Part 1 (1/2)

Early Western Travels, 1748-1846

Volume XXVI

by Various

TO THE READER

”He that writes Or es than his friends; there's not a guest But will find so before the majesty of the public a couple of volumes like the present, it has become custoinal design of _perpetrating a book_, as if there were even more than the admitted _quantum_ of sinfulness in the act

Whether or not such disavowals now-a-day receive all the credence they merit, is not for the writer to say; and whether, were the prefatory asseveration, as in the present case, diametrically opposed to what it often is, the reception would be different, is even more difficult to predict The articles i voluinal, hasty production, _designed_ for the press; yet the author unites in the disavowal of his predecessors of all intention at that ti _a book_

In the early su upon a ramble over the prairies of the ”Far West,” in hope of renovating the energies of a shattered constitution, a request was uished editor of the Louisville Journal, to contribute {vi} to the coluriht be deemed of sufficient interest[1] A series of articles soon after made their appearance in that paper under the title, ”_Sketches of a Traveller_” They were, as their name purports, mere sketches from a traveller's _portfeuille_, hastily thrown upon paper whenever time, place, or opportunity rendered convenient; in the stea-cabin of the wilderness, or upon the venerable mound of the Western prairie With such favour were these hasty productions received, and so extensively were they circulated, that the writer, on returning froe to ”the shrine of health,” was induced, by the solicitations of partial friends, to enter at his leisure upon the preparation for the press of a mass of MSS of a similar character, written at the tih revision and enlargement of that which had appeared, united with _this_, it was thought, would furnish a passable volume or two upon the ”Far West” Two years of residence in the West have since passed away; and the arrangeitive sheets of a wanderer's sketch-book would not yet, perhaps, have been deemed of sufficient importance to warrant the necessary labour, had he not been daily reminded that his productions, whatever their merit, were already public property so far as could be the case, and at the ht proper to assuer a virtue,” and the result is now before the {vii} reader But, while alluding to that aid which his labours may have rendered to others, the author would not fail fully to acknowledge his own indebtedness to those distinguished writers upon the West who have preceded him To Peck, Hall, Flint, Wetments are due and are respectfully tendered[2]

In extenuation of the circumstance that soh in a crude state, before the public, the author has but to suggest that many works, hich the present will not presues of a periodical Not to dwell upon the writings of Addison and Johnson, and other classics of British literature, several of Bulwer's most polished productions, the elaborate Essays of Elia, Wirt's British Spy, Hazlitt's Philosophical Reviews, Coleridge's Friend, most of the novels of Captain Marryatt and Theodore Hook, and ant works of the day, have been prepared for the pages of a , does the author co to the tender mercies of an impartial public

Criticism he does not deprecate, still less does he brave it; and farther than either is he frorasps hi, would he couished but eccentric old English writer upon an occasion soentle and simple, men, {viii} women, and children, to buy, to read, to extol these labours of mine Let them not fear to defend every article; for I will bear theood store, and can easily confute, either logically, theologically, or metaphysically, all those who oppose me”

E F

New-York, Oct, 1838

THE FAR WEST

[PART I]

I

”I do re--”

MANFRED

It was a brightin the early days of ”leafy June” Many a land; and now I found e over the broad prairie-plains of the sunset West A drizzly, , with proverbial pertinacity, over the devoted ”City of the Falls,” and still, at intervals, ca one of a hoiden girl sh a shower of April tear-drops, while the quay continued to exhibit all that wild uproar and tumult, ”confusion worse confounded,” which characterizes the stea at the tied with steah-pressure engines, the shrill hiss of scalding stea ever and anon upon the breeze, gave notice of a constant {14} aug under way, and their lower _guards_ were thronged by ericultural utensils Drays were rattling hither and thither over the rough pave forth alternate staves of blasphe note-books, in all the fancied dignity of ”brief authority;” hackney-coaches dashi+ng down to the water's edge, apparently with no motive to the nervous man but noise; while at intervals, as if to fill up the pauses of the Babel, some incontinent steaed boilers one of those deafening, terrible blasts, echoing and re-echoing along the river-banks, and streets, and aain

To one who has never visited the public wharves of the great cities of the West, it is no trivial task to convey an adequate idea of the spectacle they present The commerce of the Eastern seaports and that of the Western Valley are utterly dissimilar; not more in the staples of intercourse than in the mode in which it is conducted; and, were one desirous of exhibiting to a friend from the Atlantic shore a picture of the pros upon the Western waters, or, indeed, of Western character in its general outline, at a _coup d'oeil_, he could do no better than to place him in the wild uproar of the steamboat quay Amid the ”crowd, the hum, {15} the shock” of such a scene stands out Western peculiarity in all its stern proportion

Steae no violently conscientious scruples upon the subject of punctuality, and a solitary exception at our behest, or in our humble behalf, was, to be sure, not an event to be counted on ”There's dignity in being waited for;” hour after hour, therefore, still found us and left us a It is true, and to the unending honour of all concerned be it recorded, very true it is our doughty steamer ever and anon would puff and blow like a porpoise or a narwhal; and then would she swelter from every pore and quiver in every liinery, and the steam would shrilly whistle and shriek like a spirit in its confineeneral roar around; and all this indicated, indubitably, an intention to be off and away; but a knowing one was he who could deter the causes of our wearisome detention was one of a nature too htly to be alluded to

Endeavouring to while away the tediuuard_, surveying the lovely scenery of the opposite shore, and the neat little houses of the village sprinkled upon the plain beyond, when a wild, piercing shriek struck uponimmediately forward to the spot whence it seemed to proceed, {16} when I was intercepted by soled body It was that of our second engineer, a fine, laughing young felloho had been terribly injured by becoled with the flywheel of the e floor I stood at his head; and never, I think, shall I forget those convulsed and agonized features His countenance was ghastly and livid; beaded globules of cold sweat started out incessantly upon his pale brow; and, in the paroxysms of pain, his dark eye would flash, his nostril dilate, and his lips quiver so as to expose the teeth gnashi+ng in a fearfulaway from exhaustion, caused us all to shudder And then that wild despairing roll of the eyeball in its socket as the lance hurriedly around upon the countenances of the bystanders, i them, in utter helplessness, to lend hi to look upon these strivings of hurasp of a power it may in vain resist! From the quantity of blood thrown off, the oppressive fulness of the chest, and the difficult respiration, some serious pulmonary injury had evidently been sustained; while a splintered clavicle and liuish inexpressible It was evident he believed hi out his ar those around hirasp of the death angel creeping over his frame

{17} Perhaps I have devoted more words to the detail of this melancholy incident than would otherwise have been the case, on account of the interest which some circumstances in the sufferer's history, subsequently received from the captain of our steamer, inspired