Part 7 (1/2)
JULY.
Traveling along up the valley of the river, here 4,000 feet above the sea, in the afternoon of July 1, we caught a far and uncertain view of a faint blue ma.s.s in the west, as the sun sank behind it; and from our camp in the morning, at the mouth of Bijou, Long's peak and the neighboring mountains stood out into the sky, grand and luminously white, covered to their bases with glittering snow.
On the evening of the 3d, as we were journeying along the partially overflowed bottoms of the Platte, where our pa.s.sage stirred up swarms of musquitoes, we came unexpectedly on an Indian, who was perched upon a bluff, curiously watching the movements of our caravan. He belonged to a village of Oglallah Sioux, who had lost all their animals in the severity of the preceding winter, and were now on their way up the Bijou fork to beg horses from the Arapahoes, who were hunting buffalo at the head of that river. Several came into our camp at noon; and, as they were hungry, as usual, they were provided with buffalo-meat, of which the hunters had brought in an abundant supply.
About noon, on the 4th of July, we arrived at the fort, where Mr. St.
Vrain received us with his customary kindness, and invited us to join him in a feast which had been prepared in honor of the day.
Our animals were very much worn out, and our stock of provisions entirely exhausted, when we arrived at the fort; but I was disappointed in my hope of obtaining relief, as I found it in a very impoverished condition; and we were able to procure only a little unbolted Mexican flour, and some salt, with a few pounds of powder and lead.
As regarded provisions, it did not much matter in a country where rarely the day pa.s.sed without seeing some kind of game, and where it was frequently abundant. It was a rare thing to lie down hungry, and we had already learned to think bread a luxury; but we could not proceed without animals, and our own were not capable of prosecuting the journey beyond the mountains without relief.
I had been informed that a large number of mules had recently arrived at Taos, from Upper California; and as our friend, Mr. Maxwell, was about to continue his journey to that place, where a portion of his family resided, I engaged him to purchase for me ten or twelve mules, with the understanding that he should pack them with provisions and other necessaries, and meet me at the mouth of the _Fontaine-qui-bouit_, on the Arkansas river, to which point I would be led in the course of the survey.
Agreeably to his own request, and in the conviction that his habits of life and education had not qualified him to endure the hard life of a voyageur, I discharged here one of my party, Mr. Oscar Sarpy, having furnished him with arms and means of transportation to Fort Laramie, where he would be in the line of caravans returning to the States.
At daybreak, on the 6th of July, Maxwell was on his way to Taos; and a few hours after we also had recommenced our journey up the Platte, which was continuously timbered with cottonwood and willow, on a generally sandy soil. Pa.s.sing on the way the remains of two abandoned forts, (one of which, however, was still in good condition,) we reached, in ten miles, Fort Lancaster, the trading establishment of Mr. Lupton.
His post was beginning to a.s.sume the appearance of a comfortable farm: stock, hogs, and cattle, were ranging about on the prairie--there were different kinds of poultry; and there was a wreck of a promising garden, in which a considerable variety of vegetables had been in a flouris.h.i.+ng condition; but it had been almost entirely ruined by the recent high waters. I remained to spend with him an agreeable hour, and set off in a cold storm of rain, which was accompanied with violent thunder and lightning. We encamped immediately on the river, sixteen miles from St.
Vrain's. Several Arapahoes, on their way to the village which was encamped a few miles above us, pa.s.sed by the camp in the course of the afternoon.
Night set in stormy and cold, with heavy and continuous rain, which lasted until morning.
7th.--We made this morning an early start, continuing to travel up the Platte; and in a few miles frequent bands of horses and mules, scattered for several miles round about, indicated our approach to the Arapaho village, which we found encamped in a beautiful bottom, and consisting of about one hundred and sixty lodges. It appeared extremely populous, with a great number of children--a circ.u.mstance which indicated a regular supply of the means of subsistence. The chiefs, who were gathered together at the farther end of the village, received us (as probably strangers are always received to whom they desire to show respect or regard) by throwing their arms around our necks and embracing us.
It required some skill in horsemans.h.i.+p to keep the saddle during the performance of this ceremony, as our American horses exhibited for them the same fear they have for a bear, or any other wild animal. Having very few goods with me, I was only able to make them a meager present, accounting for the poverty of the gift by explaining that my goods had been left with the wagons in charge of Mr. Fitzpatrick, who was well known to them as the White Head, or the Broken Hand. I saw here, as I had remarked in an Arapaho village the preceding year, near the lodges of the chiefs; tall tripods of white poles supporting their spears and s.h.i.+elds, which showed it to be a regular custom.
Though disappointed in obtaining the presents which had been evidently expected, they behaved very courteously; and, after a little conversation, I left them, and, continuing on up the river, halted to noon on the bluff, as the bottoms are almost inundated; continuing in the afternoon our route along the mountains, which were dark, misty, and shrouded--threatening a storm; the snow peaks sometimes glittering through the clouds beyond the first ridge.
We surprised a grizzly bear sauntering along the river, which, raising himself upon his hind legs, took a deliberate survey of us, that did not appear very satisfactory to him, and he scrambled into the river and swam to the opposite side. We halted for the night a little above Cherry creek; the evening cloudy, with many musquitoes. Some indifferent observations placed the camp in lat. 39 43' 53”, and chronometric long. 105 24' 34”.
8th.--We continued to-day to travel up the Platte: the morning pleasant, with a prospect of fairer weather. During the forenoon our way lay over a more broken country, with a gravelly and sandy surface; although the immediate bottom of the river was a good soil, of a dark and sandy mould, resting upon a stratum of large pebbles, or rolled stones, as at Laramie fork. On our right, and apparently very near, but probably 8 or 10 miles distant, and two or three thousand feet above us, ran the first range of the mountains, like a dark corniced line, in clear contrast with the great snowy chain which, immediately beyond, rose glittering five thousand feet above them. We caught this morning a view of Pike's peak; but it appeared for a moment only, as clouds rose early over the mountains, and shrouded them in mist and rain all the day. In the first range were visible, as at the Red b.u.t.tes on the North fork, very lofty escarpments of red rock.
While traveling through this region, I remarked that always in the morning the lofty peaks were visible and bright, but very soon small white clouds began to settle around them--brewing thicker and thicker as the day advanced, until the afternoon, when the thunder began to roll; and invariably at evening we had more or less of a thunder storm. At 11 o'clock, and 21 miles from St. Vrain's fort, we reached a point in this southern fork of the Platte, where the stream is divided into three forks; two of these (one of them being much the largest) issuing directly from the mountains on the west, and forming, with the eastern-most branch, a river of the plains. The elevation of this point is about 5,500 feet above the sea; this river falling 2,800 feet in a distance of 316 miles, to its junction with the North fork of the Platte. In this estimate, the elevation of the junction is a.s.sumed as given by our barometrical observations in 1842. On the easternmost branch, up which we took our way, we first came among the pines growing on the top of a very high bank, and where we halted on it to noon; quaking asp (_populus tremuloides_) was mixed with the cottonwood, and there were excellent gra.s.s and rushes for the animals.
During the morning there occurred many beautiful flowers, which we had not hitherto met. Among them, the common blue flowering flax made its first appearance; and a tall and handsome species of _gilia_, with slender scarlet flowers, which appeared yesterday for the first time, was very frequent to-day.
We had found very little game since leaving the fort, and provisions began to get unpleasantly scant, as we had had no meat for several days; but towards sundown, when we had already made up our minds to sleep another night without supper, Lajeunesse had the good fortune to kill a fine deer, which he found feeding in a hollow near by; and as the rain began to fall, threatening an unpleasant night, we hurried to secure a comfortable camp in the timber.
To-night the camp fires, girdled with _appolas_ of fine venison, looked cheerful in spite of the stormy weather.
9th.--On account of the low state of our provisions and the scarcity of game, I determined to vary our route, and proceed several camps to the eastward, in the hope of falling in with the buffalo. This route along the dividing grounds between the South fork of the Platte and the Arkansas, would also afford some additional geographical information. This morning, therefore, we turned to the eastward, along the upper waters of the stream on which we had encamped, entering a country of picturesque and varied scenery; broken into rocky hills of singular shapes; little valleys, with pure crystal water, here leaping swiftly along, and there losing itself in the sands; green spots of luxuriant gra.s.s, flowers of all colors, and timber of different kinds--every thing to give it a varied beauty, except game. To one of these remarkably shaped hills, having on the summit a circular flat rock two or three hundred yards in circ.u.mference, some one gave the name of Poundcake, which it has been permitted to retain, as our hungry people seemed to think it a very agreeable comparison. In the afternoon a buffalo bull was killed, and we encamped on a small stream, near the road which runs from St. Vrain's fort to the Arkansas.
10th:--Snow fell heavily on the mountains during the night, and Pike's peak this morning is luminous and grand, covered from the summit, as low down as we can see, with glittering white. Leaving the encampment at 6 o'clock, we continued our easterly course over a rolling country, near to the high ridges, which are generally rough and rocky, with a coa.r.s.e conglomerate displayed in ma.s.ses, and covered with pines. The rock is very friable, and it is undoubtedly from its decomposition that the prairies derive their sandy and gravelly formation. In six miles we crossed a head- water of the Kioway river, on which we found a strong fort and _coral_ that had been built in the spring, and halted to noon on the princ.i.p.al branch of the river. During the morning our route led over a dark and vegetable mould, mixed with sand and gravel, the characteristic plant being _esparcette_, (_on.o.brychis sativa_,) a species of clover which is much used in certain parts of Germany for pasturage of stock--princ.i.p.ally hogs. It is sown on rocky waste ground, which would otherwise be useless, and grows very luxuriantly, requiring only a renewal of the seed about once in fifteen years. Its abundance here greatly adds to the pastoral value of this region. A species of antennaria in flower was very common along the line of road, and the creeks were timbered with willow and pine. We encamped on Bijou's fork, the water of which, unlike the clear streams we had previously crossed, is of a whitish color, and the soil of the bottom a very hard, tough clay. There was a prairie dog village on the bottom, and, in the endeavor to unearth one of the little animals, we labored ineffectually in the tough clay until dark. After descending, with a slight inclination, until it had gone the depth of two feet, the hole suddenly turned at a sharp angle in another direction for one more foot in depth, when it again turned, taking an ascending direction to the next nearest hole. I have no doubt that all their little habitations communicate with each other. The greater part of the people were sick to-day, and I was inclined to attribute their indisposition to the meat of the bull which had been killed the previous day.
11th.--There were no indications of buffalo having been recently in the neighborhood; and, unwilling to travel farther eastward, I turned this morning to the southward, up the valley of Bijou. _Esparcette_ occurred universally, and among the plants on the river I noticed, for the first time during this journey, a few small bushes of the _absinthe_ of the voyageurs, which is commonly used for firewood, (_artemesia tridentata_.) Yesterday and to-day the road has been ornamented with the showy bloom of a beautiful lupinus, a characteristic in many parts of the mountain region, on which were generally great numbers of an insect with very bright colors, (_litta vesicatoria_.)
As we were riding quietly along, eagerly searching every hollow in search of game, we discovered, at a little distance in the prairie, a large grizzly bear, so busily engaged in digging roots that he did not perceive us until we were galloping down a little hill fifty yards from him, when he charged upon us with such sudden energy that several of us came near losing our saddles. Being wounded, he commenced retreating to a rocky piny ridge near by, from which we were not able to cut him off, and we entered the timber with him. The way was very much blocked up with fallen timber; and we kept up a running fight for some time, animated by the bear charging among the horses. He did not fall until after he had received six rifle b.a.l.l.s. He was miserably poor, and added nothing to our stock of provisions.
We followed the stream to its head in a broken ridge, which, according to the barometer, was about 7,500 feet above the sea. This is a piny elevation, into which the prairies are gathered, and from which the waters flow, in almost every direction, to the Arkansas, Platte, and Kansas rivers; the latter stream having here its remotest sources. Although somewhat rocky and broken, and covered with pines, in comparison with the neighboring mountains, it scarcely forms an interruption to the great prairie plains which sweep up to their bases.
We had an excellent view of Pike's peak from this camp, at the distance of forty miles. This mountain barrier presents itself to travelers on the plains, which sweep almost directly to its bases--an immense and comparatively smooth and gra.s.sy prairie, in very strong contrast with the black ma.s.ses of timber, and the glittering snow above them. With occasional exceptions, comparatively so very small as not to require mention, these prairies are everywhere covered with a close and vigorous growth of a great variety of gra.s.ses, among which the most abundant is the buffalo gra.s.s, (_sesleria dactyloides_.) Between the Platte and Arkansas rivers, that part of this region which forms the basin drained by the waters of the Kansas, with which our operations made us more particularly acquainted, is based upon a formation of calcareous rocks.