Wild Sports In The Far West

PREFACE

On my return, a short time since, to my native land, from the wilds of America, it was not at first my intention to offer to the public the contents of the diary I had kept during my travels, and written out in detail as an employment for my leisure hours, for the exclusive use of my family in Germany. Incited, however, by the interest awakened by the publication of a few extracts in one of our periodicals, and yielding to the wishes expressed by various friends who had read the remainder, I undertook to correct and revise my notes, and to mould into a continuous narrative a diary which I had only kept when circumstances worthy of being chronicled arose, – for instance, on the voyage out, on my march through the United States, during my sojourn among the swamps of Arkansas, and finally during my hunting trip in the Ozark mountains.

I have endeavored faithfully to portray the social condition of the Americans, in so far as it came under my observation, and many a reader, while turning over the pages of this work, will seek in vain the wonted glowing descriptions of the riches and plenty which the dwellers in the West are reputed to enjoy. It is true that the American farmer commencing operations with small means, may, by dint of very strenuous exertions, realize an independence in a shorter time than would suffice for this object in our old fatherland; but, on the other hand, he must be prepared to renounce every thing that gladdened his heart in his native country – and only too quickly will he discover that to wean himself from the comforts to which he has been from childhood accustomed, to quit the society and intercourse of the civilized world, and to seek in a far land a life of freedom indeed, but likewise of solitude and privation, is a harder task than it at first appeared. And not every man is sufficiently strong of heart to bear the emigrant’s lot without a murmur.

But should any inveterate sportsman, with an imagination heated by the description of these scenes, excited by the dangers and difficulties of the enterprise, depart to the far West, to experience similar adventures, let him remember, when wet, hungry, alone, and a prey to mosquitoes, he lies stretched in the untrodden forest, longing in vain for a fire, and for the society of men; or when he has been following the tracks of the deer for days together, without the chance of a single shot, until he can almost persuade himself that the tales he has read of wild sports in the West are but myths existing only in the brains of the Indians; let him, I say, remember that I have, so far as in me lay, painted all this in its true colors, and that many an adventure which reads admirably on paper, is in reality the reverse of romantic.

The chase in the United States is, moreover, rapidly on the decline; for the American hunter spares nothing, and for some time, particularly since the day when skins were first paid for in hard dollars, a war of extermination has been waged against the poor stags and bears; – so that the hunter who, some five years hence, shall visit these realms, will scarcely find his expectations of sport realized, unless he is prepared either to content himself with small game, or to penetrate to the Rocky Mountains, and explore the territory of the Indians.

With the concluding request to my readers, to remember that these pages are penned by a man who, so to speak, has but just emerged from the forest, and who relates his experiences to his friends at home, not caring for the fact that he might, perhaps, by adopting a different method, have told his story with more effect, this diary is submitted to the kind consideration of the public, by

CHAPTER I

FROM BREMEN TO NEW YORK

A Bremen lighter, and its capacity for holding passengers – An unexpected meeting – Scene on board the lighter – The captain – First night on board – A parting dance on shore – Our new passengers and their mishaps – The “Constitution” – Steerage arrangements – Sleeping berths – Scenes between decks – Departure – Sea-sickness – Our Jewish passengers – The French and English Coasts – The Atlantic – Jelly-fish and “Portuguese men-of-war” – Small-pox on board – Dancing – Phosphorescence of the sea – Fricandeau-days – Stormy weather – Meeting of ships at sea – The 4th of July and its festivities – The shark and pilot-fish – Projects to pass the time – “Land ho!” – Arrival, harbor, quarantine, and examination of luggage – We take leave of the “Constitution.”

“Does the boat start at nine exactly?” “Yes, do not be later.” Such was the notice I received as I spoke with the master of the lighter, which in the spring of 1837 was to take me with bag and baggage on board the “Constitution,” bound to New York, then lying in Bremen Roads, about forty miles from the town, and only waiting for the two lighters, which were to take on board the steerage passengers with their effects.

I was true to my appointment at nine o’clock, but soon found that there was no necessity to have hurried myself, as no preparations had been made for starting; I took advantage of the time to look over all my effects, to see if I had everything I thought necessary, and to procure any thing that was wanting: in a large chest, that could easily be got at, I had packed some bottles of red wine, a keg of sardines, another of herrings, a Westphalian ham (oh, that there had been six!), some lemons, a little rum, pepper, sugar, some tin vessels for the table and to keep food in, knives, forks, and spoons. I found all right, and then lounged along the banks of the Weser, so as not to lose the boat. I was astonished at the number of passengers that arrived; and when I saw the crowd of people to be stowed in the miserably small boat, it appeared to me impossible that she could hold so many. While I was leaning against the corner of a house and looking on, a young man approached, wrapped in a blue cloak, with a foraging cap, spectacles, a long pipe in one hand, and a knapsack in the other; he looked at me steadfastly for a moment, and then accosted me with the intimate “Du” (Thou). His features were familiar to me, but I did not remember him till he mentioned his name; he was H., a former school-fellow, who was about to embark in the same ship. The sight of him first recalled to mind, since I had taken leave of all who were near and dear to me, that I was not quite alone in the world, and that there was still some one who would interest himself for me; of course we were now inseparable.

We lounged about together for some time in the town, and on returning to the boat found for certain that it would not start till the following morning. Most of the passengers went on shore in the evening. H. and I remained on board with our baggage. Next morning we cast off from the shore and made sail with the ebb; the wind was unfavorable. No one who has not made such a passage, in a similar boat, with a like number of passengers, can imagine the scene. It is necessary to give a short description of it, as these boats are still in use, and may yet carry thousands of emigrants from their native land. The lighter was cutter-rigged, about forty-five feet long, and some fifteen broad, with a little hole in the after part called a cabin, with two sleeping places on one side and some rows of shelves on the other; it was about large enough to contain six people closely packed. Imagine sixty passengers in the other part of the boat! (for the cabin was only for the master, or captain, as he liked to be called). Sixty live passengers, with their chests, trunks, hat and other boxes, handkerchiefs of provisions, cloaks, mattresses, coverlets, &c. &c.; and not young men only, but old and young women, old men and boys, children and old maids, sitting, lying, standing, and leaning about. If any one had told me beforehand that such a number of people could have been packed in such a space, I would not have believed him.

When all had settled themselves, and I was firmly persuaded that it was quite impossible to find room for one more, without hanging him up under the deck, a pair of legs poked themselves down the hatchway; over them was a blue jacket, topped by the rubicund visage of our faithful captain. After trying for some time with his feet to find a solid foundation to stand on, he let go his hands, and lighted on the corns of a lanky sailor, who had squeezed himself in between two chests, and had fallen asleep standing; the pain made him draw up his long legs, and he was so disconcerted, that, still half asleep, he courteously begged pardon of the captain, or Tarpaulin, as we called him.

The captain now began to look about him, stepping over two and sometimes three persons at a time. But what was his motive for taking all this trouble? Merely to look at the pretty faces of the female passengers, and to try to make himself agreeable to them – but time and place, wind and weather were against him; he only received snappish words from some, and derision from others; finding that nothing was to be gained from the fair sex, he turned to the other, and began to ogle various attractive-looking bottles, which were less coy towards him, for here and there some of them were uncorked and their contents earnestly inquired into.

At last he went on deck, and I followed, not without difficulty, to get at least a breath of fresh air; the weather was bad, the sky cloudy, with a sharp cutting wind, and occasionally rain: the dull leather-colored banks of the Weser filled me with melancholy.

H. had followed me; so we lit a couple of cigars, and talked over old stories. We anchored at dark, as the master was afraid of running aground – the vessel swung round, the sails were lowered, and all was quiet for the night. As the dew fell heavy and cold, we once more descended through the dark abyss of the hatchway. Not a light was burning, and all lay close packed together; how I managed to get through the mass is still a mystery, but I remember that I passed the night, sitting on the corner of a chest, leaning my head upon another with an enormous padlock, against which I constantly knocked.

What a scene in the morning! – I was as hungry as a wolf – and no wonder, for I had eaten nothing since the previous morning; I got on deck, washed my face and hands in a bucket of Weser water, and greedily devoured a morsel of bread and cheese which I had in my pocket. The weather had improved, the boat dropped slowly down with the tide. About eight o’clock we met a small fishing boat, from which I bought some capital shell-fish; these our captain ordered to be cooked by his ministering spirit, and of course came in for his share. When the flood made, we anchored again; H. and I with the only sailor went on shore to recruit our store of provisions, as our passage seemed likely to be a long one.

In the afternoon we dropped down to a village called, I believe, Bracke, where some merry music struck our ears. Our Tarpaulin would not have passed it had the whole admiralty of Bremen been standing sentry on the shore; although the wind was fair, and the ebb still running, the anchor was dropped, the little boat hauled up, and all the younger members, babies excepted, landed on the beach.

Dancing was carried on with vigor for a couple of hours, but I took no part in it; I was in no humor for dancing. I was nevertheless amused; the emigrants, in the costume of their different states, even in the moment of bidding farewell to their native land, jumped and bounded to the sound of a couple of fiddles and a horn, without a care for the future. As it began to grow late, the not very tender lighterman’s conscience of our captain began to reproach him. The wind was fair, and he knew that the ship was only waiting for him; so he collected his cargo, and we left the merry sounds behind us. We had had some fun at any rate, and that made the time seem shorter.

At Vegesack, another village on the Weser, we received three more passengers, also bound for our ship – a man of about five or six and forty, his wife, some seven or eight years younger, and their hopeful son, of about eighteen.

As it was a downright impossibility to squeeze in three more passengers amongst us, Tarpaulin gave them up his cabin, as he called it. It cost no little trouble to get the two rather helpless old folks stowed below. William, for that was hopeful’s name, managed it quicker, for his foot slipped, and down he went, like a flash of lightning, between his astonished parents, crushing his mother’s bonnet in his descent. Towards evening our captain wanted some tar. It was stowed under a scuttle in the floor of the cabin. The sailor, who had taken rather too much on board at Bracke, and thereupon had totally forgotten the principles of equilibrium, tumbled to the foot of the cabin ladder, and made the trio understand that it was necessary to open the little hole in the floor, and that therefore they must press themselves as close as possible against the ship’s sides. This was easier said than done, because a narrow seat ran along the sides. The scuttle was at last opened, the iron pot lifted out, and set with its sharp edge on William’s toes, causing him to draw back his foot and strike his heel forcibly against the ship’s side. But his cup of sorrow was not exhausted yet. With sublime patience he awaited the retreat of the sailor, who, with unsteady hands, lifted the bucket towards the captain, who had stretched out his hands to take it; but “there’s many a slip ’twixt the cup and the lip.” The bucket turned over. William, poor innocent William, received the whole of the contents, and the captain got nothing more than his favorite perfume. He swore like a heathen. And what said William, as he stood there like butter in the sun? If the saying is true – “well greased goes easy,” it ought to have gone easy with him.

One more night had we to pass in this wretched boat. It would fill volumes to relate all the occurrences, serious and comic. In the morning we saw the object of our hopes – the barque “Constitution” – lying at anchor, with flags flying. We were soon alongside and on board. The confusion of this moment was indescribable. The second lighter had arrived two days before us with the other passengers, who had secured the most convenient bed-places, and arranged their packages to the best advantage; no trifling matter in so small a space. The steerage was about thirty-three feet long by twenty-seven wide, and eight high, with posts, or stanchions, in the middle, to support the upper deck, to which the chests, &c., were lashed. Imagine on each side two rows of bed-places, one over the other, about six feet square, each wide enough, or rather not wide enough, to contain five people. The chests, cases, packages of all sorts with clothes and provisions, were stowed in the intermediate spaces, and lashed to the posts, to keep them from tumbling about with the motion of the ship, leaving a space on each side of about twenty-two feet long, and from twelve to fourteen inches wide, for 118 passengers. At first I could not believe that we were so many, but by degrees became convinced of it. After for a short time viewing the scene with its forms climbing and crawling about through the gloom, I imagined to myself the motion of the ship, the lashings giving way, the chests and boxes flying from side to side, and the advent of sea-sickness, which the number of tin basins kept in readiness seemed mournfully to forebode; – I hastily mounted to the deck, which seemed spacious and well arranged.

Although lying at anchor, the “Constitution” appeared to one so uninitiated as myself to roll considerably. Before dark, I crept below again to take another look at my sleeping-place. There were five of us, whom fate and our own volition had consigned to a space six feet square, with the audacious idea of resigning ourselves to the arms of Morpheus; but we were so squeezed together that the god could not have clasped an individual; so he must either take all five at once, or leave us to our fate. Our mattresses were spread (each had a mattress and coverlet), and we crept in one after the other. When four had taken their places, two of them being men of colossal bulk, the space was filled, and the question arose – What was to become of the fifth? Lie across? That would have been too uncomfortable for those below. Under our heads? That would not have been agreeable for H., who was the fifth man; besides he was so scraggy and bony, that I doubt if our heads would not have had the worst of it. At last we all agreed to lie on our sides, and H. squeezed in. Turning round was a thing not to be thought of; and thus we passed our first night in our long-desired ship.

Next morning, when my left side awoke (my right lying fast asleep for some time longer), all my limbs seemed bruised and broken; I almost felt homesick. I crept out as well as I could, and went on deck to get a wash, a bucket serving me for a basin. The wind blew cold and comfortless through the rigging. All was soon in motion below, and as I looked down the hatchway, I was forcibly reminded of Schiller’s “Diver,”[*]

Laughter, singing, roaring, cursing, the screams of children, crying, and praying, resounded in a confused din up the hatchway. Presently, one sleepy face after another crept up the ladder, with blinking eyes, accustomed to the nether darkness, and looked towards the morning sun just breaking through a bank of thin gray clouds. In about an hour’s time, a talismanic word, pronounced in a loud voice in the forepart of the ship, put life into the crew, who had been on board some days: we soon found that this mysterious word meant, “breakfast” – “dinner” – “supper.” We received coffee, biscuit, and brown bread, but every one had to find his own can, and to fetch his portion himself.

I had now time to notice my bed-fellows: H., I have already described; the other three were a joiner, a doctor, and an apothecary, the two latter big enough to fill up one sleeping-place to themselves. As far as I could judge on such short acquaintance, they seemed to promise agreeable society.

Boundless disorder still reigned around. No one seemed to know where he ought to be; everybody was asking for a chest, a box, a trunk: the fair sex, of whom we had about twenty-five, had made no arrangements among themselves, so that, instead of only eight, sixteen were speaking at the same time. I sincerely pitied some among them, who seemed to have been in better circumstances, but who, probably through insufficiency of means, were obliged to choose the cheaper passage in the steerage, and to forego all the comforts to which they had been accustomed from childhood. A single man can rough it; indeed, it is highly interesting to take part in all this life and bustle, and I would not on any account have taken my passage in the cabin; but for a woman, it is quite another thing; for what may serve as a joke and subject of conversation to a man, alarms and hurts the feelings of a woman: it was, however, very different with some Oldenburg lassies. They seemed as much at home as in their ferry-boats; the greater the uproar and disorder, the more did they laugh and enjoy it. The race of Israel had about sixty representatives on board, among them some pretty Jewesses; had they all been dirty peddlers, I must have jumped overboard.

After two days, the pilot came on board, the anchor was weighed, all was life and mirth. None would remain below, and the deck was crowded; the wind blew fair and we were soon in the North Sea. The strip of land became smaller and smaller; the pilot left us; his boat lessened and lessened; then there was only a thin, blue line with one dark point, the steeple of Wangerode; this became more misty and indistinct; the last trace of home disappeared in the blue distance. There, behind those thin clouds that seemed to lie on the water, lived all those who were near and dear to me in this world, – and yet I had no tears, for their source seemed dried up. I stood for a long, long time scanning, with dry eyes, that part of the heavens. I went early to bed to indulge my thoughts. I had hardly turned in, when my comrades came, and the squeeze began again. All was tolerably quiet in the steerage, most of the party being, probably, affected by the disappearance of their mother country.

Running with a fair wind, the ship soon became uneasy; I awoke in the night with a very disagreeable sensation, to find that my head lay much lower than my heels. Our berth was on the starboard or right side of the ship, looking towards the head, and our feet were towards the ship’s side, on account of the fresh wind; in the night the wind changed, and the ship laid over on the port side; between laughing and swearing, and not without considerable difficulty, we changed our position.

The next morning’s sun shone on many a pale and long face; the sea was rough, the ship rolled and pitched fearfully, the effect was awful to look upon. I have already stated that we had a number of Jews on board, with few exceptions, from the lowest class; they were allowed by their rabbins, at least so they avowed, to eat bacon during the voyage, and most of them had so far availed themselves of the privilege, as, if not to overload the stomach, at least to take in a very plentiful supply of the beautiful sweet bacon that was served out to us. Punishment trod on the heels of crime; there was not a corner of the ship unoccupied by a sick Israelite with a tin basin, or one despairingly leaning over the side and squaring accounts with Neptune.

H., the doctor, and myself were quite well, and not a little did we quiz the poor wretches, who were already sufficiently tormented. The following day it rained hard; the confined space, with all these sufferers, was almost insupportable – yet it was very disagreeable to get wet through on deck – I was wretched.

About noon on Sunday, some groups formed here and there; people began to feel that it was a misery not to associate, – yet a sudden qualm would often end a conversation begun in mirth. Some of the most resolute began to creep on deck again, but often had to pay dearly for their temerity, when a heavy sea broke over the ship, and wet to the skin all within its course. I never before knew the real advantage of a cloak. In the evening it cleared up, and I made my way forward amongst the crew to listen to their songs and stories.

On the following day the sea was heavier, and sickness at its height. I was quite disgusted, and climbed up the rigging to the top to get rid of it, and remained there till the cook’s magic word announced something warm for the inner man, though very few of the passengers responded to the call.

I may as well take this opportunity to say something about the cooking and manner of living. The kitchen is a small wooden house, well secured by clamps to the deck, as a safeguard against the force of the seas that break over the ship. It was divided into two parts; one for the cabin passengers, the other for the steerage passengers and crew. The provisions were good and plentiful. Coffee was served out every morning, though, to be sure, one had to drink a great deal of water to get at the coffee; but I had always been used to strong coffee, and future experience in the back woods taught me that, when drunk scalding hot, it requires a good palate to distinguish between strong and weak coffee.

It was evening when we approached the French coast, which first appeared as a bluish line, that grew larger and larger: before dark, we came near enough to Calais to distinguish the steeple and houses. Looking over towards England, we could see nothing beyond the two lights near Dover. On the following morning, we were nearer to the coast of England, whose majestic chalky cliffs were tinged rose-color by the morning sun. In the evening we passed the Isle of Wight, and the wind changing, we did not clear the Channel till the 27th May.

We were now on the broad ocean; a number of fishing-boats enlivened the prospect with their many-colored sails, sometimes white, sometimes yellow, red, and even black. The sea was green, and the color especially beautiful under the bows and stern; the picture was further animated by a number of porpoises and albicores leaping from wave to wave. I saw several strange substances floating on the sea, which I could not observe more closely, for want of a net to catch them: I decided on making one.