FAC-SIMILE OF PAGANINI'S HAND WRITING, Vicelo p Bmarton al Frector di Nurwich REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS. THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS: or, SCENES, INCIDENTS, and ADVENTURES in the FAR WEST; Digested from the Journal of Captain B. L. E. Bonneville, of the various other sources. By Washington Irving. In two volumes. United States Army, and illustrated from A DISTINGUISHED London critic lately asserted that when Washington Irving resigned the fascinating lassi tude of European society, it was a subject of congratulation to the whole world. As a personal friend, the critic regretted the absence of the biographer of Columbus, and the loss of his delightful company; but if he had not returned to his native land, the beautiful work then in review, (Astoria,) would never have been added to the catalogue of literary excellence. It is indeed a subject of congratulation, more particularly to his countrymen, that Washington Irving should devote his powerful energies to the illustration of subjects connected with the history of America. The present work, “The Rocky Mountains" is a necessary addition to his Astoria. It is a continuation of the history of the Fur Trade down to the year 1835, from data furnished by Captain Bonneville. It is not a dry detail of statistical matter, but a lively romance of real life, told in the author's best manner, and spark. ling with vivid description and startling adventure. By the powerful magic of the narrator's pen, we are carried far from the practices of civilization-from the hum of cities to the fastnesses of the howling wilderness, We journey with the caravan-plod with the trapper in his silent march, or watch the labours of the bee hunter, “a long lank fellow of fever-and-ague complexion, acquired from living on new soil and in a hut built of green wood." We join the camp of the wayfarers on the velvet bosom of the prairies, or the banks of a nameless stream that dashes through a narrow defile of the snow-crowned sierras. We enter the wigwam of the Indian, the lodge of the trapper, or descend the mountain stream in the frail bull boat of the exploring voyager. We partake of the rude excesses attendant on a buffalo feast, or suffer the pangs of hunger in the plains of eternal snows. We are roused by the midnight attack of the predatory Crows or Blackfeet, or join in a hunting party with the friendly Pierced Noses. We marvel at the agility of California's gaudy dragoons with the lasso, and admire the horsemanship of the naked red man of the west. We stare at the vagaries of nature at the wonders exhibited by mother earth in this strange region of boundless prairie, gigantic mountains, and broad and endless streams. We view with astonishment the immense herds of buffaloes, stretching for countless miles over the face of the country, far as the eye can reach; the gigantic elk, or timid antelope, or the flocks of ahsahta or bighorn, bounding like goats from crag to crag-the crafty Indian dogs, haunting the caravan; seizing the half-picked bones, offal, and garbage, with many a snap, and snarl, and growland the grizzly bears and wolves feeding on the salmon that are thrown upon the rivers' banks in such amazing quantities as to taint the atmosphere by their rottenness. A valuable addition is made to our knowledge of the character of the Indians of the west. Captain Bonneville has pourtrayed them, not in the colours of romance, but in the simple tints of nature. He has developed an interesting variety of tribes that range the boundless western plains, who embody the most opposite traits of character, and possess temperaments as varied as the children of civilization. We are made acquainted with the roving, warlike, crafty, and predatory Crows-the pious Skynses-the gentle and friendly Nez Percés or Pierced Noses-the thieving Snakes—the abject and forlorn Shoshokoes or Root Diggers-the peaceable, playful, and laughing Flatheads-the vagabond Bannecks-the revengeful Rickarees or Arickaras— the Cottonois and Pends Oreilles, or Hanging Ears—the sanguinary Blackfeet-and Les Dignes des Pitie, the Wanderers of the Mountain, emphatically called the Poor Devil Indians. We have endeavoured to prove the variety of material embodied in this excellent and amusing work. The author's name is a sufficient guarantee for the excellence of the workmanship, and we proceed forthwith to exhibit specimens. "The wandering whites who mingle for any length of time with the savages, have invariably a proneness to adopt savage habitudes; but none more so than the free trappers. It is a matter of vanity and ambition with them to discard every thing that may bear the stamp of civilized life, and to adopt the manners, habits, dress, gesture, and even walk of the Indian. You cannot pay a free trapper a greater compliment, than to persuade him you have mistaken him for an Indian brave; and, in truth, the counterfeit is complete. His hair, suffered to attain to a great length, is carefully combed out, and either left to fall carelessly over his shoulders, or plaited neatly and tied up in otter skins, or parti-coloured ribands. A hunting shirt of ruffled calico of bright dyes, or of ornamented leather, falls to his knee; below which, curiously fashioned leggins, ornamented with strings, fringes, and a profusion of hawks' bells, reach to a costly pair of moccasins of the finest Indian fabric, richly embroidered with beads. A blanket of scarlet, or some other bright colour, hangs from his shoulders, and is girt round his waist with a red sash, in which he bestows his pistols, knife, and the stem of his Indian pipe; preparations either for peace or war. His gun is lavishly decorated with brass tacks and vermilion, and provided with a fringed cover, occasionally of buckskin, ornamented here and there with a feather. His horse, the noble minister to the pride, pleasure, and profit of the mountaineer, is selected for his speed and spirit, and prancing carriage, and holds a place in his estimation second only to himself. He shares largely of his bounty, and of his pride and pomp of trapping. He is caparisoned in the most dashing and fantastic style; the bridles and crupper are weightily embossed with beads and cockades; and head, mane, and tail, are interwoven with abundance of eagles' plumes, which flutter in the wind. To complete this grotesque equipment, the proud animal is bestreaked and bespotted with vermilion, or with white clay, whichever presents the most glaring contrast to his real colour. "Such is the account given by Captain Bonneville of these rangers of the wilderness, and their appearance at the camp was strikingly characteristic. They came dashing forward at full speed, firing their fusees, and yelling in Indian style. Their dark sunbornt faces, and long flowing hair, their leggins, flaps, moccasins, and richly dyed blankets, and their painted horses, gaudily caparisoned, gave them so much the air and appearance of Indians, that it was difficult to persuade oneself that they were white men, and had been brought up in civilized life."- Vol. I. p. 92. "And here we would remark a great difference, in point of character and quality, between the two classes of trappers, the "American" and "French," as they are called in contradistinction. The latter is meant to designate the French creole of Canada or Louisiana; the former, the trapper of the old American stock, from Kentucky, Tennessee, and others of the western states. The French trapper is represented as a lighter, softer, more self-indulgent sort of man. He must have his Indian wife, his lodge, and his petty conveniences. He is gay and thoughtless, takes little heed of landmarks, depends upon his leaders and companions to think for the common weal, and, if left to himself, is easily perplexed and lost. "The American trapper stands by himself, and is peerless for the service of the wilderness. Drop him in the midst of a prairie, or in the heart of the mountains, and he is never at a loss. He notices every landmark; can retrace his route through the most monotonous plains, or the most perplexed labyrinths of the mountains; no danger nor difficulty can appal him, and he scorns to complain under any privation. In equipping the two kinds of trappers, the creole and Canadian are apt to prefer the light fusee; the American always grasps the rifle he despises what he calls the "shot-gun." We give these estimates on the authority of a trader of long experience, and a foreigner by birth. I consider one American,' said he, equal to three Canadians in point of sagacity, aptness at resources, self-dependence, and fearlessness of spirit. In fact, no one can cope with him as a stark tramper of the wilderness."- Vol. I. p. 32. Love, and devotion to the objects of their love, are not unfrequent, even amongst the ill used Indiah squaws. "A striking circumstance is related as having occurred the morning after the battle. As some of the trappers and their Indian allies were approaching the fort, through the woods, they beheld an Indian woman of noble form and features, leaning against a tree. Their surprise at her lingering there alone, to fall into the hands of her enemies, was dispelled, when they saw the corpse of a warrior at her feet. Either she was so lost in grief, as not to perceive their approach, or a proud spirit, kept her silent and motionless. The Indians sat up a yell on discovering her, and before the trappers could interfere, her mangled body fell upon the corpse which she had refused to abandon."-Vol. I. p. 85. "During the heat of the battle, a woman of the Nez Percés, seeing her warrior badly wounded and unable to fight, seized his bow and arrows, and bravely and successfully defended his person, contributing to the safety of the whole party. "At the outset of the fight, Kosato, the renegade, fought with fury rather than valour: animating the others by word as well as deed. A wound in the head from a rifle ball laid him senseless on the earth. There his body remained when the battle was over, and the victors were leading off the horses. His wretched wife was hanging over him with frantic lamentations. The conquerors paused and urged her to leave the lifeless renegado, and return with them to her kindred. She refused to listen to their solicitations, and they passed on. As she sat watching the features of Kosato, and giving way to passionate grief, she thought she perceived him to breathe. She was not mistaken. The ball, which had been nearly spent before it struck him, had stunned instead of killing him. By the ministry of his faithful wife, he gradually recovered; reviving to a redoubled love for her, and hatred of his native tribe. "As to the female who had so bravely defended her husband, she was elevated by the tribe to a rank far above her sex, and, beside other honourable distinctions, was thenceforward permitted to take a part in the war dances of the braves!"- Vol. I. p. 169. The assertions of various able geologists that the whole of the earth's formation must, at one time, have been submerged by the ocean, are considerably strengthened by the Captain's account of the face of several portions of the western country. Volney's hypothesis of the former existence of a great lake at the falls of the Ohio-Dr. Morettes, imaginary mountainous chain running from the peninsula of Yucatan, through the isle of Cuba, to the Florida shore, and his geographical delineation of the ancient bed of the Gulf of Mexico with the supposititious alluvial formation of the Netherlands of the Mississippi, are not more feasible than the assumption that the broad prairies of the far west once formed the bed of an enormous lake. This sublime, but almost unknown region offers inducements of extraordinary character to the research of the geologist-let the following quotations excite their wonder, and rouse the enterprize of science. "The vast plain was studded on the west with innumerable hills of conical shape, such as are seen north of the Arkansas river. These hills have their summits appaready cut off about the same elevation, so as to leave flat surfaces at top. It is conjectured by some, that the whole country may originally have been of the altitude of these tabular hills; but through some process of nature, may have sunk to its present level; these insulated eminences being protected by broad foundations of solid rock. "Captain Bonneville mentions another geological phenomenon north of Red river, where the surface of the earth, in considerable tracts of country, is covered with broad slabs of sandstone, having the form and position of grave-stones, and looking as if they had been forced up by some subterranean agitation. The resemblance,' says he, 'which these very remarkable spots have in many places to old churchyards is curious in the extreme. One might almost fancy himself among the tombs of the pre-Adamites."— Vol. I. P. 41. "Many of the tributary streams of Snake river, rival it in the wildness and picturesqueness of their scenery. That called the Bruneau is particularly oited. It runs through a tremendous chasm, rather than a valley, extending upwards of a hundred and fifty miles. You come upon it on a sudden, in traversing a level plain. It seems as if you could throw a stone across from cliff to cliff; yet, the valley is near two thousand feet deep: so that the river looks like an inconsiderable stream. Basaltic rocks rise perpendicularly, so that it is impossible to get from the plain to the water, or from the river margin to the plain. The current is bright and limpid. Hot springs are found on the borders of this river. One bursts out of the cliffs forty feet above the river, in a stream sufficient to turn a mill, and sends up a cloud of vapor. "We find a characteristic picture of this volcanic region of mountains and streams, furnished by the journal of Captain Wyeth, which lies before us; who ascended a peak in the neighbourhood we are describing.From this summit, the country, he says, appears an indescribable chaos; the tops of the hills exhibit the same strata as far as the eye can reach; and appear to have once formed the level of the country; and the valleys to be formed by the sinking of the earth, rather than the rising of the hills. Through the deep cracks and chasms thus formed, the rivers and brooks make their way, which renders it difficult to follow them. All these basaltic channels are called cut rocks by the trappers. Many of the mountain streams disappear in the plains; either absorbed by their thirsty soil, and by the porous surface of the lava, or swallowed up in gulfs and chasms."- Vol. II. page 47. Here, however, occur some of the striking phenomena of this wild and sublime region. The great lower plain which extends to the feet of these mountains, is broken up near their bases into crests and ridges, resembling the surges of the ocean breaking on a rocky shore. "In a line with the mountains, the plain is gashed with numerous and dangerous chasms, from four to ten feet wide, and of great depth. Captain Bonneville attempted to sound some of these openings, but without any satisfactory result. A stone dropped into one of them reverberated against the sides, for apparently a very great depth, and, by its sound, indicated the same kind of substance with the surface, as long as the strokes could be heard. The horse, instinctively sagacious in avoiding danger, shrinks back in alarm from the least of these chasms; pricking up his ears, snorting and pawing, until permitted to turn away. "We have been told by a person well acquainted with the country, that it is sometimes necessary to travel fifty and sixty miles, to get round one of these tremendous ravines. Considerable streams, like that of Codin's river, that run with a bold, free current, lose themselves in this plain; some of them end in swamps, others suddenly disappear; finding, no doubt, subterranean outlets. "Opposite to these chasms, Snake river makes two desperate leaps over precipices, at a short distance from each other; oue twenty, the other forty feet in height. "The volcanic plain in question forms an area of about sixty miles in diameter, where nothing meets the eye but a desolate and awinl waste; where no grass grows nor water runs, and where nothing is to be seen but lava. Ranges of mountains skirt this plain, and, in Captain Bonneville's opinion, were formerly connected, until rent asunder by some convulsion of nature. Far to the east, the Three Tetons lift their heads sublimely, and dominate the wide sea of lava;-one of the most striking features of a wilderness where every thing seems on a scale of stern and simple grandeur."— Vol. I. p. 177. "The soil was light and sandy; the country much diversified. Frequently the plains were studded with isolated blocks of rock, sometimes in the shape of a half-globe, and from three to four hundred feet highThese singular masses had occasionally a very imposing and even sublime appearance, rising from the midst of a savage and lonely landscape."- Vol. I. p. 58. "On the 10th of November, Captain Bonneville visited a place in the neighborhood which is quite a region of natural curiosities. An area of about half a mile square presents a level surface of white clay, or fullers' earth, perfectly spotless, resembling a great slab of Parian marble, or a sheet of dazzling snow. The effect is strikingly beautiful at all times; in summer, when it is surrounded by verdure, or in autumn, when it contrasts its bright immaculate surface with the withered herbage. Seen from a distant eminence, it then shines like a mirror set in the brown landscape. Around this plain are clustered numerous springs of various sizes and temperatures. One of them, of scalding heat, boils furiously and incessantly, rising to the height of two or three feet. In another place, there is an aperture in the earth, from which rises a column of steam that forms a perpetual cloud. The ground for some distance around sounds hollow, and startles the solitary trapper, as he hears the tramp of his horse giving the sound of a muffled drum. He pictures to himself a mysterious gulf below, a place of hidden fires: and gazes round him with sensations of awe and uneasiness. "The most noted curiosity, however, of this singular region is the Beer Spring, of which trappers give wonderful accounts. They are said to turn aside from their route through the country to drink of its waters, with as much eagerness as the Arab seeks some famous well of the desert. Captain Bonneville describes it having the taste of beer. His men drunk it with avidity, and in copious draughts. It did not appear to him to possess any medicinal properties, or to produce any peculiar effects. The Indians, however, refuse to taste it, and endeavour to persuade the white men from doing so."-Vol. II. p. 30. "In a few moments, every spring had its jovial knot of hard drinkers, with tin cup in hand, indulging in a mock carouse; quaffing, pledging, toasting, bandying jokes, singing drinking songs, and uttering peals of laughter, until it seemed as if their imaginations had given potency to the beverage, and cheated them into a fit of intoxication. Indeed, in the excitement of the moment, they were loud and extravagant in their commenda. tions of the mountain tap;' elevating it above every beverage produced from hops or malt. It was a singular and fantastic scene; suited to a region where every thing is strange and peculiar :-These groups of trappers, and hunters, and Indians, with their wild costumes, and wilder countenances; their boisterous gayety and reckless air; quaffing, and making merry round these sparkling fountains; while beside them lay their weapons, ready to be snatched up for instant service. Painters are fond of representing banditti, at their rude and picturesque caronsals; but here were groups still more rude and picturesque; and it needed but a sudden önset of Blackfeet, and a quick transition from a fantastic revel to a furious melée, to have rendered this pic ture of a trapper's life complete. The beer frolic, however, passed off without any untoward circumstance; and, unlike most drinking bouts, left neither headache nor heartache behind. * * "There is here a soda spring; or, I may say, fifty of them. These springs throw out lime, which deposits and forms little hillocks of a yellowish colored stone. There is, also, here a warm spring, which throws out water, with a jet; which is like bilge water in taste. There are, also, here, peat beds, which sometimes take fire, and leave behind deep, light ashes in which animals sink deep. * I ascended a mountain, and from it could see that Bear river took a short turn round Sheep rock. There were, in the plain, many hundred mounds of yellowish stone, with a crater on the top, formed of the deposits of the impregnated water."-Vol. II, p. 124. The Crow country has other natural curiosities, which are held in superstitious awe by the Indians, and considered great marvels by the trappers. Such is the Burning mountain, on Powder river, abounding with anthracite coal. Here the earth is hot and cracked; in many places emitting smoke and sulphurous vapors, as if covering concealed fires. A volcanic tract of similar character is found on Stinking river, one of the tribu taries of the Bighorn, which takes it unhappy name from the odor derived from sulphurous springs and streams. This last mentioned place was first discovered by Colter, a hunter belonging to Lewis and Clarke's exploring party, who came upon it in the course of his lonely wanderings, and gave such an account of its gloomy ter rors, its hidden fires, smoking pits, noxious steams, and the all-pervading smell of brimstone,' that it received, and has ever since retained among trappers, the name of Colter's Hell! "— Vol. I., P. 223. Captain Bonneville, with a few of his adventurous band, essayed to climb the highest peak of the Wind River Chain, the most elevated ridge of the Rocky Mountains. After three days of woful labour, creeping up the beds of dashing streams, or along the paths of the mountain sheep, "shagged by frightful precipices, and seamed with longitudinal chasms, deep and dangerous," the climbers reached a place where they beheld huge crags of granite piled one upon another, and beetling like battlements far above them. The Captain, -in endeavouring to discern "some practicable route through this stupendous labyrinth, reached the summit of a lofty cliff, but it was only to behold gigantic peaks rising all around, and towering far into the snowy regions of the atmosphere." But the courage of the exploring party surmounted the difficulties of this mountain pass, although the ascent was so steep and dangerous, that they were frequently compelled to clamber up the face of rugged precipices, on their hands and knees, with their guns slung behind them. "Frequently exhausted with fatigue, and dripping with perspiration, they threw themselves upon the snow, and took handfals of it to allay their parching thirst. At one place they even stripped off their coats, and hung them upon the bushes, and thus lightly clad, proceeded to scramble over these eternal snows. The view from the peak is well described. “Here a scene burst upon the view of Captain Bonneville, that for a time astonished and overwhelmed him with its immensity. He stood, in fact, upon that dividing ridge which Indians regard as the crest of the world; and on each side of which, the landscape may be said to decline to the two cardinal oceans of the globe. Whichever way he turned his eye, it was confounded by the vastness and variety of objects. Beneath him, the Rocky mountains seemed to open all their secret recesses: deep, solemn valleys; treasured lakes; dreary passes; rugged defiles, and foaming torrents; while beyond their savage precincts the eye was lost in almost immeasurable landscape; stretching on every side into dim and hazy distance, like the expanse of a summer's sea. Whichever way he looked, he beheld vast plains glimmering with reflected sunshine; mighty streams wandering on their shining course toward either ocean, and snowy mountains, chain beyond chain, and peak beyond peak, till they melted like clouds into the horizon. For a time, the Indian fable seemed realized; he had attained the height from which the Blackfoot warrior, after death, first catches a view of the land of souls, and beholds the happy hunting grounds spread out below him, brightening with the abodes of free and generous spirits. The captain stood for a long while gazing upon this scene, lost in a crowd of vague and indefinite ideas and sensations. A long drawn inspiration at length relieved him from this enthralment of the mind, and he began to analyze the parts of this vast panorama. A simple enumeration of a few of its features, may give some idea of its collective grandeur and magnificence. "The peak on which the Captain had taken his stand, commanded the whole Wind river chain; which, in fact, may rather be considered one immense mountain, broken into snowy peaks and lateral spurs, and seamed with narrow valleys. Some of these valleys glittered with silver lakes and gushing streams; the fountain heads, as it were, of the mighty tributaries to the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans. Beyond the snowy peaks, to the south, and far, far below the mountain range, the gentle river, called the Sweet Water, was seen pursuing its tranquil way through the rugged region of the Black hills. In the east, the head waters of Wind river wandered through a plain, until, mingling in one powerful current, they forced their way through the range of Horn mountains, and were lost to view. To the north, were caught glimpses of the upper streams of the Yellowstone, that great tributary of the Missouri. In another direction were to be seen some of the sources of the Oregon or Columbia, flowing to the north-west, past those towering landmarks, the Three Te tons, and pouring down into the great lava plain. While almost at the Captain's feet, the Green river, or Colorado of the west, set forth on its far wandering pilgrimage to the Gulf of California; at first, a mere mountain torrent, dashing northward over crag and precipice, in a succession of cascades, and tumbling into the plain, where, expanding into an ample river, it circled away to the south, and after alternately shining out and disappearing in the vast mazes of the landscape, was finally lost in a horizon of mountains. The day was calm and cloudless, and the atmosphere so pure that objects were discernable at an astonishing distance. The whole of this immense area was enclosed by an outer range of shadowy peaks, some of them faintly marked on the horizon, which seemed to wall then in from the rest of the earth. "It is to be regretted that Captain Bonneville had no instruments with him with which to ascertain the altitude of this peak. He gave it as his opinion, that it is the loftiest point of the North American continent; but of this we have no satisfactory proof. It is certain that the Rocky mountains are of an altitude vastly superior to what was formerly supposed. We rather incline to the opinion that the highest peak is further to the northward, and is the same measured by Mr. Thompson, surveyor to the North-west Company; who, by the joint means of the barometer and trigonometric measurement, ascertained it to be twenty-five thousand feet above the level of the sea; an elevation only inferior to that of the Himalayas."-Vol. I., p. 244. The importance of the Fur Trade, and the necessity of the maintenance of western outposts, have never been appreciated by our government. The Russians are rapidly extending their possessions upon the confines of California, and have actually fortified the post of Bondago. The Hudson's Bay Company, an English association, domineer over an extensive range of coast, on the Pacific, and by their establishments at Vancouvre and Fort George, formerly Astoria, command the whole of the Columbia and its tributaries, ruling the destinies of the salmon fisheries and the fur trade, and claiming the exclusive right of the Indian hunting grounds between the Rocky Mountains and the shores of the Pacific, with the right of cultivation of the vallies of the Wallamut and Des Chutes; each of them capable in fertility and extent of sustaining a powerful emigration. In the words of the author-“The resources of the country, while in the hands of a company restricted in its trade, can be but partially called forth: but in the hands of Americans, enjoying a direct trade with the East Indies, would be brought into quickening activity; and might soon realize the dream of Mr. Astor, in giving rise to a flourishing commercial empire." THE AMERICAN GENTLEMAN'S MEDICAL POCKET BOOK AND HEALTH ADVISER. Kay, Jr. & Brothers. THIS little work is well adapted to the purpose intended, and should occupy a niche in every gentleman's dressing table, or a nook in every traveller's valise. The remedial usages recommended are simple but efficacious; every possible variety of ill" that flesh is heir to" is noticed in popular language, free from the distracting technicalities of science, or tiresome display of professional skill. The chapter on teeth possesses much valuable information. The preface contains a curious attack upon the sobriety of our western “medicines,” as the Indians term the doctors. "I have known a considerable district, in one of our western states, which contained but one doctor, and him I have met on his way to his patients, by eight o'clock in the morning, so drunk as to render it necessary to lift him into his gig. Sometimes there is no physician of any kind to be obtained; or if there be, after waiting until the complaint has got to a height that baffles all remedies, he arrives in a state similar to that described! What becomes of the sick under such circumstances?” |