little book 
 before I get through, for want of space. We are 
 travelling with the Indians. However, I will ven 
 ture to insert here the following recipe which I 
 wrote out to please Alzar ; and after that we will 
 proceed on our course. 
 
 How to make Mosquito Soup. 
 
 " RECIPE. Descending the Missouri or Arkansas 
 rivers in North America, or the Corontyns or Uru 
 guay in South America, run your canoe ashore in a 
 thick bottom, just at sundown, having filled your 
 
Mosquito Soup. 227 
 
 tin kettle about half full of river water, which 'is 
 very pure and wholesome. Before landing, how 
 ever, throw a couple of spoonfuls of salt (or, what 
 is better, if you have it, half a pound of salt pork) 
 and one of black pepper into your kettle, and a 
 dozen or so of the small prairie onions (cop-o-blos\ 
 a sort of wild onion about the size of a rifle-bullet, 
 and which no travellers in those regions should fail 
 to gather and carry along, as important aids in 
 cooking. In fact, a wild turkey or goose cannot be 
 well roasted without them, as your stuffing other 
 wise will be a complete failure. 
 
 " All these things be sure to arrange' before you 
 land, as it might be difficult to arrange them on 
 shore. Also, before being put on shore, if you be 
 the cook, you should draw a pair of Indian buck 
 skin leggings over your pantaloons, tying them very 
 tight around the ankles. Leave your hat or cap 
 behind, covering the head with a large silk hand 
 kerchief or shawl, passing under the chin, and 
 covering the face as high as the bridge of the nose, 
 and tie it firmly in the back of the neck : then, with 
 a bunch of willow boughs in your left hand to pro 
 tect your eyes (keeping it constantly in motion), 
 whilst your right hand is free to work with, a 
 thick pair of buckskin gloves or mittens on your 
 hands, and your pantaloons' pockets turned inside 
 out, your person is tolerably secure from all ap 
 proach, and you may venture to step ashore ; but 
 
228 Mosquito Soup. 
 
 keeping your body and limbs constantly more or 
 less in motion, which will defeat the aim* of such 
 probosces as may occasionally have found their way 
 through the imperfect seams or otherwise vulnerable 
 parts of your dress. 
 
 " In these heavy wooded bottoms there is always 
 a plenty of dried mulberry limbs and trees, which 
 gather as quick as possible ; they burn free, with a 
 light flame and little or no smoke to frighten the 
 mosquitos away. Set your kettle exactly in the 
 middle of the fire, so that the flame will rise equally 
 all around it, and some twelve or fourteen inches 
 above its rim, which is abundantly high. 
 
 " The rest of the party, having left you ashore, 
 should then lose no time in paddling into the 
 stream, each one with a bunch of willow-boughs 
 whipping ashore all the insects that are attempting 
 to follow the canoe, and leaving you, the cook, 
 alone to ' walk the kettle,' as one alone concentrates 
 the flying cloud better than several. 
 
 " The cloud beginning to gather in promising 
 quantities around you, you may commence walking 
 at a regular pace, with short steps, around the fire 
 and boiling kettle ; the swarm will follow in your 
 wake, and, to shorten the distance, they will con 
 stantly be flying over the fire, when, their wings 
 being singed, they fall into the kettle ; and whilst 
 keeping your eyes clear with the willow-boughs in 
 your left hand, if you aim your blows right, a great 
 
Mosquito So^lp. 229 
 
 many may be thus knocked into the kettle that 
 perhaps are too wary to get their wings burned. 
 
 " There is no limited time for this operation, nor 
 any end to the arriving multitudes ; but you must 
 be guided entirely by the apparent quantity, by 
 lifting off the kettle occasionally, when the boiling 
 ceases, and their carcasses rise in a large clotted 
 mass on the surface, which with a large wooden 
 spoon you should throw off, as the fat is all ex 
 tracted from them, and their bodies should give way 
 to a fresh supply, in order to obtain the requisite 
 richness of the soup. 
 
 " If you observe occasionally a gallinipper or a 
 mosquito hawk falling in, which is very apt to be 
 the case, where they are so confusedly grouped to 
 gether, all the better, for they are always gorged 
 with a fresh supply of these insects ; and if in the 
 desperate struggle any part of your dress should 
 have given way, and the mosquitos should have 
 succeeded through the breach in getting a few 
 ounces of your blood, no matter never mind it ; it 
 will add to the richness of the soup. 
 
 "The boiling operation being finished, and the 
 canoe called ashore, the kettle should be handled as 
 quickly as possible, and taken on board ; all hands, 
 as they are armed each with a bunch of willow- 
 boughs, will be able to whip the following swarms 
 ashore as the canoe enters the current, over which 
 they never venture to fly more than a few rods. 
 
230 Mosquito Soup. 
 
 " Then, landing on some barren sand-bar which 
 has no vegetation, and consequently is uninhabited 
 by these torments, a comfortable night's rest may 
 be enjoyed ; and the soup, when it is sufficiently 
 cooled, and the again collected mass of their light 
 and emptied carcasses floating on the surface are 
 again skimmed off with the spoon, and some hard 
 biscuits ' crumbed in, your kettle of ' Mosquito 
 Soup' is ready for use. 1 
 
 "GEO. CATLIN, Rio Uruguay." 
 
 From Conception, where we started, to the little 
 town of Santa Cruz, 200 miles, and from that to 
 San Pedro, on the west bank of the river, 200 miles 
 further down, here and in the neighbourhood were 
 Indians a plenty. But one incident more a tiger 
 story. It never again can be told, and should be 
 history. I can tell it in a few words, and then we 
 will go on with the Indians. 
 
 On the Missouri, with Batiste and Bogard to 
 paddle, I always steered ; but on the Uruguay, the 
 steering-paddle was in the hands of Alzar, and I 
 sat about the middle of the canoe, whilst our pas 
 senger "working his passage" was near the bow, 
 with his propeller always at work, like a machine. 
 
 1 If from any undue prejudice the superior quality of this 
 soup should be questioned, it at least has this advantage over 
 most other kinds, that it costs nothing, and is always at hand, 
 and easily obtained in all the great western valleys of North, 
 and in all the valleys of South America. 
 
A Tiger Story. 231 
 
 Some thirty or forty miles below the town of 
 Santa Cruz, and whilst we were passing great quan 
 tities of turtle-shells, and half-devoured carcasses of 
 turtles lying on the sandy beach, signs incontro 
 vertible of tigers, I had charged Alzar to keep a 
 bright look-out, and to let me know if any game 
 was discovered, and I had fallen asleep. In the 
 midst of this (I forget what I was dreaming about), 
 Alzar whispered in my ear, 
 
 " Senor, there's a beautiful tiger ahead stands 
 out whole neck and head above the grass !" 
 
 Before getting my eyes fairly open, " Slip back," 
 said I, " to your seat, inch by inch, and keep your 
 paddle down, and both hands close to the water's 
 edge, and steer the canoe a little in ; we are rather 
 too far from the shore." 
 
 Before he retreated he had given me, with his 
 forefinger, the direction, and I was beginning to see 
 the staring, glaring round head of the villain above 
 the grass on the top of the bank. 
 
 But why, by the way, should I say "villain?" 
 These poor creatures slay only for food ; we kill 
 for amusement, not for food, not for trie carcass 
 and for the tail, we sometimes don't even take that. 
 But a " Tiger a-head ! " is a poor place for moralizing 
 or sympathizing. . " Sam" was in both hands, and, 
 of course, near my cheek! The smoke cleared 
 away, I could see nothing ; but both of the men 
 exclaimed " Dead shot, dead shot ! Seftor." 
 
232 Shooting a Tiger. 
 
 I told Alzar to steer the canoe in, and put me 
 ashore. He landed me a few rods below where the 
 animal had sat, and advancing along the edge of 
 the stream until I got opposite to the place, I 
 directed him to keep the canoe a little out from the 
 shore, and in front of me, and his rifle up and ready 
 in case of any necessity. 
 
 Though my men had seen the animal fall, I took 
 this precaution, as I was about to ascend the bank 
 of some thirty or forty feet, and covered with tall 
 grass and weeds, under a sort of conviction, from 
 the rather slow fire of my rifle, that I had missed, 
 or only grazed the creature's head, and that it might 
 be lying in the weeds, and ready to make a spring 
 upon me ; or, if the animal were dead, as my men 
 believed, its mate might be lying by its side, and 
 ready to do the same thing for me. 
 
 I had five shots left in the cylinders, however, and 
 ready at the instant, and was ready to run all risks 
 of rising the bank alone, imprudent as it was. The 
 bank was something like thirty feet higher than the 
 river, and from the water's edge rose at an angle of 
 thirty degrees, and was covered with grass and 
 weeds as high nearly as my head. I ascended very 
 slowly, and with my rifle raised ; and when near 
 the brink, I was no doubt soonest discovered, being 
 in motion. And, as if shot from a cannon, the beast 
 struck me, its breast meeting the muzzle of my 
 rifle, which was thrown over my shoulder, and 
 
A Tigers Spring. 233 
 
 quite into the river and myself, backwards and , 
 headlong to the water's edge ! It was a blow and a 
 rebound ; and the animal, at one leap, was out of 
 sight ! 
 
 I was paralyzed by the shock, and in that condi 
 tion was taken into the canoe ; and might as well 
 have been taken and lugged into the thicket, the 
 helpless prey of my adversary. When conscious 
 ness came, beyond the shock, I knew nothing of 
 what had transpired except what my men related 
 to me, nor had I then the slightest recollection of 
 having seen the animal, in its flight, coming upon 
 me, probably from the quantity of weeds between 
 us hiding it from my view. 
 
 We got into the stream and floated off, all hands 
 (judiciously, no doubt) agreeing to a drawn battle, 
 rather than risk anything further to gratify 
 curiosity. 
 
 The animal that I fired at might have fallen 
 dead, as my men still declared, and its mate, lying 
 by, might have sprung upon me ; or I might, as I 
 think, from the dampness of my powder, have 
 grazed its head, and brought it, in the manner de 
 scribed, upon me ; but, whichever might have been 
 the case, we were quite willing to leave it to tigers 
 to decide. 
 
 Whilst exulting in my lucky escape, I began to 
 feel pain in my left arm between the wrist and the 
 elbow, and blood beginning to issue freely from it, 
 
234 A Tiger s Scratch. 
 
 I was convinced that the animal, though instantly 
 as it had rebounded, had had a grab at my arm ; 
 and getting at it, the incisions of two of its teeth 
 were visible on the upper, and one on the opposite 
 side. And, as proof that the creature intended to 
 have taken me along with him, one paw had gone 
 over my left shoulder, and, failing to take me along, 
 had opened my cotton paletot for a considerable 
 distance, and left the furrows of two of its nails in 
 the flesh. My wounds, therefore, like those of a 
 woman's fight, were but scratches, and easily dressed, 
 and were quickly forgotten, though the marks of 
 them still remain. 
 
 At San Pedro I said we should find Indians, and 
 in it and its near vicinity we found a plenty of them. 
 The Tobos, the Lenguas, and the Bocolics small 
 tribes, the survivors from rum, and whisjcey, and 
 smallpox, by which the greater portion of those 
 once numerous and warlike people have been swept 
 away. 
 
 Of these the Lenguas and Tobos, which seem 
 to be an amalgam of two tribes, is the most 
 numerous and the most interesting. Their village 
 (tolderia) is all in one long shed, standing on the 
 bank of the river, and forty rods in length, and 
 built much like the tolderia of the Payaguas, which 
 has been described ; and resembling also the sheds 
 of the Connibos and Sepibos, on the Rio Yucayali, 
 
Lengiia and Tobos Indians. 235 
 
 in Peru, and already described in the first volume 
 of this work. The people, also, in their personal 
 appearance and customs, resemble the Connibos 
 enough to be their brothers ; and yet they resemble 
 the Botocudos, of which people they are no doubt 
 a part. Like the Botocudos, they wear the block 
 of wood in the lip, and slit and elongate the rims 
 of their ears. 
 
 This extraordinary and curious custom, of which 
 I have spoken in former chapters, I had oppor 
 tunities of more closely examining in this tribe, 
 and which examinations will justify a few further 
 remarks in this place. The greater portion of the 
 tribe have long since abandoned so useless and so 
 ridiculous a custom, and others still study eccen 
 tricity by keeping it up. 
 
 In several instances I was permitted to examine 
 closely the orifice in the lip, when the block was not 
 in, and, to my surprise, in each instance, such is the 
 elasticity and contraction of the lip, that from the 
 moment a round block of wood, of two inches in 
 diameter, was taken out, the lip contracts to its 
 natural shape and proportions, and the orifice is so 
 perfectly closed that not even the saliva from the 
 mouth escapes through it ; and to the passing spec 
 tator the mark of it is scarcely visible in the face. 
 
 From one of their medicine men, whose portrait 
 I was painting, with the block in his lip, I got many 
 curious particulars relating to the custom, and 
 
236 Lengua Medicine Man. 
 
 amongst others, he put his finger on several holes 
 in his cheeks, from which he told me he suspended 
 strings of beads, and feathers, and other ornaments, 
 on certain occasions, in their dances, masquerades, 
 &c. And I pointed to one that I discovered in his 
 upper lip 
 
 " Yes," said he, pulling down the lip and running 
 his thumb through it, " and I have sometimes worn 
 the block in it." 
 
 I had just before bartered for a couple of these 
 blocks, which I had at the moment in my pocket ; 
 and handing him one of them, he knew my object, 
 and in an instant it was adjusted in his upper lip ! 
 Here it was that I " stumbled on a double pay-lay- 
 lay" It made a great laugh amongst the Indian 
 bystanders, which showed that it was an eccentricity 
 of the moment, and not a custom. The droll old 
 doctor found, however, that he could talk better 
 with the two than he could with the one only, and 
 the clacking and clattering sounds of his wooden 
 lips, and the curious grimaces of his face, produced 
 a short spell of excessive laughter and amusement. 
 
 Besides this singular mode of ornamentation, and 
 the modes of deformation already spoken of, prac 
 tised by the Flatheads and Peruvians, there are yet 
 many others not less. curious, which I have witnessed, 
 and of which the world are as yet not generally aware. 
 And of these, none more curious and extraordi 
 nary than those practised by the numerous tribes on 
 the upper Amazon and its tributaries, whom Caesar 
 
Indians of the Amazon. 237 
 
 and I visited several years before, and of whom I 
 spoke, very briefly, in the first volume of this work. 
 Of all the tribes on the Continent of America, 
 those of the Amazon and its affluents are the most 
 nude the most ill-shaped the least ornamented 
 the least warlike, and the least hostile. 
 
 17- 
 
 The equatorial climate in which they live, almost 
 absolutely denying the use of clothing of any sort, 
 and their fisherman's modes of life, living almost 
 constantly in their dirty and wet canoes, destructive 
 to costumes of all sorts, presents thousands of those 
 people in a state of nudity almost as absolute as 
 
238 Indians of the Amazon. 
 
 when they were born, and, of course, in a state of 
 nature too literal for the artist's pencils, the males 
 only wearing a " fig leaf " of cotton or of bark, the 
 size of one's hand. 
 
 The traveller, when he enters their humble wig 
 wams, where he is welcome, feels embarrassed at 
 their nakedness, but not so those poor people, who 
 practise modesty without cloaks, and whose artless 
 and unstudied propriety teach civilized man things 
 that in the abundance of his conceptions he never 
 thought of before. 
 
 Ill-looking, as many of the Amazon tribes are 
 compared with the other American races, there are 
 still tribes amongst them that remind the traveller 
 of the Winnebagoes, the Menomonies, and other 
 Canoe Indians of North America, and are quite 
 their equals. 
 
 On the Amazon and its tributaries, from the 
 mouth of the Rio Negro to Nauta, which constitutes 
 but a half of that river, there are more than one 
 hundred tribes speaking different or dialectic lan 
 guages ; and though ugly enough from Nature's 
 hands, they have been caricatured in a manner that 
 reflects little credit to Art, and stigmatised as Can 
 nibals, in language as little worthy of historians. 
 
 The whole country, a distance of 800 miles, if it 
 were possible to traverse its vast forests and swamps 
 on both sides of the river, might be travelled in 
 security by a man with his wife and his children, 
 
Canoe and Horse Indians. 239 
 
 and unarmed, without harm from the Indians ; and , 
 amongst them he would find helping hands when 
 ever difficulties were in his way. These people are 
 friendly to the whites, because there are no buffaloes 
 nor beavers in their country to excite white man's 
 cupidity because they have nothing with which to 
 buy rum and whiskey, and because their lands are 
 so vast, and covered with such unmoveable forests 
 of timber that white men do not want them ; and 
 hostility amongst themselves is little known the 
 tribes are too small to wage desolating warfare 
 they have no defined boundaries to protect, or 
 hunting grounds to defend. They cannot hunt ; the 
 denseness of their forests forbids it ; and living by 
 fishing, the rivers which they fish upon admit of no 
 boundaries, and are alike free to all ; and the move 
 ments of their canoes, propelled only by the muscles 
 of the warrior's arms, are less inspiring to deeds of 
 war than the movements of the horse, which often 
 lead the crazed warrior into rash and mortal 
 combat. 
 
 Like most canoe Indians, the peculiar, modes of 
 their lives, sitting in their wet canoes or wading in 
 the water, forbid their dressing their feet and their 
 legs, and, unlike the Indians who ride on the prairies 
 or travel on foot amongst the rocks, they are gene 
 rally barefooted ; and the labour of propelling their 
 canoes without the use of their nether limbs, gives 
 them physiological disproportions an over-develop- 
 
240 Mountain Indians. 
 
 ment of the muscles of the arms and chest, and a 
 narrowness in the hips, and a lankness and deficiency 
 in the legs. 
 
 The horsemen on the prairies, on the other hand, 
 who always exercise astride of their horses' backs, 
 and using their arms only for their light bows and 
 the bridle, beget a lack of symmetry almost equally 
 striking ; an over-breadth in the hips, expansion 
 and curvature of the upper legs, and comparative 
 lightness and slightness in the arms and chest 
 
 The fisherman is beautiful as he glides along in 
 his canoe ; but placed upon his naked feet, he 
 cringes and looks to the ground before his steps, 
 and loses the dignity and grace of the mocasined 
 man, who fearlessly and solidly sets his foot, and 
 uses his eyes for the distance. 
 
 These circumstantial departures from the 
 natural symmetry of man and his movements, are 
 plainly exhibited amongst all the horse and canoe 
 tribes of America ; but there is another, the Moun 
 tain Indians, who have neither horses to ride nor 
 canoes to paddle, who have no fish to catch and 
 no buffaloes to chase, who draw their sinewy bows 
 whose steps and leaps, upwards and downwards, 
 and climbing, amongst the rocks, exercise alike, all 
 the muscles of the body, and the limbs, where per 
 fect symmetry of form alone can be found. 
 
 The numerous tribes on the liaute Amazon about 
 the mouth of Rio Negro, and from that to Nauta, 
 
Face Painting. 241 
 
 and upon the shores of the Yucayali, of whom I 
 have spoken as canoe Indians, deserve a few further 
 remarks in this place relative to the curious modes 
 Q! pendent and pigment ornamentation which they 
 practise, and with effects perhaps more bizarre and 
 more droll than even the blocks of wood worn in 
 the lips, in the tribes where we are now halting. 
 
 Besides the ordinary way of painting with vermi 
 lion and other colours daubed on with the ringers, 
 several of these tribes have a mode of printing the 
 colours on their faces and bodies in the manner 
 somewhat of theorem painting. On a certain sort 
 of palm leaf, or a piece of parchment-dressed skin, 
 the most curious and intricate arabesque devices are 
 drawn and cut out, and this laid on one cheek and 
 the other, and the forehead, and the colour, mixed 
 with grease, covering the palms of the hands of the 
 operator, a gradual pressure prints the intricate de 
 signs through the theorems upon the face. 
 
 There are often different patterns printed on the 
 breasts, the shoulders, and arms, and legs, bewilder 
 ing the beholder who does not understand the pro 
 cess, with astonishment at the apparent labour and 
 artistic effect, produced on a figure in the morning 
 to be washed off at night, little thinking that the 
 whole effect has been produced in five minutes. 
 
 These theorems are prepared with oil and glue, 
 so that they bear washing, and being once elabo 
 rated, can be used a thousand times ; and the mys- 
 
 R 
 
242 Pendent Ornaments. 
 
 tery that astonishes an artist is, that two and three 
 colours are sometimes printed over and between 
 one another, like chromo-lithographic printing, and 
 the colours rubbed in with the ringers, effects are 
 often produced that would test the skill of the best 
 artist to copy. 
 
 The fat and round and solid cheeks of these 
 people, and their peculiar colour, form the best pos 
 sible ground for this curious art, which I am quite 
 sure could not be practised with equal effect on any 
 other substance. 
 
 The pendent ornaments of the face and ears in 
 most of these tribes are not less surprising, and cer 
 tainly are more completely unaccountable. Of the 
 tribes that I have visited in that region, the most 
 remarkable for these modes *are the Muras, on both 
 sides of the Amazon, above the mouth of Rio Negro, 
 the Iquitos, the Omaguas, the Ticunas, the Yahuas, 
 the Marahuas, the Orejones, the Mayonmas, the 
 Connibos, and Sepibos. 
 
 These tribes all sever the rims of the ears and 
 elongate the lobes, by wearing heavy weights in 
 them ; which accomplished, enables them to wear 
 enormous blocks of wood and other ornaments in 
 them, precisely like the Botocudos and Lenguas, 
 whom we are yet amongst. By the process of 
 elongating the lobe, it becomes enlarged, and often 
 times is seen descending quite to the shoulder, and, 
 from appearance, of half a pound or more in 
 weight. 
 
Pendent Ornaments. 
 
 243 
 
 In Plate No. 18 I have given copies of three of 
 my portraits made amongst those people, illustrat 
 ing the principal and most curious of the above- 
 named modes, (a) A Mura chief, his ears curiously 
 mutilated and elongated, with ornaments attached, 
 round plates of silver fastened to his cheeks, his 
 chin, and his nostrils, and long thorns standing out 
 from his cheeks and his chin. 
 
 a 
 
 For the supports of these singular ornaments of 
 the face, incisions are made in the flesh in childhood, 
 into which a large bead is forced, with a slight thong 
 hanging out. The flesh heals around the cicatriced 
 wound, and the bead is withdrawn. The elasticity 
 of the flesh is such that the orifice is scarcely per- 
 
244 Pendent Ornaments. 
 
 ceptible ; and, at the times of ornamentation, for 
 galas, festival days, &c, a bead, into which the butt- 
 end of the thorn is pressed, is slipped into the ori 
 fice, and supports the thorns in the positions in 
 which they are placed, and so the silver plates are 
 supported on the cheeks and the chin, and feather 
 and other pendents. 
 
 They dance, and sing, and yell, with all these or 
 naments attached, and if any one of them becomes the 
 least deranged, the mere touch of the ringers adjusts 
 it again. The portrait (b), same plate, an Orejona, is 
 still more curiously ornamented with long feathers 
 run through the cartilage of his nose, two splints 
 fashioned from the branches of palm, attached by 
 beads to the nose, and quills and beads suspended 
 from his under-lip by the same means, and blocks 
 of wood in the cartilage of his ears. 
 
 The portrait (c), same plate, of a Ccocato chief, 
 with the same incisions, wears the blocks in his ears, 
 and ornaments his face, on this occasion, with strings 
 of beads only. And besides these pendent orna 
 ments, their faces, and bodies, and limbs, were 
 painted in a variety of forms and colours. 
 
 In Plate No. 19 I have given a copy of a portrait 
 of a medicine man (sorcerer) in the Omagua tribe, 
 who uses the perforation through his lip alternately 
 for suspending strings of beads or shells, or beauti 
 ful plumes, or for suspending a boulder of flint of a 
 pound or more in weight, supported by a large bead 
 
Pendent Ornaments. 245 
 
 on the inner side of the lip, which he assured me 
 was a habit that he could not dispense with, from the 
 pleasure it gave him at times, and always after 
 eating, of drawing the cool air upon the gums and 
 through his teeth ! 
 
 The habit of suspending strings of beads and 
 feathers from the under lip is also practised by 
 the females in many of the tribes, not only on 
 the Amazon, but in various parts of South America, 
 amongst the women of Venezuela, of Guiana, of 
 Paraguay, and the mountains of Peru. The copy 
 of a portrait of a Gooagive unmarried girl of Vene- 
 
246 Pendent Ornaments. 
 
 zuela illustrates this mode amongst the females ; 
 and the long thorns projecting from her cheeks 
 might almost be recommended for young ladies in 
 the protectrice economy of civilized life (Plate No. 20). 
 Finishing this curious episode amongst the Ama 
 zons, we return again to the Tobos and Lengua, 
 whom we left on the Uruguay. 
 
 20. 
 
 The passion for ornamentation seems to belong 
 to all the human race much alike ; whether they are 
 clad in beautiful and costly stuffs, or are naked, the 
 passion seems to be the same. The Indians in the 
 northern latitudes of North America, who dress in 
 skins, wear their ornaments in paintings and em 
 broideries on their dresses. The Amazons, who wear 
 no dresses, are equally -vain, and expend their in 
 genuity and exhaust their means in ornamenting 
 
Deformation. 247 
 
 their naked limbs, without an inch of dress upon 
 them. They load their wrists and ancles with bright 
 and costly bracelets and rings, and their necks 
 and breasts and hair with beads, and paint their 
 limbs and faces with beautiful colours. And what 
 can be more beautiful ? what more proper ? 
 
 But blocks, and thorns, and weights ! What a 
 mistake in taste ! And last of all, to flatten and 
 elongate their skulls, like the Flatheads and Peru 
 vians, in order to look beautiful ! Oh, Vanity, thy 
 name is (certainly) Indian ! " Everything has its 
 cause." It is easy to account for the love of orna 
 ment with paint and beads, and even blocks and 
 thorns, but who can guess the cause of changing 
 the shape of the skull to beautify " the human face 
 Divine ?" There must be a cause for this. 
 
 The Flathead tribe at the mouth of the Columbia, 
 whose portraits I have shown (and also their mode 
 of flattening the head) in Chapter 3. And the an 
 cient Peruvians, as we learn by their skulls, are the 
 tribes that have ventured to deform nature for a 
 form more beautiful in art. And is it exactly so ? 
 I do not believe it. I do not believe that any part 
 of the human family would venture such a stride 
 from nature as to flatten the skull as the Flatheads 
 do, or to compress it into a sugar-loaf, as the Peru 
 vians have done, without a model, without a fashion 
 to follow an Indian beau ideal to which they have 
 aspired. Those beau ideals are seen in Plate No. 21- 
 
248 Deformation. 
 
 Letter (a), a Crow of the Rocky Mountains, and (b), 
 an alto-Peruvian of the Andes, the two great origi 
 nal fountains of American man, to whom all the 
 tribes point as their origin, and on whom, of course, 
 
 21. 
 
 all the tribes have looked as the beau ideals of the 
 Indian race. The Flathead, letter (c), aiming at 
 the Crow-skull (like the copyists of most fashions), 
 has carried the copy into caricature ; and the bas- 
 Peruvian, letter (d), aiming at the elevated frontal 
 
Patagonia. - 249 
 
 of the mountain regions, has squeezed his up with 
 circular bandages, to equally monstrous proportions. 
 
 Not to make this chapter too long, I shut my 
 note-book on the Lengua andTobos Indians around 
 us ; and shaking hands with them, a few days down 
 stream showed us the little band of Bocobies at the 
 mouth of the Rio Negro of Uruguay, and after that 
 the beautiful city of Buenos Ayres, and where 
 next ? 
 
 " Patagonia and the Patagons, of course." The 
 "Giants of Patagonia ten feet high!" and the 
 "Cannibals!" I did not believe such things, but 
 would go and look for them through the centre of 
 Patagonia and Terra del Fuego. But here this 
 chapter ends. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 BUENOS AYRES. 
 
 in a boarding-house, in a comfort 
 able room looking on to the Plaza, and 
 at home, of course, I was at work on 
 my sketches. 
 Alza came in, and softly behind him, and wrapped 
 in a scarlet mantle, a handsome young man, a half- 
 caste, rouged to the eyes, and his glossy hair, parted 
 on his forehead, falling back upon his shoulders, 
 and without a quill upon his head ; and in his wake, 
 and more softly and timidly still, a young woman 
 of the same colour, in a calico dress, her hair dressed 
 in the same manner, the two looking effeminate 
 enough, and enough alike, to have been sisters, 
 
 Alza, with his hat in his hand, " bowed and 
 scraped," and introduced them as brother and sister, 
 of the Auca tribe, living on the head waters of the Rio 
 Salado, to the south of Buenos Ayres. Such was 
 the suavity and gentleness of their manners as they 
 
Auca Indians. 251 
 
 advanced and both shook hands with me, that I 
 felt almost embarrassed. Alza had no doubt given 
 them a high-coloured description of me and my 
 works, and they were approaching me with a pro 
 found respect. 
 
 Alza could speak somewhat of their language, 
 and, what was better, the young man spoke Spanish 
 very well, and his beautiful and modest sister well 
 enough to be amusing and agreeable to me. They 
 had learned enough from Alza to know the object 
 of my travelling and the sincerity of my views, to 
 enter into undisguised conversation about their own 
 and other tribes of Indians in the vicinity, and con 
 versation took place, for the time, of my painting, 
 and my brushes were laid down. 
 
 I expressed my surprise at meeting red people in 
 the city of Buenos Ayres, and particularly so beau 
 tiful a young lady, when Til-tee (!'the Fire-fly" I 
 found that was her name) replied quicker than her 
 brother was able to do, " Oh, we often come here, 
 seftor, and there's a plenty of us here now; my 
 father, and my mother, and my sister are all up 
 town." 
 
 Alzar then said, "This is a very respectable 
 family, Senor Gonzales Borrow, he is a Portuguese 
 gentleman, and his wife is an Auca woman. They 
 live on the Rio Salado, and these are some of their 
 children ; and if you will permit me, seftor I know 
 they will be glad to see your paintings." 
 
252 Auca Indians. 
 
 "Most certainly. Alzar, go and fetch them." Alzar 
 was off, and I went to amusing my visitors with 
 my sketches. 
 
 My portfolio of Indian portraits was giving so 
 unthought-of and so exciting a pleasure to the two, 
 and particularly to that beautiful little creature who 
 became more beautiful every time she turned, that 
 I was in the midst of a peculiar satisfaction being 
 taken to myself, when Alzar came in, with the rest 
 of the family. 
 
 This was the first day after my arrival in Buenos 
 Ayres, and though I had several letters of intro 
 duction which I had not yet delivered, I spent the 
 whole of that day with this interesting family, 
 having learned, in the early part of my conversation 
 with them, that their business was all settled, and 
 their arrangements all made to start for their 
 home on the Salado at an early hour the next 
 morning. 
 
 I gained from them a great deal of valuable and 
 reliable information respecting their own tribe, and 
 of their neighbours on the south, the Puelches and 
 Patagons, with both of which tribes I found they 
 were well acquainted, and with which they were 
 living on terms of friendship. The Puelches and 
 Aucas, both coming freely into Buenos Ayres, and 
 trading for guns, ammunition, cloths, hardware, 
 cutlery, &c, which they sell at a profit to the 
 Patagons, who are sworn enemies to the Buenos 
 
Auca Indians. 253 
 
 Ayreans, and never see them except on the field of ' 
 battle. 
 
 My cartoon portraits, which they could not see 
 enough of, gave an unspeakable pleasure to these 
 people, and those with flattened heads, and those 
 with blocks of wood in the lip, seemed to excite 
 with a people who wear few ornaments, equally 
 disgust and astonishment. They told me they 
 never had thought that any Indians were such 
 great fools. 
 
 Borroro and his son gave me such a glowing 
 description of the country where they lived, of the 
 beauty of the forests, the lakes, the prairies and 
 pampas ; of the chasing of ostriches, wild horses 
 and wild cattle, which they kill for their hides and 
 their hair, as well as the beautiful games of the 
 Indians, and, at the end of all, so pressing an in 
 vitation to come and see, and to join in them, that 
 I told them distinctly that Alzar and I would ride 
 there before a fortnight was out. 
 
 This evidently gave them great pleasure, and the 
 father said that both he and his son would' join me 
 in any or all of the sports of the country, if I 
 would come. I told him I had long had an inten 
 tion of making a journey through the middle of 
 the Puelche and Patagon tribes, to Terra del Fuego, 
 and he believed that from that place on the Salado, 
 which would be 150 miles directly on the route, 
 would be the proper point to start from ; and that, 
 
254 Auca Indians. 
 
 if I chose, his son, who was an excellent horseman 
 and hunter, and knew well the Puelches and the 
 Patagons, should be one of the party, and could 
 easily get me any number of first-rate young men 
 around him to join me. 
 
 "Well done," said I, "Alzar, my troubles are 
 all over, I see our way now clearly ; we'll go through 
 the centre of Patagonia." 
 
 Borroro was himself half an Indian (his father a 
 Portuguese planter), and, therefore, with all the 
 vanity that usually belongs peculiarly to the half- 
 caste class, and with the strict traits of honour that 
 generally characterize them also ; and I thereupon 
 said to him and his Indian wife, " There is one thing 
 now that I want to ask of you I want you to allow 
 me to make a sketch of Til-tee, your beautiful 
 daughter the day is half gone, and I will not have 
 time to finish it very well, but I will bring it 
 with me and finish it when I come to see you ; she 
 is so pretty that I don't wish to forget how she 
 looks." 
 
 The extreme overjoy of the mother seemed as if 
 she had, in a measure, misunderstood the arrange 
 ment I had asked for, and no objections being 
 made, and no conditions named, I went to work. 
 The timid little girl said she was sorry that she 
 had not her prettiest dress on. I told her that was 
 no matter, it was not the dress I wanted, it was her 
 pretty face and neck only, and if I could paint that 
 
Auca Indians. 255 
 
 part now, the dress could be painted when I should ' 
 see her again. 
 
 The mother, sagacious enough to understand this, 
 and flattered with my admiration of her daughter, 
 stepped up, and pulling her arms out of the sleeves 
 of her loose calico dress, which fell down upon her 
 lap, exclaimed, "There ! that's the way she is when 
 at home." And oh ! what a pretty creature, what 
 a beautiful bust was before me ! What an ugly veil 
 was drawn from hidden beauty ! and drawn by 
 whom? by the hand of a savage; a savage who 
 knew its worse than savage ugliness ! And oh, how 
 I worked. And when my work was done, "one 
 thing more" I wanted, and they granted it. I 
 wanted to walk with them to a jeweller's shop in 
 the corner of the plaza, where, old man as I was, 
 I could not forego the pleasure I had of buying, 
 and placing in her ears, with my own fingers, a 
 brilliant pair of pendents, for which she prettily 
 tried to express (but could not well enough in 
 Spanish) what her brother interpreted to me, " that 
 her heart was thankful for the rich present I had 
 made her." Night was at hand, and "Buenas 
 noches," "a Dios," &c, and we parted. 
 
 I had commissioned the young man, Gos-brok, 
 not to buy, but to look up, and have ready for my 
 negotiation when I should arrive, the best horse in 
 the country for my tour through Patagonia ; an 
 animal of the best bottom and speed, and well 
 
256 Rio Salado. 
 
 trained to the chase of ostriches, horses, guanacos, 
 or anything else ; and the two or three weeks 
 previous to our start I passed by working on my 
 numerous shetches, and making the necessary pre 
 parations for our campaign. 
 
 My spirits were a good deal depressed during 
 this time by reports, made to me by my friends, 
 that there was a prospect of an approaching war 
 between Buenos Ayres and the Patagon Indians, 
 which would render my expedition to Patagonia im 
 possible, as these people know no white people but 
 the Buenos Ayreans, and would make no distinction 
 between me and them, provided I were endeavour 
 ing to enter their country under such circumstances. 
 
 I nevertheless got my preparations made, and 
 even against the advice of friends, with Alzar, 
 started for the banks of the Salado. Our ride was 
 a severe one, and much longer than we had appre 
 hended, but the country one of continued interest 
 as we passed. Not on the bank of the Salado, but 
 .a great way beyond it, we found the rancho of 
 our new-made friends, and by and around them 
 many families of the small and handsome Auca 
 Indians. 
 
 The tribe is small, having been decimated by 
 whiskey and the small-pox, and though partly civi 
 lized, are still living principally by the chase. Game 
 of many kinds is always abundant in their country, 
 and easily killed ; and wild horses and wild cattle 
 
Auca Village. 257 
 
 in countless numbers, which they kill for their hides 
 and hair, which find a ready market in Buenos Ayres. 
 
 All were rejoiced to see us in performance of the 
 pomise I had made, and particularly so the pretty 
 little "Fire-fly" who was parading her sparkling 
 ear-drops and also the rather unfortunate mother, 
 who, we learned (but not till some time after), had 
 overheard, but misunderstood, the arrangement 
 made between her husband and myself in Buenos 
 Ayres, as to hunting ostriches, &c, and which ar 
 rangement, fearing an announcement of it for -two 
 or three weeks a-head would bring an unwished-for 
 assemblage of Indian sportsmen around him, he 
 had charged his wife to say nothing about. 
 
 Under the wrong impression which the poor 
 woman got when I asked permission to take her 
 daughter's portrait, which was that I had asked her 
 hand in marriage, and afterwards under the injunc 
 tion " to say nothing about it," she was keeping 
 (as will be seen) the supposed important secret pro 
 foundly safe, and, as can be imagined, was not the 
 least joyful of the family on our arrival. 
 
 The Aucas are not only a small tribe, but a tribe 
 of small people, and, a singular fact, the men and 
 women near the same size ; and resemble each 
 other so much in stature, in form, and features, and 
 in the mode of arranging their hair on their always 
 naked heads, that it is often difficult to distinguish 
 one sex from the other. 
 
 S 
 
258 My Indian Horse " Yudolph" 
 
 They wear but little dress in the summer season, 
 and that chiefly of civilized manufacture ; of calicos 
 and other cotton cloths. The men often wear 
 ponchas, and the women, in the warm season, are 
 naked as low as the waist, from which drops an 
 apron of cotton extending as low as the knee ; and 
 wear a sort of sandal or half mocasin, made of 
 goat's skin, or skin of the guanaco. In this really 
 pretty way I found the handsome little "Til-tee" 
 dressed, and freed from the horrible folds of pictured 
 calico, she was free and graceful, and more beauti 
 ful than ever. 
 
 The young man, Gos-brok, lost no time in inform 
 ing me that he had found the best horse in the 
 country for me, without the least trouble that it 
 belonged to his father ; a Mustang taken by his 
 own hand on the pampa, and trained in the chase 
 by himself : that his father had ten horses, and this 
 one, his favourite, he had resolved to sell to me. I 
 gave him his price, 150 piastres, and the laso was in 
 my hand. A noble creature an entire horse. I 
 could imagine him " Charley" but he wanted the 
 colour ; he was a silver grey, his mane and tail were 
 black, and the latter swept the ground. 
 
 The sagacious animal seemed to know, from the 
 moment his owner put the rein in my hand, that he 
 had got a new master ; and from my caressing, and 
 combing, and trimming, evidently was soon convinced 
 of the fact. A mutual understanding was soon 
 
His First Experience of Gunpowder. 259 
 
 established between us several little excursions 
 we made together about the neighbourhood, and 
 yet there was one unthought-of and necessary condi 
 tion to be understood and arranged which " Yudolph" 
 (that was the name he answered to), nor his former 
 master, had probably ever heard of. 
 
 Horses in that country, and ostriches and guanacos 
 and other animals are taken with the laso and bolas, 
 and no guns are ever fired from a horse's back for 
 anything. Colt's revolvers had not at that time 
 travelled so far, and horses knew just as much of 
 them as their masters ; the amusement of which 
 remained yet to be afforded to the one, and the 
 alarm and astonishment to be presented to the other. 
 In short, " Yudolph " had got to smell gunpowder, 
 and the Aucas to understand revolvers. 
 
 " Sam," for the first time in that region of 
 country, was taken from its case, and in the wigwam, 
 in a little time, was partly comprehended ; but for 
 " Yudolph," it was to become a more inexplicable 
 mystery. In the rashness and thoughtlessness of 
 my inexperience, being then only fifty-seven years 
 of age, it had not occurred to me that " Yudolph," 
 though a bold hunter and warrior, as he had been, 
 had probably never heard the sound of a gun ; and, 
 under this lack of intelligence, I mounted him with 
 " Sam " in hand, in presence of his former master 
 and Alzar, and the pretty little Til-tee, to see, as I 
 said, how he would " stand fire," for my game had 
 
260 Shooting from Yudolphs back! 
 
 got to be taken, and my battles fought, not with 
 laso and bolas, but with gunpowder. 
 
 I certainly was a pretty good rider as well as a 
 good shot, by this time ; and galloping him around 
 in a curve or two, I fired a cylinder to the left ! 
 and the next thing that I was sensible of was that 
 Borroro and Alzar had hold of me and were carrying 
 me towards the rancho. 
 
 I said, " Hold on I am not hurt. Where's 
 
 Yudolph?" 
 
 " He's yonder, senor." 
 
 And at a distance of thirty rods I saw him stand 
 ing broad-side his head and tail up a beautiful 
 picture, as he stood gazing at us and wondering 
 what had taken place. His master walked towards 
 him and called him, "Yudolph!" when the faithful 
 creature advanced, and met him half way. He led 
 him up and put the rein again in my hand, and the 
 trembling brute seeming to think there had been 
 some accident, followed my motions as willingly as 
 before. 
 
 "Where's 'Sam'?" said I. 
 
 " Here !" said Alzar, as he handed it to me in two 
 pieces ! the stock broken off below the guard, not 
 injuring the lock in any way. 
 . "Where's the saddle?" 
 
 " Here, senor," said Borroro ; " the girth is 
 broken, and by that means you fell." 
 
 " I know that saddles have thrown me many 
 times, but no horse can do it." 
 
How learnt to " stand fire." 261 
 
 " Is your rifle loaded, Alzar?" 
 
 " Yes, senor." 
 
 " Just give it to me then, and your bullet-pouch 
 and powder-cartridges, if you have any." 
 
 Alzar handed me his rifle and three or four 
 powder-cartridges, and placing my nose to the 
 nostrils of the trembling animal, and exchanging a 
 few breaths to inspire him with confidence, I threw 
 myself upon his naked back, and galloping the same 
 rounds as before, I fired the minie to the left kept 
 the horse upon his course, re-loaded and fired again, 
 and again, as if I were in a buffalo chase on the Mis 
 souri, or in mortal combat, and as easily, and with 
 as accurate an aim, as if I had been firing from the 
 back of " old Chouteau," my buffalo chaser at the 
 mouth of Yellow Stone. 
 
 "Huzza! huzza! bravo! bravo!" exclaimed the 
 bystanders ; and trembling " Yudolph," as I rode 
 him up, seemed to take one-half at least of the 
 applause to himself. And last, though not the 
 least complimentary and welcome, came the nice 
 old lady, from where she had sat in the door of her 
 house, who extended her hand, and showed me, by 
 the expressions of her face, that she was taking to 
 herself a peculiar satisfaction at the successful and 
 laudable feats of her (as she still supposed) approach 
 ing son-in-law. 
 
 " Yudolph" now understood something of gun 
 powder, and was ready for the chase. He had long 
 
262 Ostrich Chase. 
 
 since, under his former master, learned how to run 
 and how to approach ; and I, who had long since 
 learned how to shoot, with " Sam" in hand and a 
 six-shot revolver in my belt, was considered equal 
 to a war-party. But where was Sam ? Sent off by 
 a little son of mine host to a small village on the 
 river, some twenty miles distant, where a country 
 blacksmith bound the two parts together, and it 
 came back, not as handsome, nor as light, but quite 
 as strong as ever. 
 
 After a few days spent in and about the little 
 Auca village, the appointed day approached for a 
 "grand hunt "--an ostrich chase. The young man, 
 Gos-brok, had told me in Buenos Ayres that he 
 knew of a fine brood that had been hatched and 
 raised within a few miles, as yet unmolested, and 
 just about old enough for sport. This he had told 
 me in my painting-room, when the father and 
 mother were sitting by, and just when I had ob 
 tained their consent to have the daughter, painted ; 
 and the old lady, from her imperfect knowledge of 
 Spanish, understanding but a word or two of what 
 he had said, nodded assent, as in the other cases, 
 supposing we were still talking of Til-tee, whilst the 
 "rest of us were thinking of ostriches. 
 
 This " hatch" was also known to Gonzales Borroro 
 (his father), who now told me they would be found 
 in the edge of the thistles, near the head of the 
 " red water," one of the extreme sources of the 
 Salado, and in the pampa. 
 
Ostrich Chase. 263 
 
 The pampas in various parts of South America 
 are vast level plains, not unlike the great prairies 
 of the Platte and the Arkansaw, excepting that they 
 are covered with high weeds instead of short grass ; 
 and amongst these weeds, of which there are many 
 kinds, there are wild flowers of all colours. And 
 on the eastern borders of the great pampas, stretch 
 ing off from Buenos Ayres to Patagonia on the 
 south, and to the base of the Andes on the west, 
 there are vast forests of thistles, which, sometimes 
 for a great many miles together, though they grow 
 in patches, and as high as a horse's back, are almost 
 impassable, even for a man on horseback. 
 
 These thistles are the covers and asylums for the 
 ostrich, which feeds mostly out in the open plains 
 and in the ravines ; and when pursued, runs to the 
 thistles for cover, where it is excessively difficult to 
 follow it. 
 
 The plan of our day's sport was to ride about ten 
 miles before sunrise, and break upon the brood 
 whilst they were feeding in the open plain ; and if 
 not successful in that, to drive a thistle patch of 
 several miles in circumference, forcing the game to 
 cross an intervening prairie of two or three miles to 
 enter another thistle cover, and in which plain our 
 run would take place. 
 
 Borroro laid the plans and took the lead, riding 
 a beautiful pied horse, his bolas coiled upon his left 
 arm, and a laso, in loops, around his horse's neck. 
 
264 Ostrich Chase. 
 
 His son, Gos-brok, and two other young men, well 
 mounted and equipped in the same way, and Alzar 
 with his minie rifle, and I with " Sam" in hand, and 
 a six-shot revolver in my belt, formed the " hunters" 
 of the party ; and some six or eight Indians, 
 mounted but not armed, followed in our train, as 
 drivers of the thistles. 
 
 I have before said that sportsmen in this country 
 hunt without guns. The bolas the " deadly 
 bolas!" a thing imagined in the powder-burning 
 world, and yet but little understood. Let us know 
 more about it and its deadly powers before we go 
 further before we see these true sportsmen playing 
 with the flock of birds before us. (We will come 
 back to this play-day anon). 
 
 " Borroro lives by killing and by catching horses, 
 and others of my people live by killing cattle." So 
 said Borroro to me ; and two weeks after this play- 
 day on which we have commenced, I went with 
 Borroro and party of ten, to see the deadly works 
 of the bolas amongst a band of wild horses that had 
 been reported on the plains near the head of the 
 Rio Saladillo. 
 
 Driven by drought upon the vast pampas, these 
 animals often come in thousands together to the 
 extreme sources of the river's rising in the plains, 
 to get water ; and sometimes, the Indians tell us, 
 die by thousands and rot upon the pampas before 
 they reach it. 
 
Killing Wild Horses with Bolas. 265 
 
 A circuit of ten days, in which I lost much flesh, 
 though I had no flesh to spare, satisfied all the 
 passion I ever had to witness the extreme of Indian 
 endurance, the deadliness of the bolas, and its havoc 
 amongst the noble tenants of the pampas. 
 
 The bolas is a raw-hide cord (and, of course, 
 of great strength, though very small), somewhat in 
 the form of the capital letter T ; each of the three 
 branches being some eight or ten feet in length, 
 and having a leaden ball of half a pound weight at 
 its end. This is carried in a coil on the rider's left 
 arm, or on the horse's withers, and when in the 
 heat of the chase the rider raises it and swings it in 
 a rotary motion around and above his head, by 
 holding one of the balls in his hand. His horse is 
 trained to approach its game on the right hand side, 
 that the missile may be thrown with its fullest force 
 and accuracy ; and at the proper distance, the balls 
 are sent forward with a force and tact that keeps 
 them revolving in the air, and their centrifugal force 
 keeping the cords straight, till one or the other 
 of the cords strikes the animal's neck, it matters not 
 which, for in an instant they all wrap around its 
 neck and legs, and binding both and all together, 
 the animal falls upon its head, and generally the 
 neck is broken by the fall ; if not, before the instant 
 is out its hamstrings are cut by a long and semi- 
 circular-bladed lance, .and its chances for life are 
 ended. (Plate No. 22). 
 
266 . Ostrich Chase. 
 
 In battle, an enemy's arms are thus wrapped to 
 his sides, or his body wrapped to the neck and the 
 legs of his horse, and both go to the ground to 
 gether! 
 
 In this hunt (or massacre), to which I have no 
 more space to devote, twenty horses were killed ; 
 their skins, with the manes and tails attached, were 
 stripped off, and on the backs of mules were trans 
 ported to the Indian village. 
 
 This chase was for skins and hair only, and the 
 lasos were not used. When death is wanted, the 
 bolas is taken in hand. When the Auca or the 
 Puelche Indian wants a horse for service, the affec 
 tionate laso is dropped over its neck, and it is 
 broken in and domesticated much in the manner of 
 the North American Indians, described in the first 
 volume of this work. 
 
 Mounted and equipped, as has been related, for 
 the ostrich chase, we were assembled at and around 
 the rancho of Gonzales Borroro, a little before the 
 dawn of day. 
 
 Til-tee was up and dressed (the little she had 
 was soon put on), and her fond mother was there 
 too, and, from a wooden bowl, filled my pockets 
 with dried prunes, delightful to eat in the chase, 
 when water is scarce. She patted Yudolph on the 
 neck and the nose, examined the girth of my saddle 
 closely, and saluted me with a waive of the hand, 
 
Ostrich Chase. 267 
 
 and a long " ya ya a " as I rode off, evidently 
 afraid that I should be thrown from Yudolph's back, 
 and perhaps my neck broken. 
 
 At that time I could not more than half com 
 prehend such marked kindness, and such peculiar 
 solicitude, but gave the good woman credit for it, and 
 received it as a very strong expression of hospitality. 
 
 We were off, and galloped over our ten miles 
 pretty quick, and getting near to the ground for 
 our sport, it was necessary to follow up for a mile 
 or two the bed of a small stream, forming a little 
 grass-covered valley, lower by some twenty or thirty 
 feet than the surface of the level platform on which 
 our game was expected to be discovered. 
 
 Borroro and myself, leaving the rest of the party 
 in the valley to await our signals, rode up the 
 embankment as quietly as we could, under cover 
 of some hazel-bushes and thistles standing on a 
 projecting point, to reconnoitre the plains about, of 
 which we had a perfect view for several miles. 
 
 Discovering nothing, after a careful search, we 
 stepped our horses out into the open prairie, and 
 hearing the signal whistle of his son, which he 
 understood, " here they come ! " said Borroro, as he 
 was wheeling his horse about, and the whole troop, 
 with their necks stretched, and their wings up, were 
 breaking from a copse of willow on the bank of the 
 stream, where they had been for water, had passed 
 our companions, who were mostly dismounted, and 
 
268 Ostrich Chase. 
 
 were now steering for the thistles, exactly in a: 
 straight line towards us, and with our fellow sports 
 men in their wake, as fast as they could get theirr 
 feet in the stirrups. 
 
 "Stand!" said Borroro, "we can do nothing im 
 meeting them, we must get behind them." Andl 
 moving his horse back into the bushes, at his signal 1 
 I followed him. 
 
 It was a beautiful sight, there were about twenty 
 in the troop, two coveys united. They rose the. 
 hill within a few rods of us, and the plunging che 
 valiers were a long distance behind them. " Now !" 
 said Borroro, "don't try to shoot, but lay out: 
 Yudolph to his utmost, we must cut them off be 
 fore they reach that thistle patch, or we lose them ! " 
 Both Borroro and myself were at our extremest, 
 and side by side, as if on a race-course. The. 
 " thistle patch " was half a mile or more. Yudolph 
 headed him by several lengths, and yet the running- 
 flying troop, on their tip-toes, turned the point of 
 thistles before us, and were out of sight in an in 
 stant. 
 
 All hands again together, and out of breath from 
 the sudden brush, a dismount and a "council of 
 war" was the next thing. That we should have 
 passed the whole troop in so thoughtless and care 
 less a manner within two or three hundred yards, 
 in the valley, was an affair so provoking, and so 
 humiliating to all, that the first part of our counsel 
 
Ostrich Chase. 269 
 
 was taken up with groans and exclamations of dis 
 appointment and regret, and afterwards we pro 
 ceeded to plans for bringing our labours to better 
 results. 
 
 If Borroro and I had been a few rods further 
 ahead in our chase, we should have cut them off 
 from the thistles, and turned them loose upon an 
 open prairie of several miles, where the ground was 
 good, and where our sport would have been of the 
 first order. "However," said Borroro, "we'll have it 
 all right yet there's the south prairie we'll turn 
 them into it it's just as good." 
 
 The "south prairie" (or llano, as they call it) 
 was another open, grassy plain of several miles in 
 extent, stretching off between the forest of thistles 
 into which our game had plunged, and another 
 similar forest further to the south. Our plan now 
 was for the hunters of our party to ride around 
 some five or six miles, and in this prairie, on its 
 northern border, to take our positions at equal dis 
 tances, under cover of the edging thistles, and await 
 the breaking of cover, which was to be pro.duced 
 by our staff of "drivers," who were to enter the 
 thicket, and work their way through it from the 
 north. 
 
 Signal whistles were to be blown when the birds 
 were well entered on the prairie, for the drivers to 
 appear as soon after as possible on the prairie's 
 border, to prevent them from returning to the 
 
270 Driving the Thistles. 
 
 thistles, and not until their appearance was the chase 
 to begin. 
 
 We all sat close and silent, and at length (it was 
 a curious sight) the older and wiser birds appeared 
 first, and led the way, tilting and crouching along 
 as they cautiously emerged, and their long necks 
 stretched, examining the prairie before them to see 
 if an enemy was on it ; moving as if they suspected 
 the plot, and, the younger of the broods following, 
 they advanced a long distance into the prairie, and 
 laid down, some upon their bellies, and others upon 
 their sides, hiding their heads behind bunches of 
 leaves and tufts of grass, whilst the whole of their 
 fat and round bodies loomed up in full view and 
 exposed. 
 
 Our " drivers " came out and showed themselves 
 at different points, and at the sound of Borroro's 
 whistle we all started. The poor birds (which 
 Borroro subsequently assured me had all shut their 
 eyes), from the tramp of our horses, which they 
 heard with their heads on the ground, announced 
 our approach, and they were up and off. We were 
 now in the chase, " an ostrich chase." 
 
 They started in a group, and ran, not in a circuit 
 or a curve, but stretched their necks in a straight 
 line for the nearest thicket, perhaps at a distance 
 of two miles. No manceuvering, and nothing but a 
 fair and a straight race offered us any chance, and 
 for the first half a mile was thus contested with 
 
The Troop in "Full Cry!" 271 
 
 equal speed, when the tremendous strides of mad 
 dened Yudolph, in spite of all the poor creatures 
 could do, brought me into the midst of them, with 
 Borroro but a length or two in arrear, and on their 
 right flank. At my first cylinder one of them fell, 
 and, probably, from the sound of the gun, they 
 broke and run in all directions. The sport then 
 became beautiful, each rider, crossing their curves, 
 came upon them. I saw them writhing and strug 
 gling in the deadly coils of the bolas, and recognized 
 the "old minie's" voice in the melee. It was now a 
 "running fight," a leaping and dodging for life with 
 some, and others were leading off in straight lines 
 for the thicket, and some got there but few. 
 Every one was attending to his own business, and 
 it was difficult to see or to know exactly what was 
 actually progressing. 
 
 When the field was cleared, however, and there 
 was nothing more to be done, though we were se 
 parated, in some instances, several miles apart, we 
 got breath by resting awhile in our saddles, or by 
 dismounting and lying on the ground, and at length 
 got together on the field, our drivers having been 
 whistled up to carry our game. 
 
 I have joined in the buffalo chase in all its forms, 
 but never before took part in a chase so difficult as 
 this. After the brood was separated, they ran in 
 all directions, darting in zig-zag and curved lines 
 before and around us, leading our horses into angles 
 
272 Results of Ostrich Chase. 
 
 difficult to turn, and the rider into positions from 
 which he could not use his weapons. Our horses, 
 at the end, as if they had run a five-mile heat, like 
 ourselves, were ready to lie down upon the ground 
 for rest. 
 
 My two first shots killed, but I discharged the 
 other four cylinders all upon the same bird, but 
 without effect, owing to its shifting courses, and the 
 consequent irregular and violent motions of my 
 horse. My two first shots, which were fatal, were 
 given while both the bird and the horse were run 
 ning on a straight line, which made the aim more 
 steady and more sure. My third bird worried me 
 and my horse by its crooked lines until it reached 
 the thistles, and I returned without it. 
 
 Borroro picked up three, and his son brought in 
 two. The other two Indians had three between 
 them taken with lasos, and Alzar had fired once 
 and missed. 
 
 Our birds, therefore, counted up, were ten. The 
 ostriches that we killed, called in that country 
 " nandu," were about one half the size of the Afri 
 can ostrich, with three toes instead of two ; and 
 their feathers comparatively of little value. Their 
 wings were cut off and carried, and their legs for 
 the sinews ; and the skins of several of them were 
 taken for sacks, useful for many purposes, and their 
 carcasses were left on the field. 
 
 The ten pairs of wings were elevated on two long 
 
The Grand Saline. 273 
 
 poles by two of the Indians, as we rode triumph 
 antly into the village under shouts of applause. 
 Little Til-tee 's voice and hands were raised amongst 
 the number, and the good mother, when she heard 
 from her husband how I had performed, patted me 
 on the shoulder, exclaiming, " Bueno ! bueno ! 
 muy bueno, senor !" thinking perhaps to herself of 
 what nobody but herself had yet thought of. 
 
 The grand features of this vast and untilled coun 
 try, in addition to its pampas and prairies, are its 
 lakes, its salines, and its sables. Its sandy (or 
 " cedar ridge"), lying off towards the Rio Negro, is 
 full of guanacos, a species of llamas, beautiful for 
 chasing, and almost the only sport and living of the 
 Puelches and Patagons. Its flesh is equal to that 
 of venison, and the skins form leggings and robes 
 for clothing, and, sewed together, form coverings 
 for their tents. We planned a run amongst them, 
 but now are taking a look at the " Grand Saline." 
 
 Gos-brok, the chief's son, was to lead us. Alzar 
 was going, and two Indians. The ride was thirty 
 miles one day's work. One day to be spent there, 
 and two days to come back, examining the " talk 
 ing lake" and shooting ducks on our way. We 
 laid in salt (we actually required nothing else). I 
 promised the little Til-tee to bring her some beauti 
 ful feathers, which could not be reached by bolas or 
 laso, and she was in raptures, and the mother again 
 stuffed my pockets with dried prunes. 
 
 T 
 
274 A Runaway Horse. 
 
 Our horses were led up, but not yet saddled, and 
 Alzar's nag from Buenos Ayres, ruminating perhaps 
 on the uncouth manners of people in this part of 
 the country, slipped its head out of its bridle, and 
 evidently was turning its face towards the civilized 
 city. Alzar mounted on to one of the Indian's 
 horses, and, with a laso in his hand, with which he 
 was tolerably expert, he galloped off after it. A 
 broad prairie was before us, and making a circuit, 
 to get a head of his eloping horse, and making 
 several passes at it, the cunning animal showed its 
 heels, and effectually kept out of his way. 
 
 The scene was an amusement for all, and all 
 were astonished at the desperate bolts and curves 
 made by both, to no effect, excepting the complete 
 discouragement of Alzar, who seemed to be aban 
 doning the chase in despair, to return to the village. 
 
 I stood at the moment holding Yudolph, yet un 
 saddled, with the bridle in both hands crossed be 
 hind me, and feeling a gentle pressure upon the 
 rein, I looked around and met the sparkling eyes of 
 the smiling little Til-tee, by their very expression 
 emphatically and silently asking consent as she was 
 timidly drawing the rein of Yudolph out of my hand. 
 The instant allowed me was just enough to yield 
 consent, and to see that she had a laso coiled on 
 her left arm, when Yudolph had her astride of his 
 bare back, and was off, in his clear and flying 
 bounds ! 
 
" Til- tee' in Pursuit. 275 
 
 A shout of surprise was raised, but no one had 
 fears but myself. The father smiled, the mother 
 gazed, and the child rode on ! And as her floating 
 black hair and narrow shoulders of demi-red were 
 alternately rising and sinking above and in the 
 waving grass, I thought, " Oh, lucky, envied horse ! 
 Were I in Yudolph's place with such a prize, I 
 would gallop to the golden coast." She seemed 
 troubled ; her hair had lost its pin, and fell in two 
 parted waves over her shoulders ; and, dropping the 
 rein to adjust it (for it was in her way), oh, how 
 gracefully she balanced, and how prettily her pointed 
 breasts and her elbows stood out, as she was wrap 
 ping and tieing it around her neck ! 
 
 Yudolph, though knowing his errand and his 
 rider, had kept his speed, but not exactly his course. 
 The rein was lifted again, and the mile that she and 
 Yudolph then made in a straight line was like a 
 flying arrow, leaving a tinged train from its red 
 dened feather. Alzar was passed, and stood 
 astounded, as if a meteor had gone by him ! The 
 Buenos Ayrean steed, aware of what was behind 
 him, steamed at his highest, and just before they 
 would have slipped from our view, the delicate arm 
 of the little Amazone (for with my pocket-glass I 
 could see it distinctly) made a circuit around and 
 over her head, and the fatal noose was seen to fall! 
 A shout was raised, but she was too far to hear it. 
 Yudolph was seen galloping a curve or two with the 
 
276 Ride to Grand Saline. 
 
 Buenos Ayrean nag by his side, like a boat picked 
 up on the waves of the sea, and taking Alzar in 
 tow, all came trotting in together. 
 
 Alzar looked distressed, but said the Indian horse 
 he rode knew he was not an Indian ; his Buenos 
 Ayrean steed showed an expression of utter despair, 
 and a full conviction of Yudolph's superior mettle ; 
 and ever-beaming little Til-tee dismounted, and 
 with her smiling cheeks and heaving breast re 
 ceived the applause of all, and from me a kiss I 
 could not help it and a beautiful pocket looking- 
 glass, set in silver. 
 
 Our ride to the " Grand Saline " was yet before 
 us, and, our saddles on, we started. An hour or so, 
 and we were at the shore of another branch of the 
 Salado; into it, and through its clear waters, and 
 over its pebbly bottom we waded reminding me of 
 Caesar and me in the Snake River. As we passed 
 over these clear and transparent waters quietly on 
 their way to the ocean, I contemplated the vast and 
 unknown solitudes of grass and thistles in which they 
 had their origin, and rising the terraced banks and 
 slopes on the opposite side, the ancient turns and 
 motions of the elements when these vast excava 
 tions were dredged out. 
 
 We were beyond it, and on an elevated plain of 
 grass, with wild-flowers that no pencil could por 
 tray and no pen could describe. We were evidently 
 on a divide a water-shed, and looking to the south 
 
Grand Saline. 277 
 
 convinced us ; a vast and interminable lake or sea 
 seemed to be lying in distance before us, here' and 
 there spotted with green, like islands, which proved 
 to be shrubbery, but at last terminating, like every 
 thing else, blue in the distance, and yet not all 
 blue there were streaks of white. And in the sky, 
 what's that ? An army of soldiers ? Soldiers are 
 not in the sky. It's a mirage. It's the mirage of 
 a war-party ; and yonder is another, drawn out in 
 Indian file! It must be so! But stop! these soldiers 
 are pouring down like a stream into the lake of blue 
 and white below ; and now this shadow passing by 
 us! 
 
 "Now look up, sefior; here is another war-party 
 right over our heads ! " 
 
 "And so it is. And now I understand; these are 
 the beautiful birds, the flamingos, that you are 
 taking me to see." 
 
 " Yes, sefior ; that blue lake that you see in the 
 distance is the 4 Grand Saline! and the streaks of 
 white are the beautiful birds hatching out their eggs. 
 This is just the season, and to-morrow you shall 
 have fun enough." 
 
 From the summit of the graceful swell upon 
 which we had mounted we gradually and almost 
 imperceptibly descended for several miles, until we 
 were near the border of this vast saline ; when, 
 whispering, Alzar begged us to halt for a moment. 
 I held his horse as he dismounted, and cautiously 
 
278 Fireflies. 
 
 advancing a few rods, he raised his rifle and shot 
 down a solitary guanaco that had stood its ground 
 and was looking at us, precisely at the place where 
 we were going to sleep, and when fresh meat was 
 wanted. 
 
 We were now on a level with the saline, and 
 could see little but the constant flocks of flamingos 
 sailing about like infantry, or like war-parties on 
 the march. These, constantly rising and get 
 ting high into the air, were steering off to other 
 parts, or were streaming down into the saline to 
 spend the night. 
 
 We collected great quantities of dried willow- 
 stalks for fuel, and with a rousing fire on each side 
 of us, and a smoke from burning rotten grass, we 
 kept off the mosquitos, but greatly to their dis 
 appointment. Their hour arrived, about ten o'clock, 
 they were silent, and we walked forth in the cool 
 air unmolested, and unattracted or amused, except 
 by the clacking and chattering of the wild-fowl of 
 these saline solitudes and the incredible beauty of 
 the firefly halos that were here and there glowing 
 like the light of hidden lamps. 
 
 Everywhere and all around us these little insects, 
 each one carrying his beautiful phosphor lamp, were 
 making their curves, and swinging, and dancing 
 under our noses, and sometimes against them ; and 
 here and there, in the distance, swarms with myriads 
 in a little space moving in the air, or settled and 
 
Salt Lakes. 279 
 
 hovering in the grass and around the bushes, wfyere 
 my note-book was read as easily as by daylight, or 
 under the brightest lamp. 
 
 These swarms, some stationary and others tra 
 velling, could be seen in the distance until their 
 numbers became countless, and a general flood of 
 light near the ground almost extinguished the dark 
 ness of night. 1 
 
 The salines, of which there are many on the 
 head waters of the Salado and Saladillo, and also 
 further south, near the Colorado, and between that 
 and the Rio Negro, are evidently the remains of 
 salt lakes, in time filled in with growing and decay 
 ing vegetation. There are still, around the extreme 
 sources of the Salado, a great number of salt lakes 
 without any connection with running streams, 
 either into or out of them. 
 
 These salines, in the winter season, are generally 
 covered with several feet of salt water, which rises 
 from the earth, and in the summer season this water 
 is evaporated by the rays of the sun, leaving an in- 
 crustration of the muriate of salt over much of the 
 surface, and other parts a slimy mud associated 
 with salt, so excessively difficult to travel on and so 
 
 1 What an ornament these beautiful and harmless insects 
 would be to a nobleman's or gentleman's grounds in England; 
 how beautifully they would light up his lawn. They could 
 easily be imported, and the climate of England would, no 
 doubt, be suitable for them. 
 
280 Flamingos Nests. 
 
 nauseous that no animal whatever will venture into 
 it, and none of the feathered tribes except the stork 
 species, of which are the flamingos. They build their 
 nests and hatch their young in it, in perfect security 
 from molestation by animals of the country. 
 
 It is probably owing to this perfect security to 
 their eggs and their young, that incredible numbers 
 of these birds are seen in that country, often settling 
 down, and rising, and wading in these salines, and 
 sailing about over them in millions at the same 
 time. 
 
 The flamingo, which is one of the most delicate 
 and beautiful birds in existence, varies from four to 
 five feet in height ; its chief colour is pure white, 
 with parts of its wings of the most flaming red, and 
 another proportion jet black. 
 
 They gather grass and weeds, with which they 
 build their nests on the ground, and stiffen them 
 up with mud, much in the manner that swallows 
 build. These nests stand in the mud, and are 
 generally about one foot high, open cones, and 
 from two to three feet apart ; and sometimes cover 
 hundreds of acres, looking from a distant elevation 
 like a mass of honeycomb. 
 
 In the winter season these nests are all under 
 water, and not seen. In the summer, when the 
 water is evaporated, they re-appear, and the birds, 
 taking possession, fit them up, and hatch their 
 broods in them again. The birds are always paired, 
 
A " Grand Exposition." 281 
 
 and the male is busily engaged in hunting an4 
 bringing food, or standing by on one leg and sleep 
 ing whilst the female is sitting on her eggs. Do 
 mestic rights seem to be guarded with the greatest 
 jealousy, and, from their frequent encounters, one 
 would suppose they were protected with the most 
 obstinate and heroic gallantry. 
 
 From our bivouac we saddled up in the morning, 
 and rode to a slight eminence, the nearest we could 
 see to the nests, and from that, overlooking the 
 scene with a good field-glass, the picture was one of 
 interest for hours to look upon ; it was truly a 
 "Grand Exposition" grand for its industry of 
 millions, all busy, building, hatching, and feeding- 
 grand for its proportions, extending, perhaps, some 
 twenty miles in length and grand for the beauty 
 of its colours ; for the sun was just up, and its hori 
 zontal rays, catching upon the bending columns 
 soaring in the air, and on the never-ending group, 
 where thousands were constantly playing on tip-toe 
 with up-spread wings, and all, the red, the black, 
 and the white, glistening, like the slimy mud they 
 walked and run and played upon, with the sun's 
 refracted rays. 
 
 My glass was good, but perhaps I am more in 
 quisitive than other folks I wanted a nearer view. 
 Reconnoitring the ground closely, though we were 
 full a mile from the nearest part of it, I discovered 
 a sort of promontory of grass and bog, with now 
 
282 " Walking Bushes!' 
 
 and then little tufts of willows, extending into the 
 saline, and very near to where the nests commenced. 
 One of the little Indians who had accompanied us 
 (half negro) told me he could lead me near enough 
 to shoot amongst them. He said he had sometimes 
 walked up so near to them as to catch them with 
 the bolas. " Come on, then," said I. We left the 
 rest of the party to overlook us ; we were in the 
 chase (or rather ruse). 
 
 Advancing about half the. way, we came to a 
 bunch of alder and willow-bushes, and in a few 
 minutes he had cut and so arranged a screen of 
 those, to carry in both hands before him, as com 
 pletely to hide him from their view, and also to 
 screen me, as I was to walk close up to him, step 
 ping in his footsteps. My hat was left behind, and 
 my belt was filled with boughs rising higher than 
 my head, and with others descending to my feet, 
 so that we were ostensibly (at least for silly birds) 
 nothing but a bunch of bushes. 
 
 My cylinders, which my friend Colonel Colt had 
 shaped expressly for shot and ball, I had filled 
 with duck-shot, and we began to move forward in 
 a straight line, but very slowly. Full half a mile, 
 almost inch by inch, the bunch of bushes moved. 
 Sometimes we were on, or astride of, bogs, and 
 sometimes up to our waistbands in mud, and igno 
 rant of the moment that might have taken us to 
 the chin. 
 
Shooting Flamingos. 283 
 
 However, "nothing risked, nothing won." We 
 kept on, and at length came within some five or six 
 rods of the nearest nests, where the females were 
 setting on their eggs, and the husbands standing on 
 one leg by them and fast asleep, whilst others were 
 gathering worms from the mud and bringing to feed 
 them ! 
 
 The silly things looked hard at us as an un 
 accountable appearance, but the bunch of bushes not 
 apparently moving, they seemed to think it was but 
 the natural. I had no chance to sketch, as " Sam " 
 was before me in both hands, and motions would 
 have been imprudent ; but I had the most perfect 
 chance to see and to study (to sketch in my mind) 
 every attitude and every characteristic 
 
 At length one of the tallest of the throng, with 
 his mouth full of collected worms, seeming to be 
 suspicious, advanced quite up to take a good 
 look at us, and poked his long neck forward, and 
 began to walk around to get a side or back view of 
 us. His motions and expressions were so droll, as 
 I saw him across the bridge of my nose ? that I 
 burst (which I could not avoid) into a loud laugh. 
 He screamed, and I fired through the group, a 
 raking fire, and another cylinder as they were get 
 ting on the wing ; and of all the curious hunting 
 or other scenes that I have seen on earth, that 
 scene was the most curious. Those that were near 
 were wheeling about in the air, like a cloud above 
 
284 Shooting Flamingos. 
 
 us, and shadowing the earth around us ; and as the 
 alarm was general, those rising more slowly in the 
 extreme distance looked like a white fog streaming 
 up from the ground. We stood still, and the whirl 
 ing multitudes in the air formed into lines like in 
 fantry, and each, with its leader, was moving around 
 and over our heads, not knowing what the matter 
 was, or where the danger was, or where to go. 
 
 One of these lines came so near that I brought 
 the leader down. He descended with outspread 
 wings, and fell within ten feet of me, and down 
 came his troop, faster than I could count them, all in 
 a mass, one upon the other, not knowing what was 
 the trouble, stretching down their long legs and 
 flapping their scarlet wings actually against me and 
 in my face ! At the struggling of their dying leader, 
 they all saw there was some mistake, took the 
 alarm, and were off in confusion. Still, brigade 
 after brigade came sailing around us, and I soon 
 discharged all my cylinders, bringing down one at 
 each fire. 
 
 From my tw r o first raking shots, where in range 
 they looked like a solid mass, seven or eight were 
 lying dead, and others were hobbling off with broken 
 wings ; and of all together we picked up thirteen. 
 But, before picking up my birds, I had been obliged: 
 to pick up my negro Indian boy ; he had had no idea 
 of my firing more than once, and my agitation and 
 somewhat of confusion in turning to fire right and 
 
A Strange Scene. 285 
 
 left, and withed up in a bunch of bushes filled with 
 smoke, the sharp breech of my rifle had struck him 
 on the temple, and knocked him helpless down, with 
 out my knowing it. He had fallen backwards, en 
 tangled in his bushes, and was lying on his back, 
 imploring me to be merciful. He thought I had 
 shot him, and that I was going to shoot him again. 
 
 I got him up, and soon explained, by signs, the 
 accident, and then we observed our companions 
 without their horses, coming at full gallop, to join 
 us. We were a nasty group, up to our waistbands 
 in the mud and slime, on which the birds walked 
 with scarcely wet feet. 
 
 The scene now before us was strange in the 
 extreme, a landscape, a perspective of nests, with 
 the heads of young birds standing out, as far as the 
 eye could discern, and nothing else. Nests with 
 eggs, and nests with young ; the very young heads 
 up and gazing, the older young, but without wings, 
 pitched out of their nests, and sprawling, and try 
 ing to fly or to hide themselves on the ground. We 
 replaced the little chicks in their nests as, well as 
 we could about us, and left them. 
 
 Two pair of the handsomest wings I cut off with 
 my own knife for little Til-tee, and the rest were 
 taken by the others of the party. These wings, for 
 military feathers and other uses, are objects of 
 commerce, and always find a ready market in 
 Buenos Ayres and Rio de Janeiro. 
 
286 The ' * Ta Iking L ake. ' ' 
 
 Now, why should I lose space by telling how we 
 got back ; how we spent the day amongst the birds, 
 the worms and snakes that infest in myriads 
 the shores of the "Grand Saline," how we recrossed 
 the sandy plains, rode to the "talking (echoing) 
 lake," and after shooting ducks and geese till we 
 were tired, we returned to the happy little Auca 
 village. 
 
 Til-tee was the first to meet and to greet us, a 
 half a mile from the village. I then gave her the 
 beautiful red wings of the flamingos, and others of 
 green and blue, of the wood-ducks I had shot at the 
 " lake that talks." Yudolph knew the little maid, 
 and he trembled with his love for her when she 
 came up and patted him on his nose. She bounded 
 with joy, and was in the village before us. 
 
 The villagers were gathered around us, and what 
 was the first that we heard ? Borroro had gone to 
 Buenos Ayres, with two Puelche chiefs, who had 
 arrived from the Colorado with information that a 
 large war party of Patagons was assembling on the 
 Rio Negro, for a war with Buenos Ayres ! Borroro 
 had left word that I must not think of going to 
 Patagonia yet, and that his son Gos-brok should 
 accompany me to Buenos Ayres. 
 
 I was very liberal now with the little store of 
 presents I had laid in for the Patagons. Til-tee 
 got many strings of beautiful beads, of ribbands, 
 needles, &c; and her mother several vari-coloured 
 
Buenos Ay res. 287 
 
 cotton shawls, for which she had a peculiar passion ; , 
 and with Gos-brok for our guide, we started for 
 Buenos Ayres. 
 
 And what in Buenos Ayres ? All was for war, 
 " war, war, with the infernal Patagons ! " Men were 
 enlisting, and soldiers were drilling ; and I saw at 
 once the impossibility of a tour through Patagonia 
 under the present circumstances^ and why should I 
 say more of my dreamed and fancied expedition 
 which did not, and could not, take place ? 
 
 Faithful Alzar, who had become very much 
 attached to me, and I were obliged to take leave of 
 each other, and shaking hands for the third and last 
 time, he was saved, perhaps, from shedding any 
 tears, by the "old minie," which I had promised 
 him, and now placed in his hands. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 TIERRA DEL FUEGO. 
 
 |Y "occupation (again) gone," I dwelt no 
 more on Indians, but thought again of 
 "Rocks" " How much more grand, 
 how sublime ! Indians are, after all, 
 poor things, and soon to become extinct but 
 rocks ! rocks ! the eternal landmarks and boun 
 daries of the globe !" 
 
 " Tierra del Fuego (the land of fire), the perpetual 
 snow-covered mountains of the land of fire ! how 
 harmonious and how inviting. And the fire-vomit 
 ing Cotopaxi (Cotopa^i), that coughs up a rock of 
 sixty tons weight, and only throws it 1 5 miles ! and 
 600 miles the greatest extent to which its awful 
 bellowings are heard ; and the snow and cloud 
 capped Chimborazo ! (Tchimboracho) ; these are 
 said actually to exist, and the great Baron de Hum- 
 boldt has even said so, and also that he saw them ; 
 but how much more satisfactory to go and see and 
 feel them." 
 
 With such contemplations, could I stop in Buenos 
 
Straits of Magellan. 289 
 
 Ayres? I was going on board the "Gladiator." 
 She was bound to Valparaiso, on the Pacific coast. 
 From day to day the palisaded coast of Patagonia, 
 like the cliffs of the Kentish coast in England, were 
 tantalizing us as we passed them. And the ragged, 
 and black and white, and smoking heaps and piles 
 of lifted mountains and mountain-peaks of "Ma 
 gellan " and "Fuego " were ahead of us, but as yet 
 in imagination. Cartoons were ready, and colours 
 and pencils, and two days of sleep, ahead, so as to 
 be wide awake whilst passing them. 
 
 We are in the Strait of Magellan and those 
 mountains, blue on our left and before us, and some 
 over them and higher, glistening like the tin roofs 
 of Montreal the sun's rays are on them, and they 
 are covered with snow ! 
 
 " Captain, you know all about these ?" 
 
 " Well, I ought to know something of them ; I 
 have seen them from all sides." 
 
 " And these black and frowning walls on our right, 
 they look as if they had been broken off with 
 mighty sledge-hammers ; and these two, right 
 straight ahead how immense and how grand ! 
 They look as if they had been shoved up from the 
 bottom of the ocean on the back of some terrible 
 monster ! Surely the Andes has been broken in 
 two here ! what an awful struggle there has been ! 
 The Indians tell us that the Andes was once a 
 great serpent that its tail was here, and these huge 
 
 u 
 
290 Strait of Magellan. 
 
 rocks were its rattles ! how sublime ! what a rattle 
 snake ! I have crossed over the back of this reptile, 
 and also of its mate, in North America, the Rocky 
 Mountains, in their largest parts." 
 
 " I think you are fond of rocks and mountains, sir ? " 
 
 " Yes, captain, there fe nothing else on the earth's 
 surface so sublime, so grand, and so interesting for 
 the study of man. I think of nothing else but 
 here how is this ? you are anchoring in this cove 
 what for?" 
 
 " Why, sir, the wind is dead ahead around that 
 point yonder, and blowing fresh we'll have to lie 
 by a bit here. We are in ' Pecket Harbour ;' vessels 
 are often wind-bound here, and take in water and 
 provisions. There's a sutler here, and he's just 
 come on board, and this is he, sir." 
 
 "Ah ! where's your town, sir ?" 
 
 " That's all, that you see yonder, sir, and a few 
 houses around the point there's nothing here but 
 a few of us, and some poor devils, Indians, encamped 
 around us " 
 
 "-What ! Indians ? Well, that's droll ; I thought 
 I had finished with Indians. What Indians are 
 they?" 
 
 " Well, sir, there's a little encampment of Pata- 
 gons, and a dozen or so of Fuegians." 
 
 " The deuce take the rocks and mountains of 
 snow ! they can be seen a hundred years hence as 
 well as now. Captain, I am going ashore, and you 
 must send the yawl with me after breakfast ; and 
 
Visit to a Patagon Village. 291 
 
 let me have one of the cabin-boys to carry my 
 portfolio." 
 
 " They shall be at your service, sir." 
 
 Ascending the little hill at the back of the village 
 to reach the Indians' camp, and near it, with a mulatto 
 boy carrying my portfolio, I met a large and very 
 fine dog hobbling along towards me, and yelling in 
 the most piteous manner, with an arrow driven into 
 its side quite up to the feather, and two Indians 
 were following it with guns, and evidently intending 
 to shoot it. My first impression was that it was 
 mad, and I was raising my rifle for self-defence, 
 when I observed by its crouching position and the 
 wagging of its tail as it was approaching me, that 
 it was seeking a friend in me, and evidently was 
 approaching me for protection. 
 
 I answered its supplication by beckoning with 
 my hand, and the poor creature understanding me, 
 crept up and laid down at my feet ; but the link of 
 sympathy was severed the next moment, by one of 
 the Indians advancing and shooting the poor crea 
 ture through the head ! 
 
 I had no interpreter, and of course no means of 
 getting an explanation ; and taking it by the legs, 
 the Indians dragged it into the camp. This was 
 entering an Indian village for once in my life under 
 an excited and rather hesitating feeling, but it 
 would not do to turn back at this point, where the 
 eyes of all were upon us. 
 
2 92 Camp of the Patagons. 
 
 I was met, however, and luckily, in this dilemma, 
 by an interpreter who was sent to speak with us. 
 
 The first thing I asked, and the first thing ex 
 plained, was the object for which the poor dog had 
 been shot ; it was required, by the singular custom 
 of the country, to be placed in the grave with its 
 master, whose body was then just being buried, and 
 whose tent, at a little distance, containing all its 
 furniture, clothing, &c, was then burning ! 
 
 In the middle of the night before, the poor man 
 had gone out from his tent to move the picket of 
 his horse, when he was bitten in the leg by a rattle 
 snake that he had disturbed. The villagers were all 
 up, with torches in their hands, and the reptile 
 being found, was killed, and the man died in a few 
 hours. 
 
 I had sat down with this interpreter, who was a 
 Portuguese half-caste, and also spoke Spanish toler 
 ably well. I told him I feared it would be an un 
 lucky time to visit their little camp, and he said, 
 " No ; the occurrence which had just happened 
 would present no difficulty whatever ;" and he then 
 conducted me to the chiefs tent, where I was 
 politely received, and easily explained my views, 
 that I had come ashore from a vessel just arrived, 
 and having learned that a party of Indians were 
 there, I had come to make them a short visit, pro 
 bably for the day only. 
 
 I told him that I had spent the best part of my life 
 in visiting numerous tribes of red people like him- 
 
Camp of the Patagons. 293 
 
 self, in various parts of the world, and, like a prac 
 tical and reasoning man, and a real gentleman, he 
 evidently appreciated my motives in an instant, and 
 began to ask me questions about the various races 
 I had seen, faster even than I could answer them. 
 
 This man, though a chief, was but the chief of a 
 band, or perhaps, only of the little encampment 
 over which he had control. His questions were 
 rational and judicious, and after answering them 
 awhile, I took the initiative by opening my port 
 folio of portraits, which seemed to answer a thou 
 sand questions, and evidently to suggest as many 
 more. 
 
 I explained to him that I had visited more than 
 one million of red people in their various villages ; 
 and on a small map of North America, I pointed 
 out, so that he clearly understood their relative 
 positions and distances from where we were then 
 sitting. He expressed no astonishment whatever-' 
 in his looks or actions, nor made ejaculations, but 
 calmly told me there was much more for poor 
 Indians to learn in this world than he ever before 
 had thought of. 
 
 By this time his tent was becoming too small for 
 the crowd that was getting into it, and it became 
 necessary for my mulatto boy to hold up each por 
 trait in turn so that all could see them, whilst I, 
 with the aid of the interpreter, descanted on them. 
 
 These people never flatten the head, nor cut and 
 maim the flesh in any way for the purpose of orna- 
 
294 Camp of the Patagons. 
 
 mentation, and when I showed them the Flatheads, 
 and explained the process of flattening the nead, 
 and the Botocudos and Nayas portraits, with blocks 
 of wood in their lips, a tremendous laugh was 
 raised, and the chief very coolly remarked that 
 " they were very great fools." 
 
 For want of space I was now obliged to take up 
 a position outside of the chief's tent, where all 
 comers could see and hear ; and amongst others 
 that appeared, there soon came from two grass- 
 covered wigwams, at a little distance, several Fue- 
 gians, and amongst them an eccentric character 
 whom the interpreter told me was a medicine-man 
 (a sorcerer), his body and limbs curiously painted, 
 and his head and neck as white as pipe-clay could 
 make them, and surmounted by two white quills of 
 the largest dimensions. This strange looking being, 
 either from jealousy of my works (which of course 
 were considered great medicine), or from disbelief in 
 my wonderful relations, took it in his head to raise 
 objections to the " spectacle " that was going on. 
 The chief, however, telling him that I would most 
 likely have his frightful face put in my book, caused 
 him to haul gradually off, whilst the crowd were 
 laughing at him. 
 
 I felt at once amongst this little group as if I 
 were amongst a group of Comanches of North 
 America. Not only are they mounted, equipped, 
 and armed, like the Comanches, with bows and 
 arrows, and long lances, and like them in their 
 
Patagons. 295 
 
 modes of dress and ornament, but strikingly re 
 semble them in physiognomy and physiological 
 traits. 
 
 The men chiefly divide their long hair in two 
 parts, separated on the forehead and thrown on to 
 the shoulders and back by a silver-plated band or 
 hoop, which is crowded down from the top of the 
 head and over the hair, near to the eyebrows, hold 
 ing the hair in its place, clear from the face and 
 back of the ears. Their faces are always (in full 
 dress) painted red from the eyebrows to the mouth, 
 including the ears, and the other parts of the face 
 painted in a variety of shapes and bright colours, 
 and they wear no head-dresses, and very seldom or 
 nament the head even with a single quill or feather. 
 
 Their dress at this season the middle of January, 
 and therefore midsummer is very slight. The men 
 wear a breech-cloth around the waist, and the 
 women a sort of apron of cotton-cloth or of bark, 
 extending down to the knee, and mocasins beauti 
 fully embroidered, made of the skins of deer or 
 goats ; and, in the colder season, both men and 
 women dress the leg with skins and wrap them 
 selves in robes made of the skins of guanacos, and 
 curiously painted ; and their tents, which are small 
 and light for the convenience of transportation, are 
 made of the skins of the same animal, or of wild 
 cattle and horses, with which the vast plains of their 
 country abound. 
 
296 Small-Pox. 
 
 Observing on the chiefs face the marks of small 
 pox, I questioned him about it, and he informed me 
 that when he was a boy he was near dying with 
 that disease, and he told me that, about 1812 or 
 1815, as near as I could ascertain, that awful disease 
 was communicated to his people by some white 
 people on the coast, who were selling rum and 
 whiskey and other things to the Indians, and that 
 more than one half of the great and powerful tribe 
 of Patagons were destroyed by it. 
 
 " We are poor," said he ; " we want many things 
 that the white people make their cloths, their 
 knives, their guns, and many other things and we 
 come here to buy them, and many of my people, 
 who are foolish, will buy whiskey, and it makes 
 them mad, when they will kill even their own 
 mothers and their little children. We do all we 
 can to prevent this, but still it is not stopped, and 
 we are afraid of getting the awful disease again." 
 
 One can easily see that I had enough to do this 
 day without painting, and we returned on board 
 full of fatigue and hunger, the chief having agreed 
 to sit for his portrait the next day, if the vessel 
 would wait for me. 
 
 My conditional appointment with the chief being 
 explained to the captain, and the portfolio opened 
 to him, which he had not before seen, he agreed to 
 wait another day, whatever the wind might be, for 
 the satisfaction of gratifying me, and the pleasure 
 he would have ashore with me. 
 
Fuegians. 297 
 
 Captain Ford proved to be a real "bon homme" 
 and, becoming as much taken up with me as the 
 Indians were, went ashore with me the next morn 
 ing, on condition that he could have the pictures to 
 lecture on amongst the women and children, who 
 had not yet seen them, whilst I was sketching my 
 portraits. And when night came, and we were safe 
 on board again and our craving stomachs pacified, 
 he said to me that this had been to him the happiest 
 day of his life that he ever had spent. 
 
 My sketch of this rational and intelligent chief 
 was followed by that of his wife and a warrior ; and 
 then hasty sketches were made at the little and 
 more humble demure of the Fuegians, at which the 
 famous doctor, with his white head, was minus, he 
 having withdrawn himself, probably with absolute 
 disgust. 
 
 The reader will easily imagine with what excite 
 ment, and with what eclat, and with what security 
 and success, from this point I could have penetrated 
 and passed through the centre of Patagonia, with 
 the introduction of this little returning colony, had 
 there been no rumours of war, and I had had my 
 faithful Caesar, or even Alzar, with me ; but here I 
 stood alone, and the barren coast could have fur 
 nished me no reliable companions. But it may 
 happen yet that I shall be able to see the way and a 
 proper time to pass through the midst of these in 
 teresting people ; and then if it happens I shall be 
 
298 Patagons. 
 
 able to say more of them and their customs than I 
 now can. 
 
 Yet, from this little caravan, who had travelled 
 several hundred miles to visit the coast, I learned 
 many things of interest, and was enabled to learn 
 them in a little time. As to the fabulous accounts 
 of " giants," men " eight and ten feet high," as re 
 lated by some early writers, I learned from this 
 chief that there actually existed no such monstrous 
 persons in the tribe, though there were some parts 
 of the country where the men were very tall, con 
 siderably taller than himself. 
 
 From this man I learned that the government of 
 the Patagons resembled very closely that of most 
 of the North American tribes a head chief, and a 
 council of subordinate chiefs, or chiefs of bands, 
 forming the government of the tribe. He told me 
 they could muster 8000 warriors, well mounted and 
 well armed, and were abundantly able to defend 
 themselves and their country from assaults of any 
 enemy they had. 
 
 That the tribe of Puelches on the north of them, 
 between them and Buenos Ayres, were their rela 
 tions, and that through them they traded horses 
 and hides for guns and ammunition, to the Buenos 
 Ayreans, and in that way could equip all the war 
 riors of the tribe. They catch their horses wild on 
 the prairies, and train and ride them, in the same 
 way, and as well, as the Comanches do. 
 
Patagons and Fuegians. 299 
 
 Their saddles and stirrups are made with great 
 skill, and the stirrups for women (who ride astride, 
 and as boldly as the men) are suspended by a broad 
 and ornamented strap crossing the horse's neck; 
 and for both men and women these stirrups, which 
 are made of wood, and curiously carved, admit but 
 the two largest toes to enter, to guard against fatal 
 accidents which too often befal horsemen in the 
 civilized world. 
 
 Their dead are always buried in a sitting pos 
 ture, and with them their pipes and their weapons, 
 and by the side of them their dogs and their horses ; 
 and everything else that they possess is burned 
 with their wigwam. 
 
 The Fuegians are a tribe of some five or six 
 thousand, inhabiting both sides of the Strait of 
 Magellan ; living entirely on fish and wildfowl, and 
 their lives are spent chiefly in their canoes, made 
 from bark of trees, sewed together and glued, some 
 what like the canoes of the Ojibbeways of North 
 America. In the summer season they go chiefly 
 naked, both men and women, wearing only a flap 
 covering the hips ; and in the winter, ' cover their 
 bodies with robes made of the skins of the sea- 
 wolf, which they kill with their spears and arrows. 
 
 Their manufacture of flint spear and arrow heads 
 is not surpassed by even the Apachees, or Snakes, 
 or any other of the North American tribes, and 
 they are made in the same forms, and by the same 
 
300 Fuegians. 
 
 process, which has been described. And their wig 
 wams, which are very small, are made by setting a 
 number of slender poles in the ground in a circle, 
 and- bending the tops in, forming a cone, which is 
 covered with long grass, or with skins of the sea- 
 wolf. 
 
 These people are unquestionably a branch of the 
 Patagon family, speaking a dialect of the Patagon 
 language, and living in harmony and friendship 
 with them ; and living by the side of and adjoining 
 them, and still so entirely unlike, both in phy 
 siognomy and in symmetrical proportions, furnish 
 one of the most striking and satisfactory proofs of 
 the metamorphose of man, by men's different modes 
 of life. 
 
 Wind-bound a third day, I went again ashore, 
 and drew, through the interpreter, which he pro 
 nounced with distinct emphasis, the following brief 
 vocabulary of Patagonian translations of English 
 words, which may be interesting to the reader : 
 
 English. Patagon. 
 
 I ya 
 
 you mushma 
 
 he da 
 
 they dushda 
 
 this win 
 
 that miro 
 
 English. Patagon. 
 
 good getenc 
 
 bad sterone 
 
 large stsanic 
 
 small stsalenc 
 
 hot borshenc 
 
 cold curshenc 
 
English. 
 dry 
 wet 
 high 
 low 
 sweet 
 bitter 
 clean 
 dirty 
 sick 
 much 
 little 
 red 
 
 yellow 
 blue 
 white 
 black 
 before 
 behind 
 below 
 here 
 there 
 yes 
 no 
 
 man 
 woman 
 baby 
 boy 
 
 Patagon. 
 arenc 
 etshaksh 
 sebenick 
 tsamnick 
 goosh 
 stark 
 jet 
 
 startenk 
 shoyu 
 tsait 
 stalco 
 gabenk 
 waitenk 
 caltenk 
 orenk 
 polnk 
 wieeker 
 aucenker 
 anunk 
 nane 
 hemai 
 hooi 
 gom 
 
 alen 
 naac 
 amel 
 stalsen 
 
 Vocabulary. 
 
 301 
 
 English, 
 girl 
 father 
 mother 
 brother 
 
 Patagon. 
 carsen 
 yanco 
 yan 
 den 
 
 sister 
 
 denon 
 
 husband 
 
 hausenk 
 
 wife 
 
 shay 
 
 
 
 head 
 
 eru 
 
 hair 
 
 hon 
 
 nose 
 
 or 
 
 eye 
 mouth 
 
 otl 
 consen 
 
 tongue 
 ear 
 
 stal 
 shan 
 
 knee 
 foot 
 
 tepen 
 shawkenue 
 
 arm 
 
 hensh 
 
 horse 
 
 caul 
 
 mule 
 
 molo 
 
 dog 
 fire 
 water 
 
 shamenoo 
 yaic 
 hamin 
 
 wind 
 
 kurshun 
 
 sea 
 
 kono 
 
 sky 
 cloud 
 
 coche 
 pawin 
 
3 02 
 
 Patagon Vocabulary. 
 
 English. 
 
 Patagon. 
 
 English. Patagon. 
 
 gold 
 
 pothamic 
 
 star sterke 
 
 silver 
 
 pesho 
 
 night stenon 
 
 iron 
 
 akels 
 
 morning wiec 
 
 stone 
 
 yaten 
 
 noon catese 
 
 knife 
 
 paiken 
 
 evening sterker 
 
 pipe 
 
 anu 
 
 before seuco 
 
 tobacco 
 
 golgi 
 
 to-day ma 
 
 spoon 
 
 coyu 
 
 to-morrow nashgut 
 
 gun 
 pistol 
 
 yalbok 
 yalbok-chame 
 
 to-morrow-), k 
 morning J 
 
 powder 
 
 yalbok-shepen 
 
 yesterday nashensh 
 
 
 
 now yomeno 
 
 sun 
 
 senisensin 
 
 always gelooni 
 
 moon 
 
 senisenson 
 
 
 
 NUMERALS. 
 
 
 one choche 
 
 
 two wame 
 
 
 three caash 
 
 
 four cage 
 
 
 five tsenon 
 
 
 six winecash 
 
 
 seven caoc 
 
 
 eight winecage 
 
 
 nine kamektsen 
 
 
 ten casen 
 
 
 eleven choche-caur 
 
 
 twelve wame-caur 
 
Patagon Vocabulary. 
 
 303 
 
 NUMERALS. 
 
 thirteen caash-caur 
 
 fourteen cage-caur 
 
 fifteen tsenon-caur 
 
 sixteen winecash-caur 
 
 seventeen caoc-caur 
 
 eighteen winecage-caur 
 
 nineteen kamektsen-caur 
 
 twenty wameno casen 
 
 twenty-one wameno casen choche-caur 
 
 thirty casheno casen 
 
 forty cageno casen 
 
 fifty tsenono casen 
 
 sixty winecasheno casen 
 
 seventy caocono casen 
 
 eighty winecagono casen 
 
 ninety kamektsenono casen 
 
 hundred patak 
 
 two hundred wame palak 
 
 thousand warank 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE INDIANS, WHERE FROM ? 
 
 lAVING in this and the former volume 
 introduced my young readers in a cur 
 sory manner to most of the principal 
 tribes of the American Indians and their 
 leading customs and modes of life, from the highest 
 latitude in North America to the southernmost cape 
 of South America, there yet remain to be made, 
 within the original conception of this little work, 
 some general remarks of interest, which are 
 suggested by the queries naturally arising in the 
 minds of the readers " Who are the American In 
 dians? -from whence did they come ? and, where are 
 
 These questions involve matter of very great im 
 portance to ethnology and to human education 
 generally, and deserve a much greater space than 
 can be allotted to them in this little book, in which 
 all that is to be yet said must necessarily be concise. 
 
 If we should look to the Indians themselves to 
 answer the above questions, they would decide for 
 
American Indians, where from? 305 
 
 us very briefly (having no history, sacred or pro 
 fane) " that they are the favourite children of the 
 Great Spirit, created on the grounds on which they 
 live," and that they are "going to the setting sun." 
 
 The first of these beliefs is the unexceptional in 
 stinct of all the American tribes ; and the second, 
 no doubt the poetical figure raised by the continual 
 and never-ending encroachments of civilization 
 upon them, forcing them from their hunting- 
 grounds, and consequently driving them to the west, 
 towards the " setting sun." 
 
 Some of their various theories of their creation 
 will be given, but science demands some better so 
 lution of questions so important. And if with that 
 view the suggestions hereafter to be made should 
 fail to settle those important facts, they will, like 
 other theories that have been abundantly advanced, 
 tend towards an ultimate solution of questions which 
 science as yet is a great way from having deter 
 mined. 
 
 Various theories have been advanced, and by very 
 eminent men, as to the origin of the American In 
 dians, who were found, on the first discovery of the 
 American continent, to be inhabiting every part oi 
 it from pole to pole, and every island contiguous to 
 it in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. 
 
 These facts put the question at once " From 
 whence did these people come ? and by what means 
 and by what route did they come ? " These questions 
 
 x 
 
306 The Indians, where from ? 
 
 are based upon an established presumption of neces 
 sity (which may yet.be questioned), and ethnolo 
 gists and geographers have indicated Bhering's 
 Strait and other points as the probable routes by 
 which they arrived from the " Old World." All 
 have suggested routes and modes by which it was 
 possible they could have come, and their theories 
 there all stand on the slender ground that not one 
 of them has produced a particle of proof that they 
 did come, or that it was necessary that they should 
 have come. 
 
 When the science of human ethnology, which has 
 been for some thousands of years travelling to the 
 west with the advance of civilization, gets quite 
 around the globe, it will probably be seen whether 
 there has not been some error at its starting-point 
 error as its basis, and, consequently, error heaped 
 upon error as it has advanced. Whether erroneous 
 dogmas, travelling with the wave of civilization, 
 have not been too much the established rule by 
 which all things ethnological in the New World 
 should be measured ; and whether true ethnological 
 knowledge of a people is best drawn from an inde 
 pendent study of those people and their habits, or 
 from the application of an ethnological education 
 drawn from books, made from books, with all the 
 dogmatical rules that have been made for, and 
 applied to, other peoples ? 
 
 Is it necessary that on the last quarter of the 
 
The Indians, where from ? 307 
 
 globe a whole continent of human beings, indepen 
 dent, and happy in their peculiar modes of life, and 
 never heard of or thought of until the fourteenth 
 century, should be traced when discovered, back to 
 the opposite side of the globe, because civilization 
 happened to come from there ? What an ill con 
 ceit of civilized man to believe that because his an 
 cestors came from the east, all mankind on a new 
 continent, a new world, must have come from there 
 also ! And what a pity for science, and what a 
 blunder in science, if such a fact be established 
 before it is proved ; and what proof of it is there ? 
 I have said, " None whatever." 
 
 Ethnologists and other savants find amongst the 
 American Indians some resemblances in physiolo 
 gical traits to some foreign races. How strange if 
 there were not such ! Once in a while, a word in 
 their language resembles a word in the Hebrew or 
 other eastern language. How extraordinary if in 
 any two languages there were not some words bear 
 ing a resemblance to each other ! And then these 
 savants say, " Not only in the resemblance of lan 
 guage, but in the structure of language." But how 
 trivial is all such evidence as this, when all lan 
 guages are constructed to suit the organs pronounc 
 ing them, and which are the same in all the human 
 race, leaving us to wonder that the resemblance in 
 the construction of languages is not greater than 
 it is. 
 
308 The Indians, where from ? 
 
 One distinguished ethnologist of England recites 
 in his work on Ethnology one word of only two 
 syllables, found in use amongst an American tribe 
 on the Pacific coast, the same as spoken by a tribe 
 on the opposite coast of Siberia, as an evidence that 
 the American tribe came from that coast, probably 
 by the way of Bhering's Strait ! 
 
 What a monstrous way to prove a theory, and how 
 bad the theory that grasps at such proofs ! If such 
 an isolated word was worth a notice, why not better 
 suppose that probably some poor fisherman of 
 Siberia had been driven in his canoe to the Colum 
 bia coast, and that the American Indians who 
 picked him up adopted from him a dying word to 
 recollect him by ? 
 
 As has been said, that I went to Petropotrovski, 
 to the Alaeutian Islands, and to Kamskatka, 
 on the coast of Siberia. I found many words of 
 Siberian languages spoken on the American side of 
 the Strait of Bhering, and as many, or more, on 
 the Siberian side, of the American languages. 
 What did this prove ? Nothing except that there 
 had been a mutual crossing of Bhering's Strait in 
 their canoes or on the ice (both of which at certain 
 seasons are feasible), and that there had been, to a 
 certain extent, a mutual adoption of words in their 
 languages. It proved that those opposite people 
 sometimes cross the strait, while the total absence 
 of resemblance in physiological traits as positively 
 
The Indians, where from ? 309 
 
 disprove the fact of emigration (or peopling a con 
 tinent) from one side or the other. 
 
 The ethnologist enters the wildest tribes on the 
 United States frontier, and to his astonishment 
 finds the Indians there using occasionally French 
 and English words, and now and then meets a half 
 white Indian, with a French face and a French 
 beard. This is no evidence that these tribes are 
 Frenchmen or Englishmen, but proves only that 
 Frenchmen and Englishmen have been there a 
 hundred years before him. 
 
 He finds these people using bows and arrows, 
 the same precisely as were anciently used by the 
 ancient Saxon race, the flint arrow and spear heads 
 precisely the same as those of the ancient Britons, 
 and he is astounded ! but why astonished ? What 
 do these prove ? Not that the American Indians 
 emigrated from the British Isle, or that the ancient 
 Britons came across the Atlantic in their canoes 
 from America, but it helps to prove the truth of 
 the old adage, that " necessity is the mother of in 
 vention," that the nations of all the earth, without 
 the use of iron, having necessity for food and means 
 of getting it, and implements for war and defence, 
 have had alike the ingenuity to take the sharp edge 
 of broken flints for knives and arrow-points, and by 
 the aid of their inventive powers, granted them 
 alike by the Great Spirit, they have everywhere 
 improved them much in the same shape, not from 
 
3 1 o The Indians, where from ? 
 
 each other, but led to the same results and same 
 forms by the peculiar fracture of the stone, in all 
 countries the same, and the similar objects for 
 which their knives and arrow-heads were formed. 
 
 The flint arrow, therefore, and the bow to throw 
 it, have been not necessarily the gift of one nation 
 to another, but the native invention of every people. 
 They certainly came not from Adam. Adam was 
 a gardener, and his sons farmers and tenders of 
 flocks. These things, then, were purely of human 
 invention, and growing out of necessity ; and if one 
 race invented them, another race, from the same 
 necessity, could as well do it. 
 
 Savants who have grown up ethnologists in their 
 fathers' libraries of books, also tell us that some 
 portions of the splendid ruins at Uxmal and Copan, 
 as well as ancient sculptures found in Mexico, and 
 the relics found on the Ohio and Muskingum are of 
 Egyptian origin, because they resemble Egyptian 
 monuments. 
 
 How weak is such evidence, that merely because 
 these ruins and these sculptures happen to resemble 
 some edifices or some sculptures of the Egyptians, 
 that they are of Egyptian origin. They admit 
 that they were built by savage tribes, for they bear 
 no Egyptian inscriptions or hieroglyphics, but the 
 inscriptions and hieroglyphics of savage races who 
 must have brought their art of building and 
 sculpture from Egypt ! 
 
The Indians, where from ? 311 
 
 How astonishing that such stupendous ruins are 
 actually there, and were built there, and left there, 
 without a living soul to tell their history, or who 
 built them, and covered with inscriptions and 
 hieroglyphics, no doubt telling their own history if 
 they could be read, but no corresponding living 
 language in the old world or the new, to prove that 
 their origin was Asiatic or Egyptian. 
 
 Egyptian sculpture and Egyptian architecture 
 were not taught the Egyptians ; they were the in 
 ventions, and in their grandeur and magnificence 
 were but the progress of, native art ; and so the 
 ruined temples and palaces of Palenque and Uxmal. 
 
 Talents for art and design are inherent in all 
 mankind, and as wealth and luxury and civilization 
 increase in all countries, so will sculpture and 
 architecture advance in grandeur and in beauty of. 
 design ; and these advancements, like those in 
 Indian weapons, suggested by the demands of 
 elegance and comfort in buildings, or of beauty 
 and nature in sculpture, with nature everywhere 
 the same for its models, will necessarily, in all 
 countries, arrive, sooner or later, at more or less 
 resemblance. 
 
 A sculptured statue, found amongst the antiquities 
 of Mexico or Yucatan, if it resembles ever so 
 closely an Egyptian statue, it is no evidence what 
 ever that it was transported from Egypt to America, 
 or that the sculptor of it came from that country, 
 
3 1 2 ' The Indians, where from ? 
 
 bringing his tools and his models with him ; it only 
 proves that in both countries men have alike an 
 inherent talent for art, and that working from 
 similar models, and in similar material, they have 
 arrived at equal perfection, both copying closely 
 their model, and their works, consequently and 
 necessarily, resembling one another. 
 
 An ethnologist finds amongst the American 
 Indians a wooden spoon, precisely the same in pro 
 portions and shape as the wooden spoons brought 
 from the Kalmuk Tartars, in Asia. This, though 
 only evidence for a bad theory, proves just as much 
 as resemblance in statuary, or of fagades, door 
 ways, &c. in ancient palaces ; it proves that man's 
 ingenuity and necessities in both countries led him 
 to build fagades and doorways, and to adapt the 
 , length and shape of his spoon to suit the motions 
 of his arm, and the bowl of it to fit his mouth. 
 
 The ancient Egyptians, before the construction 
 of their stupendous monuments, and their grand 
 groups in sculpture, which now stand to astonish 
 the world, lived in tents like the Aztec Indians 
 previous to their building the cities of Palenque, 
 Copan, and Uxmal. And the two native races, 
 developing the talent with which nature had en 
 dowed them for those grand purposes, probably 
 constructed those vast edifices on the two con 
 tinents about the same time. 
 
 In the two countries the wonder is, not that 
 
The Indians, where from ? 313 
 
 there should be a resemblance in their monuments, 
 but that the people who built them, and arose by 
 their own talents to such grandeur in art, and such 
 luxury, should have fallen short of all history which 
 should have recorded their greatness. 
 
 To the theory so often and so strongly advanced 
 of an Egyptian or Asiatic origin of the American 
 Indians, there are yet other and stronger objections 
 to be produced before the subject is disposed of. 
 
 The theory of such a mode of peopling a whole 
 continent involves, as will be seen, difficulties and 
 objections (considering the time at which such 
 supposed emigrations took place), in effect equal 
 to impossibility itself. I say impossibility, because 
 the Aztec ruins in Yucatan and Guatemala, which 
 speak a language, which no one can deny, are as 
 old as the most ancient monuments of Egypt, and 
 are unquestionably the results of the growth of a 
 civilization from savage native tribes, which growth 
 itself must have required some thousands of years. 
 
 The evidence that those monuments were not 
 the works of Egyptian architects, is, that, though 
 in some respects they bear a resemblance, not an 
 Egyptian inscription or hieroglyphic mark is to be 
 found amongst them, and also that if the Egyptians, 
 in so advanced a state of civilization and art, emi 
 grated to the continent of America, and built such 
 stupendous palaces and other edifices, it is quite 
 impossible, though the people have perished, that 
 
314 The Indians, where from? 
 
 history should have been, until the date of Colum 
 bus, in ignorance of the American continent. 
 
 From the above dates and evidences of dates, we 
 are bound to infer that the American native races 
 are as ancient as any of the races of the "old world," 
 whose antiquity is known by their monuments. 
 
 Then let us see, if the builders of those monu 
 ments were Egyptians or Asiatics, what objects 
 they had in coming to America how they found 
 the way there and how they got there (at least 
 6000 years ago, if at all), when civilization, with 
 the art of navigation, and stimulated by commerce, 
 by science, and the thirst for gold, never reached 
 there until within the last 40x3 years.. 
 
 There is nothing in history, sacred or profane, to 
 prove a peopling of one continent from the other, 
 and probably for ever, as at the present time, pre 
 sumption will be the only ground on which such a 
 theory will stand ; and if the fact could be proved 
 to have transpired, there is nothing yet to show that 
 it might not as well have been from west to east, as 
 from east to west. 
 
 The most enthusiastic theorists on this subject 
 have never yet entertained the idea of a savage 
 emigration across the Atlantic or the Pacific Ocean, 
 but look to Bhering's Strait, where, by possibility, 
 at certain seasons of the year (as has been said), 
 they can cross from continent to continent on the 
 ice, or in canoes, but what motive for doing that, 
 
The Indians, where from? 315 
 
 in the state in which savage society in the frozen 
 regions of Kamskatka, 6000 years ago, when at 
 the present time, with all their modern improve 
 ments in boat building, in weapons, and with some 
 ideas of commerce to stimulate them, no Indian, 
 on either coast, ventures across, except under the 
 advice and escort of civilized men who accompany 
 them. 
 
 Savages, of all the human family, are the least 
 disposed to emigrate, like animals, their instinct is 
 against it ; driven from their homes, like animals, 
 they will return to them, and without the stimulants 
 of science, of commerce, or of gold, like animals, 
 they are contented to remain in them. 
 
 If the barren and frozen coast of Siberia had 
 been overstocked with a surplus population, and 
 the American coast opposite, a luxuriant garden, 
 instead of a coast equally barren and desolate, such 
 an emigration might have been a possible thing for 
 Asiatics, and in the space of 6000 years they might 
 possibly have increased and spread over North 
 America, and perhaps through Central and South 
 America, to Terra del Fuego, but if so, where are 
 they ? 
 
 In the whole extent of the whole American con 
 tinent, from Bhering's Strait to Terra del Fuego, 
 there is not to be seen, amongst the savage tribes, 
 a Mongol, a Kalmuk, or a Siberian Tartar, nor a 
 word of their language to be heard. Languages, to 
 
3 1 6 The Indians, where from ? 
 
 be sure, may be lost or changed, but physiological 
 traits of people are never lost whilst the race 
 exists. 
 
 Some travellers through South America, as if to 
 aid the theory of Asiatic emigration, have repre 
 sented the tribes of the Upper Amazon with 
 "bridled" eyes, like the Chinese, and even cari 
 catured the Chinese obliquity, and put these more 
 than Chinese peculiarities forward as " types." But 
 I have seen most of the tribes on the Amazon and 
 its affluents, and though the natives in those regions 
 are generally a low degree of American aborigines, 
 they exhibit nothing of the Mongol general cha 
 racter of face, nor Mongol obliquity of eye, other 
 than the occasional muscular approach to it pro 
 duced by their peculiar habits of life, living mostly, 
 in their fisherman's lives, in their canoes ; their eyes 
 affected by the refraction of the vertical rays of the 
 sun on water, on which they are looking ; and on 
 land, walking with naked feet, requiring their eyes 
 to be constantly on the ground before their steps. 
 
 The effect thus produced in the expression of 
 their eyes is very striking, but is neither Mongolic 
 nor a "type," but aberration from type, produced by 
 the external causes above named. 
 
 I have said above that if an Asiatic population 
 had crossed at Bhering's Strait, they might in time 
 have advanced through North and South and Cen 
 tral America, and have stocked the whole conti- 
 
The Indians, where from ? 317 
 
 nent ; and this has been claimed by the advocates 
 of Asiatic immigration. This is a possibility, and 
 therefore, they say, improbable; but here possibility 
 stops, and certainly proof with it. 
 
 The Sandwich Islands, with a population of 
 500,000, are more than two thousand miles from 
 the coast of South America. How did the popula 
 tion of those islands get there ? Certainly not in 
 canoes over ocean waves of two thousand miles. 
 But I am told, " The Sandwich islanders are Poly 
 nesians." Not a bit of it ; they are 2000 miles 
 north of the Polynesian group, with the same im 
 possibility of canoe navigation, and are as different 
 in physiological traits of character and language 
 from the Polynesian as they are different from the 
 American races. 
 
 However voluminous and learned the discussions 
 may be on the mysterious subject of the origin of 
 races, they must all come to the conclusion at last 
 that, even if Asiatic, or Egyptian, or Polynesian 
 populations found their way to the American con 
 tinent, at whatever date, they found, and inter 
 mingled with, an aboriginal American race as an 
 cient as, or more ancient than, the races they 
 descended from. 
 
 Some have contended that the American Indians 
 are Jews, and that the " ten lost tribes of Israel," 
 got to the American coast, and gave a population 
 to the continent. How chimerical is this. At the 
 
3 1 8 The Indians, where from ? 
 
 date of the disappearance of the " ten tribes," the 
 ruined cities of Yucatan and Guatemala were in 
 full splendour ; and with no advantages of naviga 
 tion, the ten tribes would have had to wander 
 through the barbarous and savage tribes of Chinese, 
 Kalmuk, Mongol, and Siberian Tartary to the 
 snowy and icy regions of Kamskatka and Bhering's 
 Strait, a distance of more than 10,000 miles ; and 
 for what ? for a new continent they never had heard 
 of, for, if any one had ever reached it, certainly no 
 one had ever gone back. 
 
 This interesting but unimportant question of, 
 "Where the American Indians came from," has been 
 elaborately and ingeniously discussed by able writers, 
 and still will probably continue to be discussed for 
 centuries to come, without being further understood 
 than at the present time ; and enough has been 
 said of it in this little work to prepare the minds of 
 its readers for my own opinions, which I am about 
 to advance, as to that part of the question put in 
 the beginning of this chapter, not " Where they 
 came from" but " Who are the American Indians ?" 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE INDIANS, WHO ARE THEY ? 
 
 reader has learned, by following me 
 through these two little volumes, that I 
 have, during fourteen years of research, 
 not amongst books and libraries, but in 
 the open air and the wilderness, studied the looks 
 and character of the American native races in every 
 latitude, from Bhering's Strait to Terra del Fuego ; 
 and here he will learn that, from the immutable, 
 national, physiological traits with which the Al 
 mighty stamps this and every other race, I believe 
 the native tribes of the American continent are all 
 integral parts of one great family, and that He who 
 made man from dust created these people from the 
 dust of the country in which they live, and to which 
 dust their bodies are fast returning. 
 
 I can find nothing in history, sacred or profane, 
 against this ; and from their colour and physiologi 
 cal traits, which are different from all other races 
 on the earth, as well as from reasons advanced 
 
320 The Indians, who are they ? 
 
 in the foregoing chapter, I am compelled to believe 
 that, in His boundless and unerring wisdom, the 
 Almighty, who " created the cattle of the fields, the 
 fishes in the sea, and fowls of the air " of this vast 
 and glowing continent " for man's use " (not that 
 they should grow and decay for thousands of cen 
 turies, until man should accidentally reach them to 
 enjoy them), placed these red children there, and 
 said to them, in some way, " I -am your Father, 
 your Maker ; I give you these things ; go forth and 
 enjoy them." And that in the undisputed enjoy 
 ment of this rich inheritance given them, of un 
 limited fields and forests abounding in game, and 
 unbounded liberty for using it, they were, in Mexico, 
 in Yucatan, and Perou, duly and successfully using 
 those faculties which God had given them, and in 
 tended for raising them gradually into civilization 
 and splendour, when cataclysms sunk the splendid 
 edifices and the people in one, and more than 
 barbarous or savage cruelties of mercenary men, 
 crushed their rising power, robbed them of their 
 gold, and carried the sword and death amongst the 
 others, and sent a drowning wave of discourage 
 ment through the remotest tribes of the continent. 
 
 The American Indians are as distinct from all 
 the other races of the earth as the other races of the 
 earth are distinct from each other, and, both in 
 North and South and Central America, exhibit but 
 one great original family type, with only the local 
 
The Indians, who are they? 321 
 
 changes which difference of climate and different 
 modes of life have wrought upon it. 
 
 I believe they were created on the ground on 
 which they have been found, and that the date of 
 their creation is the same as that of the human 
 species on other parts of the globe. This belief 
 is founded on the reasons advanced in the fore 
 going chapter, supported by the traditions of the 
 Indians, which will be noticed, and a strong and 
 unavoidable, intuitive disbelief that all the races of 
 man, of different colours, have descended from one 
 pair of ancestors, involving, from necessity, the 
 crime of incest, after the holy institution of mar 
 riage, as the means of peopling the earth ; and the . 
 inconceivable plan of the whole surface of the earth 
 teeming with luxuries, "created for man's use," 
 vegetating and decaying for tens of thousands of 
 years, until wandering man, from one point, and 
 from one pair, by accident, arrives there to use 
 them. 
 
 Some writers have advanced the belief that South 
 America and the continent of Europe were an 
 ciently united, and that the American continent 
 received its population in that way ; but as this is 
 mere hypothesis, and probably will for ever remain 
 so, it refers us for a last remaining remark, to 
 Bhering's Strait, by which route, if the American 
 Indians are the descendants of "Adam" and " Eve," 
 at the rate that an infant savage population would 
 
 Y 
 
322 The Indians, who are they ? 
 
 spread over an uninhabited and desolate country, 
 several thousand years would have been required 
 to populate and move through the vast regions of 
 Kalmuk Tartary and Siberia to Bhering's Strait, a 
 distance of more than 10,000 miles ; and from 
 Bhering's Strait to Central and South America, and 
 Terra del Fuego, 10,000 miles more, and an equal 
 time required one thousand years at least for a 
 civilization to arise sufficient to have built the 
 splendid monuments of Yucatan, and the vast space 
 of time that has transpired since those monuments 
 were depopulated ; in all, a space of time far tran 
 scending that allowed by sacred history, or even by 
 geology, for man's appearance on the earth ! 
 
 The American Indians know nothing of this, yet 
 their traditions and monuments prove beyond a 
 doubt their great antiquity ; for, of 1 20 different 
 tribes which I have visited in North and South and 
 Central America, every tribe has related to me, 
 more or less distinctly, their traditions of the 
 Deluge, in which one, or three, or eight persons 
 were saved above the waters, on the top of a high 
 mountain ; and also their peculiar and respective 
 theories of the Creation. 
 
 Some of these tribes, living at the base of the 
 Rocky Mountains, and in the plains of Venezuela, 
 and the Pampa del Sacramento in South America, 
 make annual pilgrimages to the fancied summits 
 where the antediluvian species were saved in canoes 
 
The Indians, who are they? 323 
 
 or otherwise, and, under the mysterious regulations 
 of their medicine (mystery) men, tender their prayers ' 
 and sacrifices to the Great Spirit, to ensure their 
 exemption from a similar catastrophe. 
 
 Indian traditions are generally conflicting, and 
 soon run into fable ; but how strong is the unani 
 mous tradition of the aboriginal races of a whole 
 continent, of such an event ! how strong a corrobo- 
 ration of the Mosaic account ; and what an unan 
 swerable proof that the American Indian is an 
 antediluvian race ! and how just a claim does it 
 lay, with the various modes and forms which these 
 poor people practise in celebrating that event, to 
 the inquiries and sympathies of the philanthropic 
 and Christian, as well as to the scientific, world ! 
 
 Some of those writers who have endeavoured to 
 trace the American Indians to an Asiatic or 
 Egyptian origin, have advanced these traditions as 
 evidence in support of their theories, which are as 
 yet but unconfirmed hypotheses ; and as there is 
 not yet known to exist (as I have before said), either 
 in the American languages, or in the Mexican or 
 Aztec, or other monuments of these people, one 
 single acceptable proof of such an immigration, 
 these traditions are strictly American indigenous, 
 and not exotic. 
 
 If it were shown that inspired history of the 
 Deluge and of the Creation restricted those events 
 to one continent alone, then it might be that the 
 
324 The Indians, who are they f 
 
 American races came from the eastern continent, 
 bringing these traditions with them ; but until that 
 is proved, the American traditions of the Deluge 
 are no evidence whatever of an eastern origin. 
 
 Though there is not a tribe in America but what 
 have some theory of man's creation, there is not one 
 amongst them all that bears the slightest resem 
 blance to the Mosaic account. How strange is this, 
 if these people came from the country where in 
 spiration was prior to all history ! 
 
 The Mandans believed they were created under 
 the ground, and that a portion of their people re 
 side there yet. 1 
 
 The Choctaws assert that " they were created 
 crawfish, living alternately under the ground and 
 above it, as they chose ; and coming out at their 
 little holes in the earth to get the warmth of the 
 sun one sunny day, a portion of the tribe was driven 
 away and could not return ; they built the Choctaw 
 village, and the remainder of the tribe are still 
 living under the ground." 
 
 The Sioux relate with great minuteness their 
 traditions of the Creation. They say that the 
 
 1 See an account of their astonishing mode of celebrating 
 annually the subsiding of the Deluge, accompanied with their 
 various modes of voluntary torture, recently published by 
 Triibner. 60, Paternoster Row. " O-kee-Pa : a Religious 
 Ceremony of the Mandans. 13 Coloured Illustrations. By 
 George Catlin." 
 
The Indians, who are they ? 325 
 
 Indians were all made from the " Red Pipe Stone," 
 which is exactly of their colour that the Great 
 Spirit, at a subsequent period, called all the tribes 
 together at the Red Pipe Stone Quarry, and told 
 them this : " that the red stone was their flesh, and 
 that they must use it for their pipes only." 
 
 Other tribes were created under the water ; and 
 at least one half of the tribes in America represent 
 that man was first created under the ground, or in 
 the rocky caverns of the mountains. Why this 
 diversity of theories of the Creation, if these people 
 brought their traditions of the Deluge from the land 
 of inspiration ? 
 
 How far these general traditions of a flood relate 
 to an universal Deluge, or to local cataclysms (of 
 which there have evidently been one or more, over 
 portions of the American continent), or whether 
 there HAS BEEN an universal Deluge, and at what 
 period, it is difficult to determine. 
 
 One thing, however, is certain the Indian tradi 
 tions everywhere point distinctly at least to one 
 such event, and amongst the Central and Southern 
 tribes, they as distinctly point to two such catas 
 trophes, in which their race was chiefly destroyed ; 
 and the rocks of their countries bear evidence yet 
 more conclusive of the same calamities, which pro 
 bably swept off the populations in the plains, and, 
 as their traditions say, left scattered remnants on the 
 summits of the Andes and the Rocky Mountains. 
 
326 The Indians, who are they? 
 
 Since that epoch (or those epochs), their descen 
 dants have wandered off into the fertile plains where 
 climate and a greater abundance of game and fish 
 have invited them, peopling in time the whole con 
 tinent, from the Atlantic to the Pacific coasts, and 
 the West India and other islands. 
 
 These scattered people have arranged themselves 
 into different tribes, with languages dialectic or 
 idiomatic, but without exception bearing evident 
 physiological traits of the ancient parent stock, with 
 local and tribal differences produced by different 
 habits of life, and varieties of climates, and differences 
 of food on which they subsist. 
 
 The Crows, of whom I have spoken in a former 
 chapter, and also at greater length in the first 
 volume of this work, still inhabiting a part of the 
 Rocky Mountains in North America, with the Apa- 
 chees and several other tribes in New Mexico, still 
 exhibit in bold relief the original type, which is 
 seen so well preserved in the stone monuments of 
 Yucatan and ancient Mexico, and the same unmis 
 takable, though less conspicuous, is traceable through 
 the alto-Peruvian tribes ; the Moxos, the Chiguitos, 
 the Cochabambas, and others yet to the south. 
 
 The Crows are living Toltecs (or Aztecs), and 
 history abounds in proof that the Toltecs in Mexico 
 and the Aztecs in Yucatan and Guatemala came 
 from the mountains in the north. 
 
 The Aztecs emigrated farther to the south and 
 
The Indians, who are they? 327 
 
 east than the Toltecs, and to a more fertile country, 
 but lower in position, by which means, in the second ' 
 cataclysm, their magnificent cities were submerged, 
 and their populations exterminated, but their im 
 perishable monuments record the truth that such a 
 race then and there existed, as well as the physio 
 logical traits of its present population prove that 
 the Mexicans are remains of the Toltec race. 
 
 The history, which establishes beyond a doubt 
 the migration of the Toltecs and Aztecs from the 
 mountains of the north-west into Mexico and Yuca 
 tan, is extremely vague as to time, and from the 
 similarity of their monuments, it seems probable 
 that they were portions of the same race, who have 
 taken different names from the different periods of 
 their emigrations, or from the positions to which 
 they respectively went, the word Toltec (or Toh-tec) 
 being still applied by some of the northern Mexi 
 cans to the people of the mountains (mountaineers), 
 and the word Aztec (or Ah-tec), to the people of 
 the low countries (lowlanders), and Ah-na-tec to 
 the people beyond the lowlanders (the white people). 
 Subsequent to the second cataclysm, which de 
 stroyed the Aztecs, and deluged their stupendous 
 monuments, the Toltecs built the city of Mexico in 
 a high and sterile region, from fear of a similar fate 
 to that of their neighbours, the Aztecs. 
 
 In the second cataclysm the summits of the 
 mountains in the West Indies, then forming a part 
 
328 The Indians, who are they ? 
 
 of the main land of the continent, protected a por 
 tion of their inhabitants, who, from the fear of 
 another calamity (and later from the cruelty of the 
 Spanish invaders, since the discovery of America), 
 have emigrated in vast numbers to the coast of 
 Venezuela, Guiana, and Yucatan : such are the 
 Caribbes ; and from the north and the west of Gua 
 temala and Mexico, the Maya and other tribes have 
 migrated to the east, spreading over the promon 
 tory of Yucatan, Honduras, &c. 
 
 Amongst all of these tribes, as well as amongst 
 the present Mexicans and the numerous tribes to 
 the north, even to the Kiowas and the Comanches, I 
 have found distinct traditions of three successive 
 cataclysms two by water, and one by fire. And 
 in the rocks and mountains, both in the West India 
 Islands and on the Mexican coast, as well as in 
 Yucatan and its ruins, I have found, from chemical 
 and geological tests, undeniable evidences of the 
 same catastrophes. 
 
 Nothing is more certain than that the second 
 cataclysm in those regions was produced by the 
 volcanic actions underneath, causing a subsidence 
 of a large tract of country, including the whole 
 range of the greater and lesser Antilles, the pro 
 montory of Yucatan, the eastern and lower parts of 
 Mexico and Honduras, and even extending to the 
 coast of Venezuela. 
 
 At a later period (perhaps some thousands of 
 
The Indians, who are they ? 329 
 
 years) this subsided country, or a great proportion 
 of it, has, from an opposite action of similar causes, 
 risen to a sufficient extent towards its ancient ele 
 vation, to show, in the granite and volcanic tops of 
 the Antilles which have reappeared above the ocean, 
 the continuation of the Cordillera, and also to ex 
 pose to view the Aztec ruins of Guatemala and 
 Yucatan ; leading us to the rational and unavoid 
 able conclusions that a people so far advanced in 
 civilization and the arts as to build such populous 
 and magnificent cities as Palenque, Uxmal, and 
 Copan, were never confined to three cities, but that 
 other cities of equal or greater extent were spread , 
 over the plains, which, in the days of the Aztecs, 
 extended from the ruins of Yucatan to the base of 
 the West India mountains, and which lost cities 
 may now be said to be ruins under the sea. 
 
 What is now the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of 
 Mexico were, in the days of Uxmal and Palenque, 
 vast and fertile plains, through which the Rio 
 Grande del Norte and the Mississippi wended their 
 long and serpentine ways, and, uniting their waters 
 near the base of the mountains, debouched into the 
 ocean between Cuba and the Bahama Islands. 
 
 This vast space, in area much larger than the 
 kingdoms of France and England together, teeming 
 with luxuries the most inviting to man, with the 
 richest soil and the most salubrious climate of the 
 world, would consequently have had its portion of 
 
330 The Indians, who are they f 
 
 the Aztec race, and probably the ruins of million? 
 and millions are there, still embedded under the 
 sea. 1 
 
 The reader who does not travel may easily trace on 
 his map the Cordillera range, through Grenada, and 
 pointing out at Santa Martha, on the coast of Vene 
 zuela, and follow it through the lesser and greater 
 Antilles ; and he who travels may see with the 
 naked eye, on the northern face of the Silla, at 
 Carraccas, the sublime vertical grooves cut when 
 that mighty subsidence went down. 
 
 From those points, the chain of the lesser Antilles, 
 as now seen, is a succession of mountain peaks, 
 some volcanic, and others not, continuing the course 
 of the Cordillera ; and from chemical and geolo 
 gical tests, I have found that they have anciently 
 occupied positions equally elevated as the highest 
 parts of the Andes at the present day ! 
 
 In my descent from the tribe of Crows in the 
 northern ranges of the Rocky Mountains (as has 
 been described), through the other Toltec tribes, to 
 Mexico, in 1854, and gathering their traditions all 
 pointing to the sunken countries, I was forcibly 
 struck with the importance of these great changes, 
 in their probable effects on the distribution of 
 races. 
 
 1 For the young readers of this book, who have long lives 
 before them, these are but suggestions, pointing to proofs 
 that they will sooner or later read on these interesting topics. 
 
The Indians, who are they? 331 
 
 I contemplated tests by which to determine the 
 extent of those subsidences, and the depths to 
 which they had sunk ; and also, the partial eleva 
 tions to which they have again arisen ; and with 
 examinations I then made, partly establishing my 
 theory, I visited the Baron de Humboldt, in Berlin, 
 in 1855 (the same visit alluded to in page 204). And 
 after having fully explained my theory to him, and 
 the tests which I brought him, when I was about 
 starting on a second voyage to the lesser Antilles, 
 I received the following complimentary and approv 
 ing letter from him : 
 
 " To GEO. CATLIN, ESQ. 
 
 " MY DEAR SIR, 
 
 " I have read with profound interest the papers 
 you left with me. I believe with you; that the 
 Crows are Toltecs ; and I was instantly impressed 
 with this belief when I first saw your portraits of 
 Crow chiefs in London, some years since. But I 
 am more struck with your mode of determining the 
 sinking and rising transits of rocks, and the prob 
 able dates and extent of cataclysmic disasters. I 
 believe your tests are reliable, and perfectly justify 
 you for making the contemplated voyage to the lesser 
 Antilles. The subject is one of vast importance to 
 science, and if I were a younger man I would join 
 you in the expedition at once ! 
 
 " I believe your discoveries will throw a great 
 
332 The Indians, who are they ? 
 
 deal of light on the important subject of the effect 
 of cataclysms on the distribution of races. 
 
 " I return to you with this, the papers you left 
 with me, and I enclose you a memorandum for your 
 voyage, which may lead you to examinations that 
 you might otherwise overlook. 
 
 " Let nothing stop you you are on a noble 
 mission, and the Great Spirit will protect you. 
 " Your sincere friend, 
 
 "A. V. HUMBOLDT. 
 "Potsdam, Sept. i2th, 1855." 
 
 Armed with this encouraging letter, and the in 
 valuable "memorandum" from that great philo 
 sopher, for my further guidance, I made my second 
 visit to the West Indies, and carried my tests, and 
 applied them to the summits of the Ando Vene 
 zuelan mountains on the coast of South America ; 
 and with facts which I then gathered, I re-crossed 
 the ocean, and was traversing the continent to lay 
 the results of my researches before my noble friend, 
 as he had desired, when the news of his death met 
 me, but in no way depreciated the important facts 
 with which I was freighted. 1 
 
 1 The last few years of my wanderings have been more 
 amongst rocks than amongst Indians; and a work which I 
 am preparing, to be entitled " The Lifted and Subsided Rocks 
 of America? will carry this subject much further than space 
 will allow in the compressed remarks of this little work. 
 
The Indians, who are they? 333 
 
 The migration of the Toltecs and Aztecs, from 
 the north, and the cataclysmic events so well 
 proved by Indian traditions, and more positively 
 established by the tests I have alluded to, account 
 for the total extinction of a race so numerous, and 
 so far advanced in civilization and arts, that they 
 could not have fallen by the hands of native tribes ; 
 nor is it possible to believe that the whole of such 
 a race could have been destroyed by an epidemic 
 disease. 
 
 All traditions of the contiguous mountain tribes 
 are against this, and point distinctly to a flood in 
 which the tribes of the lower countries perished ; 
 and the ocean sands and deposits covering the 
 whole surface of Yucatan and its ruins, with other 
 evidences equally strong, help to establish, beyond 
 a, doubt, the same calamity. 
 
 The cataclysm by fire, forming a part of the 
 traditional catastrophes of Central America, and 
 equally well established, was less extensive and 
 less disastrous in its effects, and probably took place 
 at the same time ; and from the same commotions 
 which caused the subsidence of earth, and conse 
 quently flood of water. And that such eruptions 
 of flame have been of repeated occurrence, and 
 that they accompany most earthquake commotions, 
 there is abundance of evidence in their marks on 
 the rocks in the crevices of the mountains of Central 
 and South America. 
 
334 The Indians, who are they ? 
 
 The great antiquity of the Aztec ruins is ques 
 tioned by some, who find amongst them painted 
 frescoes, painted tablets and statues, and lintelled 
 roofs, and Maya and Mexican inscriptions. 
 
 The Maya Indians, who, it has already been said, 
 migrated from the west, and took possession of 
 those ruins after they arose from the sea, found 
 convenient shelter within their walls, which they 
 defaced, and to which they added inscriptions ; and 
 centuries after (and for centuries previous to the 
 reign of Montezuma), a succession of Mexican 
 princes occupied the same ruins lintelled and 
 roofed the palaces painted the frescoes and tablets 
 and added Mexican inscriptions, until the ablest 
 archaeologists are unable to expound them ; but 
 the very sands which cover them and the whole 
 country around them, not blown there by the wind, 
 but deposited by the waves of the ocean, show that 
 neither the Maya Indians nor the Mexicans had any 
 thing to do with their original construction. 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 THE INDIANS, WHERE ARE THEY GOING? 
 
 t F the brief remarks advanced in the two 
 preceding chapters leave the reader's 
 mind in any doubt as to the origin of 
 the American Indians, there need be 
 no uncertainty in answering the second question, 
 " Where are these poor people going ?" It requires 
 no archaeologist, no historian, nor antiquarian for 
 this " to the setting sun," knowing, from the irre 
 sistible wave of civilization, which has already en 
 gulfed more than one-half of the tribes on the con 
 tinent, that somewhere in the western horizon the 
 kst of their race will soon be extinguished. 
 
 The first shocks to Indian civilization and ad 
 vancement, which have been related in the fore 
 going chapters, were the results of natural acci 
 dents, which none but God controls ; and if those 
 awful events could have been avoided, Columbus 
 would have discovered a continent in the west as 
 
336 The Indians, where are they going ? 
 
 high in civilization, in agriculture and the arts, as 
 the eastern continent was at that date. 
 
 Staggering under this death-blow, the genius of 
 civilization lay for centuries and centuries in embers, 
 until it again began to blaze out in Mexico and Peru, 
 when the inhuman onslaughts and revolting cruelties 
 of civilized men, stimulated by the thirst for gold, 
 set honesty, morality, religion, and Heaven itself at 
 defiance, in extinguishing the last lights that were 
 lifting these poor nations from savage darkness and 
 ignorance. 
 
 The last gleams of Indian civilization thus extin 
 guished by deceptions and cruelties, at the recital 
 of which the hearts of honest men and philanthro 
 pists sicken, the poor Indians, from one end of 
 the continent to the other, have stood aghast at 
 white man's cruelty ; and, suspicious, have every 
 where resisted his proffered civilization and religion, 
 and yet the dupes of only one inducement his rum 
 and whiskey. 
 
 Crazed by and for these, from one side of the 
 continent to the other, they have bartered away 
 their game, their lands, and even their lives ; for 
 wherever rum and whiskey have gone, the small-pox 
 has also travelled, and in every tribe one half or 
 more have fallen victims to its mortality. 
 
 Columbus, perhaps, was the first white man who 
 ever saw an American Indian, in October, 1492 ; 
 landing on the island of San Salvador, one of the 
 
The Indians, where are they going? 337 
 
 Bahamas, "he discovered Indians running to the 
 shore, naked, and gazing at the ships." 
 
 In Hayti, where he met greater numbers, he says, 
 in a letter to Louis de St. Angel, " True it is that 
 after the Indians felt confidence, and lost their fears 
 of us, they were so liberal with what they possessed, 
 that it would not be believed by those who had not 
 seen it. If anything was asked of them, they never 
 said no, but gave it cheerfully, and showed as much 
 anxiety as if they gave their very heart ; and if the 
 things given were of great or little value, they were 
 content with whatever was given in return." 
 
 " Columbus was afterwards wrecked on the 
 island of Hispaniola. The cacique (chief), Gua- 
 can-a-gan, living within a league and a half of 
 the wreck, shed tears of sympathy, and sent all his 
 people in canoes to his aid ; and the cacique ren 
 dered all the aid he could in person, both on sea 
 and on land, consoling Columbus by saying that 
 everything he possessed should be at his disposal. 
 All the effects of the wrecked ship were deposited 
 near the cacique's dwelling, and not the slightest 
 article, though exposed to the whole population, 
 was pilfered ! " 
 
 And Columbus, in his letter to the King and 
 Queen of Spain, says, " So tractable, so peaceable, 
 are these people, that I swear to your majesties 
 there is not in the world a better nation. They 
 love their neighbours as themselves, and their dis- 
 
 Z 
 
338 The Indians, where are they going '? 
 
 course is even sweet and gentle, and accompanied 
 with a smile ; and though it is true that they are 
 naked, yet their manners are decorous and praise 
 worthy." 
 
 Columbus, amongst these people, was loaded 
 with presents the most costly that they possessed ; 
 and as he says himself, " this generous cacique, and 
 a variety of other chiefs, placed coronets of pure 
 gold on his head." And what was the sequel ? 
 This " generous cacique," and all the " variety of 
 other chiefs," and their people, who had not even 
 bows and arrows to defend themselves with (so 
 peaceable they were), were driven from their dwell 
 ings into the mountains, and their villages burnt 
 to the ground. The Caribbes were more warlike, 
 - and, armed with bows and arrows, made a stronger 
 resistance ; but they were at length defeated by 
 one of the most disgraceful stratagems that ever 
 appeared in the history of warfare. These Indians, 
 who possessed large quantities of gold, got an idea 
 that silver, first produced amongst them by the 
 Spaniards, was of much greater value, exchanged 
 gold at the rate of ten ounces for one. To turn this 
 to the best account, a massive pair of steel mana 
 cles were highly polished for the purpose, to re 
 semble silver (and, of course, of an immense value) 
 were represented to Ca-on-e-bo, the chief, at the 
 head of the Indian army, as a magnificent pair 
 of bracelets of silver, sent to him by the King of 
 
The Indians, where are they going? 339 
 
 Spain. Dazzled by so brilliant a present, and from' 
 the king, he submitted to mount a powerful steed 
 and have them put on. They were locked to his 
 wrists, and by a mailed troop of horse in readiness 
 he was galloped through the Indian lines and to 
 the coast, where he was put in additional irons, and 
 sent a prisoner to Spain. And in the space of 
 five years of deadly and the most cruel warfare, 
 waged with guns and coats of mail and sabres 
 against these harmless and inoffensive people, by 
 the man whose honours were to be immortal, over 
 200,000 of these poor people were slain on their 
 own ground, and more than 5000 were made pri 
 soners and shipped to Spain, and sold as slaves, 
 where they slew, themselves, or perished from dis 
 eases of the country. 
 
 Here began American history, and here was the 
 beginning (not the end) of the Indians' second series 
 of calamities. 
 
 This cruel and disgraceful warfare was all for 
 gold, but the shining god proved to be farther west, 
 and another fleet and another army were on its 
 track, and another monster at its head. Fernando 
 Cortes was this man, this educated demon, with 
 a fleet and an army of mounted and mailed soldiers 
 under his command, and the gold and jewels and 
 blood of Mexico his idols. 
 
 History has well recorded the more than savage 
 cruelties, and massacres, and robberies of this 
 
34-O The Indians, where are they going ? 
 
 civilized expedition, in which the second growth of 
 spontaneous civilization was crushed, and smothered, 
 and strangled into a degraded and sickening amal 
 gamation of conquered and subjugated, with selfish 
 and fiendish conquerors. 
 
 An Indian (rich and beautiful) city was sacked 
 and robbed of its gold 100,000 of its inhabitants 
 were slain its king (Montezuma) was deceived, 
 dethroned, and murdered its palaces destroyed 
 its religion trodden under foot, and its sacred 
 temples thrown down ! and yet the thirst for gold, 
 for plunder, and for massacre was not satisfied 
 there was another sun of Indian civilization above 
 the horizon, and another mine of gold it was 
 Peru. 
 
 Pizarro (from the same civilized school) was the 
 merciless wretch for this. Like Cortes in Mexico, 
 with a fleet, and an army of mailed soldiers with 
 fire-arms and sabres in hand, he cut and slaughtered 
 his way through the defenceless ranks of the un 
 offending Peruvians, on their own ground, with the 
 most disgraceful breach of proffered faith known to 
 history, robbed the city of its gold imprisoned 
 and murdered its monarch, the inca, and with the 
 blades of his swords, taught to 150,000 peaceable 
 and civilized Indians, as Cortes had taught in 
 Mexico, their first lesson of the "blessings" of 
 European civilization. 
 
 The " El Dorado" was yet an idea still unsolved ; 
 
The Indians, where are they going? 341 
 
 the plundered heaps of gold were yet too small, and, 
 the river of Indian blood must again be flooded ! 
 Civilization required another glorification, and De 
 Soto was the ready cavalier for that. A knight 
 Castilian was he, blood-snuffing, and mad for gold ; 
 and soon after the scenes of blood related, his little 
 fleet anchored, and disembarked his cavalry legion 
 on the sandy coast of Florida. His men were in 
 coats of mail, and his horses also, which were of the 
 noblest Castilian breed ; and his cannons were drawn 
 by horses covered with polished steel, and helmets 
 plated with gold ! 
 
 In helmet of gold himself, and sword in hand, he 
 mounted his milk-white steed, and facing the west, 
 where he dreamed of native cities, and wagon-loads 
 of gold to be drawn back by his splendid troupe of 
 Castilian chargers, and entered the swamps and 
 everglades of Florida ! Poor fool, that he could 
 have known what was before him ! He penetrated 
 the impassable and interminable swamps and la 
 goons, and dragged his heavy cannons through them. 
 And after wading the swamps, and through the 
 blood of the poor savages, the cruelty arid butchery 
 of which has no parallel in the pages of history, 1 
 he at last arrived on the bank of the Mississippi, in 
 which his body found a grave, and his visioned cities 
 and mines of gold were never reached. 
 
 1 See Irving's " Life of De Soto." 
 
342 The Indians, where are they going? 
 
 After such examples of white man's injustice and 
 cruelties, such illustrations of " glorious civilization," 
 the news of which, of course, spread like the waves 
 of a rising flood, over and through every tribe, from 
 ocean to ocean, both in South and North America, 
 is it wonderful that the American Indians should 
 be suspicious of white man and his fair promises, 
 his civilization, his faith, and his proffered religion ? 
 And is it not wonderful, under their traditions 
 taught to their children, of such civilized barbarities 
 and treacherous massacres, that these poor people 
 should everywhere, in first interviews (as abundance 
 of history informs us), receive white men with open 
 arms, with hospitality and welcome, in their humble 
 wigwams ? 
 
 Reader, listen to a few of these, which are truths, 
 and tell me if it is not a wonder. And after that 
 I will name other civilized transactions ; and then 
 I will ask you, who is the savage which the 
 brute? 
 
 Columbus has already told us " that the caciques 
 of Hispaniola embraced him in their arms, shed 
 tears for his misfortunes, and placed upon his head 
 coronets of gold." This is not wonderful, for it was 
 natural ; man has been everywhere made (not a 
 brute, but) human, ready and disposed to meet his 
 fellow-man in friendship and kindness, where there 
 has been no cause given for a different reception. 
 
 Subsequent to the shocking invasions and cruelties 
 
The Indians, where are they going ? 343 
 
 recited above, colonization in North America com 
 menced, and the beginning of this was the little 
 colony of Puritans who sailed from England, and 
 landed, with their wives and children, on the rock 
 of Plymouth. " They were hungry and in distress, 
 and the Indians received them with open arms, and 
 fed them with maize and other food which they 
 brought to them." 
 
 This was not wonderful, but natural ; and noble, 
 because these intelligent and discriminating people 
 contemplated in this little domestic group of hus 
 bands, wives, and children, the elements of fellowship 
 and peace, instead of the signals of war and plunder. 
 
 The entrance of this colony opened the door for 
 others, and the stream of emigration that has con 
 tinued ever since, peopling the whole Atlantic coast, 
 and constantly moving on towards the west, and 
 displacing and moving the Indian populations by 
 treaty stipulations, or by force. 
 
 And we now come to what is strictly wonderful, 
 and even astonishing that, under all the invasions, 
 the frauds, the deceptions and tricks, as well as force, 
 that have been practised upon them, to' push them 
 from their lands, and towards the setting sun," 
 these poor and abused people have exercised so 
 little cruelty as they have; that rum, and whisky, 
 and small-pox, of the white man's importation 
 amongst them, have been submitted to; and border 
 warfare, until they are reduced, tribe after tribe, to 
 
344 The Indians, where are they going ? 
 
 mere remnants, and still pushed again and again 
 to the west ; and that even there, and under these 
 irritating circumstances, white men travel unpro 
 tected, their lives secure, and their property trans 
 ported with safety ; that " Lasalle and Father 
 Hennepen," in 1678, with only thirty men, should 
 have passed, in their voyages of discovery, through 
 the whole of the great lakes, the Illinois and the 
 Mississippi, during eight years of continual travels 
 and explorations, amongst more than twenty tribes 
 as yet ignorant of civilization ; and Father Hennepen 
 (as he relates), with only two men, ascending, 
 amongst the numerous tribes (the first explorer 
 there), to the Falls of St. Anthony ; and under all 
 the exposure and trying vicissitudes of those eight 
 years, as they say, they were uniformly treated with 
 hospitality and kindness by the Indians ; that 
 " Lewis and Clarke," with a small detachment of 
 men, in 1805, should have ascended the whole length 
 of the Missouri River, crossed the Rocky Mountains, 
 and reached the Pacific Ocean, and returned, a 
 distance of more than 8000 miles, in which they 
 paid the first visits of white men to more than thirty 
 of the wildest and most warlike tribes on the con 
 tinent, without having to wield a weapon in self- 
 defence ! " And," (as I had it from General Clarke's 
 lips, in his old age), " we visited more than 200,000 
 of those poor people, and they everywhere treated 
 us with hospitality and kindness." And that hun- 
 
The Indians, where are they goinr? 
 
 *f O <b 
 
 dreds of other travellers, and amongst them, myself, 
 whose lives and whose property have been at their 
 mercy, that they have been so merciful, and so 
 friendly, and honourable, under the sense they have 
 of white men's cruelties and wrongs, is truly a 
 matter of wonder ! 
 
 In the epitome of my wanderings, given in this 
 little work, it has been seen that I have found my 
 way into and through 120 different tribes, in North, 
 South, and Central America, and the reader who 
 has got thus far in the book, will easily imagine 
 that my life and my property have been, much of 
 the time, at their mercy ; and will here learn that, 
 not only have I found it unnecessary ever to raise 
 my hand against one of them, but that they have 
 everywhere treated me with hospitality and kind 
 ness : and nowhere, to my knowledge, stolen a six 
 pence worth of my property, though in their 
 countries there is universal poverty to stimulate to 
 crime, and no law to punish for theft, and where 
 travellers carry no trunks with locks and keys ! 
 
 The above statements, if they be true, show us a 
 people who are not only by nature human, but 
 humane; and evince a degree of submission and 
 forbearance on their part which would be a virtue 
 and an honour for any race ; and which, with their 
 other claims, entitle them to a better fate than the 
 unlucky one they are hastening to. 
 
 In the past pages we have seen these unhappy 
 
346 The Indians, where are they going ? 
 
 people in the midst of the cruel onslaughts for gold 
 by cataclysms simk down ; and by sabres struck 
 down, in the progress of their own civilization ; and 
 we have contemplated them in " floods " from which 
 tradition tells us, a few only were saved on the tops 
 of the mountains but we have yet to view them in 
 another deluge more fatal, and from the drowning 
 waves of which it is to be feared the mountain- 
 tops will save no one of them the Flood of Emi 
 gration ! 
 
 After cataclysms, the Indians' misfortune in 
 South America, in Mexico, and Hispaniola, was in 
 their gold ; and that done, there is yet a chance of 
 their living. Their misfortune in North America, 
 that they owned the broadest and richest country 
 on the globe, teeming with all the luxuries tempting 
 to white man's cupidity the temperature of its 
 climate the richness of its soil its vast prairies 
 speckled with buffaloes, and its rivers and mountains 
 abounding in valuable furs, in latitudes most 
 suitable for emigration, and that emigration led and 
 pushed on by a popular government which could 
 have but one motion, and that onward, to the Rocky 
 Mountains and the Pacific Ocean. 
 
 Under such accumulated circumstances the In 
 dians' fate was sealed their doom was fixed ; and 
 in that " flood," which has been for a half century 
 spreading over their country, the last of them are 
 now being engulfed; and as if gold must necessarily 
 
The Indians, where are they going? 347 
 
 have its share in their destruction, its shining scales 
 are being turned up in various parts of the Rocky 
 Mountains, adding fury to the maddened throng 
 who are now concentrating for its search in the very 
 centre of the vast solitudes to which advancing civi 
 lization has been driving the poor Indians, both from 
 the east and the west, as their last possible hold 
 in existence. 
 
 Unlike the gold searchers in Mexico and Peru, 
 who struck their blows, got their gold in masses, and 
 were off, the gold seekers in the Rocky Mountains 
 will hold on their mines will last, and the poor 
 Indians, between gold diggers, and squatters, and 
 whisky sellers, who are all armed with repeating 
 rifles and revolvers, will lengthen their days as long 
 as they can, but there will be few of them. 
 
 For the last fifty years a lucrative traffic in 
 whisky, paid for in beaver and other furs, and 
 buffalo robes, has led to dissipation and poverty of 
 the poor Indians, and introduced small-pox and 
 other diseases, which have often swept off in a few 
 months one half in many tribes, and two-thirds 
 and even three-fourths, in others. 
 
 The disastrous and cruel consequences sure to 
 flow from this traffic, with two or three thousand 
 unprincipled men in the mountains and valleys of 
 the Far West, under the direction of rich and 
 powerful companies, has often been pointed out to 
 the government ; but in countries so far beyond the 
 
348 The Indians, where are they going f 
 
 reach of laws, nothing has been done effectually to 
 check it ; and now the predicted consequences are 
 seen in their full force. 
 
 The combined causes of border emigration moving 
 on faster than the government can purchase the 
 lands of the Indians the unemployed hunters, and 
 trappers, and whisky sellers, whose business is 
 declining, and a headlong stampedo of half-crazy 
 adventurers flying to the gold fields of the Rocky 
 Mountains, form a phalanx of the most desperate 
 men, who take possession of the Indians' country 
 claim it, and hold it pronounce the Indians all 
 " brutes, who can hold no title" build towns of log 
 huts, and call them "cities" publish newspapers, 
 and announce " Indian murders ! Indian murders 
 of white men!" (whether perpetrated or not), call 
 upon the government for regiments and armies of 
 soldiers to protect them, and these soldiers in their 
 country openly advocate "extermination" offer 
 rewards of twenty dollars for every Indian's scalp 
 that can be taken (with the civil condition an 
 nexed), " provided that both ears are attached to 
 them!" 
 
 Here, my young readers, we are upon facts, and 
 I am ashamed for the character anol honour of my 
 country to acknowledge them as such ; and I now 
 put the question which I promised to ask, " Who 
 is the savage, and which the brute?" My heart 
 bleeds at this, but I cannot prevent it. 
 
The Indians, where are they going ? 349 
 
 Twenty dollars offered by the corporation of Cen 
 tral City, in the middle of a state of the Union, for 
 
 every Indian's scalp for every deliberate murder ! 
 
 What a carte blanche ! what a thriving business the 
 trappers and whisky-sellers can make of this! 
 How much better than killing wolves at two dollars 
 per head, or catching cunning beavers for three 
 dollars ! The poor, unsuspecting Indian of any 
 distant tribe, whilst hunting for food to feed his 
 wife and children, may be shot down, or decoyed 
 from his wigwam, made drunk with a pint of 
 whisky, and scalped, as the trapper's exigencies 
 may demand ; or taken out of his grave, where he 
 has been recently buried, and his scalp, " with both 
 ears," taken without the merit, and without the 
 trouble, of a murder ! 
 
 Why, the butcheries by Cortes and Pizarro and 
 De Soto were not half so bad as this ! Can it be 
 that, in the present age of civilization and emanci 
 pation, scenes so abhorrent as these are to be coun 
 tenanced or permitted by the government of my 
 country, in the centre of one of her confederated 
 states ? It is said that an army of men sufficient 
 to protect all the white inhabitants in the mountains 
 and in the plains is on the move, and that "exter 
 mination to the savage" is to be the " watch-word." 
 I do not believe it I think better of my country 
 than this. 
 
 What ! the government that has just gained ever- 
 
350 The Indians, where are they going? 
 
 lasting honour before the civilized world by giving 
 freedom and rights of citizenship to two millions of 
 Africans, now, at the point of the bayonet, to dis 
 franchise and enslave a free and independent people 
 to disinherit her " red children" whose lands she 
 holds, and (to protect a set of murderous adven 
 turers in the Rocky Mountains), to dispute their 
 existence ! I cannot believe this, and I will not, 
 for I wish yet to lay my bones in my native land. 
 
 I have so far briefly enumerated the principal 
 misfortunes of the poor Indians, but there is yet 
 one other, not less unfortunate or less lamentable 
 for them in its results they have no newspapers, 
 no missiles to herald, post-haste, their griefs, their 
 wrongs, to the ears of the world ; but all deaths, 
 when they are shot down by the rifles of their 
 enemies, and all abuses of their wives and children, 
 are muffled and silenced in the vast solitudes around 
 them, whilst every blow struck by an Indian in 
 retaliation, rings and echoes over every part of the 
 continent as "wilful murder and massacre by the 
 infernal savage !" Glorious institution, the ''Press," 
 but how much more glorious if it were not one 
 sided ! 
 
 I have long been aware of the approaching Indian 
 crisis which now is evidently at hand, and in my 
 notes written on the Upper Missouri, and published 
 thirty years since, I predicted it in the following 
 terms: "The Sioux of 25,000, the Mandans of 
 
The Indians, where are they going? 351 
 
 2000, the Assineboins of 7000, the Minatarrees of 
 2500, the Chayennes of 6000, the Pawnees of 10,000, 
 and numerous smaller tribes of the prairies which I 
 have visited, and who are living exclusively on the 
 flesh of the buffaloes (their only food, for in the 
 vast plains where these cattle range, there are no 
 other animals for food), making their tents of their 
 hides, and robes and clothing for themselves and 
 families, are soon to be left in a state of destitution, 
 and, in fact, in absolute starvation, in which they 
 will have to flee to the base of the Rocky Mountains 
 to get animals for their subsistence. |3OCTOtt Lll 
 " The cause of this approaching misfortune, which 
 is soon to come upon them, is the nefarious busi 
 ness of rum and whisky selling, which is driven to 
 that extent, by rich and rival companies, that in 
 a very few years the vast herds of buffaloes that 
 now graze on the prairies in the plains of the Platte 
 and the Missouri will be destroyed. These are every 
 year concentrating into a narrow compass, and 
 being followed up by the various tribes on all sides, 
 the last of them will suddenly disappear ; the last 
 animal will be skinned, and 200,000 Indians who 
 now subsist on their flesh, and at least 500,000 
 wolves that live by picking the bones of the ani 
 mals slain, will come together, and face to face will 
 have to contend for existence. 
 
 " Though the government at Washington hav 
 passed laws prohibiting the passing of whisky into 
 
352 The Indians, where are they going? 
 
 the Indian countries, they appoint Indian agents, 
 who are silent members of the trading companies, 
 and, having control over the whole Indian country, 
 facilitate the entrance of as much whisky as the 
 traders require. 
 
 " This whisky, which is distilled by these com 
 panies at St. Louis or other towns on the frontier, 
 is conveyed into the Indian country in 'high wines' 
 (alcohol), and for the Indians' use is diluted, each 
 pint of alcohol making three pints of Indian 
 whisky. At the mouth of the Yellow Stone, on 
 the Upper Missouri, the principal factory on the 
 Missouri, the price of this diluted whisky is 
 eighteen dollars per gallon ; and transported from 
 that on horses to the Crows and Blackfeet, the 
 price becomes thirty-two dollars per gallon ! Such 
 are the prices that these poor people pay for their 
 dissipations. 
 
 " At this post, and the other trading establish 
 ments on the Missouri and Platte, the uniform price 
 of buffalo robes, beautifully dressed by the Indian 
 women, is a pint of Indian whisky ; so that one 
 pint of alcohol buys three buffalo robes, worth, in 
 St. Louis, from five to eight dollars each ! And 
 here (discovered perhaps by accident, and probably 
 never patented), it was ascertained that tobacco 
 soaked in whisky made the whisky much more 
 pungent and more intoxicating, and this important 
 discovery, being brought into a working process 
 
The Indians > ivkere are they going f 353 
 
 here, results, greatly to the fur company's advan 
 tage, in the following simple and beautiful manner. 
 
 " In the fur company's retailing store, inside of 
 their fort, they have two barrels of whisky standing 
 on end, side by side, with taps near their bottoms, 
 for drawing out the liquor. One of these barrels 
 has a part of the heading taken out, and a keg of 
 plug-tobacco being knocked to pieces, the tobacco 
 is thrown into the barrel of whisky, and every 
 morning, with a stick long enough to reach to the 
 bottom, the tobacco and whisky are well stirred 
 about. 
 
 " This precious barrel is marked No. I , and the 
 other No. 2. And when the poor Indians come in 
 with their buffalo skins and throw them down, the 
 clerk inquires which kind they desire, No. I or 
 No. 2 ; if No. I, two robes are taken instead of one! 
 And as most important discoveries, lead to others, 
 this has resulted in this way : when the whisky is 
 out, and the tobacco dried and prepared for smok 
 ing, it has been ascertained that the Indians are 
 quite willing to pay a double price for it, from the 
 flavour it has acquired by lying in the whisky! 
 
 " The profit arising from this sort of commerce is 
 easily calculated, and also the results that it must 
 sooner or later lead to; and from forty to fifty thou 
 sand buffalo robes are taken down the Missouri to 
 St. Louis every summer, (for which the animals are 
 mostly killed in the winter, when their hair is the 
 
 A A 
 
3' 54 The Indians, where are they going ? 
 
 longest, and their flesh too poor to eat), in addition 
 to the vast numbers killed for the subsistence of 
 200,000 Indians. From these statements something 
 like an estimate can be made of the rapid decrease 
 of these animals (which reproduce only at the rate 
 of common cattle), and, as I have said, of their 
 approaching extinction." 
 
 For the above prophecy and " unjust attack upon 
 the Fur Company" I have had some unfriendly 
 denunciations by the press, and by those critics I 
 have been reproachfully designated the "Indian- 
 loving Catlin" What of this ? What have I to 
 answer ? Have I any apology to make for loving 
 the Indians ? The Indians have always loved me, 
 and why should I not love the Indians ? 
 
 I love the people who have always made me 
 welcome to the best they had. 
 
 I love a people who are honest without laws, who 
 have no jails and no poor-houses. 
 
 I love a people who keep the commandments 
 without ever having read them or heard them 
 preached from the pulpit. 
 
 I love a people who never swear, who never take 
 the name of God in vain. 
 
 I love a people who " love their neighbours as 
 they love themselves." 
 
 I love a people who worship God without a Bible, 
 for I believe that God loves them also. 
 
TJie Indians, where are they going*? 355 
 
 I love the people whose religion is all the same, 
 and who are free from religious animosities. 
 
 I love the people who never have raised a hand 
 against me, or stolen my property, where there was 
 no law to punish for either. 
 
 I love the people who never have fought a battle 
 with white man, except on their own ground. 
 
 I love and don't fear mankind where God has 
 made and left them, for there they are children. 
 
 I love a people who live and keep what is their 
 own without locks and keys. 
 
 I love all people who do the best they can. And 
 oh, how I love a people who don't live for the love 
 of money ! 
 
 It has been sneeringly said that I have " spoken 
 too well of the Indians," {better to speak too well 
 of them than not to speak well enough)" that I 
 have flattered them" (better to flatter them than 
 to caricature them ; there have been enough to do 
 this). If I have overdone their character, they have 
 had in me one friend, at least ; and I will not shrink 
 from the sin and responsibility of it. 
 
 I was luckily born in time to see these people in 
 their native dignity, and beauty, and independence, 
 and to be a living witness to the cruelties with which 
 they have been treated worse than dogs; and now 
 to be treated worse than wolves I And in my 
 former publications I have predicted just what 
 
356 The Indians ', where are they going? 
 
 now taking place that in their thrown, and hunted 
 down, and starved condition, the future " gallopers" 
 across the plains and Rocky Mountains would see 
 here and there the scattered, and starving, and beg 
 ging, and haggard remnants of these once proud and 
 handsome people represent them, in their entailed 
 misery and wretchedness, as "the Sioux" "the CJiay- 
 ennes" " the Osages" &c, and me, of course, as a liar. 
 
 From the very first settlement on the Atlantic 
 coast, there has been a continued series of Indian 
 wars. In every war the whites have been victorious, 
 and every war has ended in " Surrender of Indian 
 Territory" Every battle which the whites have 
 lost has been a " massacre," and every battle by 
 the Indians lost, a "glorious victory!" And yet, 
 to their immortal honour, be it history with its in 
 ferences, (for it is truth), they never fought a battle 
 with civilized men, excepting on their own ground ! 
 What are the inferences from this ; and to whose 
 eternal shame stands the balance in the books ? 
 
 I have said that I was lucky enough to have been 
 born at the right time to have seen these people in 
 their native dignity and elegance ; and, thanks to 
 Him in whose hands the destinies of all men are, 
 that my life has been spared to visit most of the 
 tribes in every latitude of the American continent, 
 and my hand enabled to delineate their personal 
 looks and their modes, to be seen and to be criti 
 cised after the people and myself shall have passed 
 away. 
 
The Indians, where are they going ? 361 
 
 shared, by pale-faced (moccasined} bandits (there 
 will be enough of them), to be avenged upon the 
 Indians ? 
 
 I have seen the country and I know the people, 
 and I imagine the time near at hand when a Pony 
 Express, a telegraphic wire, and a railway will each 
 require 100,000 men to ensure them security ; and 
 then will be shouted by the acquisitive race, like 
 thunder from the heavens, " On, on, merciftil civi 
 lization ! the treasures of the earth are thine, and 
 death to the savage !" when the last of the race 
 will be tracked by bloodhounds, and sent to the 
 dust with " Sharp's rifles ! " 
 
 THE END. 
 
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