第119章 Irving’s Bonneville - Chapter 41(6)

throughout the night, taking turns to watch and steer. The deep stillness of the night wasoccasionally interrupted by the neighing of the elk, the hoarse lowing of the buffalo, the hootingof

large owls, and the screeching of the small ones, now and then the splash of a beaver, or thegonglike

sound of the swan.

Part of their voyage was extremely tempestuous; with high winds, tremendous thunder, andsoaking

rain; and they were repeatedly in extreme danger from drift-wood and sunken trees. On oneoccasion, having continued to float at night, after the moon was down, they ran under a greatsnag,

or sunken tree, with dry branches above the water. These caught the mast, while the boat swunground, broadside to the stream, and began to fill with water. Nothing saved her from total wreck,but

cutting away the mast. She then drove down the stream, but left one of the unlucky half-breedsclinging to the snag, like a monkey to a pole. It was necessary to run in shore, toil up,laboriously,

along the eddies and to attain some distance above the snag, when they launched forth again intothe

stream and floated down with it to his rescue.

We forbear to detail all the circumstances and adventures of upward of a months voyage,down the

windings and doublings of this vast river; in the course of which they stopped occasionally at apost

of one of the rival fur companies, or at a government agency for an Indian tribe. Neither shall wedwell upon the changes of climate and productions, as the voyagers swept down from north tosouth,

across several degrees of latitude; arriving at the regions of oaks and sycamores; of mulberry andbasswood trees; of paroquets and wild turkeys. This is one of the characteristics of the middleand

lower part of the Missouri; but still more so of the Mississippi, whose rapid current traverses asuccession of latitudes so as in a few days to float the voyager almost from the frozen regions tothe

tropics.

The voyage of Wyeth shows the regular and unobstructed flow of the rivers, on the east sideof the

Rocky Mountains, in contrast to those of the western side; where rocks and rapids continuallymenace and obstruct the voyager. We find him in a frail bark of skins, launching himself in astream

at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, and floating down from river to river, as they emptythemselves

into each other; and so he might have kept on upward of two thousand miles, until his little barkshould drift into the ocean. At present we shall stop with him at Cantonment Leavenworth, thefrontier post of the United States; where he arrived on the 27th of September.

Here his first care was to have his Nez Perce Indian, and his half-breed boy, Baptiste,vaccinated.

As they approached the fort, they were hailed by the sentinel. The sight of a soldier in full array,with

what appeared to be a long knife glittering on the end of a musket, struck Baptiste with suchaffright

that he took to his heels, bawling for mercy at the top of his voice. The Nez Perce would havefollowed him, had not Wyeth assured him of his safety. When they underwent the operation ofthe

lancet, the doctor's wife and another lady were present; both beautiful women. They were thefirst

white women that they had seen, and they could not keep their eyes off of them. On returning tothe

boat, they recounted to their companions all that they had observed at the fort; but wereespecially

eloquent about the white squaws, who, they said, were white as snow, and more beautiful thanany

human being they had ever beheld.

We shall not accompany the captain any further in his Voyage; but will simply state that hemade

his way to Boston, where he succeeded in organizing an association under the name of "TheColumbia River Fishing and Trading Company," for his original objects of a salmon fishery anda

trade in furs. A brig, the May Dacres, had been dispatched for the Columbia withsupplies; and he

was now on his way to the same point, at the head of sixty men, whom he had enlisted at St.

Louis;

some of whom were experienced hunters, and all more habituated to the life of the wildernessthan

his first band of "down-easters."

We will now return to Captain Bonneville and his party, whom we left, making up theirpacks and

saddling their horses, in Bear River Valley. [Return to Contents].