Across America; Or, The Great West and the Pacific Coast. James Fowler RuslingЧитать онлайн книгу.
want of timber, coal had been discovered in many places, and all through the valley of the Kaw, she has a cream-colored limestone in the bluffs, that works up beautifully for building purposes. When first quarried, it is so soft that a common hand-saw or chisel can dress it into any shape desired; but exposure to the atmosphere soon hardens it, and then it continues so. In appearance it resembles the Milwaukee free-stone, that used to make Michigan Avenue, Chicago, so handsome and stately, and as a building material will prove immensely valuable through all Southern Kansas. At Junction City it was being got out by machinery, and fashioned into blocks by horsepower. A company controlled the business, and as they could furnish this elegant stone at a much less cost than lumber or brick, they were anticipating very handsome profits.
The scenery of Kansas possesses many points of interest, but as a whole lacks grandeur and sublimity. The view from Prospect Ridge, back of Leavenworth, up and down the Missouri, is good; but the landscape from Indian Point, near Junction City, up the Smoky Hill, has more scope and variety, and was the finest we saw. Here, and at other points, are some superb specimens of river terraces. We counted four and five separate "benches," as they call them there, or terraces, in many places, and the ancient water-marks of past geologic ages seemed very evident. The rounded appearance of the country generally, cropping out here and there into rough and misshapen ridges, indicated pretty clearly the former water-line, and we often interested ourselves in tracing it for miles.
Kansas, of course, abounds in enterprise and thrift. Saved to freedom by Sharpe's rifles and the Bible, she invested largely in the school-house and the church, and already reaps her fit reward. Her Yankees whittle away just as cutely as they used to in New England, and her Western men spread themselves hugely as elsewhere. Since the war, she had received quite a large accession of population from our ex-officers and soldiers. We found specimens of the Boys in Blue scattered almost everywhere, and usually they were doing well. A fine esprit du corps animated them, and will keep them knit together for the future. At various points we found them just "squatted" on a quarter-section, and with the very rudest surroundings, but ever plucky and hopeful. At Junction we met a late Paymaster, U. S. Vol's., who was half-owner of the chief grocery and liquor-store, as well as partner in a stone-quarry, and was about establishing a National Bank. He was a man of spirit and enterprise, and seemed to have enough surplus energy left for several more employments.
At Leavenworth, up at the old Fort, we saw our first Indians—a party of Delawares. They consisted of Fall-Leaf, war-chief of the Delawares, his nephew General Jackson, and a handful of other braves. They were dressed in the usual rough costume of the border, but with an eagle-feather or two in their broad-brimmed sombreros trailing in the wind. Fall-Leaf was a noble specimen of the Indian in a half-civilized state. He was a brawny, athletic, powerful fellow, five feet eleven inches high, weighed one hundred and ninety-six pounds, and was fifty-five years old. A perfect mass of bone and muscle, without an ounce of superfluous flesh, his frame was a sight to look upon—especially the massive splendor of his neck and chest. A Hercules of the Plains, we could well believe the stories told of his great strength and powers of endurance. General Jackson was a lithe, light-built man, about thirty-six years of age, and in physique almost the opposite of his brawny uncle. Three of them had just been engaged as guides to a military expedition about leaving for the Indian country, and a fourth was going along as interpreter. Fall-Leaf had long served the government, with marked fidelity, as guide on the Plains and in the far Indian country, and received one hundred and fifty dollars per month and rations when absent on such duty. He was familiar with the whole country west, as far as the Rocky Mountains, and southward to New Mexico, and was reputed as invaluable in his way. He told me the Delawares numbered about a thousand souls yet, and had stood at those figures for several years. They occupy a Reservation of several thousand acres on the Missouri just below Leavenworth, and are engaged generally in farming and stock-raising. They have a church, pretty generally attended, and a good school, well-patronized. He said his people were fully impressed with the importance of education and religion, and generally there was an earnest desire among them to have their children learn all "Pale-Face ways." He said he took a drink of "fire-water" himself occasionally, on cold or wet days, and rather liked it; but that, as a rule, drunkenness was on the decrease among the Delawares, and he was glad of it. He had a wife and eight children, and said they allowed "only one wife at a time in his tribe." He said he was born far away toward the rising sun, on a river among the mountains; and when I showed him a map, he immediately pointed out the head-waters of the Delaware. When I told him I had just come from there, and that my "wigwam" stood upon its banks, he seemed greatly interested. The first steamboat he ever saw, was many years before at St. Louis, and he thought it "Very good," because "It went itself! Puff! Puff! No paddle!" His first locomotive, was quite recently at Leavenworth, and he thought it "Much good! Went whiz! Beat buffalo or pony!" Of the telegraph, he said, "I no understand; but very much good! Heap swift! Like arrow or bullet between wide places; only heap better!"
He said, the Delawares believed in the Great Manitou, who made earth, and sky, and everything; but many did not believe in the Evil Manitou. He himself seemed to be a pretty good Universalist. He thought God "very much good," and couldn't imagine how any lesser being could interfere with Him. "Perhaps, Evil Manitou somewhere; but Fall-Leaf know only Good Manitou." He admitted some of his people believed in spirits; but he himself had never seen any, and was skeptical on the whole subject. Some medicine-men, he said, claimed to have seen them, and to be able to control them; but he thought the whole thing "a heap humbug."
Fall-Leaf, as I have said, was then War Chief of the Delawares. In his time he had been quite a noted warrior, and was proud of his reputation for bravery and prowess. His last fight against the Plains Indians had been about two years before, when he covered the retreat of a squad of infantry, from a body of mounted Cheyennes and Arrapahoes, and brought them all safely off. His last fight at the head of the Delawares had been some ten years before, when with less than fifty warriors he encountered and fought over two hundred Pawnees, and whipped them well. Altogether, he supposed, he had killed and scalped two or three hundred Indians, in his time; but never a pale-face. He was a dignified and quiet enough looking Red Skin to talk to through an interpreter, and occasionally would grunt out a little broken English himself; but when roused, and with the fury of battle upon him, no doubt he would be an ugly customer to deal with. His face was full of smothered force and fire, of latent power and fierceness, like a tamed tiger's; and notwithstanding his peaceful demeanor, he all the while suggested that a single war-whoop, or a scalping-knife flashing through the air, would speedily transform the gentle Fall-Leaf into a hideous savage again.
Beyond Topeka we passed St. Mary's, a Catholic Mission among the Pottawotamies. These Indians had a Reservation there then thirty miles square, of as fine land as there was in Kansas. Stock-raising seemed to be their chief occupation, though they had some fields well fenced, and their corn crops were looking well. They lived in one-story log-cabins, and by dint of years of hard work the missionaries had succeeded in reducing them to a sort of semi-civilization; but the aborigine survived still, and cropped out fearfully everywhere. It was an anomaly and an anachronism to see them driving teams and threshing grain; and they themselves seemed to confess it by their awkwardness. Beyond Manhattanville we met en route a large party of them—braves, squaws and papooses—returning from a Buffalo hunt on the Plains. Some were in wagons with their spoils of buffalo meat and robes; but the majority went careering along on horseback. Most of them were in semi-civilized costume, not much rougher than an average borderer, though their head-gear usually ran much to feather. A few of their young squaws were decidedly pretty and piquant, and, as they ambled by on their gaily-caparisoned ponies, created quite a sensation among us; but the older ones were hideous looking hags.
In all this part of Kansas, the Indian had already had his day, and everywhere was being fast eliminated. The valleys of the Kaw and its two chief tributaries, the Republican and Smoky Hill, had already heard the whistle of the white man's locomotive, and the whole region there was beginning to shake with the tread of the onward march of civilization. As "Bleeding Kansas," she had had her dark days; but these, happily, were past, and the tide wave of eastern immigration was now surging and swelling all up and down her borders. We met cheery voices and friendly hands at every stage of progress; and could not but bid Kansas a hearty God-speed as we journeyed on.
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