Chapter Twenty Two.

Chapter Twenty Two.The morning broke bright and cloudless, the sun rising from the horizon in all his majesty. Having saddled our horses, we pursued our journey in a north-east direction; but we had scarcely proceeded six miles before we suddenly came upon an immense rent or chasm in the earth, far exceeding in depth the one we had so much difficulty in crossing the day before. We were not aware of its existence until we were immediately upon its brink, when a spectacle exceeding in grandeur any thing we had previously witnessed burst upon our sight. Not a tree or bush, no outline whatever, marked its position or course, and we were lost in amazement and wonder as we rode up and peered into the yawning abyss.In depth it could not have been less than one thousand feet, in width from three to five hundred yards, and at the point where we first struck it, its sides were nearly perpendicular. A sickly sensation of dizziness was felt by all three of us, as we looked down, as it were, into the very bowels of the earth. Below, an occasional spot of green relieved the eye, and a stream of water, now visible, now concealed behind some huge rock, was bubbling and foaming along. Immense walls, columns, and, in some places, what appeared to be arches, filled the ravine, worn by the water undoubtedly, but so perfect in form, that we could with difficulty be brought to believe that the hand of men or genii had not been employed in raising them. The rains of centuries, a falling upon the extended prairie, had here found a reservoir and vent, and their sapping and undermining of the different veins of earth and stone had formed these strange and fanciful shapes.Before reaching the chasm, we had crossed numerous large trails leading a little more to the westward than we had been travelling, and we were at once convinced that they all centred in a common crossing close at hand. In this conjecture we were not disappointed, half-an-hour’s trotting brought us into a large road, the thoroughfare for years of millions of Indians, buffaloes and mustangs. Perilous as the descent appeared, we well knew there was no other near. My horse was again started ahead while the two others followed. Once in the narrow path, which led circuitously down the deep descent, there was no possibility of turning back, and our maddened animals finally reached the bottom in safety.Several large stones were loosened from under our feet during this frightful descent. They would leap, dash, and thunder down the precipitous sides, and strike against the bottom far below us with a terrific crash.We found a running stream at the bottom, and on the opposite side of it a romantic dell covered with short grass and a few scattered cotton-wood trees. A large body of Indians had encamped on this very spot but a few days previous; theblazedlimbs of the trees and other “signs” shewing that they had made it a resting-place. We, too, halted a couple of hours to give our horses an opportunity to graze and rest themselves. The trail which led up to the prairie on the opposite side was discovered a short distance above us to the south.As we journeyed along this chasm, we were struck with admiration at the strange and fanciful figures made by the washing of the waters during the rainy season. In some places, perfect walls, formed of a reddish clay, were to be seen standing; in any other locality it would have been impossible to believe but that they had been raised by the hand of man. The strata of which these walls were composed was regular in width, hard, and running perpendicularly; and where the softer sand which had surrounded them had been washed away, the strata still remained, standing in some places one hundred feet high, and three or four hundred in length.Here and there were columns, and such was their architectural regularity, and so much of chaste grandeur was there about them, that we were lost in admiration and wonder. In other places the breastworks of forts would be plainly visible, then again the frowning turrets of some castle of the olden time. Cumbrous pillars, apparently ruins of some mighty pile, formerly raised to religion or royalty, were scattered about; regularity and perfect design were strangely mixed up with ruin and disorder, and nature had done it all. Niagara has been considered one of her wildest freaks; but Niagara falls into insignificance when compared with the wild grandeur of this awful chasm. Imagination carried me back to Thebes, to Palmyra, and the Edomite Paetra, and I could not help imagining that I was wandering among their ruins.Our passage out of this chasm was effected with the greatest difficulty. We were obliged to carry our rifles and saddle-bags in our hands, and, in clambering up a steep precipice, Roche’s horse, striking his shoulder against a projecting rock, was precipitated some fifteen or twenty feet, falling upon his back. We thought he must be killed by the fall; but, singular enough, he rose immediately, shook himself, and a second effort in climbing proved more successful. The animal had not received the slightest apparent injury.Before evening we were safely over, having spent five or six hours in passing this chasm. Once more we found ourselves upon the level of the prairie, and after proceeding some hundred yards, on looking back, not a sign of the immense fissure was visible. The waste we were then travelling over was at least two hundred and fifty miles in width, and the two chasms I have mentioned were the reservoirs, and at the same time the channels of escape for the heavy rains which fall upon it during the wet season.This prairie is undoubtedly one of the largest in the world, and the chasm is in perfect keeping with the size of the prairie. At sun-down we came upon a water-hole, and encamped for the night. By this time we were entirely out of provisions, and our sufferings commenced.The next day we resumed our journey, now severely feeling the cravings of hunger. During our journey we saw small herds of deer and antelopes, doubtless enticed to the water-courses by the recent rains, and towards night we descried a drove of mustangs upon a swell of the prairie half a mile ahead of us. They were all extremely shy, and although we discharged our rifles at them, not a shot was successful. In the evening we encamped near a water-hole, overspreading an area of some twenty acres, but very shallow. Large flocks of Spanish curlews, one of the best-flavoured birds that fly, were hovering about, and lighting on it on all sides. Had I been in possession of a double-barrelled gun, with small shot, we could have had at least one good meal; but as I had but a heavy rifle and my bow and arrows, we were obliged to go to sleep supperless.About two o’clock the next morning we saddled and resumed our travel, journeying by the stars, still in a north-east direction. On leaving the Wakoes, we thought that we could be not more than one hundred miles from the Comanche encampment. We had now ridden much more than that distance, and were still on the immense prairie. To relieve ourselves from the horrible suspense we were in—to push forward, with the hope of procuring some provisions—to get somewhere, in short, was now our object, and we pressed onward, with the hope of finding relief.Our horses had, as yet, suffered less than ourselves, for the grazing in the prairie had been good but our now hurried march, and the difficult crossing of the immense chasms, began to tell upon them. At sunrise we halted near a small pond of water, to rest the animals and allow them an hour to feed.While stretched upon the ground, we perceived a large antelope slowly approaching—now stopping, now walking a few steps nearer, evidently inquisitive as to who, or rather what, we might be. His curiosity cost him his life: with a well-directed shot, Gabriel brought him down, and none but a starved man could appreciate our delight. We cooked the best part of the animal, made a plentiful dinner, and resumed our journey.For three days more, the same dreary spectacle of a boundless prairie was still before us. Not a sign was visible that we were nearing its edge. We journeyed rapidly on till near the middle of the afternoon of the third day, when we noticed a dark spot a mile and a half ahead of us. At first we thought it to be a low bush, but as we gradually neared it, it had more the appearance of a rock, although nothing of the kind had been seen from the time we first came on the prairie, with the exception of those at the chasms.“A buffalo!” cried Roche, whose keen eye at last penetrated the mystery: “a buffalo, lying down and asleep.” Here, then, was another chance for making a good meal, and we felt our courage invigorated. Gabriel went ahead on foot, with his rifle, in the hope that he should at least get near enough to wound the animal, while Roche and I made every preparation for the chase. Disencumbering our horses of every pound of superfluous weight, we started for the sport, rendered doubly exciting by the memory of our recent suffering from starvation.For a mile beyond where the buffalo lay, the prairie rose gradually, and we knew nothing of the nature of the ground beyond. Gabriel crept till within a hundred and fifty yards of the animal, which now began to move and show signs of uneasiness. Gabriel gave him a shot: evidently hit, he rose from the ground, whisked his long tail, and looked for a moment inquiringly about him. I still kept my position a few hundred yards from Gabriel, who reloaded his piece. Another shot followed: the buffalo again lashed his sides, and then started off at a rapid gallop, directly towards the sun, evidently wounded, but not seriously hurt.Roche and I started in pursuit, keeping close together, until we had nearly reached the top of the distant rise in the prairie. Here my horse, being of a superior mettle, passed that of Roche, and, on reaching the summit, I found the buffalo still galloping rapidly, at a quarter of a mile’s distance. The descent of the prairie was very gradual, and I could plainly see every object within five miles. I now applied the spurs to my horse, who dashed madly down the declivity. Giving one look behind, I saw that Roche, or at least his horse, had entirely given up the chase. The prairie was comparatively smooth, and although I dared not to spur my horse to his full speed, I was soon alongside of the huge animal. It was a bull of the largest size, and his bright, glaring eyeballs, peering out from his shaggy frontlet of hair, shewed plainly that he was maddened by his wounds and the hot pursuit.It was with the greatest difficulty, so fierce did the buffalo look, that I could get my horse within twenty yards of him, and when I fired one of my pistols at that distance, my ball did not take effect. As the chase progressed, my horse came to his work more kindly, and soon appeared to take a great interest in the exciting race I let him fall back a little, and then, by dashing the spurs deep into his sides, brought him up directly alongside, and within three or four yards of the infuriated beast.I fired my other pistol, and the buffalo shrank as the ball struck just behind the long hair on his shoulders. I was under such headway when I fired, that I was obliged to pass the animal, cutting across close to his head, and then again dropping behind. At that moment I lost my rifle, and I had nothing left but my bow and arrows; but by this time I had become so much excited by the chase, that I could not think of giving it up. Still at full speed, I strung my bow, once more put my spurs to my horse, he flew by the buffalo’s right ride, and I buried my arrow deep into his ribs.The animal was now frothing and foaming with rage and pain. His eyes were like two deep red balls of fire, his tongue was out and curling upwards, his long tufted tail curled on high, or lashing madly against his sides. A more wild, and at the same time a more magnificent picture of desperation I had never witnessed.By this time my horse was completely subjected to my guidance. He no longer pricked his ears with fear, or sheered off as I approached the monster, but, on the contrary, ran directly up, that I could almost touch the animal while bending my bow. I had five or six more arrows left, but I resolved not to shoot again unless I were certain of touching a vital part, and succeeded at last in hitting him deep betwixt the shoulder and the ribs.This wound caused the maddened beast to spring backwards, and I dashed past him as he vainly endeavoured to gore and overthrow my horse. The chase was now over, the buffalo stopped and soon rolled on the ground perfectly helpless. I had just finished him with two other arrows, when, for the first time, I perceived that I was no longer alone. Thirty or forty well-mounted Indians were quietly looking at me in an approving manner, as if congratulating me on my success. They were the Comanches we had been so long seeking for. I made myself known to them, and claimed the hospitality which a year before had been offered to me by their chief, “the white raven.” They all surrounded me and welcomed me in the most kind manner. Three of them started to fetch my rifle and to join my companions, who were some eight or nine miles eastward, while I followed my new friends to their encampment, which was but a few miles distant. They had been buffalo hunting, and had just reached the top of the swell when they perceived me and my victim. Of course, I and my two friends were well received in the wigwam, though the chief was absent upon an expedition, and when he returned a few days after, a great feast was given, during which some of the young men sang a little impromptu poem, on the subject of my recent chase.The Comanches are a noble and most powerful nation. They have hundreds of villages, between which they are wandering all the year round. They are well armed, and always move in bodies of some hundreds, and even thousands all active and skilful horsemen, living principally by the chase, and feeding occasionally during their distant excursions, upon the flesh of the mustang, which, after all, is a delightful food, especially when fat and young. A great council of the whole tribe is held once a year, besides which there are quarterly assemblies, where all important matters are discussed. They have long been hostile to the Mexicans, but are less so now; their hatred having been concentrated upon the Yankees and Texians, whom they consider as brigands. They do not apply themselves to the culture of the ground as the Wakoes, yet they own innumerable herds of horses, cattle, and sheep, which graze in the northern prairies, and they are indubitably one of the wealthiest people in the world. They have a great profusion of gold, which they obtain from the neighbourhood of the San Seba hills, and work it themselves into bracelets, armlets, diadems, as well as bits for their horses, and ornaments to their saddles. Like all the Shoshones’ tribe, they are most elegant horsemen, and by dint of caresses and good treatment, render the animals so familiar and attached to them, that I have often seen some of them following their masters like dogs, licking their hands and shoulders. The Comanche young women are exquisitely clean, good-looking, and but slightly bronzed; indeed the Spaniards of Andalusia and the Calabrians are darker than they are. Their voice is soft, their motions dignified and graceful; their eyes dark and flashing, when excited, but otherwise mild, with a soft tinge of melancholy. The only fault to be found in them is that they are inclined to be too stout, arising from their not taking exercise.The Comanches, like all the tribes of the Shoshone breed, are generous and liberal to excess. You can take what you please from the wigwam—horses, skins, rich furs, gold, anything, in fact, except their arms and their females, whom they love fondly. Yet they are not jealous; they are too conscious of their own superiority to fear anything, and besides, they respect too much the weaker sex to harbour any injurious suspicion. It is a very remarkable fact, that all the tribes who claim any affinity with the Shoshones, the Apaches, the Comanches, and the Pawnies Loups, have always rejected with scorn any kind of spirits when offered to them by the traders. They say that “Shoba-wapo” (the fire-water) is the greatest enemy of the Indian race, and that the Yankees, too cowardly to fight the Indians as men, have invented this terrible poison to destroy them without danger.“We hated once the Spaniards and the Watchinangoes (Mexicans),” they say, “but they were honourable men compared with the thieves of Texas. The few among the Spanish race who would fight, did so as warriors; and they had laws among them which punished with death those who would give or sell this poison to the Indians.”The consequence of this abstinence from spirits is, that these Western nations improve and increase rapidly; while, on the contrary, the Eastern tribes, in close contact with the Yankees, gradually disappear. The Sioux, the Osage, the Winnebego, and other Eastern tribes, are very cruel in disposition; they show no mercy, and consider every means fair, however treacherous, to conquer an enemy. Not so with the Indians to the west of the Rocky Mountains. They have a spirit of chivalry, which prevents them taking any injurious advantage.As I have before observed, an Indian will never fire his rifle upon an enemy who is armed only with his lance, bow, and arrows or if he does, and kills him, he will not take his scalp, as it would constantly recall to his mind that he had killed a defenceless foe. Private encounters with their enemies, the Navahoes and Arrapahoes, are conducted as tournaments in the days of yore. Two Indians will run full speed against each other with their well-poised lance; on their shield, with equal skill, they will receive the blow; then, turning round, they will salute each other as a mark of esteem from one brave foe to another.Such incidents happen daily, but they will not be believed by the Europeans, who have the vanity of considering themselves alone as possessing “le sentiment du chevalresque et du beau:” besides, they are accustomed to read so many horrible accounts of massacres committed by the savages, that the idea of a red skin is always associated in their mind with the picture of burning stakes and slow torture. It is a mistake, and a sad one; would to God that our highly civilised nations of Europe had to answer for no more cruelties than those perpetuated by the numerous gallant tribes of western America.I was present one day when a military party came from Fort Bent, on the head of the Arkansa, to offer presents and make proposals of peace to the Comanche council. The commander made a long speech, after which he offered I don’t know how many hundred gallons of whisky. One of the ancient chiefs had not patience to hear any more, and he rose full of indignation. His name was Auku-wonze-zee, that is to say, “he who is superlatively old.”“Silence,” he said; “speak no more, double-tongued. Oposh-ton-ehoe (Yankee). Why comest thou, false-hearted, to pour thy deceitful words into the ears of my young men? You tell us you come for peace, and you offered to us poison. Silence. Oposh-ton-ehoe, let me hear thee no more, for I am an old man; and now that I have one foot in the happy grounds of immortality, it pains me to think that I leave my people so near a nation of liars. An errand of peace! Does the snake offer peace to the squirrel when he kills him with the poison of his dreaded glance? does an Indian say to the beaver, he comes to offer peace when he sets his traps for him? No! a pale-faced ‘Oposh-ton-ehoe’, or a ‘Kish emok comho-anac’ (the beast that gets drunk and lies, the Texian), can alone thus lie to nature—but not a red-skin, nor even a girlish Wachinangoe, nor a proud ‘Skakanah’ (Englishman), nor a ‘Mahamate kosh ehoj’ (open-heart, open-handed Frenchman).“Be silent then, man with the tongue of a snake, the heart of a deer, and the ill-will of a scorpion; be silent, for I and mine despise thee and thine. Yet fear not, thou mayest depart in peace, for a Comanche is too noble not to respect a white flag, even when carried by a wolf or a fox. Till sun-set eat, but alone; smoke, but not in our calumets; repose in two or three lodges, for we can burn them after pollution, and then depart, and say to thy people, that the Comanche, having but one tongue and one nature, can neither speak with nor understand an Oposh-ton-ehoe.“Take back thy presents; my young men will have none of them, for they can accept nothing except from a friend—and if thou look’st at their feet, thou shalt see their mocassins, their leggings, even their bridles are braided with the hair of thy people, perhaps of thy brothers. Take thy ‘Shoba-wapo’ (fire-water), and give it to drink to thy warriors, that we may see them raving and tumbling like swine. Silence, and away with thee; our squaws will follow ye on your trail for a mile, to burn even the grass ye have trampled upon near our village. Away with you all, now and for ever! I have said!!!”The American force was numerous and well armed, and a moment, a single moment, deeply wounded by these bitter taunts, they looked as if they would fight and die to resent the insult; but it was only a transient feeling, for they had their orders and they went away, scorned and humiliated. Perhaps, too, an inward voice whispered to them that they deserved their shame and humiliation; perhaps the contrast of their conduct with that of the savages awakened in them some better feeling, which had a long time remained dormant, and they were now disgusted with themselves and their odious policy.As it was, they departed in silence, and the last of their line had vanished under the horizon before the Indians could smother the indignation and resentment which the strangers had excited within their hearts. Days, however, passed away, and with them the recollection of the event. Afterwards, I chanced to meet, in the Arkansas, with the Colonel who commanded; he was giving a very strange version of his expedition, and as I heard facts so distorted, I could not help repeating to myself the words of Auku-wonze-zee, “The Oposh-ton-ehoe is a double-tongued liar!”

The morning broke bright and cloudless, the sun rising from the horizon in all his majesty. Having saddled our horses, we pursued our journey in a north-east direction; but we had scarcely proceeded six miles before we suddenly came upon an immense rent or chasm in the earth, far exceeding in depth the one we had so much difficulty in crossing the day before. We were not aware of its existence until we were immediately upon its brink, when a spectacle exceeding in grandeur any thing we had previously witnessed burst upon our sight. Not a tree or bush, no outline whatever, marked its position or course, and we were lost in amazement and wonder as we rode up and peered into the yawning abyss.

In depth it could not have been less than one thousand feet, in width from three to five hundred yards, and at the point where we first struck it, its sides were nearly perpendicular. A sickly sensation of dizziness was felt by all three of us, as we looked down, as it were, into the very bowels of the earth. Below, an occasional spot of green relieved the eye, and a stream of water, now visible, now concealed behind some huge rock, was bubbling and foaming along. Immense walls, columns, and, in some places, what appeared to be arches, filled the ravine, worn by the water undoubtedly, but so perfect in form, that we could with difficulty be brought to believe that the hand of men or genii had not been employed in raising them. The rains of centuries, a falling upon the extended prairie, had here found a reservoir and vent, and their sapping and undermining of the different veins of earth and stone had formed these strange and fanciful shapes.

Before reaching the chasm, we had crossed numerous large trails leading a little more to the westward than we had been travelling, and we were at once convinced that they all centred in a common crossing close at hand. In this conjecture we were not disappointed, half-an-hour’s trotting brought us into a large road, the thoroughfare for years of millions of Indians, buffaloes and mustangs. Perilous as the descent appeared, we well knew there was no other near. My horse was again started ahead while the two others followed. Once in the narrow path, which led circuitously down the deep descent, there was no possibility of turning back, and our maddened animals finally reached the bottom in safety.

Several large stones were loosened from under our feet during this frightful descent. They would leap, dash, and thunder down the precipitous sides, and strike against the bottom far below us with a terrific crash.

We found a running stream at the bottom, and on the opposite side of it a romantic dell covered with short grass and a few scattered cotton-wood trees. A large body of Indians had encamped on this very spot but a few days previous; theblazedlimbs of the trees and other “signs” shewing that they had made it a resting-place. We, too, halted a couple of hours to give our horses an opportunity to graze and rest themselves. The trail which led up to the prairie on the opposite side was discovered a short distance above us to the south.

As we journeyed along this chasm, we were struck with admiration at the strange and fanciful figures made by the washing of the waters during the rainy season. In some places, perfect walls, formed of a reddish clay, were to be seen standing; in any other locality it would have been impossible to believe but that they had been raised by the hand of man. The strata of which these walls were composed was regular in width, hard, and running perpendicularly; and where the softer sand which had surrounded them had been washed away, the strata still remained, standing in some places one hundred feet high, and three or four hundred in length.

Here and there were columns, and such was their architectural regularity, and so much of chaste grandeur was there about them, that we were lost in admiration and wonder. In other places the breastworks of forts would be plainly visible, then again the frowning turrets of some castle of the olden time. Cumbrous pillars, apparently ruins of some mighty pile, formerly raised to religion or royalty, were scattered about; regularity and perfect design were strangely mixed up with ruin and disorder, and nature had done it all. Niagara has been considered one of her wildest freaks; but Niagara falls into insignificance when compared with the wild grandeur of this awful chasm. Imagination carried me back to Thebes, to Palmyra, and the Edomite Paetra, and I could not help imagining that I was wandering among their ruins.

Our passage out of this chasm was effected with the greatest difficulty. We were obliged to carry our rifles and saddle-bags in our hands, and, in clambering up a steep precipice, Roche’s horse, striking his shoulder against a projecting rock, was precipitated some fifteen or twenty feet, falling upon his back. We thought he must be killed by the fall; but, singular enough, he rose immediately, shook himself, and a second effort in climbing proved more successful. The animal had not received the slightest apparent injury.

Before evening we were safely over, having spent five or six hours in passing this chasm. Once more we found ourselves upon the level of the prairie, and after proceeding some hundred yards, on looking back, not a sign of the immense fissure was visible. The waste we were then travelling over was at least two hundred and fifty miles in width, and the two chasms I have mentioned were the reservoirs, and at the same time the channels of escape for the heavy rains which fall upon it during the wet season.

This prairie is undoubtedly one of the largest in the world, and the chasm is in perfect keeping with the size of the prairie. At sun-down we came upon a water-hole, and encamped for the night. By this time we were entirely out of provisions, and our sufferings commenced.

The next day we resumed our journey, now severely feeling the cravings of hunger. During our journey we saw small herds of deer and antelopes, doubtless enticed to the water-courses by the recent rains, and towards night we descried a drove of mustangs upon a swell of the prairie half a mile ahead of us. They were all extremely shy, and although we discharged our rifles at them, not a shot was successful. In the evening we encamped near a water-hole, overspreading an area of some twenty acres, but very shallow. Large flocks of Spanish curlews, one of the best-flavoured birds that fly, were hovering about, and lighting on it on all sides. Had I been in possession of a double-barrelled gun, with small shot, we could have had at least one good meal; but as I had but a heavy rifle and my bow and arrows, we were obliged to go to sleep supperless.

About two o’clock the next morning we saddled and resumed our travel, journeying by the stars, still in a north-east direction. On leaving the Wakoes, we thought that we could be not more than one hundred miles from the Comanche encampment. We had now ridden much more than that distance, and were still on the immense prairie. To relieve ourselves from the horrible suspense we were in—to push forward, with the hope of procuring some provisions—to get somewhere, in short, was now our object, and we pressed onward, with the hope of finding relief.

Our horses had, as yet, suffered less than ourselves, for the grazing in the prairie had been good but our now hurried march, and the difficult crossing of the immense chasms, began to tell upon them. At sunrise we halted near a small pond of water, to rest the animals and allow them an hour to feed.

While stretched upon the ground, we perceived a large antelope slowly approaching—now stopping, now walking a few steps nearer, evidently inquisitive as to who, or rather what, we might be. His curiosity cost him his life: with a well-directed shot, Gabriel brought him down, and none but a starved man could appreciate our delight. We cooked the best part of the animal, made a plentiful dinner, and resumed our journey.

For three days more, the same dreary spectacle of a boundless prairie was still before us. Not a sign was visible that we were nearing its edge. We journeyed rapidly on till near the middle of the afternoon of the third day, when we noticed a dark spot a mile and a half ahead of us. At first we thought it to be a low bush, but as we gradually neared it, it had more the appearance of a rock, although nothing of the kind had been seen from the time we first came on the prairie, with the exception of those at the chasms.

“A buffalo!” cried Roche, whose keen eye at last penetrated the mystery: “a buffalo, lying down and asleep.” Here, then, was another chance for making a good meal, and we felt our courage invigorated. Gabriel went ahead on foot, with his rifle, in the hope that he should at least get near enough to wound the animal, while Roche and I made every preparation for the chase. Disencumbering our horses of every pound of superfluous weight, we started for the sport, rendered doubly exciting by the memory of our recent suffering from starvation.

For a mile beyond where the buffalo lay, the prairie rose gradually, and we knew nothing of the nature of the ground beyond. Gabriel crept till within a hundred and fifty yards of the animal, which now began to move and show signs of uneasiness. Gabriel gave him a shot: evidently hit, he rose from the ground, whisked his long tail, and looked for a moment inquiringly about him. I still kept my position a few hundred yards from Gabriel, who reloaded his piece. Another shot followed: the buffalo again lashed his sides, and then started off at a rapid gallop, directly towards the sun, evidently wounded, but not seriously hurt.

Roche and I started in pursuit, keeping close together, until we had nearly reached the top of the distant rise in the prairie. Here my horse, being of a superior mettle, passed that of Roche, and, on reaching the summit, I found the buffalo still galloping rapidly, at a quarter of a mile’s distance. The descent of the prairie was very gradual, and I could plainly see every object within five miles. I now applied the spurs to my horse, who dashed madly down the declivity. Giving one look behind, I saw that Roche, or at least his horse, had entirely given up the chase. The prairie was comparatively smooth, and although I dared not to spur my horse to his full speed, I was soon alongside of the huge animal. It was a bull of the largest size, and his bright, glaring eyeballs, peering out from his shaggy frontlet of hair, shewed plainly that he was maddened by his wounds and the hot pursuit.

It was with the greatest difficulty, so fierce did the buffalo look, that I could get my horse within twenty yards of him, and when I fired one of my pistols at that distance, my ball did not take effect. As the chase progressed, my horse came to his work more kindly, and soon appeared to take a great interest in the exciting race I let him fall back a little, and then, by dashing the spurs deep into his sides, brought him up directly alongside, and within three or four yards of the infuriated beast.

I fired my other pistol, and the buffalo shrank as the ball struck just behind the long hair on his shoulders. I was under such headway when I fired, that I was obliged to pass the animal, cutting across close to his head, and then again dropping behind. At that moment I lost my rifle, and I had nothing left but my bow and arrows; but by this time I had become so much excited by the chase, that I could not think of giving it up. Still at full speed, I strung my bow, once more put my spurs to my horse, he flew by the buffalo’s right ride, and I buried my arrow deep into his ribs.

The animal was now frothing and foaming with rage and pain. His eyes were like two deep red balls of fire, his tongue was out and curling upwards, his long tufted tail curled on high, or lashing madly against his sides. A more wild, and at the same time a more magnificent picture of desperation I had never witnessed.

By this time my horse was completely subjected to my guidance. He no longer pricked his ears with fear, or sheered off as I approached the monster, but, on the contrary, ran directly up, that I could almost touch the animal while bending my bow. I had five or six more arrows left, but I resolved not to shoot again unless I were certain of touching a vital part, and succeeded at last in hitting him deep betwixt the shoulder and the ribs.

This wound caused the maddened beast to spring backwards, and I dashed past him as he vainly endeavoured to gore and overthrow my horse. The chase was now over, the buffalo stopped and soon rolled on the ground perfectly helpless. I had just finished him with two other arrows, when, for the first time, I perceived that I was no longer alone. Thirty or forty well-mounted Indians were quietly looking at me in an approving manner, as if congratulating me on my success. They were the Comanches we had been so long seeking for. I made myself known to them, and claimed the hospitality which a year before had been offered to me by their chief, “the white raven.” They all surrounded me and welcomed me in the most kind manner. Three of them started to fetch my rifle and to join my companions, who were some eight or nine miles eastward, while I followed my new friends to their encampment, which was but a few miles distant. They had been buffalo hunting, and had just reached the top of the swell when they perceived me and my victim. Of course, I and my two friends were well received in the wigwam, though the chief was absent upon an expedition, and when he returned a few days after, a great feast was given, during which some of the young men sang a little impromptu poem, on the subject of my recent chase.

The Comanches are a noble and most powerful nation. They have hundreds of villages, between which they are wandering all the year round. They are well armed, and always move in bodies of some hundreds, and even thousands all active and skilful horsemen, living principally by the chase, and feeding occasionally during their distant excursions, upon the flesh of the mustang, which, after all, is a delightful food, especially when fat and young. A great council of the whole tribe is held once a year, besides which there are quarterly assemblies, where all important matters are discussed. They have long been hostile to the Mexicans, but are less so now; their hatred having been concentrated upon the Yankees and Texians, whom they consider as brigands. They do not apply themselves to the culture of the ground as the Wakoes, yet they own innumerable herds of horses, cattle, and sheep, which graze in the northern prairies, and they are indubitably one of the wealthiest people in the world. They have a great profusion of gold, which they obtain from the neighbourhood of the San Seba hills, and work it themselves into bracelets, armlets, diadems, as well as bits for their horses, and ornaments to their saddles. Like all the Shoshones’ tribe, they are most elegant horsemen, and by dint of caresses and good treatment, render the animals so familiar and attached to them, that I have often seen some of them following their masters like dogs, licking their hands and shoulders. The Comanche young women are exquisitely clean, good-looking, and but slightly bronzed; indeed the Spaniards of Andalusia and the Calabrians are darker than they are. Their voice is soft, their motions dignified and graceful; their eyes dark and flashing, when excited, but otherwise mild, with a soft tinge of melancholy. The only fault to be found in them is that they are inclined to be too stout, arising from their not taking exercise.

The Comanches, like all the tribes of the Shoshone breed, are generous and liberal to excess. You can take what you please from the wigwam—horses, skins, rich furs, gold, anything, in fact, except their arms and their females, whom they love fondly. Yet they are not jealous; they are too conscious of their own superiority to fear anything, and besides, they respect too much the weaker sex to harbour any injurious suspicion. It is a very remarkable fact, that all the tribes who claim any affinity with the Shoshones, the Apaches, the Comanches, and the Pawnies Loups, have always rejected with scorn any kind of spirits when offered to them by the traders. They say that “Shoba-wapo” (the fire-water) is the greatest enemy of the Indian race, and that the Yankees, too cowardly to fight the Indians as men, have invented this terrible poison to destroy them without danger.

“We hated once the Spaniards and the Watchinangoes (Mexicans),” they say, “but they were honourable men compared with the thieves of Texas. The few among the Spanish race who would fight, did so as warriors; and they had laws among them which punished with death those who would give or sell this poison to the Indians.”

The consequence of this abstinence from spirits is, that these Western nations improve and increase rapidly; while, on the contrary, the Eastern tribes, in close contact with the Yankees, gradually disappear. The Sioux, the Osage, the Winnebego, and other Eastern tribes, are very cruel in disposition; they show no mercy, and consider every means fair, however treacherous, to conquer an enemy. Not so with the Indians to the west of the Rocky Mountains. They have a spirit of chivalry, which prevents them taking any injurious advantage.

As I have before observed, an Indian will never fire his rifle upon an enemy who is armed only with his lance, bow, and arrows or if he does, and kills him, he will not take his scalp, as it would constantly recall to his mind that he had killed a defenceless foe. Private encounters with their enemies, the Navahoes and Arrapahoes, are conducted as tournaments in the days of yore. Two Indians will run full speed against each other with their well-poised lance; on their shield, with equal skill, they will receive the blow; then, turning round, they will salute each other as a mark of esteem from one brave foe to another.

Such incidents happen daily, but they will not be believed by the Europeans, who have the vanity of considering themselves alone as possessing “le sentiment du chevalresque et du beau:” besides, they are accustomed to read so many horrible accounts of massacres committed by the savages, that the idea of a red skin is always associated in their mind with the picture of burning stakes and slow torture. It is a mistake, and a sad one; would to God that our highly civilised nations of Europe had to answer for no more cruelties than those perpetuated by the numerous gallant tribes of western America.

I was present one day when a military party came from Fort Bent, on the head of the Arkansa, to offer presents and make proposals of peace to the Comanche council. The commander made a long speech, after which he offered I don’t know how many hundred gallons of whisky. One of the ancient chiefs had not patience to hear any more, and he rose full of indignation. His name was Auku-wonze-zee, that is to say, “he who is superlatively old.”

“Silence,” he said; “speak no more, double-tongued. Oposh-ton-ehoe (Yankee). Why comest thou, false-hearted, to pour thy deceitful words into the ears of my young men? You tell us you come for peace, and you offered to us poison. Silence. Oposh-ton-ehoe, let me hear thee no more, for I am an old man; and now that I have one foot in the happy grounds of immortality, it pains me to think that I leave my people so near a nation of liars. An errand of peace! Does the snake offer peace to the squirrel when he kills him with the poison of his dreaded glance? does an Indian say to the beaver, he comes to offer peace when he sets his traps for him? No! a pale-faced ‘Oposh-ton-ehoe’, or a ‘Kish emok comho-anac’ (the beast that gets drunk and lies, the Texian), can alone thus lie to nature—but not a red-skin, nor even a girlish Wachinangoe, nor a proud ‘Skakanah’ (Englishman), nor a ‘Mahamate kosh ehoj’ (open-heart, open-handed Frenchman).

“Be silent then, man with the tongue of a snake, the heart of a deer, and the ill-will of a scorpion; be silent, for I and mine despise thee and thine. Yet fear not, thou mayest depart in peace, for a Comanche is too noble not to respect a white flag, even when carried by a wolf or a fox. Till sun-set eat, but alone; smoke, but not in our calumets; repose in two or three lodges, for we can burn them after pollution, and then depart, and say to thy people, that the Comanche, having but one tongue and one nature, can neither speak with nor understand an Oposh-ton-ehoe.

“Take back thy presents; my young men will have none of them, for they can accept nothing except from a friend—and if thou look’st at their feet, thou shalt see their mocassins, their leggings, even their bridles are braided with the hair of thy people, perhaps of thy brothers. Take thy ‘Shoba-wapo’ (fire-water), and give it to drink to thy warriors, that we may see them raving and tumbling like swine. Silence, and away with thee; our squaws will follow ye on your trail for a mile, to burn even the grass ye have trampled upon near our village. Away with you all, now and for ever! I have said!!!”

The American force was numerous and well armed, and a moment, a single moment, deeply wounded by these bitter taunts, they looked as if they would fight and die to resent the insult; but it was only a transient feeling, for they had their orders and they went away, scorned and humiliated. Perhaps, too, an inward voice whispered to them that they deserved their shame and humiliation; perhaps the contrast of their conduct with that of the savages awakened in them some better feeling, which had a long time remained dormant, and they were now disgusted with themselves and their odious policy.

As it was, they departed in silence, and the last of their line had vanished under the horizon before the Indians could smother the indignation and resentment which the strangers had excited within their hearts. Days, however, passed away, and with them the recollection of the event. Afterwards, I chanced to meet, in the Arkansas, with the Colonel who commanded; he was giving a very strange version of his expedition, and as I heard facts so distorted, I could not help repeating to myself the words of Auku-wonze-zee, “The Oposh-ton-ehoe is a double-tongued liar!”

Chapter Twenty Three.One morning, Roche, Gabriel, and myself were summoned to the Great Council Lodge; there we met with the four Comanches whom we had rescued some days before, and it would be difficult to translate from their glowing language their warm expressions of friendship and gratitude. We learned from them that before the return of the Cayugas from the prairie they had concealed themselves in some crevices of the earth until night, when they contrived to seize upon three of the horses and effect their escape. At the passage of the great chasm they had found the old red sash of Roche, which they produced, asking at the same time permission to keep it as a token from their Pale-face brothers. We shook bands and exchanged pipes. How noble and warm is an Indian in his feelings!In the lodge we also perceived our friend of former days, “Opishka Koaki” (the White Raven), but as he was about to address the assembly, we restrained from renewing our acquaintance and directed all our attention to what was transacting. After the ordinary ceremonies, Opishka Koaki commenced:—“Warriors, I am glad you have so quickly understood my messages, but when does a Comanche turn his back on receiving the vermilion from his chief? Never! you know I called you for war, and you have come; ’tis well. Yet, though I am a chief, I am a man. I may mistake; I may now and then strike a wrong path. I will do nothing, attempt nothing, without knowing the thoughts of my brave warriors. Then hear me!“There live under the sun a nation of Redskins, whose men are cowards. Never striking an enemy but when his back is turned, or when they number a hundred to one. This nation crawls in the prairies about the great chasms, they live upon carrion, and have no other horses but those they can steal from the deer-hearted Watchinangoes. Do my warriors know such a people? Let them speak! I hear!”At that moment a hundred voices shouted the name of Cayugas.“I knew it!” exclaimed the chief, “there is but one such a people with a red skin; my warriors are keen-sighted; they cannot be mistaken. Now, we Comanches never take the scalp of a Cayuga any more than that of a hedge-hog; we kick them out of our way when they cross our path; that’s all. Hear me my braves, and believe me, though I will speak strange words: these reptiles have thought that because we have not killed them as toads and scorpions, it was because we were afraid of their poison. One thousand Cayugas, among other prisoners, have taken eight Comanches; they have eaten four of them, they would have eaten them all, but the braves escaped; they are here. Now, is an impure Cayuga a fit tomb for the body of a Comanche warrior? No! I read the answer in your burning eyes. What then shall we do? Shall we chastise them and give their carcasses to the crows and wolves? What say my warriors: let them speak? I hear!”All were silent, though it was evident that their feelings had been violently agitated. At last, an old chief rose and addressed Opishka:“Great chief,” said he, “why askest thou? Can a Comanche and warrior think in any way but one? Look at them! See you not into their hearts? Perceive you not how fast the blood runs into their veins? Why ask? I say; thou knowest well their hearts’ voice is but the echo of thine own. Say but a word, say, ‘Let us go to the Cayugas!’ Thy warriors will answer: ‘We are ready, shew us the path!’ Chief of a mighty nation, thou hast heard my voice, and in my voice are heard the thousand voices of thy thousand warriors.”Opishka Koaki rose again. “I knew it, but I wanted to hear it, for it does my heart good; it makes me proud to command so many brave warriors. Then to-morrow we start, and we will hunt the Cayugas even to the deepest of their burrows. I have said!”Then the four rescued prisoners recounted how they had been taken, and what sufferings they had undergone. They spoke of their unfortunate companions and of their horrible fate, which they should have also shared had it not been for the courage of the three Pale-face brothers, who killed five Cayugas, and cut their bonds; they themselves killed five more of their cowardly foes and escaped, but till to-day they had had no occasion of telling to their tribe the bravery and generosity of the three Pale faces.At this narrative all the warriors, young and old, looked as though they were personally indebted to us, and would have come, one and all, to shake our hands, had it not been for the inviolable rules of the council lodge, which forbids any kind of disorder. It is probable that the scene had been prepared beforehand by the excellent chief who wished to introduce us to his warriors under advantageous circumstances. He waved his hand to claim attention, and spoke again.“It is now twelve moons, it is more I met Owato Wanisha and his two brothers. He is a chief of the great Shoshones, who are our grandfathers, far—far under the setting of the sun beyond the big mountains. His two brothers are two great warriors from powerful nations far in the east and beyond the Sioux, the Chippewas beyond the ‘Oposh-ton-ehoe’ (Americans), even beyond the deep salt-water. One is a ‘Shakanah’ (Englishman), the other a ‘Naimewa’ from the ‘Maha-mate-kosh-ehoj’ (an exile from the French). They are good and they are brave: they have learned wisdom from the ‘Macota Konayas’ (priests), and Owato Wanisha knows how to build strong forts, which he can better defend than the Watchinangoes have defended theirs. I have invited him and his brother to come and taste the buffalo of our prairies, to ride our horses, and smoke the calumet of friendship. They have come, and will remain with us till we ourselves go to the big stony river (the Colorado of the West). They have come; they are our guests; the best we can command is their own already; but they are chiefs and warriors. A chief is a chief everywhere. We must treat them as chiefs, and let them select a band of warriors for themselves to follow them till they go away from us.“You have heard what our scouts have said; they would have been eaten by the Cayugas, had it not been for our guests, who have preserved not only the lives of four men—that is nothing—but the honour of the tribe. I need say no more; I know my young amen; I know my warriors; I know they will love the strangers as chiefs and brothers. I have said.”Having thus spoken, he walked slowly out of the lodge, which was immediately deserted for the green lawn before the village. There we were sumptuously entertained by all the principal chiefs and warriors of the tribe, after which they conducted us to a new tent, which they had erected for us in the middle of their principal square. There we found also six magnificent horses, well caparisoned, tied to the posts of the tent; they were the presents of the chiefs. At a few steps from the door was an immense shield, suspended upon four posts, and on which a beaver, the head of an eagle, and the claws of a bear were admirably painted—the first totem for me, the second for Gabriel, and the third for Roche. We gratefully thanked our hospitable hosts, and retired to rest in our rich and elegant dwelling.The next morning, we awoke just in time to witness the ceremony of departure; a war party, already on horseback, was waiting for their chief. At the foot of our shield were one hundred lances, whose owners belonged to the family and kindred of the Indians whom we had rescued from the Cayugas. A few minutes afterwards, the owners of the weapons appeared in the square, well mounted and armed, to place themselves at our entire disposal. We could not put our authority to a better use than by joining our friends in their expedition, so when the chief arrived, surrounded by the elders of the tribe, Gabriel advanced towards him.“Chief,” he said, “and wise men of a brave nation, you have conferred upon us a trust of which we are proud. To Owato Wanisha, perhaps, it was due, for he is mighty in his tribe; but I and the Shakanah are no chiefs. We will not decline your favour, but we must deserve it. The young beaver will remain in the village, to learn the wisdom of your old men, but the eagle and the bear must and will accompany you in your expedition. You have given them brave warriors, who would scorn to remain at home; we will follow you.”This proposition was received with flattering acclamations, and the gallant army soon afterwards left the village on its mission of revenge.The Cayugas were, before that expedition, a powerful tribe, about whom little or nothing had ever been written or known. In their customs and manners of living, they resemble in every way the Club Indians of the Colorado, who were destroyed by the small-pox. They led a wandering prairie life, but generally were too cowardly to fight well, and too inexpert in hunting to surround themselves with comforts, even in the midst of plenty like the Clubs, they are cannibals, though, I suspect, they would not eat a white man. They have but few horses, and these only when they could be procured by stealth, for, almost always starving, they could not afford to breed them, always eating the colts before they could be useful.Their grounds lie in the vicinity of the great fork of the Rio Puerco, by latitude 35 degrees and longitude 105 degrees from Greenwich. The whole nation do not possess half a dozen of rifles, most all of them being armed with clubs, bows, and arrows. Some old Comanches have assured me that the Cayuga country abounds with fine gold.While I was with the Comanches, waiting the return of the expedition, I had an accident which nearly cost me my life. Having learned that there were many fine basses to be fished in a stream some twenty miles on, I started on horseback, with a view of passing the night there. I took with me a buffalo-hide, a blanket, and a tin cup, and two hours before sunset I arrived at the spot.As the weather had been dry for some time, I could not pick any worms, so I thought of killing some bird or other small animal, whose flesh would answer for bait. Not falling in with any birds, I determined to seek for a rabbit or a frog. To save time, I lighted a fire, put my water to boil, spread my hide and blanket, arranged my saddle for a pillow, and then went in search of bait, and sassafras to make tea with.While looking for sassafras, I perceived a nest upon a small oak near to the stream. I climbed to take the young ones, obtained two, which I put in my round jacket, and looked about me to see where I should jump upon the ground. After much turning about, I suspended myself by the hands from a hanging branch, and allowed myself to drop down. My left foot fell flat, but under the soft sole of my right mocassin I felt something alive, heaving or rolling. At a glance, I perceived that my foot was on the body of a large rattle-snake, with his head just forcing itself from under my heel.Thus taken by surprise, I stood motionless and with my heart throbbing. The reptile worked itself free, and twisting round my leg, almost in a second bit me two or three times. The sharp rain which I felt from the fangs recalled me to consciousness, and though I felt convinced that I was lost, I resolved that my destroyer should die also. With my bowie-knife I cut its body into a hundred pieces; walked away very sad and gloomy, and sat upon my blanket near the fire.How rapid and tumultuous were my thoughts! To die so young, and such a dog’s death! My mind reverted to the happy scenes of my early youth, when I had a mother, and played so merrily among the golden grapes of sunny France, and when later I wandered with my father in the Holy land, in Italy and Egypt. I also thought of the Shoshones, of Roche and Gabriel, and I sighed. It was a moral agony; for the physical pain had subsided, and my leg was almost benumbed by paralysis.The sun went down, and the last carmine tinges of his departed glory reminded me how soon my sun would set; then the big burning tears smothered me, for I was young, very young, and I could not command the courage and resignation to die such a horrible death. Had I been wounded in the field, leading my brave Shoshones, and hallooing the war-whoop, I would have cared very little about it, but thus, like a dog! It was horrible! and I dropped my head upon my knees, thinking how few hours I had now to live.I was awakened from that absorbing torpor by my poor horse, who was busy licking my ears. The faithful animal suspected something was wrong, for usually at such a time I would sing Spanish ditties or some Indian war-songs. Sunset was also the time when I brushed and patted him. The intelligent brute knew that I suffered, and, in its own way, showed me that it participated in my affliction. My water, too, was boiling on the fire, and the bubbling of the water seemed to be a voice raised on purpose to divert my gloomy thoughts. “Aye, boil, bubble, evaporate,” exclaimed I; “what do I care for water or tea now?”Scarcely had I finished these words, when, turning suddenly my head round, my attention was attracted by an object before me, and a gleam of hope irradiated my gloomy mind: close to my feet I beheld five or six stems of the rattlesnake master weed. I well knew the plant, but I had been incredulous as to its properties. Often had I heard the Indians speaking of its virtues, but I had never believed them. “A drowning man will seize at a floating straw.” By a violent effort I got up on my legs, went to fetch my knife, which I had left near the dead snake, and I commenced digging for two or three of the roots with all the energy of despair.These roots I cut into small slices, and threw them in the boiling water. It soon produced a dark green decoction, which I swallowed; it was evidently a powerful alkali, strongly impregnated with a flavour of turpentine. I then cut my mocassin, for my foot was already swollen to twice its ordinary size, bathed the wounds with a few drops of the liquid, and, chewing some of the slices, I applied them as a poultice, and tied them on with my scarf and handkerchief. I then put some more water to boil, and, half an hour afterwards, having drank another pint of the bitter decoction, I drew my blanket over me. In a minute or less after the second draught, my brain whirled, and a strange dizziness overtook me, which was followed by a powerful perspiration, and soon afterwards all was blank.The next morning, I was awakened by my horse again licking me; he wondered why I slept so late. I felt my head ache dreadfully, and I perceived that the burning rays of the sun for the last two hours had been darting upon my uncovered face. It was some time before I could collect my thoughts, and make out where I was. At last, the memory of the dreadful incident of the previous evening broke upon my mind, and I regretted I had not died during my unconsciousness; for I thought that the weakness I felt was an effect of the poison, and that I should have to undergo an awful lingering death. Yet all around me, nature was smiling; thousands of birds were singing their morning concert, and, at a short distance, the low and soft murmuring of the stream reminded me of my excessive thirst. Alas! well hath the Italian bard sung:—“Nesson maggior doloreChe riccordarsi del tempo feliceNella miseria!”—Dante.As I lay and reflected upon my utter helplessness, again my heart swelled, and my tears flowed freely. Thirst, however, gave me the courage which the freshness and beauty of nature had not been able to inspire me with. I thought of attempting to rise to fetch some water; but first I slowly passed my hand down my thigh, to feel my knee. I thought the inflammation would have rendered it as thick as my waist. My hand was upon my knee, and so sudden was the shock that my heart ceased to heat. Joy can be most painful; for I felt an acute pang through my breast, as from a blow of a dagger. When I moved my finger across the cap of my knee, it was quite free from inflammation, and perfectly sound. Again there was a re-action. Aye, thought I, ’tis all on the ankle; how can I escape! Is not the poison a deadly one? I dared not throw away the blanket and investigate further; I felt weaker and weaker, and again covered my head to sleep.I did sleep, and when I awoke this time I felt myself a little invigorated, though my lips and tongue were quite parched. I remembered everything; down my hand slided; I could not reach my ankle, so I put up my knee. I removed the scarf and the poultice of master weed. My handkerchief was full of a dried, green, glutinous matter, and the wounds looked clean. Joy gave me strength. I went to the stream, drank plentifully, and washed. I still felt very feverish; and, although I was safe from the immediate effects of the poison, I knew that I had yet to suffer. Grateful to Heaven for my preservation, I saddled my faithful companion, and, wrapping myself closely in my buffalo hide, I set off to the Comanche camp. My senses had left me before I arrived there. They found me on the ground, and my horse standing by me.Fifteen days afterwards I awoke to consciousness, a weak and emaciated being. During this whole time I had been raving under a cerebral fever, death hovering over me. It appears that I had received a coup-de-soleil, in addition to my other mischances.When I returned to consciousness, I was astonished to see Gabriel and Roche by my side; the expedition had returned triumphant. The Cayugas’ villages had been burnt, almost all their warriors destroyed, and those who remained had sought a shelter in the fissures of the earth, or in the passes of the mountains unknown to any but themselves. Two of the Mexican girls had also been rescued, but what had become of the others they could not tell.The kindness and cares of my friends, with the invigorating influence of a beautiful chine, soon restored me to comparative health, but it was a long time before I was strong enough to ride and resume my former exercise. During that time Gabriel made frequent excursions to the southern and even to the Mexican settlements, and on the return from his last trip he brought up news which caused the Indians, for that year, to forsake their hunting, and remain at home. General Lamar and his associates had hit upon a plan not only treacherous, but in open defiance of all the laws of nations. But what, indeed, could be expected from a people who murdered their guests, invited by them, and under the sanction of a white flag? I refer to the massacre of the Comanche chiefs at San Antonio.The President of Mexico, Bustamente, had a view to a cessation of hostilities with Texas. The Texians had sent ambassadors to negotiate a recognition and treaty of alliance and friendship with other nations; they had despatched Hamilton in England to supplicate the cabinet of St. James to lend its mighty influence towards the recognition of Texas by Mexico, and while these negotiations were pending, and the peace with Mexico still in force, Lamar, in defiance of all good faith and honour, was secretly preparing an expedition, which, under the disguise of a mercantile caravan, was intended to conquer Santa Fé and all the northern Mexican provinces. This expedition of the Texians, as it would pass through the territory of the Comanches, whose villages, etcetera, if unprotected, would, in all probability, have been plundered, and their women and children murdered, induced the Comanches to break up their camp, and return home as speedily as possible.

One morning, Roche, Gabriel, and myself were summoned to the Great Council Lodge; there we met with the four Comanches whom we had rescued some days before, and it would be difficult to translate from their glowing language their warm expressions of friendship and gratitude. We learned from them that before the return of the Cayugas from the prairie they had concealed themselves in some crevices of the earth until night, when they contrived to seize upon three of the horses and effect their escape. At the passage of the great chasm they had found the old red sash of Roche, which they produced, asking at the same time permission to keep it as a token from their Pale-face brothers. We shook bands and exchanged pipes. How noble and warm is an Indian in his feelings!

In the lodge we also perceived our friend of former days, “Opishka Koaki” (the White Raven), but as he was about to address the assembly, we restrained from renewing our acquaintance and directed all our attention to what was transacting. After the ordinary ceremonies, Opishka Koaki commenced:—

“Warriors, I am glad you have so quickly understood my messages, but when does a Comanche turn his back on receiving the vermilion from his chief? Never! you know I called you for war, and you have come; ’tis well. Yet, though I am a chief, I am a man. I may mistake; I may now and then strike a wrong path. I will do nothing, attempt nothing, without knowing the thoughts of my brave warriors. Then hear me!

“There live under the sun a nation of Redskins, whose men are cowards. Never striking an enemy but when his back is turned, or when they number a hundred to one. This nation crawls in the prairies about the great chasms, they live upon carrion, and have no other horses but those they can steal from the deer-hearted Watchinangoes. Do my warriors know such a people? Let them speak! I hear!”

At that moment a hundred voices shouted the name of Cayugas.

“I knew it!” exclaimed the chief, “there is but one such a people with a red skin; my warriors are keen-sighted; they cannot be mistaken. Now, we Comanches never take the scalp of a Cayuga any more than that of a hedge-hog; we kick them out of our way when they cross our path; that’s all. Hear me my braves, and believe me, though I will speak strange words: these reptiles have thought that because we have not killed them as toads and scorpions, it was because we were afraid of their poison. One thousand Cayugas, among other prisoners, have taken eight Comanches; they have eaten four of them, they would have eaten them all, but the braves escaped; they are here. Now, is an impure Cayuga a fit tomb for the body of a Comanche warrior? No! I read the answer in your burning eyes. What then shall we do? Shall we chastise them and give their carcasses to the crows and wolves? What say my warriors: let them speak? I hear!”

All were silent, though it was evident that their feelings had been violently agitated. At last, an old chief rose and addressed Opishka:

“Great chief,” said he, “why askest thou? Can a Comanche and warrior think in any way but one? Look at them! See you not into their hearts? Perceive you not how fast the blood runs into their veins? Why ask? I say; thou knowest well their hearts’ voice is but the echo of thine own. Say but a word, say, ‘Let us go to the Cayugas!’ Thy warriors will answer: ‘We are ready, shew us the path!’ Chief of a mighty nation, thou hast heard my voice, and in my voice are heard the thousand voices of thy thousand warriors.”

Opishka Koaki rose again. “I knew it, but I wanted to hear it, for it does my heart good; it makes me proud to command so many brave warriors. Then to-morrow we start, and we will hunt the Cayugas even to the deepest of their burrows. I have said!”

Then the four rescued prisoners recounted how they had been taken, and what sufferings they had undergone. They spoke of their unfortunate companions and of their horrible fate, which they should have also shared had it not been for the courage of the three Pale-face brothers, who killed five Cayugas, and cut their bonds; they themselves killed five more of their cowardly foes and escaped, but till to-day they had had no occasion of telling to their tribe the bravery and generosity of the three Pale faces.

At this narrative all the warriors, young and old, looked as though they were personally indebted to us, and would have come, one and all, to shake our hands, had it not been for the inviolable rules of the council lodge, which forbids any kind of disorder. It is probable that the scene had been prepared beforehand by the excellent chief who wished to introduce us to his warriors under advantageous circumstances. He waved his hand to claim attention, and spoke again.

“It is now twelve moons, it is more I met Owato Wanisha and his two brothers. He is a chief of the great Shoshones, who are our grandfathers, far—far under the setting of the sun beyond the big mountains. His two brothers are two great warriors from powerful nations far in the east and beyond the Sioux, the Chippewas beyond the ‘Oposh-ton-ehoe’ (Americans), even beyond the deep salt-water. One is a ‘Shakanah’ (Englishman), the other a ‘Naimewa’ from the ‘Maha-mate-kosh-ehoj’ (an exile from the French). They are good and they are brave: they have learned wisdom from the ‘Macota Konayas’ (priests), and Owato Wanisha knows how to build strong forts, which he can better defend than the Watchinangoes have defended theirs. I have invited him and his brother to come and taste the buffalo of our prairies, to ride our horses, and smoke the calumet of friendship. They have come, and will remain with us till we ourselves go to the big stony river (the Colorado of the West). They have come; they are our guests; the best we can command is their own already; but they are chiefs and warriors. A chief is a chief everywhere. We must treat them as chiefs, and let them select a band of warriors for themselves to follow them till they go away from us.

“You have heard what our scouts have said; they would have been eaten by the Cayugas, had it not been for our guests, who have preserved not only the lives of four men—that is nothing—but the honour of the tribe. I need say no more; I know my young amen; I know my warriors; I know they will love the strangers as chiefs and brothers. I have said.”

Having thus spoken, he walked slowly out of the lodge, which was immediately deserted for the green lawn before the village. There we were sumptuously entertained by all the principal chiefs and warriors of the tribe, after which they conducted us to a new tent, which they had erected for us in the middle of their principal square. There we found also six magnificent horses, well caparisoned, tied to the posts of the tent; they were the presents of the chiefs. At a few steps from the door was an immense shield, suspended upon four posts, and on which a beaver, the head of an eagle, and the claws of a bear were admirably painted—the first totem for me, the second for Gabriel, and the third for Roche. We gratefully thanked our hospitable hosts, and retired to rest in our rich and elegant dwelling.

The next morning, we awoke just in time to witness the ceremony of departure; a war party, already on horseback, was waiting for their chief. At the foot of our shield were one hundred lances, whose owners belonged to the family and kindred of the Indians whom we had rescued from the Cayugas. A few minutes afterwards, the owners of the weapons appeared in the square, well mounted and armed, to place themselves at our entire disposal. We could not put our authority to a better use than by joining our friends in their expedition, so when the chief arrived, surrounded by the elders of the tribe, Gabriel advanced towards him.

“Chief,” he said, “and wise men of a brave nation, you have conferred upon us a trust of which we are proud. To Owato Wanisha, perhaps, it was due, for he is mighty in his tribe; but I and the Shakanah are no chiefs. We will not decline your favour, but we must deserve it. The young beaver will remain in the village, to learn the wisdom of your old men, but the eagle and the bear must and will accompany you in your expedition. You have given them brave warriors, who would scorn to remain at home; we will follow you.”

This proposition was received with flattering acclamations, and the gallant army soon afterwards left the village on its mission of revenge.

The Cayugas were, before that expedition, a powerful tribe, about whom little or nothing had ever been written or known. In their customs and manners of living, they resemble in every way the Club Indians of the Colorado, who were destroyed by the small-pox. They led a wandering prairie life, but generally were too cowardly to fight well, and too inexpert in hunting to surround themselves with comforts, even in the midst of plenty like the Clubs, they are cannibals, though, I suspect, they would not eat a white man. They have but few horses, and these only when they could be procured by stealth, for, almost always starving, they could not afford to breed them, always eating the colts before they could be useful.

Their grounds lie in the vicinity of the great fork of the Rio Puerco, by latitude 35 degrees and longitude 105 degrees from Greenwich. The whole nation do not possess half a dozen of rifles, most all of them being armed with clubs, bows, and arrows. Some old Comanches have assured me that the Cayuga country abounds with fine gold.

While I was with the Comanches, waiting the return of the expedition, I had an accident which nearly cost me my life. Having learned that there were many fine basses to be fished in a stream some twenty miles on, I started on horseback, with a view of passing the night there. I took with me a buffalo-hide, a blanket, and a tin cup, and two hours before sunset I arrived at the spot.

As the weather had been dry for some time, I could not pick any worms, so I thought of killing some bird or other small animal, whose flesh would answer for bait. Not falling in with any birds, I determined to seek for a rabbit or a frog. To save time, I lighted a fire, put my water to boil, spread my hide and blanket, arranged my saddle for a pillow, and then went in search of bait, and sassafras to make tea with.

While looking for sassafras, I perceived a nest upon a small oak near to the stream. I climbed to take the young ones, obtained two, which I put in my round jacket, and looked about me to see where I should jump upon the ground. After much turning about, I suspended myself by the hands from a hanging branch, and allowed myself to drop down. My left foot fell flat, but under the soft sole of my right mocassin I felt something alive, heaving or rolling. At a glance, I perceived that my foot was on the body of a large rattle-snake, with his head just forcing itself from under my heel.

Thus taken by surprise, I stood motionless and with my heart throbbing. The reptile worked itself free, and twisting round my leg, almost in a second bit me two or three times. The sharp rain which I felt from the fangs recalled me to consciousness, and though I felt convinced that I was lost, I resolved that my destroyer should die also. With my bowie-knife I cut its body into a hundred pieces; walked away very sad and gloomy, and sat upon my blanket near the fire.

How rapid and tumultuous were my thoughts! To die so young, and such a dog’s death! My mind reverted to the happy scenes of my early youth, when I had a mother, and played so merrily among the golden grapes of sunny France, and when later I wandered with my father in the Holy land, in Italy and Egypt. I also thought of the Shoshones, of Roche and Gabriel, and I sighed. It was a moral agony; for the physical pain had subsided, and my leg was almost benumbed by paralysis.

The sun went down, and the last carmine tinges of his departed glory reminded me how soon my sun would set; then the big burning tears smothered me, for I was young, very young, and I could not command the courage and resignation to die such a horrible death. Had I been wounded in the field, leading my brave Shoshones, and hallooing the war-whoop, I would have cared very little about it, but thus, like a dog! It was horrible! and I dropped my head upon my knees, thinking how few hours I had now to live.

I was awakened from that absorbing torpor by my poor horse, who was busy licking my ears. The faithful animal suspected something was wrong, for usually at such a time I would sing Spanish ditties or some Indian war-songs. Sunset was also the time when I brushed and patted him. The intelligent brute knew that I suffered, and, in its own way, showed me that it participated in my affliction. My water, too, was boiling on the fire, and the bubbling of the water seemed to be a voice raised on purpose to divert my gloomy thoughts. “Aye, boil, bubble, evaporate,” exclaimed I; “what do I care for water or tea now?”

Scarcely had I finished these words, when, turning suddenly my head round, my attention was attracted by an object before me, and a gleam of hope irradiated my gloomy mind: close to my feet I beheld five or six stems of the rattlesnake master weed. I well knew the plant, but I had been incredulous as to its properties. Often had I heard the Indians speaking of its virtues, but I had never believed them. “A drowning man will seize at a floating straw.” By a violent effort I got up on my legs, went to fetch my knife, which I had left near the dead snake, and I commenced digging for two or three of the roots with all the energy of despair.

These roots I cut into small slices, and threw them in the boiling water. It soon produced a dark green decoction, which I swallowed; it was evidently a powerful alkali, strongly impregnated with a flavour of turpentine. I then cut my mocassin, for my foot was already swollen to twice its ordinary size, bathed the wounds with a few drops of the liquid, and, chewing some of the slices, I applied them as a poultice, and tied them on with my scarf and handkerchief. I then put some more water to boil, and, half an hour afterwards, having drank another pint of the bitter decoction, I drew my blanket over me. In a minute or less after the second draught, my brain whirled, and a strange dizziness overtook me, which was followed by a powerful perspiration, and soon afterwards all was blank.

The next morning, I was awakened by my horse again licking me; he wondered why I slept so late. I felt my head ache dreadfully, and I perceived that the burning rays of the sun for the last two hours had been darting upon my uncovered face. It was some time before I could collect my thoughts, and make out where I was. At last, the memory of the dreadful incident of the previous evening broke upon my mind, and I regretted I had not died during my unconsciousness; for I thought that the weakness I felt was an effect of the poison, and that I should have to undergo an awful lingering death. Yet all around me, nature was smiling; thousands of birds were singing their morning concert, and, at a short distance, the low and soft murmuring of the stream reminded me of my excessive thirst. Alas! well hath the Italian bard sung:—

“Nesson maggior doloreChe riccordarsi del tempo feliceNella miseria!”—Dante.

“Nesson maggior doloreChe riccordarsi del tempo feliceNella miseria!”—Dante.

As I lay and reflected upon my utter helplessness, again my heart swelled, and my tears flowed freely. Thirst, however, gave me the courage which the freshness and beauty of nature had not been able to inspire me with. I thought of attempting to rise to fetch some water; but first I slowly passed my hand down my thigh, to feel my knee. I thought the inflammation would have rendered it as thick as my waist. My hand was upon my knee, and so sudden was the shock that my heart ceased to heat. Joy can be most painful; for I felt an acute pang through my breast, as from a blow of a dagger. When I moved my finger across the cap of my knee, it was quite free from inflammation, and perfectly sound. Again there was a re-action. Aye, thought I, ’tis all on the ankle; how can I escape! Is not the poison a deadly one? I dared not throw away the blanket and investigate further; I felt weaker and weaker, and again covered my head to sleep.

I did sleep, and when I awoke this time I felt myself a little invigorated, though my lips and tongue were quite parched. I remembered everything; down my hand slided; I could not reach my ankle, so I put up my knee. I removed the scarf and the poultice of master weed. My handkerchief was full of a dried, green, glutinous matter, and the wounds looked clean. Joy gave me strength. I went to the stream, drank plentifully, and washed. I still felt very feverish; and, although I was safe from the immediate effects of the poison, I knew that I had yet to suffer. Grateful to Heaven for my preservation, I saddled my faithful companion, and, wrapping myself closely in my buffalo hide, I set off to the Comanche camp. My senses had left me before I arrived there. They found me on the ground, and my horse standing by me.

Fifteen days afterwards I awoke to consciousness, a weak and emaciated being. During this whole time I had been raving under a cerebral fever, death hovering over me. It appears that I had received a coup-de-soleil, in addition to my other mischances.

When I returned to consciousness, I was astonished to see Gabriel and Roche by my side; the expedition had returned triumphant. The Cayugas’ villages had been burnt, almost all their warriors destroyed, and those who remained had sought a shelter in the fissures of the earth, or in the passes of the mountains unknown to any but themselves. Two of the Mexican girls had also been rescued, but what had become of the others they could not tell.

The kindness and cares of my friends, with the invigorating influence of a beautiful chine, soon restored me to comparative health, but it was a long time before I was strong enough to ride and resume my former exercise. During that time Gabriel made frequent excursions to the southern and even to the Mexican settlements, and on the return from his last trip he brought up news which caused the Indians, for that year, to forsake their hunting, and remain at home. General Lamar and his associates had hit upon a plan not only treacherous, but in open defiance of all the laws of nations. But what, indeed, could be expected from a people who murdered their guests, invited by them, and under the sanction of a white flag? I refer to the massacre of the Comanche chiefs at San Antonio.

The President of Mexico, Bustamente, had a view to a cessation of hostilities with Texas. The Texians had sent ambassadors to negotiate a recognition and treaty of alliance and friendship with other nations; they had despatched Hamilton in England to supplicate the cabinet of St. James to lend its mighty influence towards the recognition of Texas by Mexico, and while these negotiations were pending, and the peace with Mexico still in force, Lamar, in defiance of all good faith and honour, was secretly preparing an expedition, which, under the disguise of a mercantile caravan, was intended to conquer Santa Fé and all the northern Mexican provinces. This expedition of the Texians, as it would pass through the territory of the Comanches, whose villages, etcetera, if unprotected, would, in all probability, have been plundered, and their women and children murdered, induced the Comanches to break up their camp, and return home as speedily as possible.

Chapter Twenty Four.During my convalescence, my tent, or I should say, the lawn before it, became a kind of general divan, where the warrior and elders of the tribe would assemble, to smoke and relate the strange stories of days gone by. Some of them appeared to me particularly beautiful; I shall, therefore, narrate them to the reader. One old chief began as follows:—“I will tell ye of the Shkote-nah Pishkuan, or the boat of fire, when I saw it for the first time. Since that, the grass has withered fifteen times in the prairies, and I have grown weak and old. Then I was a warrior, and many scalps have I taken on the eastern shores of the Sabine. Then, also, the Pale-faces, living in the prairies were good; we fought them because we were enemies, but they never stole anything from us, nor we from them.“Well, at that time, we were once in the spring hunting the buffalo. The Caddoes, who are now a small tribe of starved dogs, were then a large powerful nation, extending from the Cross Timbers to the waters of the great stream, in the East, but they were gamblers and drunkards; they would sell all their furs for the ‘Shoba-wapo’ (fire-water), and return to their villages to poison their squaws, and make brutes of their children. Soon they got nothing more to sell; and as they could not now do without the ‘Shoba-wapo,’ they began to steal. They would steal the horses and oxen of the Pale-faces, and say ‘The Comanches did it.’ When they killed trappers or travellers, they would go to the fort of the Yankees and say to them, ‘Go to the wigwams of the Comanches, and you will see the scalps of your friends hanging upon long poles.’ But we did not care, for we knew it was not true.“A long time passed away, when the evil spirit of the Caddoes whispered to them to come to the villages of the Comanches while they were hunting and to take away with them all that they could. They did so, entering the war-path as foxes and owls, during night. When they arrived, they found nothing but squaws, old women, and little children. Yet these fought well, and many of the Caddoes were killed before they abandoned their lodges. They soon found us out in the hunting-ground; and our great chief ordered me to start with five hundred warriors, and never return until the Caddoes should have no home, and wander like deer and starved wolves in the open prairie.“I followed the track. First, I burnt their great villages in the Cross Timbers, and then pursued them in the swamps and cane-breaks of the East, where they concealed themselves among the long lizards of the water (the alligators). We, however, came up with them again, and they crossed the Sabine, to take shelter among the Yankees, where they had another village, which was their largest and their richest. We followed; and on the very shores of their river, although a thousand miles from our own country, and where the waters are dyed with the red clay of the soil, we encamped round their wigwams and prepared to conquer.“It was at the gloomy season, when it rains night and day; the river was high, the earth damp, and our young braves shivering, even under their blankets. It was evening, when, far to the south, above one of the windings of the stream, I saw a thick black smoke rising as a tall pine among the clouds, and I watched it closely. It came towards us; and as the sky darkened and night came on, sparks of fire showed the progress of the strange sight. Soon noises were heard, like those of the mountains when the evil spirits are shaking them; the sounds were awful, solemn, and regular, like the throbs of a warrior’s heart; and now and then a sharp, shrill scream would rend the air and awake other terrible voices in the forest.“It came, and deer, bears, panthers were passing among us madly flying before the dreaded unknown. It came, it flew, nearer and nearer, till we saw it plainly with its two big mouths, spitting fire like the burning mountains of the West. It rained very hard, and yet we saw all. It was like a long fish, shaped like a canoe, and its sides had many eyes, full of bright light as the stars above.“I saw no one with the monster; he was alone, breaking the waters and splashing them with his arms, his legs, or his fins. On the top, and it was very high, there was a square lodge: Once I thought I could see a man in it, but it was a fancy; or perhaps the soul of the thing, watching from its hiding place for a prey which it might seize upon; happily it was dark, very dark, and being in a hollow along the banks, we could not be perceived; and the dreadful thing passed.“The Caddoes uttered a loud scream of fear and agony; their hearts were melted. We said nothing, for we were Comanches and warriors; and yet I felt strange, and was fixed to where I stood. A man is but a man, and even a Red-skin cannot struggle with a spirit. The scream of the Caddoes, however, frightened the monster; its flanks opened and discharged some tremendous Anim Tekis (thunders) on the village. I heard the crashing of the logs, the splitting of the hides covering the lodges, and when the smoke was all gone, it left a smell of powder; the monster was far, far off, and there was no trace of it left, except the moans of the wounded and the lamentation of the squaws among the Caddoes.“I and my young men soon recovered our senses; we entered the village, burnt every thing, and killed the warriors. They would not fight; but as they were thieves, we destroyed them. We returned to our own villages, every one of us with many scalps, and since that time the Caddoes have never been a nation; they wander from north to south, and from east to west: they have huts made with the bark of trees, or they take shelter in the burrows of the prairie dogs, with the owls and the snakes; but they have no lodges, no wigwams, no villages. Thus may it be with all the foes of our great nation.”This is an historical fact. The steamboat “Beaver” made its first exploration upon the Red River, some eighty miles above the French settlement of Nachitochy, just at the very time that the Comanches were attacking the last Caddoe village upon the banks of the Red. River. These poor savages yelled with terror when the strange mass passed thus before them, and, either from wanton cruelty or from fear of an attack, the boat fired four guns, loaded with grape-shot, upon the village, from which they were not a hundred yards distant.The following is a narrative of events which happened in the time of Mosh Kohta (buffalo), a great chief, hundreds of years ago, when the unfortunate “La Salle” was shipwrecked upon the coast of Texas, while endeavouring to discover the mouth of the Mississippi. Such records are very numerous among the great prairie tribes; they bear sometimes the Ossianic type, and are related every evening during the month of February, when the “Divines” and the elders of the nation teach to the young men the traditions of former days.“It was in the time of a chief, a great chief, strong, cunning, and wise, a chief of many bold deeds. His name was Mosh Kohta.“It is a long while! No Pale-faces dwelt in the land of plenty (the translation of the Indian word ‘Texas’); our grandfathers had just received it from the Great Spirit, and they had come from the setting of the sun across the big mountains to take possession. We were a great nation, we are so now, we have always been so, and we will ever be. At that time, also, our tribe spread all along the western shores of the great stream Mississippi, for no Pale-face had yet settled upon it. We were a great people, ruled by a mighty chief; the earth, the trees, the rivers, and the air know his name. Is there a place in the mountains or the prairies where the name of Mosh Kohta has not been pronounced and praised?“At that time a strange warlike people of the Pale-faces broke their big canoes along our coasts of the South, and they landed on the shore, well armed with big guns and long rifles, but they had nothing to eat. These were the ‘Maha-mate-kosh-ehoj’ (the French); their chief was a good man, a warrior, and a great traveller; he had started from the northern territories of the Algonquins, to go across the salt water in far distant lands, and bring back with him many good things which the Red-skins wanted:— warm blankets to sleep upon, flints to strike a fire, axes to cut the trees, and knives to skin the bear and the buffalo. He was a good man and loved the Indians, for they also were good, and good people will always love each other.“He met with Mosh Kohta; our warriors would not fight the strangers, for they were hungry and their voices were soft; they were also too few to be feared, though their courage seemed great under misfortune, and they would sing and laugh while they suffered. We gave them food, we helped them to take from the waters the planks of their big canoe, and to build the first wigwam in which the Pale-faces ever dwelt in Texas. Two moons they remained hunting the buffalo with our young men, till at last their chief and his bravest warriors started in some small canoes of ours, to see if they could not enter the great stream, by following the coast towards the sunrise. He was gone four moons, and when he returned, he had lost half of his men, by sickness, hunger, and fatigue; yet Mosh Kohta bade him not despair; the great chief promised the Pale-faces to conduct them in the spring to the great stream, and for several more moons we lived all together, as braves and brothers should. Then, for the first time also, the Comanches got some of their rifles, and others knives. Was it good—was it bad? Who knows? Yet the lance and arrows killed as many buffaloes as lead and black dust (powder), and the squaws could take off the skin of a deer or a beaver without knives. How they did it, no one knows now; but they did it, though they had not yet seen the keen and sharp knives of the Pale-faces.“However, it was not long time before many of the strangers tired of remaining so far from their wigwams their chief every morning would look for hours towards the rising of the sun, as if the eyes of his soul could see through the immensity of the prairies; he became gloomy as a man of dark deeds (a Medecin), and one day, with half of his men, he began a long inland trail across prairies, swamps, and rivers, so much did he dread to die far from his lodge. Yet he did die: not of sickness, not of hunger, but under the knife of another Pale-face; and he was the first one from strange countries whose bones blanched without burial in the waste. Often the evening breeze whispers his name along the swells of the southern plains, for he was a brave man, and no doubt he is now smoking with his great Manitou.“Well, he started. At that time the buffalo and the deer were plentiful, and the men went on their trail gaily till they reached the river of many forks (Trinity River), for they knew that every day brought them nearer and nearer to the forts of their people, though it was yet a long way—very long. The Pale-face chief had a son with him; a noble youth, fair to look upon, active and strong: the Comanches loved him. Mosh Kohta had advised him to distrust two of his own warriors; but he was young and generous, incapable of wrong or cowardice; he would not suspect it in others, especially among men of his own colour and nation, who had shared his toils, his dangers, his sorrows, and his joys.“Now these two warriors our great chief had spoken of were men and very greedy; they were ambitious too, and believed that, by killing their chief and his son, they would themselves command the hand. One evening, while they were all eating the meal of friendship, groans were heard—a murder had been committed. The other warriors sprang up; they saw their chief dead, and the two warriors coming towards them; their revenge was quick—quick as that of the panther: the two base warriors were killed.“Then there was a great fight among the Pale-face band, in which many were slain; but the young man and some other braves escaped from their enemies, and, after two moons, reached the Arkansas, where they found their friends and some Makota Conayas (priests—black-gowns). The remainder of the band who left us, and who murdered their chief, our ancestors destroyed like reptiles, for they were venomous and bad. The other half of the Pale-faces, who had remained behind in their wood wigwams, followed our tribe to our great villages, became Comanches, and took squaws. Their children and grandchildren have formed a good and brave nation; they are paler than the Comanches, but their heart is all the same; and often in the hunting-grounds they join our hunters, partake of the same meals, and agree like brothers. These are the nation of the Wakoes, not far in the south, upon the trail of the Cross Timbers. But who knows not the Wakoes?—even children can go to their hospitable lodges.”This episode is historical. In the early months of 1684, four vessels left La Rochelle, in France, for the colonisation of the Mississippi, bearing two hundred and eighty persons. The expedition was commanded by La Salle, who brought with him his nephew, Moranget. After a delay at Santo Domingo, which lasted two years, the expedition, missing the mouth of the Mississippi, entered the Bay of Matagorda, where they were shipwrecked. “There,” says Bancroft in his History of America, “under the suns of June, with timber felled in an inland grove, and dragged for a league over the prairie grass, the colonists prepared to build a shelter, La Salle being the architect, and himself making the beams, and tenons, and mortises.”This is the settlement which made Texas a part of Louisiana, La Salle proposed to seek the Mississippi in the canoes of the Indians, who had shewed themselves friendly, and, after an absence of about four months, and the loss of thirty men, he returned in rags, having failed to find “the fatal river.” The eloquent American historian gives him a noble character:— “On the return of La Salle,” says he, “he learned that a mutiny had broken out among his men, and they had destroyed a part of the colony’s provisions. Heaven and man seemed his enemies, and, with the giant energy of an indomitable will, having lost his hopes of fortune, his hopes of fame, with his colony diminished to about one hundred, among whom discontent had given birth to plans of crime—with no European nearer than the river Pamuco, and no French nearer than the northern shores of the Mississippi, he resolved to travel on foot to his countrymen in the North, and renew his attempts at colonisation.”It appears that La Salle left sixty men behind him, and on the 20th of March, 1686, after a buffalo-hunt, he was murdered by Duhaut and L’Archevêque, two adventurers, who had embarked their capital in the enterprise. They had long shewn a spirit of mutiny, and the malignity of disappointed avarice so maddened them that that they murdered their unfortunate commander.I will borrow a page of Bancroft, who is more explicit than the Comanche chroniclers.“Leaving sixty men at Fort St. Louis, in January, 1687, La Salle, with the other portion of his men, departed for Canada. Lading their baggage on the wild horses from the Cenis, which found their pasture everywhere in the prairies, in shoes made of green buffalo hides; for want of other paths, following the track of the buffalo, and using skins as the only shelter against rain, winning favour with the savages by the confiding courage of their leader—they ascended the streams towards the first ridges of highlands, walking through beautiful plains and groves, among deer and buffaloes,—now fording the clear rivulets, now building a bridge by felling a giant tree across a stream, till they had passed the basin of the Colorado, and in the upland country had reached a branch of the Trinity River.“In the little company of wanderers there were two men, Duhaut and L’Archevêque, who had embarked their capital in the enterprise. Of these, Duhaut had long shewn a spirit of mutiny; the base malignity of disappointed avarice, maddened by sufferings and impatient of control, awakened the fiercest passions of ungovernable hatred. Inviting Moranget to take charge of the fruits of a buffalo hunt, they quarrelled with him and murdered him.“Wondering at the delay of his nephew’s return, La Salle, on the 20th of March, went to seek him. At the brink of the river, he observed eagles hovering, as if over carrion, and he fired an alarm-gun. Warned by the sound, Duhaut and L’Archevêque crossed the river: the former skulked in the prairie grass; of the latter, La Salle asked, ‘Where is my nephew?’ At the moment of the answer, Duhaut fired; and, without uttering a word, La Salle fell dead. ‘You are down now, grand bashaw! You are down now:’ shouted one of the conspirators, as they despoiled his remains, which were left on the prairie, naked and without burial, to be devoured by wild beasts.“Such was the end of this daring adventurer. For force of will and vast conceptions; for various knowledge, and quick adaptation of his genius to untried circumstances; for a sublime magnanimity, that resigned itself to the will of Heaven, and yet triumphed over affliction by energy of purpose and unfaltering hope,—he had no superior among his countrymen. He had won the affection of the Governor of Canada, the esteem of Colbert, the confidence of Seignelay, the favour of Louis XIV. After beginning the colonisation of Upper Canada, he perfected the discovery of the Mississippi from the Falls of St. Anthony to its mouth; and he will be remembered through all times as the father of colonisation in the great central valley of the West.”Jontel, with the brother and son of La Salle, and others, but seven in all, obtained a guide from the Indians for the Arkansas, and, fording torrents, crossing ravines, making a ferry over rivers with rafts or boats of buffalo hides, without meeting the cheering custom of the calumet, till they reached the country above the Red River, and leaving an esteemed companion in a wilderness grave, on the 24th of July, came upon a branch of the Mississippi. There they beheld on an island a large cross: never did Christians gaze on that emblem with more deep-felt emotion. Near it stood a log hut, tenanted by two Frenchmen. A missionary, of the name of Tonti, had descended that river, and, full of grief at not finding La Salle, had established a post near the Arkansas.As the reader may perceive, there is not much difference between our printed records, and the traditions of the Comanches.

During my convalescence, my tent, or I should say, the lawn before it, became a kind of general divan, where the warrior and elders of the tribe would assemble, to smoke and relate the strange stories of days gone by. Some of them appeared to me particularly beautiful; I shall, therefore, narrate them to the reader. One old chief began as follows:—

“I will tell ye of the Shkote-nah Pishkuan, or the boat of fire, when I saw it for the first time. Since that, the grass has withered fifteen times in the prairies, and I have grown weak and old. Then I was a warrior, and many scalps have I taken on the eastern shores of the Sabine. Then, also, the Pale-faces, living in the prairies were good; we fought them because we were enemies, but they never stole anything from us, nor we from them.

“Well, at that time, we were once in the spring hunting the buffalo. The Caddoes, who are now a small tribe of starved dogs, were then a large powerful nation, extending from the Cross Timbers to the waters of the great stream, in the East, but they were gamblers and drunkards; they would sell all their furs for the ‘Shoba-wapo’ (fire-water), and return to their villages to poison their squaws, and make brutes of their children. Soon they got nothing more to sell; and as they could not now do without the ‘Shoba-wapo,’ they began to steal. They would steal the horses and oxen of the Pale-faces, and say ‘The Comanches did it.’ When they killed trappers or travellers, they would go to the fort of the Yankees and say to them, ‘Go to the wigwams of the Comanches, and you will see the scalps of your friends hanging upon long poles.’ But we did not care, for we knew it was not true.

“A long time passed away, when the evil spirit of the Caddoes whispered to them to come to the villages of the Comanches while they were hunting and to take away with them all that they could. They did so, entering the war-path as foxes and owls, during night. When they arrived, they found nothing but squaws, old women, and little children. Yet these fought well, and many of the Caddoes were killed before they abandoned their lodges. They soon found us out in the hunting-ground; and our great chief ordered me to start with five hundred warriors, and never return until the Caddoes should have no home, and wander like deer and starved wolves in the open prairie.

“I followed the track. First, I burnt their great villages in the Cross Timbers, and then pursued them in the swamps and cane-breaks of the East, where they concealed themselves among the long lizards of the water (the alligators). We, however, came up with them again, and they crossed the Sabine, to take shelter among the Yankees, where they had another village, which was their largest and their richest. We followed; and on the very shores of their river, although a thousand miles from our own country, and where the waters are dyed with the red clay of the soil, we encamped round their wigwams and prepared to conquer.

“It was at the gloomy season, when it rains night and day; the river was high, the earth damp, and our young braves shivering, even under their blankets. It was evening, when, far to the south, above one of the windings of the stream, I saw a thick black smoke rising as a tall pine among the clouds, and I watched it closely. It came towards us; and as the sky darkened and night came on, sparks of fire showed the progress of the strange sight. Soon noises were heard, like those of the mountains when the evil spirits are shaking them; the sounds were awful, solemn, and regular, like the throbs of a warrior’s heart; and now and then a sharp, shrill scream would rend the air and awake other terrible voices in the forest.

“It came, and deer, bears, panthers were passing among us madly flying before the dreaded unknown. It came, it flew, nearer and nearer, till we saw it plainly with its two big mouths, spitting fire like the burning mountains of the West. It rained very hard, and yet we saw all. It was like a long fish, shaped like a canoe, and its sides had many eyes, full of bright light as the stars above.

“I saw no one with the monster; he was alone, breaking the waters and splashing them with his arms, his legs, or his fins. On the top, and it was very high, there was a square lodge: Once I thought I could see a man in it, but it was a fancy; or perhaps the soul of the thing, watching from its hiding place for a prey which it might seize upon; happily it was dark, very dark, and being in a hollow along the banks, we could not be perceived; and the dreadful thing passed.

“The Caddoes uttered a loud scream of fear and agony; their hearts were melted. We said nothing, for we were Comanches and warriors; and yet I felt strange, and was fixed to where I stood. A man is but a man, and even a Red-skin cannot struggle with a spirit. The scream of the Caddoes, however, frightened the monster; its flanks opened and discharged some tremendous Anim Tekis (thunders) on the village. I heard the crashing of the logs, the splitting of the hides covering the lodges, and when the smoke was all gone, it left a smell of powder; the monster was far, far off, and there was no trace of it left, except the moans of the wounded and the lamentation of the squaws among the Caddoes.

“I and my young men soon recovered our senses; we entered the village, burnt every thing, and killed the warriors. They would not fight; but as they were thieves, we destroyed them. We returned to our own villages, every one of us with many scalps, and since that time the Caddoes have never been a nation; they wander from north to south, and from east to west: they have huts made with the bark of trees, or they take shelter in the burrows of the prairie dogs, with the owls and the snakes; but they have no lodges, no wigwams, no villages. Thus may it be with all the foes of our great nation.”

This is an historical fact. The steamboat “Beaver” made its first exploration upon the Red River, some eighty miles above the French settlement of Nachitochy, just at the very time that the Comanches were attacking the last Caddoe village upon the banks of the Red. River. These poor savages yelled with terror when the strange mass passed thus before them, and, either from wanton cruelty or from fear of an attack, the boat fired four guns, loaded with grape-shot, upon the village, from which they were not a hundred yards distant.

The following is a narrative of events which happened in the time of Mosh Kohta (buffalo), a great chief, hundreds of years ago, when the unfortunate “La Salle” was shipwrecked upon the coast of Texas, while endeavouring to discover the mouth of the Mississippi. Such records are very numerous among the great prairie tribes; they bear sometimes the Ossianic type, and are related every evening during the month of February, when the “Divines” and the elders of the nation teach to the young men the traditions of former days.

“It was in the time of a chief, a great chief, strong, cunning, and wise, a chief of many bold deeds. His name was Mosh Kohta.

“It is a long while! No Pale-faces dwelt in the land of plenty (the translation of the Indian word ‘Texas’); our grandfathers had just received it from the Great Spirit, and they had come from the setting of the sun across the big mountains to take possession. We were a great nation, we are so now, we have always been so, and we will ever be. At that time, also, our tribe spread all along the western shores of the great stream Mississippi, for no Pale-face had yet settled upon it. We were a great people, ruled by a mighty chief; the earth, the trees, the rivers, and the air know his name. Is there a place in the mountains or the prairies where the name of Mosh Kohta has not been pronounced and praised?

“At that time a strange warlike people of the Pale-faces broke their big canoes along our coasts of the South, and they landed on the shore, well armed with big guns and long rifles, but they had nothing to eat. These were the ‘Maha-mate-kosh-ehoj’ (the French); their chief was a good man, a warrior, and a great traveller; he had started from the northern territories of the Algonquins, to go across the salt water in far distant lands, and bring back with him many good things which the Red-skins wanted:— warm blankets to sleep upon, flints to strike a fire, axes to cut the trees, and knives to skin the bear and the buffalo. He was a good man and loved the Indians, for they also were good, and good people will always love each other.

“He met with Mosh Kohta; our warriors would not fight the strangers, for they were hungry and their voices were soft; they were also too few to be feared, though their courage seemed great under misfortune, and they would sing and laugh while they suffered. We gave them food, we helped them to take from the waters the planks of their big canoe, and to build the first wigwam in which the Pale-faces ever dwelt in Texas. Two moons they remained hunting the buffalo with our young men, till at last their chief and his bravest warriors started in some small canoes of ours, to see if they could not enter the great stream, by following the coast towards the sunrise. He was gone four moons, and when he returned, he had lost half of his men, by sickness, hunger, and fatigue; yet Mosh Kohta bade him not despair; the great chief promised the Pale-faces to conduct them in the spring to the great stream, and for several more moons we lived all together, as braves and brothers should. Then, for the first time also, the Comanches got some of their rifles, and others knives. Was it good—was it bad? Who knows? Yet the lance and arrows killed as many buffaloes as lead and black dust (powder), and the squaws could take off the skin of a deer or a beaver without knives. How they did it, no one knows now; but they did it, though they had not yet seen the keen and sharp knives of the Pale-faces.

“However, it was not long time before many of the strangers tired of remaining so far from their wigwams their chief every morning would look for hours towards the rising of the sun, as if the eyes of his soul could see through the immensity of the prairies; he became gloomy as a man of dark deeds (a Medecin), and one day, with half of his men, he began a long inland trail across prairies, swamps, and rivers, so much did he dread to die far from his lodge. Yet he did die: not of sickness, not of hunger, but under the knife of another Pale-face; and he was the first one from strange countries whose bones blanched without burial in the waste. Often the evening breeze whispers his name along the swells of the southern plains, for he was a brave man, and no doubt he is now smoking with his great Manitou.

“Well, he started. At that time the buffalo and the deer were plentiful, and the men went on their trail gaily till they reached the river of many forks (Trinity River), for they knew that every day brought them nearer and nearer to the forts of their people, though it was yet a long way—very long. The Pale-face chief had a son with him; a noble youth, fair to look upon, active and strong: the Comanches loved him. Mosh Kohta had advised him to distrust two of his own warriors; but he was young and generous, incapable of wrong or cowardice; he would not suspect it in others, especially among men of his own colour and nation, who had shared his toils, his dangers, his sorrows, and his joys.

“Now these two warriors our great chief had spoken of were men and very greedy; they were ambitious too, and believed that, by killing their chief and his son, they would themselves command the hand. One evening, while they were all eating the meal of friendship, groans were heard—a murder had been committed. The other warriors sprang up; they saw their chief dead, and the two warriors coming towards them; their revenge was quick—quick as that of the panther: the two base warriors were killed.

“Then there was a great fight among the Pale-face band, in which many were slain; but the young man and some other braves escaped from their enemies, and, after two moons, reached the Arkansas, where they found their friends and some Makota Conayas (priests—black-gowns). The remainder of the band who left us, and who murdered their chief, our ancestors destroyed like reptiles, for they were venomous and bad. The other half of the Pale-faces, who had remained behind in their wood wigwams, followed our tribe to our great villages, became Comanches, and took squaws. Their children and grandchildren have formed a good and brave nation; they are paler than the Comanches, but their heart is all the same; and often in the hunting-grounds they join our hunters, partake of the same meals, and agree like brothers. These are the nation of the Wakoes, not far in the south, upon the trail of the Cross Timbers. But who knows not the Wakoes?—even children can go to their hospitable lodges.”

This episode is historical. In the early months of 1684, four vessels left La Rochelle, in France, for the colonisation of the Mississippi, bearing two hundred and eighty persons. The expedition was commanded by La Salle, who brought with him his nephew, Moranget. After a delay at Santo Domingo, which lasted two years, the expedition, missing the mouth of the Mississippi, entered the Bay of Matagorda, where they were shipwrecked. “There,” says Bancroft in his History of America, “under the suns of June, with timber felled in an inland grove, and dragged for a league over the prairie grass, the colonists prepared to build a shelter, La Salle being the architect, and himself making the beams, and tenons, and mortises.”

This is the settlement which made Texas a part of Louisiana, La Salle proposed to seek the Mississippi in the canoes of the Indians, who had shewed themselves friendly, and, after an absence of about four months, and the loss of thirty men, he returned in rags, having failed to find “the fatal river.” The eloquent American historian gives him a noble character:— “On the return of La Salle,” says he, “he learned that a mutiny had broken out among his men, and they had destroyed a part of the colony’s provisions. Heaven and man seemed his enemies, and, with the giant energy of an indomitable will, having lost his hopes of fortune, his hopes of fame, with his colony diminished to about one hundred, among whom discontent had given birth to plans of crime—with no European nearer than the river Pamuco, and no French nearer than the northern shores of the Mississippi, he resolved to travel on foot to his countrymen in the North, and renew his attempts at colonisation.”

It appears that La Salle left sixty men behind him, and on the 20th of March, 1686, after a buffalo-hunt, he was murdered by Duhaut and L’Archevêque, two adventurers, who had embarked their capital in the enterprise. They had long shewn a spirit of mutiny, and the malignity of disappointed avarice so maddened them that that they murdered their unfortunate commander.

I will borrow a page of Bancroft, who is more explicit than the Comanche chroniclers.

“Leaving sixty men at Fort St. Louis, in January, 1687, La Salle, with the other portion of his men, departed for Canada. Lading their baggage on the wild horses from the Cenis, which found their pasture everywhere in the prairies, in shoes made of green buffalo hides; for want of other paths, following the track of the buffalo, and using skins as the only shelter against rain, winning favour with the savages by the confiding courage of their leader—they ascended the streams towards the first ridges of highlands, walking through beautiful plains and groves, among deer and buffaloes,—now fording the clear rivulets, now building a bridge by felling a giant tree across a stream, till they had passed the basin of the Colorado, and in the upland country had reached a branch of the Trinity River.

“In the little company of wanderers there were two men, Duhaut and L’Archevêque, who had embarked their capital in the enterprise. Of these, Duhaut had long shewn a spirit of mutiny; the base malignity of disappointed avarice, maddened by sufferings and impatient of control, awakened the fiercest passions of ungovernable hatred. Inviting Moranget to take charge of the fruits of a buffalo hunt, they quarrelled with him and murdered him.

“Wondering at the delay of his nephew’s return, La Salle, on the 20th of March, went to seek him. At the brink of the river, he observed eagles hovering, as if over carrion, and he fired an alarm-gun. Warned by the sound, Duhaut and L’Archevêque crossed the river: the former skulked in the prairie grass; of the latter, La Salle asked, ‘Where is my nephew?’ At the moment of the answer, Duhaut fired; and, without uttering a word, La Salle fell dead. ‘You are down now, grand bashaw! You are down now:’ shouted one of the conspirators, as they despoiled his remains, which were left on the prairie, naked and without burial, to be devoured by wild beasts.

“Such was the end of this daring adventurer. For force of will and vast conceptions; for various knowledge, and quick adaptation of his genius to untried circumstances; for a sublime magnanimity, that resigned itself to the will of Heaven, and yet triumphed over affliction by energy of purpose and unfaltering hope,—he had no superior among his countrymen. He had won the affection of the Governor of Canada, the esteem of Colbert, the confidence of Seignelay, the favour of Louis XIV. After beginning the colonisation of Upper Canada, he perfected the discovery of the Mississippi from the Falls of St. Anthony to its mouth; and he will be remembered through all times as the father of colonisation in the great central valley of the West.”

Jontel, with the brother and son of La Salle, and others, but seven in all, obtained a guide from the Indians for the Arkansas, and, fording torrents, crossing ravines, making a ferry over rivers with rafts or boats of buffalo hides, without meeting the cheering custom of the calumet, till they reached the country above the Red River, and leaving an esteemed companion in a wilderness grave, on the 24th of July, came upon a branch of the Mississippi. There they beheld on an island a large cross: never did Christians gaze on that emblem with more deep-felt emotion. Near it stood a log hut, tenanted by two Frenchmen. A missionary, of the name of Tonti, had descended that river, and, full of grief at not finding La Salle, had established a post near the Arkansas.

As the reader may perceive, there is not much difference between our printed records, and the traditions of the Comanches.

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