Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844

The daily and hourly dangers incurred by these trappers must, one would think, occasionally cause them to turn their thoughts to a Supreme Being; but such is not the case. Their rifle is their god – their knife their patron saint – their strong right hand their only trust. The trapper shuns his fellow-men; and the glance with which he measures the stranger whom he encounters on his path, is oftener that of a murderer than a friend: the love of gain is as strong with him as it is found to be in a civilized state of society, and the meeting of two trappers is generally the signal for the death of one of them. He hates his white competitor for the much-prized beaver skins far more than he does his Indian one: the latter he shoots down as coolly as if he were a wolf or a bear; but when he drives his knife into the breast of the former, it is with as much devilish joy as if he felt he were ridding mankind of as great an evil-doer as himself. The nourishment of the trapper, consisting for years together of buffalo's flesh – the strongest food that a man can eat – and taken without bread or any other accompaniment, doubtless contributes to render him wild and inhuman, and to assimilate him in a certain degree to the savage animals by which he is surrounded.

During an excursion that I made with some companions towards the upper part of the Red River, we met with several of these trappers; amongst others, with one weather-beaten old fellow, whose face and bare neck were tanned by sun and exposure to the colour of tortoise-shell. We hunted two days in his company, without noticing any thing remarkable about the man; he cooked our meals, which consisted usually of a haunch of venison or a buffalo's hump, instructed us where to find game, and was aware of the approach of the latter even sooner than his huge wolf-dog, which never left his side. It was only on the morning of the third day, that we discovered something calculated to diminish our confidence in our new comrade. This was a number of lines and crosses upon the butt of his rifle, which gave us a new and not very favourable insight into the man's character. These lines and crosses came after certain words rudely scratched with a knife-point, and formed a sort of list, of which the following is a copy: —

Buffaloes – no number given, they being probably too numerous.

Bears, nineteen – the number being indicated by nineteen strait strokes.

Wolves, thirteen – marked by oblique strokes.

Red underloppers, four – marked by four crosses.

White underloppers, two – noted by two stars.

Whilst we were examining this curious calendar, and puzzling ourselves to make out the meaning of the word "underloppers," I observed a grim smile stealing over the features of the old trapper. He said nothing, however; drew the buffalo's hump he was cooking from under the hot embers, took it out of the piece of hide in which it was wrapped, and placed it before us. It was a meal that a king might have envied, and the mere smell of it made us forget the rifle butt. We had scarcely fallen to, when the old man laid hold of his gun.

"Look ye," said he, with a strange grin. "It's my pocket-book. D'ye think it a sin to kill one of them red or white underloppers?"

"Whom do you mean?" asked we.

The man smiled again and rose to depart; his look, however, was alone enough to enlighten us as to who the two-legged interlopers were whom he had first shot, and then noted on his rifle-butt with as much cool indifference as if they had been wild turkeys instead of human beings. In a region to which the vengeful arm of the law does not reach, we did not feel ourselves called upon or entitled to set ourselves up as judges, and we let the man go.

These trappers occasionally, and at long intervals, return for a few days or weeks to the haunts of civilization; and this occurs when they have collected a sufficient quantity of beaver skins. They then fell a hollow tree that stands on the shore of some navigable stream, make it water-tight, launch it, load it with their merchandise and their few necessaries, and float and row for thousands of miles down the Missouri, Arkansas, or Red River, to St Louis, Natchitoches, or Alexandria. They may be seen roaming and staring about the streets of these towns, clad in their coats of skins, and astonishing strangers by their wild and primitive appearance.

I was sitting on a sofa in a corner of the ladies' cabin, with Louise by my side, and talking over with her these and other recollections of more or less interest. The tea hour was long past, and the cabins were lighted up. Suddenly we were interrupted in our conversation by a loud noise overhead.

"A nigger killed!" sang out somebody upon deck.

"A nigger killed!" repeated two, ten, twenty, and at length a hundred voices; and thereupon there was a running and trampling, and hurrying and scurrying, an agitation in our big floating inn as if the boilers were on the brink of bursting, and giving us a passage into eternity in the midst of their scalding contents. Louise started up, and dragging me with her, hurried breathless through the two saloons, to the stairs leading upon deck.

"Who is killed? Where is the poor negro?"

The answer I got was a horse-laugh from a score of backwoodsmen.

"Much noise about nothing, dear Louise."

And we were on the point of descending the stairs again, when we were detained, and our attention riveted, by the picturesque appearance of the deck – I should rather say of the persons grouped upon it – seen in the red, flickering, and uncertain light of sundry lamps, lanterns, and torches. Truly, the night-piece was not bad. In the centre of the steamer's deck, at an equal distance from stem and stern, stood a knot of fellows of such varied and characteristic appearance as might be sought for in vain in any other country than ours. It seemed as if all the western states and territories had sent their representatives to our steamer. Suckers from Illinois, and Badgers from the lead-mines of Missouri – Wolverines from Michigan, and Buckeyes from Ohio – Redhorses from old Kentuck, and Hunters from Oregon, stood mingled before us, clad in all sorts of fantastical and outlandish attire. One had a hunting-shirt of blue and white striped calico, which made its wearer's broad back and huge shoulders resemble a walking feather-bed; another was remarkable for a brilliant straw-hat – a New Orleans purchase, that looked about as well on his bronzed physiognomy as a Chinese roof would do on a pigsty. Wiñebago wampum belts and Cherokee mocassins, jerkins of tanned and untanned deer-hide, New York frock-coats, and red and blue jackets, composed some of the numerous costumes, of which the mixture and contrast were in the highest degree picturesque.

In the middle of this group stood a personage of a very different stamp – a most interesting specimen of the genus Yankee, contrasting in a striking manner with the rough-hewn sons of Anuk who surrounded him. He was a man of some thirty years of age, as dry and tough as leather, of grave and pedantic mien, the skin of his forehead twisted into innumerable small wrinkles, his lips pressed firmly together, his bright reddish-grey eyes apparently fixed, but, in reality, perpetually shifting their restless glances from the men by whom he was surrounded, to some chests that lay upon the deck before him, and again from the chests to the men; his whole lean, bony, angular figure in a position that made it difficult to conjecture whether he was going to pray, or to sing, or to preach a sermon. In one hand he held a roll of pigtail tobacco, in the other some bright-coloured ribands, which he had taken from an open chest containing the manifold articles constituting the usual stock in trade of a pedlar. Beside this chest were two others, and beside those lay a negro, howling frightfully, and rubbing alternately his right shoulder and his left foot; but nevertheless, according to all appearance, by no means in danger of taking his departure for the other world. As the Yankee pedlar raised his hand and signed to the vociferous blackamoor to be silent, the face of the former gradually assumed that droll, cunning, and yet earnest expression which betrays those double distilled Hebrews, when they are planning to get possession, in a quasi-legal manner, of the dollars of their fellow-citizens; in a word, when they are manœuvering to exchange their worthless northern wares for the sterling coin of the south. Presently his arms began to swing about like those of a telegraph; he threw a long and loving glance at the two unopened chests, which had apparently slipped down from the top of a quantity of merchandise piled upon deck, and fallen on the foot and shoulder of the negro; then measuring the latter with a look of reproach, he suddenly opened his compressed lips, from which a sharp, high-toned, schoolmasterlike voice issued.

"Sambo, Sambo! What have you done? Sambo, Sambo!" he repeated, while his voice became more solemn, and he raised his hands and eyes as if appealing to heaven for justice. "Sambo, you onlucky nigger, what have you been a doin'?"

"A 'sarve,' a wonderful 'sarve!'" screamed the man, pointing to the chests with an appearance of the profoundest grief.

"Heaven forgive you, Sambo! but you have endangered, perhaps sp'iled, a 'sarve,' compared to which all the 'intments and balms of Mecca, Medina, and Balsora – of Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli, or whatever other places they may come from, air actilly no better than cart-grease. Ah, Sambo! if you were twenty times a nigger, and could be brought twenty times on the auction table, you wouldn't fetch enough money to pay for the harm you have done!"

"Boe! Boe!" howled the negro by way of parenthesis.

"Ah, Boe! Boe!" screamed the Yankee, "you may well say Boe, Boe! And you ain't the only one as may say it, that's sartain. There be ladies and gentlemen here, as respectable ladies and gentlemen as can be found any where – ay, even to Boston, the cradle of our independence – and they might say Boe! Boe! if they knew all. In them two chests are a hundred tin boxes and glass phials; and if only twenty of them are damaged, there is more injury done than your hide could pay for, if it were twenty times as thick and twenty times as vallyable as it is. Your whole carcass ain't worth one of the boxes of that precious 'intment. Ah, Sambo!"

"Boe! Boe!" howled Sambo in reply.

"What's the palaver about?" growled some of the Badgers and Buckeyes; "open the chests, and you'll see what harm's done."

"D'ye ye hear, Sambo?" cried the Yankee with the same immovable countenance; "you're to hold yer tongue, the gentlemen say; they're tired of yer noise, and no wonder. What's the use of boohooin' away at that rate? Helps you nothin'; you desarve what you've got. I'll thank you for your long knife, Mister. That'll do. That opens it, cuts in like rael steel; better it should be into hard word than soft flesh. There they are, then, and not broken; onhurt, without a spot or a crack. Sing praises to the Lord! psalms and hymns of rejoicin' – not a phial broke, nor a box smashed! Praised be the Lord! I say ag'in. Since they are safe, it don't matter if twenty shoulder-blades and ankle-bones are put out. Verily the mercy of Heaven shall be made manifest, and that by the means of a feeble vessel, Jared Bundle by name. Down with ye, Sambo – down with ye, I say! – Your shoulder and your dingy hide shall be made whole, and your black bones shall be comforted!"

Not a muscle of the Yankee's face moved; he preserved the grave and solemn appearance of a man to whom a sacred trust has been confided, and who is fully penetrated with the importance of his mission. Once or twice, however, I observed him give a keen but almost imperceptible glance around him, as if to observe the effect of his eloquence upon his auditors.

"Down with you, Sambo!" he repeated to the negro, who had got himself into a sort of sitting posture upon the deck.

"Down, down!" cried the men of Kentucky.

"Down!" those of Missouri and Ohio.

"Be quick about it!" shouted an Illinois sucker.

"Let's see the Yankee's wonderful cure!" exclaimed a hunter from Oregon.

And amidst shouts and exclamations and laughter, poor Sambo was seized by half a dozen of their bear's fists, and stretched out upon a heap of coffee-bags like a pig that's going to be killed.

"Boe! Boe!" clamoured the negro at the top of his voice.

"Boohoo as much as you like," cried the Yankee in a shrill tone, that was heard above all the howlings of the unlucky Sambo. "You'll sing to another tune when you see and understand and feel what a Conne'ticut man can do. You say Boe, Boe! like a poor benighted crittur as you are, but what do you say to that?" cried the pedlar in a triumphant voice, as he held close to the negro's nose a piece of linen rag on which he had smeared a green greasy substance bearing a strong resemblance to paste-blacking in a state of decomposition. Then, taking up the box which contained this precious compound, he put it in close proximity to the obtuse snout of the blackamoor, who made a grimace as if his olfactories were but moderately regaled by the odour emanating from the miraculous ointment.

"What d'ye think of that, Sambo? Is that the stuff or not? Will that do, think ye? Well, you shall soon see. Gentlemen!" he continued, with all the gravity of a legitimate M.D. "Gentlemen! the arms and legs of this poor Sambo must be stretched as much as possible, in order that the sarve may take its full effect. Will you be good enough to assist me?"

Upon the word, the backwoodsmen caught hold of the negro's limbs, and began pulling and tugging at them till the poor devil roared as if they had been impaling him.

"Boohoo away!" cried the Yankee. "It's all for your good. If your shoulder is put out, the stretchin' will put it in ag'in."

The negro continued his lamentations, as well he might, when every one of his joints was cracking under the force applied.

"All no use your callin' out!" screamed the pedlar, as he stuck the salved rag upon the ebony hide of the patient. "Better hold yer tongue. Ain't you lucky to have met with me at a time when all the doctors in the world – the Browns, and Hossacks, and Sillimans – could not have done you a cent's worth of good? All their drugs would have had no more effect than a ladleful of pea-soup. You ought to be rejoicin' in yer luck, instead of screamin' like a wounded catamount. Keep still, will you? There, that'll do. Many thanks, gentlemen; I thank you in the name of this senseless crittur. That's enough. No cause for complaint, man!" continued he, as he stuck a second plaster on the negro's foot. "All safe enough when Jared Bundle is there with his Palmyra sarve. You be the first as was ever know'd to scream after havin' one smell of that precious 'intment. And I tell you what it is, my man, if both your black legs had been broken clean off, and were swimmin' down the Mississippi half rotten – ay, or if they had just come out of the jaws of an alligator, and you were to stick 'em on, and plaster them up with this 'intment, you may take my word, Jared Bundle's word, that they'd grow to your body again – the flesh would become your flesh, and the bone your bone, as sure as I am now here." And he looked round at his auditors with a world of confidence and veracity depicted upon his countenance.

"There was Aby Sparks to Penobscot – you know, ladies and gentlemen, Aby Sparks, the son of Enoch Sparks, who married Peggy Heath. Good family the Sparkses – very good family, as you know, ladies and gentlemen. Respectable people in a respectable way of business, the general line – drugs and cutlery, and hats patent waterproof, bird-seed and jewellery, tea and coffee pots, and shoes of the newest fashion. Ladies and gentlemen, do you want a good tea or coffee pot? Partiklar jam, they are, I reckon. Well, Aby Sparks said to me, 'Jared Bundle,' says he, 'leave me a dozen boxes or phials, whichever you like, of your Palmyra sarve. Wonderful stuff that!' says he. 'What!' says I, 'leave you some of my Palmyra sarve! You're jist right to say it ain't common apothecaries' stuff; that it certainly ain't. But what would the ladies and gentlemen on the lower Mississippi say, if I left any of it here? It's all meant for them,' says I; 'they're my best customers.'"

"Soft sawder! Jared Bundle," grunted a Kentuckian.

"Cart grease and cobbler's wax," said a man of Illinois.

"He's from the north," laughed a third, "where there's more wooden clocks than cows and calves."

"Where the grasshoppers break their legs in jumpin' from one potato heap to another," interposed a fourth.

"Where the robins starve in harvest time, and the mockin'-bird is too hungry to mock," cried a fifth.

"Nothin' in the world like Jared Bundle's 'intment," continued the imperturbable Yankee. "Finest thing possible for corns. Ain't genteel to talk of such things, ladies and gentlemen; but if any of you have got corns, rub 'em just two or three times with the Palmyra sarve, and they'll disappear like snow in sunshine. Worth any money against tan and freckles. You, miss," cried he to Louise, "you ain't got any freckles, but you may very likely git 'em. A plaster on each cheek afore you go to bed – git up in the mornin', not a freckle left – all lilies and roses!"

"Hold your impudent tongue!" said I, "or I will plaster you."

"We're in a free country," was the answer; "free to sell and free to buy. Gentlemen," continued Mr Bundle, "famous stuff for razor-strops. Rub a little on, draw the razor a couple of times over it – shave. Razor runs over the face like a steam-carriage along a railroad, you don't know how; beard disappears like grass before the sickle, or a regiment of Britishers before Yankee rifles. Great vartue in the sarve – uncommon vartue! Ma'am!" cried he to a lady who, like ourselves, was looking on from a short distance at this farcical scene, "Ma'am!"

I looked round at the lady. "Bless my soul! Mrs Dobleton and the Misses Dobleton from Concordia, my neighbours on the Mississippi. Delighted to see you, Mrs Dobleton; allow me the honour of introducing my wife to you."

Our greetings and compliments were drowned by the piercing voice of the indefatigable Yankee.

"Ma'am!" cried he, with a box of ointment in each hand, "Ma'am! the finest cure in the world for toothach. If teeth are good, it keeps 'em so; if bad, it makes 'em sound and white as ivory. A small bit on the point of a knife between the teeth and the gum – acts like a charm. Young ladies! a capital remedy for narrow chests."

The skinny Miss Dobletons turned green with vexation.

"Incomparable remedy!" continued Jared; "rub it well in on the part affected, and in a short time the most contracted chest becomes as wide as that of Mrs Broadbosom to Charleston. Fine thing for lockjaw, ma'am!" cried he to a Mrs Bodwell who was standing by, and amongst whose good qualities that of silence was not considered to hold a conspicuous place; "a famous cure for lockjaw, from whatever cause it may come on. There was Miss Trowlop – she had a very handsum' mouth and a considerable gift of the gab – was goin' to be married to Mr Shaver, run a hickory splinter through her prunella shoe into her foot – jaw locked as fast as old Ebenezer Gripeall's iron safe. If she'd a-had my Palmyra sarve she'd be still alive, Mrs Shaver, now; 'stead of that, the land-crabs have eaten her. Another example, ladies: Sally Brags, Miss Sally Brags to Portsmouth. You know Portsmouth, Providence, where the pretty gals grow; some folk do say they're prettier to Baltimore – won't say they ain't – matter of taste, pure matter of taste; but Miss Sally Brags, ladies, had the lockjaw – couldn't say a word; took a box of my Palmyra sarve – ladies, two dollars a box by retail – her tongue now goes clap-clap-clap like any steam-mill. Famous cure for lockjaw!"

During this unceasing flow of words, the Yankee had found the time to drive a capital trade; his merchandise of all kinds was rapidly disappearing, and the more the backwoodsmen laughed, the faster flowed the dollars into the pedlar's pouch. It was most diverting to observe the looks of the purchasers of the Palmyra ointment, as they first smelled at it and then shook their heads, as if in doubt whether they were not duped.

"Wonderful stuff!" cried the Yankee with imperturbable gravity, and as if to reassure them. "And capital coffee-pots," continued he to a leather-jerkined Missouri man, who had taken up one of the latter and was examining it. "I'll warrant 'em of the best description, and no mistake. Wonderful stuff this Palmyra sarve, came direct from Moscow, where the Archbishop of Abyssinia had brought it, but, havin' got into debt, he was obliged to sell off; and from Moscow, which, as you all know, is a great seaport, it passed into the hands of the Grand Duke of Teheran or Tombuctoo, who lives somewhere about the Cape of Good Hope. From there it came to Boston in the brig Sarah, Captain Larks. I was one of the first to go on board, and as soon as I smelled to it, I knew directly what time o' day it was – where the wind blew from, as I may say. Ladies, here you have the means of preservin' your health and your beauty for the longest day you live, and all for two dollars – only two dollars a box. In short, ladies and gentlemen," concluded the persevering fellow sententiously, "you have my warranty that this sarve heals all curable diseases; and if it be true, as the famous Doctor Flathead says, that there be only two sorts of maladies – them of which people die, and them of which they get well – you must see how important it is to have a box of the Palmyra 'intment. Best of all sarves, ladies! two dollars a box, ladies!

"Ladies and gentlemen," resumed Mr Bundle after a brief pause, "d'ye want any other articles – silks, linen, calicoes, fine spices, nutmegs? None of your walnut-wood nutmegs, but ginuine Boston goods, out of the most respectable stores. Ah! ladies and gentlemen, Jared Bundle's tea and coffee pots – let me recommend 'em to you. The metal is of a particular sort, corrects the oily matter contained in the tea, which the doctors say is no better than so much p'ison. Should be sorry for you to suppose I was instigated by love of gain – filthy lucre, ladies; but think of your vallyable health – your precious health – and buy my teapots; two dollars twenty-five cents a-piece. Yes, ma'am," continued he, turning to one of the negresses who were crawling, and grinning, and gaping around his wares, "beautiful Lyons ribands, and Bengal neck-handkerchiefs direct from Calcutta; lovely things them handkerchiefs, and the ribands too, partic'lerly the broad ones – quarter of a dollar a yard. Four yards did you say, ma'am? Better go the entire figur' – take eight, and you'll have twice as much. Now, ladies and gentlemen, to return to the teapots" —

"The teapots!" cried several voices a short distance off. "Hurra! Jared Bundle's teapots! Look here at the Yankee teapots!"

At the same moment the steward of the steamer made his appearance upon the field of Mr Bundle's operations, escorted by half a dozen of the backwoodsmen, and stepping into the torchlight, held up the very coffee-pot which the shameless Yankee had sold to the leather-jacketed man of Missouri. The pot had been filled with boiling water, which was now oozing out comfortably and deliberately at every side and corner of the vessel. For one moment the spectators stared in mute astonishment; but then the discovery of the Yankee's cheatery drew from them a peal of laughter which seemed likely to be inextinguishable.

"Jared Bundle! What do you say to that? Jared Bundle's teapots! A hurra for Jared Bundle and the Yankee teapots!"

The immovable pedlar was by no means put out of countenance by this discovery. While the backwoodsmen were having their laugh out, he took hold of the teapot, examined it deliberately on all sides, at front and back, inside and out, and then shook his head gravely. When the laughers had exhausted their uproariousness, he cleared his throat, and resumed.

"Ah, gentlemen! or rather ladies and gentlemen! in our happy land of freedom and enlightenment, the most enlightened country in the world, no one, I am sure, will refuse to hear the poor pedlar's explanation of this singular circumstance. I know you are all most desirous of havin' it explained, and explain it I can and will. I am sorry to say there are gentlemen who sell teapots for the southern states which are only meant for the northern ones, and others who sell for the north what is meant for the south. That's how I've been deceived in these teapots, which come from the store of the highly respectable Messrs Knockdown. They are for northern consumption, gentlemen, without the smallest doubt, and you know that many teapots will support the cold of the north, but are worth nothin' when they git into a southern climate. It's oncommon hot, you see, down hereaway on the Mississippi, and I reckon that's the reason that you southern gentlemen are sich an almighty b'ilin' up people, who take a gougin' to your breakfast as we should a mackerel. I'm a'most inclined to think, too, that you bile your water a deal too hot, which our northern tea and coffee pots ain't used to, and can't stand nohow."