remains, and will remain with us for ever.

CHAPTER XX
WE must move on; we have a long and rough journey before us.

Durham had old friends in New York, Fred Calthorpe had
letters to Colonel Fremont, who was then a candidate for the

Presidency, and who had discovered the South Pass; and Mr.
Ellice had given me a letter to John Jacob Astor - THE

American millionaire of that day. We were thus well provided
with introductions; and nothing could exceed the kindness and

hospitality of our American friends.
But time was precious. It was already mid May, and we had

everything to get - wagons, horses, men, mules, and
provisions. So that we were anxious not to waste a day, but

hurry on to St. Louis as fast as we could. Durham was too
ill to go with us. Phoca had never intended to do so. Fred,

Samson, and I, took leave of our companions, and travelling
via the Hudson to Albany, Buffalo, down Lake Erie, and across

to Chicago, we reached St. Louis in about eight days. As a
single illustration of what this meant before railroads,

Samson and I, having to stop a day at Chicago, hired a buggy
and drove into the neighbouring woods, or wilderness, to hunt

for wild turkeys.
Our outfit, the whole of which we got at St. Louis, consisted

of two heavy wagons, nine mules, and eight horses. We hired
eight men, on the nominal understanding that they were to go

with us as far as the Rocky Mountains on a hunting
expedition. In reality all seven of them, before joining us,

had separatelydecided to go to California.
Having published in 1852 an account of our journey, entitled

'A Ride over the Rocky Mountains,' I shall not repeat the
story, but merely give a summary of the undertaking, with a

few of the more striking incidents to show what travelling
across unknown America entailed fifty or sixty years ago.

A steamer took us up the Missouri to Omaha. Here we
disembarked on the confines of occupied territory. From near

this point, where the Platte river empties into the Missouri,
to the mouth of the Columbia, on the Pacific - which we

ultimately reached - is at least 1,500 miles as the crow
flies; for us (as we had to follow watercourses and avoid

impassable ridges) it was very much more. Some five-and-
forty miles from our starting-place we passed a small village

called Savannah. Between it and Vancouver there was not a
single white man's abode, with the exception of three trading

stations - mere mud buildings - Fort Laramie, Fort Hall, and
Fort Boise.

The vast prairies on this side of the Rocky Mountains were
grazed by herds of countless bison, wapiti, antelope, and

deer of various species. These were hunted by moving tribes
of Indians - Pawnees, Omahaws, Cheyennes, Ponkaws, Sioux, &c.

On the Pacific side of the great range, a due west course -
which ours was as near as we could keep it - lay across a

huge rocky desert of volcanic debris, where hardly any
vegetation was to be met with, save artemisia - a species of

wormwood - scanty blades of gramma grass, and occasional
osiers by river-banks. The rivers themselves often ran

through canons or gulches, so deep that one might travel for
days within a hundred feet of water yet perish (some of our

animals did so) for the want of a drop to drink. Game was
here very scarce - a few antelope, wolves, and abundance of

rattlesnakes, were nearly the only living things we saw. The
Indians were mainly fishers of the Shoshone - or Great Snake

River - tribe, feeding mostly on salmon, which they speared
with marvellous dexterity; and Root-diggers, who live upon

wild roots. When hard put to it, however, in winter, the
latter miserable creatures certainly, if not the former,

devoured their own children. There was no map of the
country. It was entirely unexplored; in fact, Bancroft the

American historian, in his description of the Indian tribes,
quotes my account of the Root-diggers; which shows how little

was known of this region up to this date. I carried a small
compass fastened round my neck. That and the stars (we

travelled by night when in the vicinity of Indians) were my
only guides for hundreds of dreary miles.

Such then was the task we had set ourselves to grapple with.
As with life itself, nothing but the magic powers of youth

and ignorance could have cajoled us to face it with heedless
confidence and eager zest. These conditions given, with

health - the one essential of all enjoyment - added, the
first escape from civilised restraint, the first survey of

primordial nature as seen in the boundlessexpanse of the
open prairie, the habitat of wild men and wild animals, -

exhilarate one with emotions akin to the schoolboy's rapture
in the playground, and the thoughtful man's contemplation of

the stars. Freedom and change, space and the possibilities
of the unknown, these are constant elements of our day-

dreams; now and then actual life dangles visions of them
before our eyes, alas! only to teach us that the aspirations

which they inspire are, for the most part, illusory.
Brief indeed, in our case, were the pleasures of novelty.

For the first few days the business was a continuous picnic
for all hands. It was a pleasure to be obliged to help to

set up the tents, to cut wood, to fetch water, to harness the
mules, and work exactly as the paid men worked. The equality

in this respect - that everything each wanted done had to be
done with his own hands - was perfect; and never, from first

to last, even when starvation left me bare strength to lift
the saddle on to my horse, did I regret the necessity, or

desire to be dependent on another man. But the bloom soon
wore off the plum; and the pleasure consisted not in doing

but in resting when the work was done.
For the reason already stated, a sample only of the daily

labour will be given. It may be as well first to bestow a
few words upon the men; for, in the long run, our fellow

beings are the powerful factors, for good or ill, in all our
worldly enterprises.

We had two ordinary mule-drivers - Potter and Morris, a
little acrobat out of a travelling circus, a METIF or half-

breed Indian named Jim, two French Canadians - Nelson and
Louis (the latter spoke French only); Jacob, a Pennsylvanian

auctioneer whose language was a mixture of Dutch, Yankee, and
German; and (after we reached Fort Laramie) another Nelson -

'William' as I shall call him - who offered his services
gratis if we would allow him to go with us to California.

Jacob the Dutch Yankee was the most intelligent and the most
useful of the lot, and was unanimously elected cook for the

party. The Canadian Nelson was a hard-working good young
fellow, with a passionatetemper. Louis was a hunter by

profession, Gallic to the tip of his moustache - fond of
slapping his breast and telling of the mighty deeds of NOUS

AUTRES EN HAUT. Jim, the half-breed was Indian by nature -
idle, silent, treacherous, but a craftyhunter. William

deserves special mention, not from any idiosyncrasy of the
man, but because he was concerned soon after he joined us in

the most disastrous of my adventures throughout the
expedition.

To look at, William Nelson might have sat for the portrait of
Leatherstocking. He was a tall gaunt man who had spent his

youth bringing rafts of timber down the Wabash river, from
Fort Wayne to Maumee, in Ohio. For the last six years (he

was three-and-thirty) he had been trapping musk rats and
beaver, and dealing in pelts generally. At the time of our

meeting he was engaged to a Miss Mary something - the
daughter of an English immigrant, who would not consent to

the marriage until William was better off. He was now bound
for California, where he hoped to make the required fortune.

The poor fellow was very sentimental about his Mary; but,
despite his weatherbeaten face, hardy-looking frame, and his