Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet

by Frederick Marryat

  CHAPTER THIRTY THREE.

  We were now but twenty miles from the Red River, and yet this shortdistance proved to be the most difficult travelling we had experiencedfor a long while. We had to cross swamps, lagoons, and cane-brakes, inwhich our horses were bogged continually; so that at noon, and after aride of six hours, we had only gained twelve miles. We halted upon adry knoll, and there, for the first time since the morning, we enteredinto conversation; for, till then, we had been too busy scrutinising theground before our horses' feet. I had a great deal to say both toGabriel and to Roche; we were to part the next morning,--they to returnto the Comanches and the Shoshones, I to go on to the Mormons, andperhaps to Europe.

  I could not laugh at the doctor's _bon mots_, for my heart was full;till then, I had never felt how long intercourse, and sharing the sameprivations and dangers, will attach men to each other; and theperspective of a long separation rendered me gloomier and gloomier, asthe time we still had to pass together became shorter.

  Our five American companions had altered their first intention oftravelling with me through the Arkansas. They had heard on the way,that some new thriving cities had lately sprung up on the American sideof the Red River; the doctor was already speculating upon the fevers andagues of the ensuing summer; the parson was continually dreaming of aneat little church and a buxom wife, and the three lawyers, of rich feesfrom the wealthy cotton planters. The next day, therefore, I was to bealone, among a people less hospitable than the Indians, and among whom Ihad to perform a journey of a thousand miles on horseback, constantly onthe outskirts of civilisation, and consequently exposed to all thedangers of border travelling.

  When we resumed our march through the swampy cane-brake, Gabriel, Roche,and I kept a little behind our companions.

  "Think twice, whilst it is yet time," said Gabriel to me, "and believeme, it is better to rule over your devoted and attached tribe ofShoshones than to indulge in dreams of establishing a western empire;and, even if you will absolutely make the attempt, why should we seekthe help of white men? what can we expect from them and their assistancebut exorbitant claims and undue interference? With a few months'regular organisation, the Comanches, Apaches, and Shoshones can be madeequal to any soldiers of the civilised world, and among them you willhave no traitors."

  I felt the truth of what he said, and for a quarter of an hour Iremained silent: "Gabriel," replied I at last, "I have now gone too farto recede, and the plans which I have devised are not for my ownadvantage, but for the general welfare of the Shoshones and of all thefriendly tribes. I hope to live to see them a great nation, and, at allevents, it is worth a trial."

  My friend shook his head mournfully; he was not convinced, but he knewthe bent of my temper, and was well aware that all he could say wouldnow be useless.

  The natural buoyancy of our spirits would not, however, allow us to begrave long; and when the loud shouts of the doctor announced that he hadcaught a sight of the river, we spurred our horses, and soon rejoinedour company. We had by this time issued from the swampy cane-brakes,and were entering a lane between two rich cotton-fields, and at the endof which flowed the Red River; not the beautiful, clear, and transparentstream running upon a rocky and sandy bed, as in the country inhabitedby the Comanches and Pawnee Picts, and there termed the Colorado of theWest; but a red and muddy, yet rapid stream. We agreed that we shouldnot ferry the river that evening, but seek a farm, and have a feastbefore parting company. We learned from a negro, that we were in aplace called Lost Prairie, and that ten minutes' ride down the bank ofthe stream would carry us to Captain Finn's plantation. We receivedthis news with wild glee, for Finn was a celebrated character, one whoselife was so full of strange adventures in the wilderness, that it wouldfill volumes with hairbreadth encounter and events of thrillinginterest.

  Captain Finn received us with a cordial welcome, for unboundedhospitality is the invariable characteristic of the older cottonplanters. A great traveller himself, he knew the necessities of atravelling life, and, before conducting us to the mansion, he guided usto the stables, where eight intelligent slaves, taking our horses,rubbed them down before our eyes, and gave them a plentiful supply offodder and a bed of _fresh_ straw.

  "That will do till they are cool," said our kind host; "tonight theywill have their grain and water; let us now go to the old woman and seewhat she can give us for supper."

  A circumstance worthy of remark is, that, in the western states, ahusband always calls his wife the old woman, and she calls him the oldman, no matter how young the couple may be. I have often heard men oftwenty-five sending their slaves upon some errand "to the old woman,"who was not probably more than eighteen years old. A boy of ten yearscalls his parents in the same way. "How far to Little Rock?" I onceasked of a little urchin; "I don't know," answered he, "but the old oneswill tell you." A few yards farther I met the "old ones;" they wereboth young people, not much more than twenty.

  In Mrs Finn we found a stout and plump farmer's wife, but she was alady in her manners. Born in the wilderness, the daughter of one boldpioneer and married to another, she had never seen anything but woods,cane-brakes, cotton, and negroes, and yet, in her kindness andhospitality, she displayed a refinement of feeling and good breeding.She was daughter of the celebrated Daniel Boone, a name which hasacquired a reputation even in Europe. She immediately ransacked herpantry, her hen-roost, and garden, and when we returned from thecotton-mill, to which our host, in his farmer's pride, had conducted us.[We found upon] an immense table, a meal which would have satisfiedfifty of those voracious Bostonians whom we had met with the day beforeat the _table-d'hote_.

  Well do I recollect her, as she stood before us on that gloriousevening, her features beaming with pleasure, as she witnessed therapidity with which we emptied our plates. How happy she would lookwhen we praised her chickens, her honey, and her coffee; and then shewould carve and cut, fill again our cups, and press upon us all thedelicacies of the Far West borders, delicacies unknown in the oldcountries; such as fried beaver-tail, smoked tongue of the buffalo-calf,and (the _gourmand's_ dish _par excellence)_ the Louisiana gombo. Hercoffee, too, was superb, as she was one of the few upon the continent ofAmerica who knew how to prepare it.

  After our supper, the captain conducted us under the piazza attached tothe building, where we found eight hammocks suspended, as white as snow.There our host disinterred from a large bucket of ice several bottlesof Madeira, which we sipped with great delight; the more so as, for ourcane pipes and cheap Cavendish, Finn substituted a box of genuineHavannah cazadores. After our fatigues and starvation, it was more thancomfortable--it was delightful. The doctor vowed he would become aplanter, the parson asked if there were any widows in the neighbourhood,and the lawyers inquired if the planters of the vicinity were any waylitigious. By the bye, I have observed that Captain Finn was acelebrated character. As we warmed with the _Madere frappe a glace_, wepressed him to relate some of his wild adventures, with which request hereadily complied; for he loved to rehearse his former exploits, and itwas not always that he could narrate them to so numerous an assembly.As the style he employed could only be understood by individuals whohave rambled upon the borders of the Far West, I will relate the littleI remember in my own way, though I am conscious that the narrative mustlose much when told by any one but Finn himself.

  When quite an infant, he had been taken by the Indians and carried intothe fastnesses of the West Virginian forests; there he had been broughtup till he was sixteen years old, when, during an Indian war, he wasrecaptured by a party of white men. Who were his parents, he couldnever discover, and a kind Quaker took him into his house, gave him hisname, and treated him as his own child, sending him first to school, andthen to the Philadelphia college. The young man, however, was littlefit for the restrictions of a university; he would often escape andwander for days in the forests, until hunger would bring him home again.At last, he returned to his adopted father, who was now satisfied thathis thoughts were in the
wilderness, and that, in the bustle of a largecity and restraint of civilised life, he would not live, but linger ontill he drooped and died.

  This discovery was a sad blow to the kind old man, who had fondlyanticipated that the youngster would be a kind and grateful companion tohim, when age should make him feel the want of friendship; but he was ajust man, and reflecting that perhaps a short year of rambling wouldcure him, he was the first to propose it. Young Finn was grateful;beholding the tears of his venerable protector, he would have remainedand attended him till the hour of his death; but the Quaker would notpermit him, he gave him his best horse, and furnished him with arms andmoney. At that time, the fame of Daniel Boone had filled the EasternStates, and young Finn had read with avidity the adventures of that boldpioneer. Hearing that he was now on the western borders of Kentucky,making preparations for emigration farther west, into the very heart ofthe Indian country, he resolved to join him and share the dangers of hisexpedition.

  The life of Boone is too well known for me to describe this expedition.Suffice it to say, that, once in Missouri, Finn conceived and executedthe idea of making alone a trip across the Rocky Mountains, to the veryborders of the Pacific Ocean. Strange to say, he scarcely remembersanything of that first trip, which lasted eleven months.

  The animals had not yet been scared out of the wilderness; water wasfound twice every day; the vine grew luxuriantly in the forests, and thecaravans of the white men had not yet destroyed the patches of plums andnuts which grew wild in the prairies.

  Finn says he listened to the songs of the birds, and watched the sportof the deer, the buffaloes, and wild horses, in a sort of dreamingexistence, fancying that he heard voices in the streams, in the foliageof the trees, in the caverns of the mountains; his wild imaginationsometimes conjuring up strange and beautiful spirits of another world,who were his guardians, and who lulled him asleep every evening withmusic and perfumes.

  I have related this pretty nearly in the very terms of our host, andmany of his listeners have remarked, at different times, that when hewas dwelling upon that particular portion of his life, he became gloomyand abstracted, as if still under the influence of former indelibleimpressions. Undoubtedly Captain Finn is of a strong poeticaltemperament, and any one on hearing him narrate would say the same; butit is supposed that when the captain performed this first solitaryexcursion, his brain was affected by an excited and highly poeticalimagination. After eleven months of solitude, he reached the PacificOcean, and awoke from his long illusion in the middle of a people whoselanguage he could not understand; yet they were men of his colour, kindand hospitable; they gave him jewels and gold, and sent him back east ofthe mountains, under the protection of some simple and mild-heartedsavages. The spot where Finn had arrived was at one of the missions,and those who released him and sent him back were the good monks of oneof the settlements in Upper California.

  When Finn returned to the Mississippi, his narrative was so much blendedwith strange and marvellous stories, that it was not credited; but whenhe showed and produced his stock of gold dust in bladders, and someprecious stones, fifty different proposals were made to him to guide aband of greedy adventurers to the new western Eldorado. Finn, likeBoone, could not bear the society of his own countrymen; he dreaded tohear the noise of their axes felling the beautiful trees; he fearedstill more to introduce them, like so many hungry wolves, among the goodpeople who knew so well the sacred rites of hospitality.

  After a short residence with the old back-woodsman, Finn returned toVirginia, just in time to close the eyes of the kind old Quaker. Hefound that his old friend had expected his return for he had sold allhis property, and deposited the amount in the hands of a safe banker, tobe kept for Finn's benefit. The young wanderer was amazed; he had nowten thousand dollars, but what could he do with so much money? Hethought of a home, of love and happiness, of the daughter of old Boone,and he started off to present her with his newly-acquired wealth. Finnentered Boone's cottage, with his bags and pocket-books in each hand,and casting his burden into a corner, he entered at once upon thematter.

  "Why, I say, old man, I am sure I love the gal."

  "She is a comely and kind girl," said the father.

  "I wish she could love me."

  "She does."

  "Does she? well, I tell you what, Boone, give her to me, I'll try tomake her happy."

  "I will but not yet," said the venerable patriarch. "Why, you are bothof you mere children; she can't get a house, and how could you supporther?"

  Finn jumped up with pride and glee. "Look," said he, while he scatteredon the floor his bank-notes, his gold, and silver, "that will supporther bravely; tell me, old father, that will keep her snug, won't it?"

  The pioneer nodded his head. "Finn," answered he, "you are a good youngman, and I like you; you think like me; you love Polly, and Polly lovesyou mind, you shall have her, when you are both old enough; butremember, my son, neither your pieces of money nor your rags of paperwill ever keep a daughter of mine. No, no! you shall have Polly, butyou must first know how to use the rifle and the axe."

  A short time after this interview, Finn started upon another trip tounknown lands, leaving old Boone to make the most he could of his money.Now, the old pioneer, although a bold hunter and an intrepid warrior,was a mere child in matters of interest, and in less than two months hehad lost the whole deposit, the only "gentleman" he ever trusted havingsuddenly disappeared with the funds. In the meanwhile Finn had gonedown the Mississippi, to the thirty-second degree of north latitude,when, entering the western swamps, where no white man had everpenetrated, he forced his way to the Red River, which he reached alittle above the old French establishment of Nachitoches. Beyond thispoint, inland navigation had never been attempted, and Finn, procuring alight dug-out, started alone, with his arms and his blanket, upon hisvoyage of discovery. During four months he struggled daily against therapid stream, till he at last reached, in spite of rafts and dangerouseddies, its source at the Rocky Mountains. On his return, a singularand terrible adventure befell him; he was dragging his canoe over araft, exactly opposite to where now stands his plantation, when,happening to hurt his foot, he lost hold of his canoe. It was on thevery edge of the raft, near a ruffled eddy; the frail bark was swampedin a moment, and with it Finn lost his rifle, all his arms, and hisblanket. [See Note 1.]

  Now that cotton grown on the Red River has been acknowledged to be thebest in the States, speculators have settled upon both sides of it asfar as two hundred miles above Lost Prairie; but at the time that Finnmade his excursion, the country was a wilderness of horrible morasses,where the alligators basked unmolested. For months Finn found himself aprisoner at Lost Prairie, the spot being surrounded with impenetrableswamps, where the lightest foot would have sunk many fathoms below thesurface. As to crossing the river, it was out of the question, as itwas more than half a mile broad, and Finn was no swimmer; even now, nohuman being or animal can cross it at this particular spot, for sopowerful are the eddies, that, unless a pilot is well acquainted withthe passage, a boat will be capsized in the whirlpools. Human life canbe sustained upon very little, for Finn managed to live for months upona marshy ground six miles in extent, partially covered with pricklypears, sour grapes, and mushrooms. Birds he would occasionally killwith sticks; several times he surprised tortoises coming on shore todeposit their eggs, and once, when much pressed by hunger, he gavebattle to a huge alligator. Fire he had none; his clothes had long beenin rags; his beard had grown to a great length, and his nails were sharpas the claws of a wild beast. At last there was a flood in the river,and above the raft Finn perceived two immense pine trees afloat in themiddle of the stream. Impelled by the force of the current, they cutthrough the raft, where the timber was rotten, and then grounded.

  This was a chance which Finn lost no time in profiting by; out of thefibrous substance of the prickly pear, he soon manufactured sufficientrope to lash the two trees together, with great labour got them afloat,and was carried
down the stream with the speed of an arrow. Hesucceeded in landing many miles below, on the eastern bank, but he wasso bruised, that for many days he was unable to move.

  One day a report was spread in the neighbourhood of Port Gibson, that astrange monster, of the ourang-outang species, had penetrated thecane-brakes upon the western banks of the Mississippi. Some negroesdeclared to have seen him tearing down a brown bear; an Arkansas hunterhad sent to Philadelphia an exaggerated account of this recentlydiscovered animal, and the members of the academies had written to himto catch the animal, if possible, alive, no matter at what expense. Ahunting expedition was consequently formed, hundreds of dogs were letloose in the cane-brakes, and the chase began.

  The hunters were assembled, waiting till the strange animal should breakcover, when suddenly he burst upon them, covered with blood, andfollowed closely by ten or fifteen hounds. He was armed with a heavyclub, with which he now and then turned upon the dogs, crushing them ata blow. The hunters were dumb with astonishment; mounting their horses,they sprang forward to witness the conflict; the brute, on seeing them,gave a loud shout; one of the hunters being terrified, fired at him withhis rifle; the strange animal put one of his hairy paws upon its breast,staggered, and fell; a voice was heard: "The Lord forgive you thismurder!"

  On coming near, the hunters found that their victim was a man, coveredwith hair from head to foot; he was senseless, but not dead. Theydeplored their fatal error, and resolved that no expense or attentionshould be spared upon the unfortunate sufferer. This hunted beast, thishairy man, was Finn. The wound, not being mortal, was soon cured; buthe became crazy and did not recover his reason for eight months. Herelated his adventures up to his quitting the Lost Prairie; after whichall was a blank. His narrative soon spread all over the States, andland speculators crowded from every part to hear Finn's description ofthe unknown countries. The government became anxious to establish newsettlements in these countries, and Finn was induced to commence thework of colonisation by the gift of the "Lost Prairie." Money was alsosupplied to him, that he might purchase slaves; but, before takingpossession of his grant, he went to Missouri to visit his old friend,and claim his bride. Her father had been dead for some time, but thedaughter was constant.

  With his wife, his brother-in-law, his negroes, and several waggonsloaded with the most necessary articles, Finn forced his way to LittleRock, on the Arkansas River, whence, after a short repose, he againstarted in a South South West direction, through a hilly and woodycountry never before travelled. At last he reached the "Lost Prairie;"nothing was heard of him for two years, when he appeared at Nachitochesin a long cow [see note 2], laden with produce.

  From Nachitoches Finn proceeded to New Orleans, where the money receivedfor his cotton, furs, and honey enabled him to purchase two more negroesand a fresh supply of husbandry tools. A company was immediatelyformed, for the purpose of exploring the Red River, as far as it mightprove navigable, and surveying the lands susceptible of cultivation. Asmall steamboat was procured, and its command offered to Finn, who thusbecame a captain. Although the boat could not proceed higher than LostPrairie, the result of the survey induced hundreds of planters to settleupon the banks of the river, and Captain Finn lived to become rich andhonoured by his countrymen; his great spirit of enterprise neverdeserted him, and it was he who first proposed to the government to cutthrough the great rafts which impeded the navigation. His plans werefollowed, and exploring steam-boats have since gone nearly a thousandmiles above Captain Finn's plantation at Lost Prairie.

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  Note 1. Rafts are an assemblage of forest trees, which have been washeddown to the river, from the undermining of its banks. At certain pointsthey become interlaced and stationary, stretching right across theriver, preventing the passage of even a canoe.

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  Note 2. A cow is a kind of floating raft peculiar to the western riversof America, being composed of immense pine-trees tied together, and uponwhich a log cabin is erected.