“‘Oh sacré, ’tis too bad by Gar! we can get some slips nevare.’
“‘Ugh! (replied Yankee Bogard) we shall get ‘slips’ enough directly, by darn, for we are all afloat, and shall go into the river by and by, in the twinkling of a goat’s eye, if we don’t look out.’
“We were nearly afloat, sure enough, and our condition growing more and more dreary every moment, and our only alternative was, to fold up our nether robe and sit upon it; hanging the other one over our heads, which formed a roof, and shielded the rain from us. To give compactness to the trio, and bring us into such shape as would enable the robe to protect us all, we were obliged to put our backs and occiputs together, and keep our heads from nodding. In this way we were enabled to divide equally the robe that we sat upon, as well as receive mutual benefit from the one that was above us. We thus managed to protect ourselves in the most important points, leaving our feet and legs (from necessity) to the mercy of mud.
“Thus we were re-encamped. ‘A pretty mess’ (said I), we look like the ‘three graces;’—‘de tree grace, by Gar!’ said Ba’tiste. ‘Grace! (whispered Bogard) yes, it’s all grace here; and I believe we’ll all be buried in grace in less than an hour.’
“‘Monsr. Cataline! excusez my back, si vous plait. Bogard! comment, comment?—bonne nuit, Messieurs. Oh! mon Dieu, mon Dieu! Je vous rends grace—je vous prie pour for me sauver ce nuit—delivrez nous! delivrez nous! Je vous adore, Saint Esprit—la Vierge Marie—oh je vous rends grace! pour for de m’avoir conservé from de dam Riccree et de diable muskeet. Eh bien! eh bien!’
“In this miserable and despairing mood poor Ba’tiste dropped off gradually into a most tremendous sleep, whilst Bogard and I were holding on to our corners of the robe—recounting over the dangers and excitements of the day and night past, as well as other scenes of our adventurous lives, whilst we laid (or rather sat) looking at the lightning, with our eyes shut. Ba’tiste snored louder and louder, until sleep had got her strongest grip upon him; and his specific gravity became so great, that he pitched forward, pulling our corners of the robe nearly off from our heads, reducing us to the necessity of drawing upon them till we brought the back of his head in contact with ours, again, and his body in an erect posture, when he suddenly exclaimed.
“‘Bon jour, Monsr. Bogard: bon jour, Monsr. Cataline; n’est ce pas morning, pretty near?’
“‘No, its about midnight.’
“‘Quel temps?’
“Why it rains as hard as ever.
“‘Oh diable, I wish I was tó hell.’
“‘You may be there yet before morning, by darn.’
“‘Pardón! pardón, Monsr Bogard—I shall not go to night, not to night, I was joke—mais! dis is not joke, sùppose—oh vengeance! I am slip down considerable—mais I shall not go to hell quite—I am slip off de seat!’
“‘What! you are sitting in the mud?’
“‘Oui, Bogard, in de muds! mais, I am content, my head is not in de mud. You see Bogard, I avait been sleep, et I raisee my head pretty suddain, and keepee my e back e straight, et I am slip off of de seat. Now, Monsr. Bogard you shall keepee you head straight and moove——————leet, at de bottom?———————remercie, Bogard, remercie,——eh bien,————ah well—————————ha—ha—h——a—by Gar, Bogard, I have a de good joke. Monsr. Cataline will paintez my likeeness as I am now look—he will paint us all—I am tink he will make putty coot view? ha-ha-ha-a——we should see very putty landeescape aboutee de legs, ha? Ha——ha——h———a——a.’
“Oh, Ba’tiste, for Heaven’s sake stop your laughing and go to sleep; we’ll talk and laugh about this all day to-morrow.
“‘Pardón, Monsr. Cataline, (excusez) have you got some slips?’
“No, Ba’tiste, I have not been asleep. Bogard has been entertaining me these two hours whilst you was asleep, with a description of a buffalo hunt, which took place at the mouth of Yellow Stone, about a year ago. It must have been altogether a most splendid and thrilling scene, and I have been paying the strictest attention to it, for I intend to write it down and send it to New York for the cits to read.”
“‘I like’e dat much, Monsr. Cataline, and I shall take much plaisir pout vous donner to give déscript of someting, provide you will write him down, ha?’
“Well Ba’tiste, go on, I am endeavouring to learn everything that’s curious and entertaining, belonging to this country.
“‘Well Monsr. Cataline, I shall tell you someting very much entertain, mais, but, you will nevare tell somebody how we have been fix to night? ha?’
“No, Ba’tiste, most assuredly I shall never mention it nor make painting of it.
“‘Well, je commence,—diable Bogard! you shall keep your back straight you must sit up, ou il n’est pas possibe for to keep de robe ovare all. Je commence, Mons. Cataline, to describe some Dog Feast, which I attend among de dam Pieds noirs. I shall describe some grande, magnifique ceremonay, and you will write him down?’
“Yes, I’ll put it on paper.
“‘Pardón, pardón, I am get most to slip, I shall tell him to-morrow, pérhaps I shall———eh bien;—but you will nevare tell how we look, ha! Monsr. Cataline?’
“No Ba’tiste, I’ll never mention it.
“‘Eh bien———bon nuit.’
“In this condition we sat, and in this manner we nodded away the night, as far as I recollect of it, catching the broken bits of sleep, (that were even painful to us when we got them), until the morning’s rays at length gave us a view of the scene that was around us!! Oh, all ye brick-makers, ye plasterers, and soft-soap manufacturers! put all your imaginations in a ferment together, and see if ye can invent a scene like this! Here was a ‘fix’ to be sure. The sun arose in splendour and in full, upon this everlasting and boundless scene of ‘saft soap’ and grease, which admitted us not to move. The whole hill was constituted entirely of tough clay, and on each side and above us there was no possibility of escape; and one single step over the brink of the place where we had ascended, would inevitably have launched us into the river below, the distance of an hundred feet! Here, looking like hogs just risen from a mud puddle, or a buffalo bull in his wallow, we sat, (and had to sit,) admiring the wide-spread and beautiful landscape that lay steeping and smoking before us, and our little boat, that looked like a nutshell beneath us, hanging at the shore; telling stories and filling up the while with nonsensical garrulity, until the sun’s warming rays had licked up the mud, and its dried surface, about eleven o’clock, gave us foothold, when we cautiously, but safely descended to the bottom; and then, at the last jump, which brought his feet to terra firma, Ba’tiste exclaimed, ‘Well, we have cheatee de dam muskeet, ha!’”
And this, reader, is not ‘the story,’ but one of the little incidents which stood exactly in the way, and could not well be got over without a slight notice, being absolutely necessary, as a key, or kind of glossary, for the proper understanding of the tale that is to be told. There is blood and butchery in the story that is now to be related; and it should be read by every one who would form a correct notion of the force of Indian superstitions.
Three mighty warriors, proud and valiant, licked the dust, and all in consequence of one of the portraits I painted; and as my brush was the prime mover of all these misfortunes, and my life was sought to heal the wound, I must be supposed to be knowing to and familiar with the whole circumstances, which were as—(I was going to say, as follow) but my want of time and your want of patience, compel me to break off here, and I promise to go right on with the story of the Dog in my next Letter, and I advise the reader not to neglect or overlook it.
It stands like an immense column of thirty-five feet high, and highly polished on its top and sides. It requires a daring effort to leap on to its top from the main wall, and back again, and many a heart has sighed for the honour of the feat without daring to make the attempt. Some few have tried it with success, and left their arrows standing in its crevice, several of which are seen there at this time; others have leapt the chasm and fallen from the slippery surface on which they could not hold, and suffered instant death upon the craggy rocks below. Every young man in the nation is ambitious to perform this feat; and those who have successfully done it are allowed to boast of it all their lives. In the sketch already exhibited, there will be seen, a view of the “leaping rock;” and in the middle of the picture, a mound, of a conical form, of ten feet height, which was erected over the body of a distinguished young man who was killed by making this daring effort, about two years before I was there, and whose sad fate was related to me by a Sioux chief, who was father of the young man, and was visiting the Red Pipe Stone Quarry, with thirty others of his tribe, when we were there, and cried over the grave, as he related the story to Mr. Wood and myself, of his son’s death.
“My friend, when I was young, I used to go with our young men to the mountain of the Red Pipe, and dig out pieces for our pipes. We do not go now; and our red pipes as you see, are few. The Dah-co-tah’s have spilled the blood of red men on that place, and the Great Spirit is offended. The white traders have told them to draw their bows upon us when we go there; and they have offered us many of the pipes for sale, but we do not want to smoke them, for we know that the Great Spirit is offended. My mark is on the rocks in many places, but I shall never see them again. They lie where the Great Spirit sees them, for his eye is over that place, and he sees everything that is here.”
Ke-o-kuck chief of the Sacs and Foxes, when I asked him whether he had ever been there, replied—
“No, I have never seen it; it is in our enemies’ country,—I wish it was in ours—I would sell it to the whites for a great many boxes of money.”
“Indian Knowledge of English Affairs—Mr. Catlin, in one of his Lectures on the manners and customs of the North American Indians, during the last week, related a very curious occurrence, which excited a great deal of surprise and some considerable mirth amongst his highly respectable and numerous audience. Whilst speaking of the great and warlike tribe of Sioux or Dahcotas, of 40,000 or 50,000, he stated that many of this tribe, as well as of several others, although living entirely in the territory of the United States, and several hundred miles south of her Majesty’s possessions, were found cherishing a lasting friendship for the English, whom they denominate Saganosh. And in very many instances they are to be seen wearing about their necks large silver medals, with the portrait of George III. in bold relief upon them. These medals were given to them as badges of merit during the last war with the United States, when these warriors were employed in the British service.
“The Lecturer said, that whenever the word Saganosh was used, it seemed to rouse them at once; that on several occasions when Englishmen had been in his company as fellow-travellers, they had marked attentions paid them by these Indians as Saganoshes. And on one occasion, in one of his last rambles in that country, where he had painted several portraits in a small village of Dahcotas, the chief of the band positively refused to sit; alleging as his objection that the pale faces, who were not to be trusted, might do some injury to his portrait, and his health or his life might be affected by it. The painter, as he was about to saddle his horse for his departure, told the Indian that he was a Saganosh, and was going across the Big Salt Lake, and was very sorry that he could not carry the picture of so distinguished a man. At this intelligence the Indian advanced, and after a hearty grip of the hand, very carefully and deliberately withdrew from his bosom, and next to his naked breast, a large silver medal, and turning his face to the painter, pronounced with great vehemence and emphasis the word Sag-a-nosh! The artist, supposing that he had thus gained his point with the Indian Sagamore, was making preparation to proceed with his work, when the Indian still firmly denied him the privilege—holding up the face of his Majesty (which had got a superlative brightness by having been worn for years against his naked breast), he made this singular and significant speech:—‘When you cross the Big Salt Lake, tell my Great Father that you saw his face, and it was bright!’ To this the painter replied, ‘I can never see your Great Father, he is dead!’ The poor Indian recoiled in silence, and returned his medal to his bosom, entered his wigwam, at a few paces distant, where he seated himself amidst his family around his fire, and deliberately lighting his pipe, passed it around in silence.
“When it was smoked out he told them the news he had heard, and in a few moments returned to the traveller again, who was preparing with his party to mount their horses, and enquired whether the Saganoshes had no chief. The artist replied in the affirmative, saying that the present chief of the Saganoshes is a young and very beautiful woman. The Sagamore expressed great surprise and some incredulity at this unaccountable information; and being fully assured by the companions of the artist that his assertion was true, the Indian returned again quite hastily to his wigwam, called his own and the neighbouring families into his presence, lit and smoked another pipe, and then communicated the intelligence to them, to their great surprise and amusement; after which he walked out to the party about to start off, and advancing to the painter (or Great Medicine as they called him), with a sarcastic smile on his face, in due form, and with much grace and effect, he carefully withdrew again from his bosom the polished silver medal, and turning the face to the painter, said, ‘Tell my Great Mother, that you saw our Great Father, and that we keep his face bright!’”