Farnham's Travels in the Great Western Prairies, etc., May 21-October 16, 1839, part 1

My worthy old guide, Kelly, had often seen these medicine lodges. He informed me that many of the votive offerings, before mentioned, are permitted to decay with the lodge in which they are hung; that the penalty to any mortal who should dare appropriate them to his use was death. A certain white man, however, who had been robbed of his blanket at the setting in of winter, came upon one of these sacred lodges, erected by the young Arrapahoes which contained, among other things, a blanket that seemed well calculated to shield him from the cold. He spread it over his shivering frame, and very unadvisedly went into the Arrapahoe village. The Indians knew the sacred deposit, held a council, called the culprit before them, and demanded why he had stolen from the Great Spirit? In exculpation, he stated that he had been robbed; that the Great Spirit saw him naked in the wintry wind; pitied him; showed him the sacred lodge, and bade him take the blanket. "That seems to be well," said the principal chief to his fellow-counsellors. "The Great Spirit has an undoubted right to give away his own property;" and the trader was released.

Among the several personages whom I chanced to meet at Brown's Hole, was an old Snake Indian, who saw Messrs. Lewis and Clark on the head-waters of the Missouri in 1805. He is the individual of his tribe, who first saw the explorers' cavalcade. He appears to have been galloping from place to place in the office of sentinel to the Shoshonie camp, when he suddenly found himself in the very presence of the whites. Astonishment fixed him to the spot. Men with faces pale as ashes, had never been seen by himself or nation. "The head rose high and round, the top flat; it jutted over the eyes in a thin rim; their skin was loose and flowing, and of various colours." His fears at length overcoming his curiosity, he fled in the direction of the Indian encampment; but being seen by the whites, they pursued and brought him to their camp; exhibited to him the effects of their fire-arms, loaded him with presents, and let him go. Having arrived among his own people, he told them he had seen men with faces pale as ashes, who were makers of thunder, lightning, etc. This information astounded the whole tribe. They had lived many years, and their ancestors had lived many more, and there were many legends which spoke of many wonderful things; but a tale like this they never had heard.

A council was, therefore, assembled to consider the matter. The man of strange words was summoned before it, and he rehearsed, in substance, what he had before told to others, but was not believed. "All men were red, and therefore he could not have seen men as pale as ashes." "The Great Spirit made the thunder and the lightning; he therefore could not have seen men of any colour that could produce these. He had seen nothing; he had lied to his chief, and should die."

At this stage of the proceedings, the culprit produced some of the presents which he had received from the pale men. These being quite as new to them as pale faces were, it was determined "that he should have the privilege of leading his judges to the place where he declared he had seen these strange people; and if such were found there, he should be exculpated; if not, these presents were to be considered as conclusive evidence against him, that he dealt with evil spirits, and that he was worthy of death by the arrows of his kinsfolks." The pale men, the thunder-makers, were found, and were witnesses of the poor fellow's story. He was released; and has ever since been much honoured and loved by his tribe, and every white man in the mountains.163 He is now about eighty years old, and poor. But as he is always about Fort David Crockett, he is never permitted to want.

CHAPTER VII [II]

An Arrival from Fort Hall – An Account from Oregon – Return of two of my companions to the States – A startling Condition – An Indian Guide – A Farewell – How a Horse studies Geology – A Camp – Dog Mutton superseded – A Scene – Sheetskadee – Butes – Desolation – Midnight Scene in the Mountains – Indian Jim and the Buffalo – Hungry Stomachs – A fat Shot – Fine Eyesight – An old Trapper picked up – Beautiful Desert – "Hos, Hos" – Meek the Bear Killer – A wild Vale – Steamboat Spring – Natural Soda Fountains – Neighbouring Landscape – A hard Drive – Valley of Chasm – Nature's Vase – A heavy March – Passing the Mountains – A charming Gorge – Entrance into Oregon – The South Branch of the Columbia – Fort Hall and its Hospitalities.

17th. An event of great interest occurred this day. It was the arrival of Paul Richardson and three of his companions from Fort Hall. This old Yankee woodsman had been upon one of his favourite summer trips from St. Louis to the borders of Oregon. He had acted as guide and hunter to a party of missionaries to the Oregon Indians. Several other persons from the western states had accompanied them: one with the lofty intention of conquering California; and others with the intention of trading, farming, &c., on the lower Columbia; and others to explore the Rocky Mountains, and the wonders of nature along the shores of the Pacific.164 The events of their tour were freely discussed. They had storms of hail and human wrath. The conqueror of California had been disposed to act the general before he had received his epaulettes; had proved to be so troublesome that he was expelled from camp a short distance from the frontier, and obliged to ride, sleep, and eat, at a comfortable distance from his companions, during the remainder of the journey.

The missionaries, too, Messrs. Monger and Griffith,165 and their ladies, had had causes of irritability; so that between all the conflicting feelings and opinions of the party, their little camp, it was said, was frequently full of trouble. Oregon also came under discussion. Mr. Richardson had travelled over the territory; knew it well; it was not so productive as New England; fifteen bushels of wheat to the acre was an extraordinary crop; corn and potatoes did not yield the seed planted; rain fell incessantly five months of the year; the remainder was unblessed even with dew; the Indians and whites residing there had the fever and ague, or bilious fever, the year through; that what little of human life was left by these causes of destruction, was consumed by musquitoes and fleas; that the Columbia river was unfit for navigation – fit only for an Indian fish-pond. Such a description of Oregon (the part of the American domain represented by traders, trappers, and travellers, as most delightful, beautiful, and productive) was astonishing, unlooked-for, and discouraging. And did I not recollect that Mr. Richardson had reasons for desiring to increase the strength of his party through the dangerous plains towards the States, I should, after having seen Oregon, be at a loss to divine the purpose of such a representation of it.

18th. Mr. Richardson's description of Oregon had the effect of drawing off two of my companions. They had no evidence to oppose to his account; he had resided two years in the Territory, and on the knowledge acquired by that means, had represented it to be in no sense a desirable place of abode. They therefore forsook the chase after a desert, and joined him for the green glades of the valley States. On the morning of the 18th, they left me. It was the most disheartening event which had befallen me on the journey. Oakley and Wood had stood by me in the trials and storms of the plains; had evinced a firmness of purpose equal to every emergency that had occurred, were men on whom reliance could be placed; humane men, always ready to do their duty promptly and cheerfully. It was painful therefore to part with them at a time when their services were most needed. Alone in the heart of the Rocky Mountains, a traveller through the range of the Blackfeet war parties, in bad health, no men save poor old Blair, and the worse than useless vagabond Smith, alias Carroll, to aid me in resisting these savages: I felt alone.

I was indeed kindly offered quarters for the winter at Brown's Hole; but if I accepted them, I should find it impossible to return to the States the next year. I determined therefore to reach the Columbia river that season, be the risk and manner what it might. Accordingly I engaged a Snake Indian, whom the whites called "Jim," to pilot me to Fort Hall, the march to commence on the morning of the 19th – distance two hundred miles, compensation fifty loads of ammunition, and three bunches of beads.

There is in this valley, and in some other parts of the mountains, a fruit called bulberry.166 It is the most delightful acid in the vegetable kingdom; of the size of the common red currant, with larger seeds than are found in that fruit; colour deep red. It grows upon bushes eight or ten feet high, which in general appearance resemble a young beech tree. Of these berries I obtained a small quantity, had a dog butchered, took a pound or two of dried buffalo meat which Mr. St. Clair kindly gave me, purchased a horse of Mr. Robinson for the use of Blair, and on the morning of the 19th of August left the hospitalities of Fort David Crockett for the dreary waste and starving plains between it and Fort Hall. Blair, Smith, and my guide Jim, constituted my whole force. Numerous war-parties of Blackfeet and Sioux were hovering over my trail. If discovered by them, death was certain; if not, and starvation did not assail us, we might reach the waters of Snake river. At all events the trial was to be made; and at ten o'clock, A. M., we were winding our way up the Sheetskadee.

Of the regrets at leaving this beautiful little valley, there was no one that I remember more vividly than that of parting with my old guide. Kelly was a man of many excellent qualities. He was brave without ostentation, kind without making you feel an obligation; and preferred on all occasions the happiness of others to his own ease or safety. The river during the twelve miles' travel of the day, appeared to be about one hundred yards wide, a rapid current two feet deep, water limpid. The mountains on either side rose half a mile from the river in dark stratified masses, one thousand feet above the level of the stream. On their sides were a few shrub cedars. The lower hills were covered with the hated wild wormwood and prickly pear. The banks were of white clay, alternated with the loose light coloured sandy soil of the mountain districts. The rocks were quartz, red sand-stone, and limestone. Our camp was pitched at night on the high bank of the stream among the bushes; and a supper of stewed dog-meat prepared us for sleep.

20th. At seven o'clock in the morning we had breakfasted and were on our way. We travelled three miles up the east bank of the river, and came to a mountain, through which it broke its way with a noise which indicated the fall to be great, and the channel to be a deep rugged chasm.167 Near the place where it leaves the chasm, we turned to the right, and followed up a rough, deep gorge, the distance of five miles, and emerged into a plain. This gorge had been formed by the action of a tributary of Green River, upon the soft red sand-stone that formed the precipices around. It winds in the distance of five miles to every point of the compass. Along much of its course also the cliffs hang over the stream in such a manner as to render it impossible to travel the water-side. Hence the necessity, in ascending the gorge, of clambering over immense precipices, along brinks of yawning caverns, on paths twelve or fourteen inches in width, with not a bush to cling to in the event of a false step. And yet our Indian horses were so well used to passes of the kind, that they travelled them without fear or accident till the worst were behind us.

How delusive the past as a test of the future! I was felicitating myself upon our good fortune, as the caravan wound its way slowly over a sharp cliff before me, when the shout from the men in advance, "Well done, Puebla," made me hasten to the top of the ridge. My Puebla mare had left the track. Instead of following a wide, well-beaten way down the mountain, she in her wisdom had chosen to tread the shelf of a cliff, which, wide at the place where it sprang from the pathway, gradually became narrower, till it was lost in the perpendicular face of the mountain. She was under a high bulky back at the time, and before she had quite explored the nethermost inch of the interesting stratum which she was disposed to trace to its lowest dip, the centre of gravity was suddenly thrown without the base, and over she reeled, and fell ten or twelve feet among broken rocks, then rolled and tumbled six hundred feet more of short perpendicular descents and inclined plains, into the stream below. On descending and examining her, I found her horribly mangled, the blood running from the nostrils, ears, and other parts of the body. As it was apparent she would soon die, I stripped her of her packs and gear, drove her to a plat of grass where she could find food, should she need it, and left her to her fate.

This accident being disposed of, we emerged from this gorge, travelled over barren gravelly plains, dotted with pyramidal hills of the same material, whose sides were belted with strata of coarse grey sand-stone. About four o'clock P. M., Jim halted beside a little brook, and pointing ahead, said, "Wat, ugh, u – gh;" by which I understood that the next water on our way was too far distant to be reached that night; and we encamped. The scenery to the west was very beautiful. A hundred rods from our camp, in that direction, rose an apparently perfect pyramid of regular stratified black rocks, about six hundred feet in height, with a basilar diameter of about eight hundred feet, and partially covered with bushes. Beyond it, some five hundred yards, crept away a circling ridge of the same kind of rocks, leaving a beautiful lawn between. And still beyond, sixty miles to the south-west, through a break in the hills that lay in clusters over the intervening country, a portion of the Anahuac range was seen, sweeping away in the direction of the Great Salt Lake.

Jim had turned his horse loose as soon as he saw we were disposed to encamp according to his wishes, and was away with his rifle to the hills. In an instant he was on their heights, creeping stealthily among the bushes and rocks; and the crack of his rifle, and the tumbling of some kind of game over the cliffs, immediately succeeded. More nimble and sure of step than the mountain goat, he sprang down again from cliff to cliff, reached the plain, and the next moment was in camp, crying "hos, ugh, yes." I sent my horse and brought in his game; a noble buck antelope, of about forty pounds weight. In consequence of this windfall, our dog meat was thrown among the willows for the behoof of the wolves. My guide, poor fellow, had eaten nothing since we left the Fort. His tribe have a superstition of some kind which forbids them the use of such meat. A dog-eater is a term of reproach among them. If one of their number incurs the displeasure of another, he is called "Arrapahoe," the name of the tribe previously described, who fatten these animals for some great annual feast. Jim's creed, however, raised no objections to the flesh of the antelope. He ate enormously, washed himself neatly, combed his long dark hair, pulled out his beard with his right thumb and left forefinger nails, and "turned in."

21st. Twenty miles to-day. The ride of the forenoon was over plains and hills of coarse gravel, destitute of grass, timber, or brush, the everywhere present wild wormwood excepted; that of the afternoon was among broken hills, alternately of gravel and brown sand, here and there dotted with a tuft of bunch grass. From some few of the hills protruded strata of beautiful slate. The bottom lands of the river, even, were as barren as Sahara. The only living things seen, were the small prairie wolf, and flocks of magpie. This bird inhabits the most dreary portions of the mountains, and seems to delight in making the parched and silent deserts more lonely by its ominous croak of welcome to its desolate habitation.

The raven indeed was about us, throwing his funeral wing upon the light of the setting sun. In fine, to-day, as often before, I found nothing in nature from which to derive a single pulse of pleasure, save the vastness of desolate wastes, the tombs of the washing of the flood! Towards night, however, we were gratified by finding a few decrepid old cotton-wood trees, on the bank of the Sheetskadee, among which to encamp. Our horses having had little food for the last forty-eight hours, devoured with eager appetite the dry grass along the banks. Since leaving Brown's Hole, our course had been nearly due north.

22nd. Travelled up Green River about three miles, crossed it three times, and took to the hills on its western side. The course of the river, as far as seen in this valley, is nearly south; the bottom and banks generally of gravel; the face of the country a dry, barren, undulating plain.168 Our course, after leaving the river, was north-west by north. About two o'clock, we struck Ham's Fork, a tributary of Green River, and encamped near the water-side.169 This stream probably pours down immense bodies of water when the snow melts upon the neighbouring highlands; for its channel, at the place where we struck it, was half a mile in width, and two hundred feet deep. Very little water is said to run in it during July, August and September. The current was three or four inches in depth, a rod wide, and sluggish. Three butes appeared in the north-east, about twelve o'clock, fifteen miles distant. One of them resembled a vast church, surmounted by a perpendicular shaft of rock, probably three hundred feet in height. The swelling base resembled in colour the sands of this region. The rock shaft was dark, probably basalt.

By the side of this, springing immediately from the plain, rose another shaft of rock, about one hundred and fifty feet high, of regular outline, and about fifteen feet in diameter. Seven or eight miles to the north, rose another bute, a perpendicular shaft, fifty or sixty feet in height, resting upon a base of hills which rise about three hundred feet above the plain. Beyond these butes, to the east, the country seemed to be an open plain. To the south of them extends a range of dark mountains, reaching far into the dimly-discerned neighbourhood of Long's Peak.170 The whole circle of vision presented no other means of life for man or beast than a few small patches of dry grass, and the water of the stream. Many of the sandy bluffs were covered with the prickly pear and wild wormwood. Generally, however, nothing green, nothing but the burnt, unproductive waste appeared, which no art of man can reclaim. Yet far in the north, the snowy peaks of Wind River Mountains, and to the south-west, a portion of the Anahuac ridge indicated that it might be possible to find along the borders of this great grave of vegetation, green vales and purling brooks to alleviate the desolation of the scene.

We travelled fifteen miles to-day, and encamped upon the bank of the stream; cooked supper, and wrapping ourselves in our blankets, with saddles for pillows, and curtained by the starry firmament, slept sweetly among the overhanging willows. Near midnight, the light of the moon aroused me. It was a lovely night. The stars seemed smaller than they do in less elevated situations, but not less beautiful. For, although they are not so brilliant, they burn steadily, brightly on the hours of night in these magnificent wastes. It was midnight. The wolves are correct time-keepers.

I had scarcely viewed the delightful scene around me, when these sleepless sentinels of the deserts raised their midnight howl. It rung along the chambers of the mountains, was, at intervals, taken up by kennel after kennel, till, in the deep and distant vales, it yielded again to the all-pervading silence of night. This is one of the habits that instinct has taught their race. As soon as the first light of morning appears in the east, they raise a reveille howl in the prairies of the Western States which, keeping company with the hours, swells along the vast plains from Texas to the sources of the Mississippi, and from Missouri to the depths of the Rocky Mountains. All day they lurk in silence. At midnight, another howl awakens the sleeping wilderness – more horrible and prolonged; and it is remarkable with what exactness they hit the hour.

23rd. We were up this morning before the light; and while the sun rose in the Great Gap, mounted our jaded horses for the day's ride. As we moved onward upon the elevated bluffs which border the river, the light of the morning showed the butes clearly on the eastern horizon. Jim paid little regard to the course of the stream to-day; but struck a bee line for some object, unseen by us, across the hills – at times among wild wormwood, at others among sharp, flinty stones, so thickly laid over the ground that none but an Indian horse would travel over them. We occasionally approached the stream, and were gratified with the appearance of a few solitary old cotton-wood trees on its banks. A poor, stinted shrub willow, too, made great effort here and there to prolong existence, but with little success. Even in one little nook, the wild rose, currant, and bulberry bushes had the effrontery to bear leaves.

About four o'clock, P. M., small patches of dry grass were seen in the ravines. On one of these were five buffalo; but they proved to us more delightful to the sight than to any other sense, since I was unable to induce my guide to halt and hunt them. This apparently unpardonable stubbornness was afterward explained. He had the only animal which could run fast enough to approach them – he alone could ride him – and having lost his right thumb, protested that he could not discharge his piece from a running horse. But having no interpreter with us to render his furious protestations intelligible, I attributed his unwillingness to lay in a supply of good meat here to mere malicious indifference. At five o'clock, we came upon a plat of excellent grass, around a clump of yellow pines. Near this, weary and hungry, we made our camp for the night; ate the half of the meat in our possession – a mere mite – and gorged ourselves with wild currants, which grew plentifully among the pines, until the darkness bade us cease. Course as yesterday: the butes out of sight during the afternoon. We supposed we had travelled twenty miles; weather exceedingly warm.

24th. Rode on a fast trot till about three o'clock, P. M., made about twenty-five miles. Our route lay over sandy and gravelly swells, and the bottom lands of Ham's Fork; the latter, like the former, were well nigh destitute of vegetation.171 When about to encamp, we had the excellent fortune to espy an antelope on a bluff hard by. He fell before the well levelled rifle of our one-thumbed guide. A fat one he was too; just such an one as the imaginations of our hungry stomachs had all the day been figuring to themselves would afford a pleasant variety in the matter of starvation. The circle of vision, the last day or two, had been very much circumscribed by the increasing size of the undulating bluffs, among which our way usually ran. And from their tops, whenever we chanced to go over them, neither the Wind River Mountains nor the Anahuac range were visible. In all directions, to the limit of sight, rolled away the dead, leafless, thirsty swells. Wolves and ravens live among them; but whence they derive subsistence is a difficult problem even for themselves to solve. Their howlings and croakings evidently came from famished mouths.

25th. Fifteen miles to-day along the river; course as on the 24th, N. W. by W., among the bluffs that border the stream; or if that were tortuous, we travelled from bend to bend, over the table lands on either side. In the valley of the stream, small groves of young and thrifty cotton-wood trees, currant bushes, and the black alder, gave us hopes of soon seeing the grasses and flowers, and the cool springs of the highlands, between us and the Great Beaver [Bear] River. The day, however, was sultry; scarcely a breath of wind moved; the dust that rose from our track lay on the air as the smoke of a village does on a still May morning. So that these occasional appearances of vegetable life imparted less pleasure than they would have done if we had been able to see them through another medium than the dripping mud, manufactured from dust and perspiration.

Near mid-day, we crossed the river from its northern to its southern side, and were emerging from the bushes which entangled our egress, when Jim, uttering a shrill whoop, pointing to a solitary horseman urging his horse up the bluff a half mile below us. Beckoning him to us, we dismounted to allow our jaded animals to feed until he should arrive. In the style of a true mountaineer, he dashed up to us on a rapid gallop, greeting us with as hearty a shake of the hand as he could have bestowed upon a brother, and asked our names and destination; said his name was "Midison Gordon, an independent trapper, that he was bound to Brown's Hole for his squaw and 'possibles,' and was glad to see us," in less time than is usually employed in saying half as much; and accepting an invitation to encamp with us, he continued to express his pleasure at seeing us, till our attention was diverted from him by a halt for the night.