CHAPTER XI
CHANGE OF SCENERY
THE time had come when
"good bye" must be exchanged with the last
of old and tried friends, the parting kiss exchanged
with the last relative, to study new scenes and faces,
and make new friends. Before turning homeward, they
had commissioned the master of the steamer Lynx with
my "safe landing" at the Mission of Dr.
Williamson. Hope appeared in the distance—a
halo of brightness encircling her form. Nature lent
her charms to drive away the last lingerings of sadness,
and to impart happiness before unequaled.
Hitherto, the character
of the scenery had been pleasing, with little variety.
Low banks sloped to the water's edge, and boundless
prairies, chequered with fields of waving grain, and
dotted with fine farm-houses, formed the landscape.
Thriving villages and cities of a precocious growth
skirted the river banks, while a degree of thrift
and comfort I had little expected to see, met the
view. THe "wilderness and solitary place were
made glad" by the fragrance of the rose, which
bloomed in beauty amid the verdant thicket.
Galena, the great lead
mart of northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin,
is located on a river of the same name, seven miles
from its entrance with the Mississippi. Here, the
tame scenery merges at once into the picturesque and
beautifully wild. Streets are cut through almost solid
rock, and in some instances the roofs of three and
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four story blocks are on a level with
the street above; everything indicating the indomitable
energy and perseverance of the citizens.
Dubuque, in Iowa, twenty-five
miles by the river winding above Galena, is surrounded
by an irregular line of bluffs, bold and beautiful.
This town, also rich in its mining interests, is one
of the fast towns of the west.
THe scenery now assumed
a wild grandeur, varying with every view, and affording
a literal feast for the eyes and heart. There was
scarce an appearance of civilization for three hundred
miles, if we except the old French town of Prairie
du Chien, in Wisconsin, founded by some traders the
same year that William Penn, under the shadow of his
"broad brim," founded the city of "Brotherly
Love." Here and there, upon the river bank, was
a woodman's cabin, and again a claimant's with a little
patch of culinary vegetables in front, with, perhaps,
a half-dozen half-clad children sporting about the
door, who, on the ringing of the boat bell, would
flee like frighted deer.
The Indian "hugged
the shore" with his light canoe, or gazed with
listless apathy from the bank, where he smoked his
red-stone pipe.
"Slowly and surely"
progressed the Lynx, and rapidly the hours sped on.
All nature had conspired to form a glorious day when
we first looked upon "Little Crow's Village,"
or Kaposia, where our boat headed on the morning of
July 16th, 1847. The ringing of the bell occasioned
a grand rush, and with telegraphic speed, every man,
woman, and child flew to the landing.
To an unsophisticated
eye like mine, the scene on shore was novel and grotesque,
not to say repulsive; blankets and hair streaming
in the wind; limbs uncovered; chil-
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dren nearly naked, the smaller ones
entirely so, while a papoose was ludicrously peeping
over the shoulder of nearly every squaw. In the midst
of the waiting throng appeared the Missionary and
his sister.
A tear drop, which had
suddenly formed in the heart, came welling up, but
was arrested by a remark of the good humored Captain
(peace to his memory), "That the Doctor was doing
it up in fine style—he had got the whole village
out for an escort!"
Before reaching the lower
deck the crowd were thronging the plank and rushing
upon the boat, arrayed in the most fantastic manner,
and painted according to their fanciful notions of
beauty.
I was received by the
Missionaries with more than a kindly welcome, as presented
by the Captain, with the playful injunction, "Not
to let the Indians scalp me!" With other
sage advice during this memorable up river trip, he
had enjoined that I should "kiss the papooses,"
and thereby secure the friendship of the band.
No sooner was I on shore than this duty became
manifestly obvious—the greasy, smutty face of
every mother's child being presented to afford me
my initiatory lesson.
It was a moment of no
ordinary interest—of calm, undefinable joy,
when I entered the humble mission house. The "wild
experiment" had become a reality; I stood upon
ground which to me had before existed only in the
ideal world.
Most of the principal
Indians of the band, headed by the chief, followed
me to the house, where a formal presentation took
place, and I shook hands with each. They were curious
to learn if I was a "big, knife" (from the
States), and why their expected annuities had not
arrived, presuming that I must be conversant with
all affairs
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at Washington. I had never felt so keenly
the power of eye scrutiny.
Hitherto, mine had been
a dreamy life, full of waking visions, with which
reality was strangely blended. The shadowy vista of
coming years had, from childhood, been crowded with
rich imaginings. The Red Man in his far off home was,
to my childish fancy, a being of the ideal world.
Rarely had I seen a wandering remnant of the race,
and I had formed no correct idea of him in his native
state—on his own hunting grounds. Now I was
on the very confines of civilization, surrounded by
all the evidences of savage life. But soon the scene
changed. Instead of stalwart men, half divested of
clothing, with limbs naked and covered with grease
and soot, to protect from mosquitos, there came a
few native christian women for a prayer meeting. As
I saw these untutored natives reverently bow, and
heard their voices, in an unknown tongue, earnestly
addressing a Throne of Grace, new but blissful emotions
possessed my heart. Such pathos, such humility, such
earnestness, I had rarely if ever witnessed. Yet they
were few, very few, who found delight in these exercises.
The majority of the Indians, still attached to their
"wankons," though Gospel claims are urged
upon them, choose the way "which goeth down to
death."
Towards evening we strolled
through their village, called at several "lodges,"
constructed of bark, and frolicked with the children
in lieu of conversing with their mothers. At the lodge
of the chief, a skin was placed without the door for
my benefit, by his "superior," wife. This
the mission lady urged me to accept, lest offence
be given.
It is not an unimportant
matter in frontier life to secure
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the friendship of the natives. True
they are ofttimes treacherous, and perhaps generally
so, yet I am far from endorsing the belief that there
are no exceptions. From the first they were kindly
disposed toward me, regarding me with apparent interest,
and many a time since have I been glad to welcome
some of these my earliest Minnesota friends. The names
of Old Betsey and Uncle John, of Harpa and Winona
Zee, are familiar household words, and their good
natured faces always brought a beam of merry sunshine
into the house. An old Hocka-wash-ta was "always
sure to be present when least wanted;" as the
proverb runs of an evil genius, "no one could
say where he was not."
Little Crow, the chief,
whose calls were frequent, both at his village and
after I had removed to St. Paul, is a tall, handsome
man, with no striking expression of countenance. The
youngest of seven brothers, all of whom have died
by violent hands, ambitious for the chieftainship,
attempted the life of his brother, wounding him severely,
and he fearing the design would be eventually executed,
ordered the younger be shot. Thus the last but one
of the name was gathered to his fathers. Little Crow
possesses not the confidence of his band, who regard
him as full of malice, intrigue and cunning. He often
attended worship at the mission house and manifested
some regard for the Scriptures, which he had learned
to read.
Chapter XII
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