Tracks of a Rolling Stone [56]
broken up.
It may be thought by some that this narration is a biassed one. But those acquainted with the charlatanry in these days of what is called 'Christian Science,' and know the extent to which crass ignorance and predisposed credulity can be duped by childish delusions, may have some 'idea how acute was the spirit-rapping epidemic some forty or fifty years ago. 'At this moment,' writes Froude, in 'Fraser's Magazine,' 1863, 'we are beset with reports of conversations with spirits, of tables miraculously lifted, of hands projecting out of the world of shadows into this mortal life. An unusually able, accomplished person, accustomed to deal with common-sense facts, a celebrated political economist, and notorious for business-like habits, assured this writer that a certain mesmerist, who was my informer's intimate friend, had raised a dead girl to life.' Can we wonder that miracles are still believed in? Ah! no. The need, the dire need, of them 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 separately decided to go to California.
Having published in 1852 an account of our journey, entitled 'A Ride over the Rocky Mountains,' I shall not repeat 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.
It may be thought by some that this narration is a biassed one. But those acquainted with the charlatanry in these days of what is called 'Christian Science,' and know the extent to which crass ignorance and predisposed credulity can be duped by childish delusions, may have some 'idea how acute was the spirit-rapping epidemic some forty or fifty years ago. 'At this moment,' writes Froude, in 'Fraser's Magazine,' 1863, 'we are beset with reports of conversations with spirits, of tables miraculously lifted, of hands projecting out of the world of shadows into this mortal life. An unusually able, accomplished person, accustomed to deal with common-sense facts, a celebrated political economist, and notorious for business-like habits, assured this writer that a certain mesmerist, who was my informer's intimate friend, had raised a dead girl to life.' Can we wonder that miracles are still believed in? Ah! no. The need, the dire need, of them 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 separately decided to go to California.
Having published in 1852 an account of our journey, entitled 'A Ride over the Rocky Mountains,' I shall not repeat 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.