# The City of the Saints/Chapter 13

CHAPTER XIII.
To Carson Valley.
Before resuming the Itinerary, it may be advisable briefly to describe the various tribes tenanting this Territory.
We have now emerged from the Prairie Indians, the Dakotah, Crow, Kiowa, Comanche, Osage, Apache, Cheyenne, Pawnee, and Arapaho. Utah Territory contains a total of about 19,000 souls of two great kindred races, the Shoshonee or Snake, and the Yuta, called Uche by the Spaniards and Ute by the Anglo-American trappers. Like the Comanche and Apache, the Pimas, the Lipans, and the people of the Pueblos, they are of the Hispano-American division, once subject to the Conquistadores, and are bounded north by the Panak (Bannack) and the once formidable Black​feet. The Shoshonee own about one third of the Territory; their principal settlements lie north of the Great Salt Lake, and on the line of the Humboldt or Mary River, some 400 miles west, and 100 to 125 south of the Oregon line. They number about 4500 souls, and are wildest in the southeast parts of their motherland. The Yuta claim the rest of the Territory between Kansas, the Sierra Nevada, New Mexico, and the Oregon frontier. Of course the two peoples are mortal foes, and might be well pitted against each other. The Snakes would form excellent partisan warriors.
The Shoshonee number fourteen tribes regularly organized; the principal, which contains about 12,000 souls, is commanded by Washaki, assisted, as usual, by sub-chiefs, four to six in number. Five bands, numbering near 1000 each, roam about the mountains and kanyons of Great Salt Lake County, Weber, Bear, Cache, and Malad Valleys, extending eighty miles north from the Holy City. These have suffered the most from proximity with the whites, and no longer disdain agriculture. One band, 150 to 180 in number, confines itself to the North Californian Route from Bear and Malad Valleys to the Goose-Creek Mountains. Seven bands roam over the country from the Humboldt River to 100 miles south of it, and extend about 200 miles from east to west: the principal chief, Wanamuka, or "the Giver," had a band of 155 souls, and lived near the Honey Lake.
The Yuta claim, like the Shoshonee, descent from an ancient people that immigrated into their present seats from the northwest. During the last thirty years they have considerably decreased according to the mountaineers, and have been demoralized mentally and physically by the emigrants: formerly they were friendly, now they are often at war with the intruders. As in Australia, arsenic and corrosive sublimate in springs and provisions have diminished their number. The nation is said to contain a total of 14,000 to 15,000 souls, divided into twenty-seven bands, of which the following are the principal:
The Pá Yuta (Pey Utes) are the most docile, interesting, and powerful, containing twelve bands; those in the west of the ​Territory, on the Humboldt River, number 6000, and in the south 2200 souls; they extend from forty miles west of Stony Point to the Californian line, and northwest to the Oregon line, and inhabit the valley of the Fenelon River, which, rising from Lake Bigler, empties itself into Pyramid Lake. The term means Water Yuta, that is to say, those who live upon fish which they take from lakes and rivers in wiers and traps of willow, preferring that diet to roots, grass-seed, lizards, and crickets, the food of the other so-called Digger tribes.
Gosh Yuta, or Gosha Ute, is a small band, once protégés of the Shoshonee, who have the same language and limits. Their principal chief died about five years ago, when the tribe was broken up. A body of sixty, under a peaceful leader, were settled permanently on the Indian farm at Deep Creek, and the remainder wandered 40 to 200 miles west of Great Salt Lake City. Through this tribe our road lay; during the late tumults they have lost fifty warriors, and are now reduced to about 200 men. Like the Ghuzw of Arabia, they strengthen themselves by admitting the outcasts of other tribes, and will presently become a mere banditti.
Pavant, or Parovan Yuta, are a distinct and self-organized tribe, under one principal and several sub-chiefs, whose total is set down at 700 souls. Half of them are settled on the Indian farm at Corn Creek; the other wing of the tribe lives along Sevier Lake, and the surrounding country in the northeast extremity of Fillmore Valley, fifty miles from the city, where they join the Gosh Yuta. The Pavants breed horses, wear clothes of various patterns, grow grain, which the Gosh Yutas will not, and are as brave and improvable as their neighbors are mean and vile.
Timpenaguchyă, or Timpana Yuta, corrupted into Tenpenny Utes, who dwell about the kanyon of that name, and on the east of the Sweetwater Lake. Of this tribe was the chief Wakara, who so called himself after Walker, the celebrated trapper; the notorious horse-stealer proved himself a friend to the Latter-Day Saints. He died at Meadow Creek, six miles from Fillmore City, on the 29th of January, 1855, and at his obsequies two squaws, two Pa Yuta children, and fifteen of his best horses composed the "customs."
Uinta Yuta, in the mountains south of Fort Bridger, and in the country along the Green River. Of this tribe, which contains a total of 1000, a band of 500, under four chiefs, lately settled on the Indian reservations at Spanish Fork.
Sampichyă, corrupted to San Pete Utas; about eighty warriors, settled on the Indian farm at San Pete. This and the Spanish-Fork Farm number 900 inhabitants.
Elk-Mountain Yutas, who are set down at 2000 souls, by some ​even 3000; they wander over the southeast portion of the Territory, and, like the Uinta Yutas, are the most independent of white settlers.
Weber-River Yutas are those principally seen in Great Salt Lake City; they are a poor and degraded tribe. Their chief settlement is forty miles to the north, and, like the Gosh Yutas, they understand Shoshonee.
Among the Yutas are reckoned the Washoe, from 500 to 700 souls. They inhabit the eastern slopes of the Sierra Nevada, from Honey Lake to the West Fork of Walker's River in the south. Of this troublesome tribe there are three bands: Captain Jim's, near Lake Bigler, and Carson, Washoe, and Eagle Valleys, a total of 342 souls; Pasuka's band, 340 souls, in Little Valley; and Deer Dick's band, in Long Valley, southeast of Honey Lake. They are usually called Shoshoko, or "Digger Indians"—a, term as insulting to a Shoshonee as nigger to an African.
Besides the Parawat Yutas, the Yampas, 200—300 miles south, on the White River; the Tabechyă, or Sun-hunters, about Tête de Biche, near Spanish lands; and the Tash Yuta, near the Navajoes: there are scatters of the nation along the Californian road from Beaver Valley, along the Santa Clara, Virgen, Las Vegas, and Muddy Rivers to New Mexico.
The Indian Bureau of Utah Territory numbers one superintendent, six agents, and three to six farm-agents, The annual expenditure is set down at $40,000; the Mormons declare that it is iniquitously embezzled, and that the total spent upon the Indians hardly exceeds $1000 per annum. The savages expect blankets and clothing, flour and provisions, arms and ammunition: they receive only a little tobacco, become surly, and slay the settlers. It is understood that the surveyor general has recommended to the federal government the extinction of the Indian title—somewhat upon the principle of the English in Tasmania and New Zealand—to grounds in the Utah Territory, and the establishment of a land-office for the sale of the two millions of acres already surveyed. Until the citizens can own their farms and fields under the existing pre-emption laws, and until the troublesome Indians can be removed by treaty to reservations remote from white settlements, the onward march of progress will be arrested. The savage and the civilized man, like crabbed age and youth, like the black and gray rat, can not live together: the former starves unless placed in the most fertile spots, which the latter of course covets; the Mormons attempt a peace policy, but ​the hunting-grounds are encroached upon, and terrible massacres are the result. Here, as elsewhere, the battle of life is fiercely fought. It has been said,
"Man differs more from man Than beast from beast."
Yet every where we trace the mighty resemblance.
The three principal farms which now form the nuclei of future reservations are those at Spanish Fork, San Pete, and Corn Creek. The two latter have often been denuded by the grasshopper; the former has fared better. Situated in Utah Valley, under the shelter of lofty Nebo, it extends northward within four miles of the Sweetwater Lake, and on the northeast is bounded by the Spanish-Fork Creek, rich in trout and other fish. It was begun five years ago for the Yutas, who claim the land, and contains a total of 13,000 acres, of which 500 have been cultivated; 900 have been ditched to protect the crop, and 1000 have been walled round with a fence six feet high. Besides other improvements, they have built a large adobe house and two rail corrals, and dug dams and channels for irrigation, together with a good stone-curbed well. Under civilized superintendence the savages begin to labor, and the chiefs aspire to erect houses. Yet the crops have been light, rarely exceeding 2500 bushels. San Pete Farm, in the valley and on the creek of the same name, lies 150 miles south of Great Salt Lake City; it supports, besides those who come for temporary assistance, a band of thirty souls; 200 acres have been planted with wheat and potatoes, two adobe houses and a corral have been made, and irrigating trenches have been dug. Corn-Creek Farm, in Fillmore Valley, was begun about four years ago; 300 acres have been broken up, several adobe houses have been built for the Indians and the farm agent, with the usual adjuncts, corral and fences. The crickets and grasshoppers have committed sad havoc among the wheat, corn, and potatoes. It is now tenanted by a Pahvant chief. The Uinta Farm is near Fort Bridger. Those lately opened in Deep Creek and Ruby Valleys have this year lain fallow in consequence of Indian troubles; the soil, however, is rich, and will produce beets, potatoes, onions, turnips, and melons. It is proposed to place the Pa Yutas and Washoes in the Truckee Meadows, on the lands "watered by the majestic Kuyuehup, or Salmon-Trout River," where, besides fish and piñon forests, there are 15,000 acres fit for cultivation and herding. The Indian agents report that the cost will be $150,000, from which the Mormons deduct at least two 0's.
The Yuta, though divided into many tribes and bands, is a distinct race from its prairie neighbors, speaking a single langue mère much diversified by dialect. They are a superstitious brood, and have many cruel practices—human sacrifices and vivisepulture—like those of Dahomey and Ashantee. Their religion is the usual African and Indian fetichism, that germal faith which, under fa​vorable influences and among higher races, developed itself by natural means—or as explained by a mythical, distinct, and independent revelation—into the higher forms of Judaism, Christianity, and El Islam. In the vicinity of the Mormons many savages have been baptized, and have become nominal Saints. They divide white men into Shwop or Americans and Mormons. Their learned men have heard of Washington, but, like the French peasant's superstition concerning Napoleon, they believe him to be still alive. They have a name for the Book of Mormon, and have not learned, like their more civilized Eastern neighbors, to look upon it as the work of Mujhe Manitou, the bad god, who, like Wiswakarma of the Hindoos, amuses himself by caricaturing and parodying the creatures of the good god. They are not cannibals—the Wendigo is a giant man-eater of a mythologic type, not an actual anthropophage—but, like all Indians, especially those of New England, they "feel good" after eating a bit of the enemy, a natural display of destructiveness: they will devour the heart of a brave man to increase their courage, or chop it up, boil it in soup, engorge a ladleful, and boast they have drunk the enemy’s blood. They are as liable to caprice as their Eastern neighbors. A prisoner who has distinguished himself in battle is as often dismissed unhurt as porcupined with arrows and killed with cruel tortures; if they yield in ingenuity of inflicting pain to the Algonquins and Iroquois, it is not for want of inclination, but by reason of their stupidity. Female captives who fall into their hands are horribly treated; I was told of one who, after all manner of atrocities, scalping included, escaped with life. They have all the savage's improvidence; utility is not their decalogue. Both sexes, except when clothed by a charitable Mormon, are nearly naked, even in the severest weather; they sleep in sleet and snow unclothed, except with a cape of twisted rabbits' furs and a miserable attempt at moccasins, lined with plaited cedar bark: leggins are unknown, even to the women. Their ornaments are vermilion, a few beads, and shell necklaces. They rarely suffer from any disease but rheumatism, brought on by living in the warm houses of the whites, and various consequences of liver complaint, produced by overgorging: as with strong constitutions generally, they either die at once or readily recover. They dress wounds with pine gum after squeezing out the blood, and their medicine-men have the usual variety of savage nostrums. In the more desert parts of the Territory they are exceedingly destitute. South of Cedar City, even ten years ago they had fields of wheat and corn of six acres each, and supported emigrants; some of them cultivate yearly along the stream-banks peas, beans, sweet potatoes, and squashes. They live upon the flesh of the bear, elk, antelope, dog, wolf, hare, snake, and lizard, besides crickets, grasshoppers, ants, and other vermin. The cactus leaf, piñon nut, and various barks; the seed of the bunch-grass and of the wheat or ​yellow grass, somewhat resembling rye; the rabbit-bush twigs, which are chewed, and various roots and tubers; the soft sego bulb, the rootlet of the cat-tail flag, and of the tule, which, when sun-dried and powdered to flour, keeps through the winter, and is palatable even to white men, conclude the list of their dainties. When these fail they must steal or starve, and the dilemma is easily solved, to the settler's cost.
The Yutas in the vicinity of the larger white settlements continually diminish; bands of 150 warriors are now reduced to 35. Some of the minor tribes in the southern part of the Territory, near New Mexico, can scarcely show a single squaw, having traded them off for horses and arms; they go about killing one another, and on kidnapping expeditions, which farther diminish the breed. The complaint which has devastated the South Sea Islands rages around the City of the Saints, and extends to the Rio Virgen. In six months six squaws were shot by red Othellos for yielding their virtue to the fascinations of tobacco, whisky, and blankets; the Lotharios were savage as well as civilized. The operation of courting is performed by wrapping a blanket round one's beloved; if she reciprocates, it is a sign of consent. A refusal in these lands is often a serious business; the warrior collects his friends, carries off the recusant fair, and, after subjecting her to the insults of all his companions, espouses her. There is little of the shame which Pliny attributes to the "Barrus." When a death takes place they wrap the body in a skin or hide, and drag it by the leg to a grave, which is heaped up with stones as a protection against wild beasts. They mourn till the end of that moon, allow a month to elapse, and then resume their lamentations for another moon: the interval is gradually increased till the grief ends. It is usual to make the dead man's lodge appear as desolate as possible.
The Yuta is less servile, and, consequently, has a higher ethnic status than the African negro; he will not toil, and he turns at a kick or a blow. The emigrant who addresses him in the usual phrase, "D— your eyes, git out of the road or I'll shoot you!" is pretty sure to come to grief. Lately the Yutas demanded compensation for the use of their grass upon the Truckee River, when the emigrants fired, killing Wanamuka the chief. After the death of two or three whites, Mayor Ormsby, of the militia at Carson Valley, took the field, was decoyed into a kanyon by Indian cunning, and perished with all his men.
To "Chokop's" Pass. 8th October.
The morning was wasted in binding two loose tires upon their respective wheels; it was past noon before we were en route. We shook hands cordially with Uncle Billy, whose generosity—a virtue highly prized by those who, rarely practicing, expect it to be practiced upon them—has won for him the sobriquet of the "Big-​hearted Father." He had vainly, however, attempted to rescue my silver pen-holder, whose glitter was too much for Indian virtue. Our route lay over a long divide, cold but not unpicturesque, a scene of light-tinted mountain mahogany, black cedar, pure snowy hill, and pink sky. After ten miles we reached the place where the road forks; that to the right, passing through Pine Valley, falls into the gravelly ford of the Humboldt River, distant from this point eighty to eighty-five miles. After surmounting the water-shed we descended over bench-land into a raw and dreary plain, in which greasewood was more plentiful than sage-bush. "Huntingdon Valley" is traversed by Smith's Fork, which flows northward to the Humboldt River; when we crossed it it was a mere rivulet. Our camping-ground was at the farther end of the plain, under a Pass called after the chief Chokop; the kanyon emitted a cold draught like the breathing caves of Kentucky. We alighted at a water near the entrance, and found bunch-grass, besides a little fuel. After two hours the wagon came up with the stock, which was now becoming weary, and we had the usual supper of dough, butter, and coffee. I should have slept comfortably enough upon a shovel and a layer of carpet-bags had not the furious south wind howled like the distant whooping of Indians.
To the Wilderness again. 9th October.
The frosty night was followed by a thaw in the morning. We hastened to ascend Chokop's Pass by a bad, steep dugway: it lies south of "Railroad Kanyon," which is said to be nearly flat-soled. A descent led into "Moonshine," called by the Yutas Pahannap Valley, and we saw with pleasure the bench rising at the foot of the pass. The station is named Diamond Springs, from an eye of warm, but sweet and beautifully clear water bubbling up from the earth. A little below it drains off in a deep rushy ditch, with a gravel bottom, containing equal parts of comminuted shells: we found it an agreeable and opportune bath. Hard work had begun to tell upon the temper of the party. The judge, who ever preferred monologue to dialogue, aweary of the rolling prairies and barren plains, the bald and rocky ridges, the muddy flats, saleratus ponds, and sandy wastes, sighed monotonously for the woodland shades and the rustling of living leaves near his Pennsylvanian home. The marshal, with true Anglo-American impetuosity, could not endure Paddy Kennedy's "slow and shyure" style of travel; and after a colloquy, in which the holiest of words were freely used as adjectives, participles, and exclamations, offered to fight him by way of quickening his pace. The boys—four or five in number—ate for breakfast a quarter of beef, as though they had been Kaffirs or Esquimaux, and were threatened with ration-cutting. The station folks were Mormons, but not particularly civil: they afterward had to fly before the sav​ages, which, perhaps, they will be pleased to consider a "judgment" upon them.
Shortly after noon we left Diamond Springs, and carried on for a stretch of seven miles to our lunching-ground, a rushy water, black where it overlies mud, and bluish-green where light gravel and shells form the bottom: the taste is sulphury, and it abounds in confervæ and animalculæ like leeches and little tadpoles. After playing a tidy bowie-knife, we remounted, and passed over to the rough divide lying westward of Moonshine Valley. As night had closed in, we found some difficulty in choosing a camping-place: at length we pitched upon a prairillon under the lee of a hill, where we had bunch-grass and fuel, but no water. The wind blew sternly through the livelong night, and those who suffered from cramps in cold feet had little to do with the "sweet restorer, balmy sleep."
To Sheawit Creek. 10th October.
At 6 A.M. the mercury was sunk only to 29° F., but the elevation and rapid evaporation, with the fierce gusty wind coursing through the kanyon, rendered the sensation of cold painful. As usual on these occasions, "George," our chef, sensibly preferred standing over the fire, and enwrapping himself with smoke, to the inevitable exposure incurred while fetching a coffee-pot or a tea-kettle. A long divide, with many ascents and descents, at length placed in front of us a view of the normal "distance"—heaps of hills, white as bridal cakes, and, nearer, a sand-like plain, somewhat more yellow than the average of those salt-bottoms: instinct told us that there lay the station-house. From the hills rose the smokes of Indian fires: the lands belong to the Tusawichya, or White-Knives, a band of the Shoshonees under an independent chief. This depression is known to the Yutas as Sheawit, or Willow Creek: the whites call it, from Mr. Bolivar Roberts, the Western agent, "Roberts' Springs Valley." It lies 286 miles from Camp Floyd: from this point "Simpson's Road" strikes off to the S.E., and as Mr. Howard Egan's rule here terminates, it is considered the latter end of Mormondom. Like all the stations to the westward, that is to say, those now before us, it was burned down in the late Indian troubles, and has only been partially rebuilt. One of the employés was Mr. Mose Wright, of Illinois who again kindly assisted me with correcting my vocabulary.
About the station loitered several Indians of the White-Knife tribe, which boasts, like the old Sioux and the modern Flatheads, never to have stained its weapons with the blood of a white man. They may be a respectable race, but they are an ugly: they resemble the Diggers, and the children are not a little like juvenile baboons. The dress was the usual medley of rags and rabbit furs: they were streaked with vermilion; and their hair—contrary to, and more sensibly than the practice of our ​grandfathers—was fastened into a frontal pigtail, to prevent it falling into the eyes. These men attend upon the station and herd the stock for an occasional meal, their sole payment. They will trade their skins and peltries for arms and gunpowder, but, African-like, they are apt to look upon provisions, beads, and tobacco in the light of presents.
A long march of thirty-five miles lay before us. Kennedy resolved to pass the night at Sheawit Creek, and, despite their grumbling, sent on the boys, the stock, and the wagons, when rested from their labor, in the early afternoon. We spent a cosy, pleasant evening—such as I have enjoyed in the old Italian days before railroads—of travelers' tittle and Munchausen tattle, in the ingle corner and round the huge hearth of the half-finished station, with its holey walls. At intervals, the roarings of the wind, the ticking of the death-watch (a well-known xylophagus), boring a home in the soft cotton-wood rafters, and the howlings of the Indians, who were keening at a neighboring grave, formed a rude and appropriate chorus. Mose Wright recounted his early adventures in Oregon; how, when he was a greenhorn, the Indians had danced the war-dance under his nose, had then set upon his companions, and, after slaying them, had displayed their scalps. He favored us with a representation of the ceremony, an ursine performance—the bear seems every where to have been the sire of Terpsichore—while the right hand repeatedly clapped to his lips quavered the long loud howl into broken sounds: "Howh! howh! howh! ow! ow! ough! ough! aloo! aloo! loo! loo! oo!" We talked of a curious animal, a breed between the dog and the bear, which represents the semi-fabulous jumard in these regions: it is said to be a cross far more savage than that between the dog and the wolf. The young grizzly is a favorite pet in the Western hut, and a canine graft is hardly more monstrous than the progeny of the horse and the deer lately exhibited in London. I still believe that in Africa, and indeed in India, there are accidentally mules bimanous and quadrumanous, and would suggest that such specimens should be sought as the means of settling on a rational basis the genus and species of "homo sapiens."
Mose Wright described the Indian arrow-poison. The rattlesnake—the copperhead and the moccasin he ignored—is caught with a forked stick planted over its neck, and is allowed to fix its fangs in an antelope's liver. The meat, which turns green, is carried upon a skewer when wanted for use: the flint-head of an arrow, made purposely to break in the wound, is thrust into the poison, and when withdrawn is covered with a thin coat of glue. Ammonia is considered a cure for it, and the Indians treat snake-bites with the actual cautery. The rattlesnake here attains a length of eight to nine feet, and is described as having reached the number of seventy-three rattles, which, supposing (as the theory is) that after the third year it puts forth one per annum, would ​raise its age to that of man: it is much feared in Utah Territory. We were also cautioned against the poison oak, which is worse than the poison vine east of the Mississippi. It is a dwarf bush with quercine leaves, dark colored and prickly like those of the holly: the effect of a sting, of a touch, or, it is said, in sensitives of its proximity, is a painful itching, followed by a rash that lasts three weeks, and other highly inconvenient consequences. Strong brine was recommended to us by our prairie doctor.
Among the employés of the station was an intelligent young mechanic from Pennsylvania, who, threatened with consumption, had sought and soon found health in the pure regions of the Rocky Mountains. He looked forward to revisiting civilization, where comforts were attainable. In these wilds little luxuries like tea and coffee are often unprocurable; a dudeen or a cutty pipe sells for a dollar, consequently a hollowed potato or corn-cob with a reed tube is often rendered necessary; and tobacco must be mixed with a myrtaceous leaf called by the natives "timaya," and by the mountaineers "larb"—possibly a corruption of "l'herbe" or "la yerba." Newspapers and magazines arrive sometimes twice a year, when they have weathered the dangers of the way. Economy has deprived the stations of their gardens, and the shrinking of emigration, which now dribbles eastward, instead of flowing in full stream westward, leaves the exiles to amuse themselves.
To Dry Creek. 11th October.
We arose early, and found that it had not "frosted;" that flies were busy in the station-house; and that the snow, though thick on the northern faces, had melted from the southern shoulders of the hills—these were so many indices of the St. Martin's, or Indian summer, the last warm glow of life before the cold and pallid death of the year. At 6 A.M. we entered the ambulance, and followed a good road across the remains of the long, broad Sheawit Valley. After twelve miles we came upon a water surrounded by willows, with dwarf artemisia beyond—it grows better on the benches, where the subsoil is damper, than in the bottoms—and there we found our lazy boys, who, as Jim Gilston said, had been last night "on a drunk." Resuming our way, after three miles we reached some wells whose alkaline waters chap the skin. Twenty miles farther led to the west end of the Sheawit Valley, where we found the station on a grassy bench at the foot of low rolling hills. It was a mere shell, with a substantial stone corral behind, and the inmates were speculating upon the possibility of roofing themselves in before the winter. Water is found in tolerable quantities below the station, but the place deserved its name, "Dry Creek."
A fraternal recognition took place between Long Jim and his brother, who discovered each other by the merest accident. Gulston, the employé, was an intelligent man: at San Francisco he ​had learned a little Chinese, and at Deep Creek he was studying the Indian dialects. He had missed making a fortune at Carson Valley, where, in June or July, 1859, the rich and now celebrated silver mines were discovered; and he warned us against the danger of tarrying in Carson City, where revolvers are fired even into houses known to contain "ladies." Colonel Totten, the station-master, explained the formation of the gold diggings as beds of gravel, from one to 120 feet, overlying slate rock.
Dry-Creek Station is on the eastern frontier of the western agency; as at Roberts' Creek, supplies and literature from Great Salt City east and Carson City west are usually exhausted before they reach these final points. After a frugal feed, we inspected a grave for two, which bore the names of Loscier and Applegate, and the date 21st of May. These men, employés of the station, were attacked by Indians—Panaks or Shoshonees, or possibly both: the former was killed by the first fire; the latter, when shot in the groin, and unable to proceed, borrowed, under pretext of defense, a revolver, bade good-by to his companions, and put a bullet through his own head: the remainder then escaped. Both these poor fellows remain unavenged. The Anglo-American, who is admirably protected by the officials of his government in Europe, Asia, and Africa, is systematically neglected—teste Mexico—in America. The double grave, piled up with stones, showed gaps where the wolves had attempted to tunnel, and blue-bottle flies were buzzing over it in expectation. Colonel Totten, at our instance, promised that it should be looked to.
The night was comfortably passed at Dry Creek, under the leeward side of a large haystack. The weather was cold, but clear and bright. We slept the sleep of the just.
To Simpson's Park. 12th October.
At the time of the cold clear dawn, whose gray contrasted strongly with the blush of the most lovely evening that preceded it, the mercury stood at 45° F. Shortly after 8 A.M. we were afield, hastening to finish the long divide that separates Roberts' Creek Valley from its western neighbor, which, as yet unchristened, is known to the b'hoys as Smoky Valley. The road wound in the shape of the letter U round the impassable part of the ridge. Crossing the north end of Smoky Valley, we came upon rolling ground, with water-willows and cedars "blazed"—barked with a gash—for sign-posts. Ensued a long kanyon, with a flat sole, not unlike Egan's, a gate by which the swift shallow stream had broken through the mountains: in places it was apparently a cul de sac; in others, shoulder after shoulder rose in long perspective, with points and projections behind, which an enemy might easily turn. The granite walls were of Cyclopean form, with regular lines of cleavage, as in the Rattlesnake Hills, which gave a false air of stratification. The road was a mere path along and across ​the rivulet bed, and the lower slopes were garnished with the pepper-grass and the everlasting bunch-grass, so truly characteristic of the "Basin State." Above us, in the pellucid sky, towered the eagle in his pride of place; the rabbit ran before us from the thicket; the ground-squirrel cached himself in the sage-bush; and where distance appeared, smokes upcurling in slow, heavy masses told us that man was not far distant. A second divide, more abrupt than the former, placed us in sight of Simpson's Park—and such a park! a circlet of tawny stubble, embosomed in sage-grown hills, the "Hiré" or "Look-out," and others, without other tree but the deformed cedars. The bottom is notorious for cold; it freezes even in June and July; and our night was, as may be imagined, none of the pleasantest.
The station-house in Simpson's Park was being rebuilt. As we issued from Mormondom into Christendom, the civility of our hosts perceptibly diminished; the judge, like the generality of Anglo-Americans, did unnecessary kow-tow to those whom republicanism made his equals, and the "gentlemen," when asked to do any thing, became exceedingly surly. Among them was one Giovanni Brutisch, a Venetian, who, flying from conscription, had found a home in Halifax: an unfortunate fire, which burned down his house, drove him to the Far West. He talked copiously of the Old Country, breathed the usual aspirations of Italia una, and thought that Garibaldi would do well "se non lo molestano"—a euphuism accompanied by a look more expressive than any nod. The station was well provided with good miniés, and the men apparently expected to use them; it was, however, commanded by the neighboring heights, and the haystacks were exposed to fire at a time of the year when no more forage could be collected. The Venetian made for us some good light bread of wheaten flour, started or leavened with hop-water, and corn-bread "shortened" with butter, and enriched with two or three eggs. A hideous Pa Yuta and surly Shoshonee, whom I sketched, loitered about the station: they were dressed in the usual rabbit-skin cape, and carried little horn bows, with which they missed small marks at fifteen paces. The boys, who were now aweary of watching, hired one of these men for a shirt—tobacco was not to be had, and a blanket was too high pay—to mount guard through the night. Like the Paggi or Ramoosee of Western India, one thief is paid to keep off many: the Indian is the best of wardens, it being with him a principle not to attack what the presence of a fellow-tribesman defends.
To Reese's River. 13th October.
Simpson's Park lies 195 miles from Carson City, where we might consider the journey at an end; yet the cold of night did not allow us to set out before 10 A.M. Our route lay across the park, which was dotted with wheat-grass and broom-like reeds rising from a ground saupoudré like salt. Presently we began ​to ascend Simpson’s Pass, a long kanyon whose sloping sides and benches were dotted with the green bunch-grass. At the divide we found the "Sage Springs," whose position is too elevated for the infiltration of salt: they are consequently sweet and wholesome. Descending by a rugged road, we sighted every where on the heights the fires of the natives. They were not symbols of war, but signals—for which smokes are eminently adapted—made by tribes telegraphing to one another their being en route for their winter quarters. Below us, "Reese's River" Valley might have served for a sketch in the African desert: a plain of saleratus, here yellow with sand or hay, there black with fire, there brown where the skin of earth showed through her garb of rags, and beyond it were chocolate-colored hills, from whose heads curled blue smokes of volcanic appearance.
Bisecting the barren plain ran a bright little stream, whose banks, however, had been stripped of their "salt grass:" pure and clear it flows over a bed of gravel, sheds in a northerly direction, and sinks at a distance of about twenty miles. From afar we all mistook the course, deceived, as travelers often are, by the horizontality of the lines. Leaving on the right the road which forks to the lower ford, we followed that on the left hand leading to the station. There can not be much traveling upon these lines: the tracks last for years, unaffected by snow: the carcasses of animals, however, no longer mummified us as in the Eastern prairies, are readily reduced to skeletons.
The station-house in the Reese-River Valley had lately been evacuated by its proprietors and burnt down by the Indians: a new building of adobe was already assuming a comfortable shape. The food around it being poor and thin, our cattle were driven to the mountains. At night, probably by contrast with the torrid sun, the frost appeared colder than ever: we provided against it, however, by burrowing into the haystack, and, despite the jackal-like cry of the coyote and the near tramping of the old white mare, we slept like tops.
To Smith's Creek. 14th October.
To Cold Springs. 15th October.
After a warmer night than usual—thanks to fire and lodging—we awoke, and found a genial south wind blowing. Our road lay through the kanyon, whose floor was flush with the plain; the bed of the mountain stream was the initiative of vile traveling, which, without our suspecting it, was to last till the end of the journey. The strain upon the vehicle came near to smashing it, and the prudent Kennedy, with the view of sparing his best animals, gave us his worst—two aged brutes, one of which, in consequence of her squealing habits, had won for herself the title of "ole Hellion." The divortia aquarum was a fine water-shed to the westward, and the road was in V shape, whereas before it had oscillated between U and WW. As we progressed, however, the valleys became more and more desert, the sage more stunted, and the hills more brown and barren. After a midday halt, rendered compulsory by the old white mare, we resumed our way along the valley southward, over a mixture of pitch-hole and boulder, which forbids me to forget that day's journey. At last, after much sticking and kicking on the part of the cattle, and the mental refreshment of abundant bad language, self-adhibited by the men, we made Cold-Springs Station, which, by means of a cut across the hills, could be brought within eight miles of Smith's Creek.
The station was a wretched place, half built and wholly unroofed; the four boys, an exceedingly rough set, ate standing, and neither paper nor pencil was known among them. Our animals, however, found good water in a rivulet from the neighboring hills, and the promise of a plentiful feed on the morrow, while the humans, observing that a "beef" had been freshly killed, supped upon an excellent steak. The warm wind was a pleasant contrast to the usual frost, but, as it came from the south, all the ​weather-wise predicted that rain would result. We slept, however, without such accident, under the haystack, and heard the loud howling of the wolves, which are said to be larger on these hills than elsewhere.
To Sand Springs. 16th October.
In the morning the wind had shifted from the south to a more pluvial quarter, the southeast—in these regions the westerly wind promises the fairest—and stormy cirri mottled the sky. We had a long stage of thirty-five miles before us, and required an early start, yet the lazy b'hoys and the weary cattle saw 10 A.M. before we were en route. Simpson's road lay to our south; we could, however, sight, about two miles distant from the station, the easternmost formation, which he calls Gibraltar Gate. For the first three miles our way was exceedingly rough; it gradually improved into a plain cut with nullahs, and overgrown with a chapparal, which concealed a few "burrowing hares." The animals are rare; during the snow they are said to tread in one another's trails after Indian fashion, yet the huntsman easily follows them. After eight miles we passed a spring, and two miles beyond it came to the Middle Gate, where we halted from noon till 5 15 P.M. Water was found in the bed of a river which fills like a mill-dam after rain, and a plentiful supply of bunch-grass, whose dark seeds it was difficult to husk out of the oat-like capsules. We spent our halt in practicing what Sorrentines call la caccia degl' uccelluzzi, and in vain attempts to walk round the uncommonly wary hawks, crows, and wolves.
Hitching to as the sun neared the western horizon, we passed through the Gate, narrowly escaping a "spill" down a dwarf precipice. A plain bounded on our left by cretaceous bluffs, white as snow, led to the West Gate, two symmetrical projections like those farther eastward. After that began a long divide broken by frequent chuck-holes, which, however, had no cunette at the bottom. An ascent of five miles led to a second broad basin, whose white and sounding ground, now stony, then sandy, scattered over with carcass and skeleton, was bounded in front by low dark ranges of hill. Then crossing a long rocky divide, so winding that the mules' heads pointed within a few miles to N., S., E., and W., we descended by narrow passes into a plain. The eye could not distinguish it from a lake, so misty and vague were its outlines: other senses corrected vision, when we sank up to the hub in the loose sand. As we progressed painfully, broken clay and dwarf vegetation assumed in the dim shades fantastic and mysterious forms. I thought myself once more among the ruins of that Arab village concerning which Lebid sang,
"Ay me! ay me! all lone and drear the dwelling-place, the home— On Mina, o'er Rijam and Ghool, wild beasts unheeded roam."
Tired out and cramped with cold, we were torpid with what the Bedouin calls El Rakl—la Ragle du Désert, when part of the ​ First view of Carson Lake. ​brain sleeps while the rest is wide awake. At last, about 2 30 A.M., thoroughly "knocked up"—a phrase which I should advise the Englishman to eschew in the society of the fair Columbian—we sighted a roofless shed, found a haystack, and, reckless of supper or of stamping horses, fell asleep upon the sand.
To Carson Lake. 17th October.
Sand-Springs Station deserved its name. Like the Brazas de San Diego and other mauvaises terres near the Rio Grande, the land is cumbered here and there with drifted ridges of the finest sand, sometimes 200 feet high, and shifting before every gale. Behind the house stood a mound shaped like the contents of an hour-glass, drifted up by the stormy S.E. gale in esplanade shape, and falling steep to northward or against the wind. The water near this vile hole was thick and stale with sulphury salts: it blistered even the hands. The station-house was no unfit object in such a scene, roofless and chairless, filthy and squalid, with a smoky fire in one corner, and a table in the centre of an impure floor, the walls open to every wind, and the interior full of dust. Hibernia herself never produced aught more characteristic. Of the employés, all loitered and sauntered about desœuvrés as cretins, except one, who lay on the ground crippled and apparently dying by the fall of a horse upon his breast-bone.
About 11 A.M. we set off to cross the ten miles of valley that stretched between us and the summit of the western divide still separating us from Carson Lake. The land was a smooth saleratus plain, with curious masses of porous red and black basalt protruding from a ghastly white. The water-shed was apparently to the north, the benches were distinctly marked, and the bottom looked as if it were inundated every year. It was smooth except where broken up by tracks, but all off the road was dangerous ground: in one place the horses sank to their hocks, and were not extricated without difficulty. After a hot drive—the glass at 9 A.M. showed 74° F.—we began to toil up the divide, a sand formation mixed with bits of granite, red seeds, and dwarf shells, whose lips were for the most part broken off. Over the fine loose surface was a floating haze of the smaller particles, like the film that veils the Arabian desert. Arrived at the summit, we sighted for the first time Carson Lake, or rather the sink of the Carson River. It derives its name from the well-known mountaineer whose adventurous roamings long anticipated scientific exploration. Supplied by the stream from the eastern flank of the Sierra Nevada, it is just such a lake as might be formed in any of the basins which we had traversed—a shallow sheet of water, which, in the cloudy sky and mitigated glare of the sun, looked pale and muddy. Apparently it was divided by a long, narrow ruddy line, like ochre-colored sand; a near approach showed that water on the right was separated from a saleratus bed on the left by a ​thick bed of tule rush. Stones imitated the sweep of the tide, and white particles the color of a wash.
Our conscientious informant at Sand-Springs Station had warned us that upon the summit of the divide we should find a perpendicular drop, down which the wagons could be lowered only by means of lariats affixed to the axle-trees and lashed round strong "stubbing-posts." We were not, however, surprised to find a mild descent of about 30°. From the summit of the divide five miles led us over a plain too barren for sage, and a stretch of stone and saleratus to the watery margin, which was troublesome with sloughs and mud. The cattle relished the water, although tainted by the rush; we failed, however, to find any of the freshwater clams, whose shells were scattered along the shore.
Remounting at 5 15 P.M. we proceeded to finish the ten miles which still separated us from the station, by a rough and stony road, perilous to wheel conveyances, which rounded the southern extremity of the lake. After passing a promontory whose bold projection had been conspicuous from afar, and threading a steep kanyon leading toward the lake, we fell into its selvage, which averaged about one mile in breadth. The small crescent of the moon soon ceased to befriend us, and we sat in the sadness of the shade, till presently a light glimmered under Arcturus, the road bent toward it, and all felt "jolly." But,
"Heu, heu! nos miseros, quam totus homuncio nil est!"
A long dull hour still lay before us, and we were approaching civilized lands. "Sink Station" looked well from without; there was a frame house inside an adobe inclosure, and a pile of wood and a stout haystack promised fuel and fodder. The inmates, however, were asleep, and it was ominously long before a door was opened. At last appeared a surly cripple, who presently disappeared to arm himself with his revolver. The judge asked civilly for a cup of water; he was told to fetch it from the lake, sited was not more than a mile off, though, as the road was full of quagmires, it would be hard to travel at night. Wood the churl would not part with: we offered to buy it, to borrow it, to replace it in the morning; he told us to go for it ourselves, and that after about two miles and a half we might chance to gather some. Certainly our party was a law-abiding and a self-governing one; never did I see men so tamely bullied; they threw back the fellow's sticks, and cold, hungry, and thirsty, simply began to sulk. An Indian standing by asked $20 to herd the stock for a single night. At last, George the Cordon Blue took courage; some went for water, others broke up a wagon-plank, and supper after a fashion was concocted.
I preferred passing the night on a side of bacon in the wagon to using the cripple's haystack, and allowed sleep to steep my senses in forgetfulness, after deeply regretting that the Mormons do not extend somewhat farther westward.
To Fort Churchill. 18th October.
The b'hoys and the stock were doomed to remain near the Carson Lake, where forage was abundant, while we made our way to Carson Valley—an arrangement not effected without excessive grumbling. At last the deserted ones were satisfied with the promise that they should exchange their desert quarters for civilization on Tuesday, and we were permitted to start. Crossing a long plain bordering on the Sink, we "snaked up" painfully a high divide which a little engineering skill would have avoided. From the summit, bleak with west wind, we could descry, at a distance of fifty miles, a snowy saddle-back—the Sierra Nevada. When the deep sand had fatigued our cattle, we halted for an hour to bait in a patch of land rich with bunch-grass. Descending from the eminence, we saw a gladdening sight: the Carson River, winding through its avenue of dark cotton-woods, and afar off the quarters and barracks of Fort Churchill. The nearer view was a hard-tamped plain, besprinkled with black and red porous stones and a sparse vegetation, with the ruddy and yellow autumnal hues; a miserable range of low, brown, sunburnt rocks and hills, whose ravines were choked with white sand-drifts, bounded the basin. The farther distance used it as a foil; the Sierra developed itself into four distinct magnificent tiers of snow-capped and cloud-veiled mountain, whose dissolving views faded into thin darkness as the sun disappeared behind their gigantic heads.
While we admired these beauties night came on; the paths intersected one another, and, despite the glow and gleam of a campfire in the distance, we lost our way among the tall cotton-woods. Dispersing in search of information, the marshal accidentally stumbled upon his predecessor in office, Mr. Smith, who hospitably insisted upon our becoming his guests. He led us to a farm-house already half roofed in against the cold, fetched the whisky for which our souls craved, gave to each a peach that we might be good boys, and finally set before us a prime beefsteak. Before sleeping we heard a number of "shooting stories." Where the corpse is, says the Persian, there will be the kites. A mining discovery never fails to attract from afar a flock of legal vultures—attorneys, lawyers, and judges. As the most valuable claims are mostly parted with by the ignorant fortunate for a song, it is usual to seek some flaw in the deed of sale, and a large proportion of the property finds its way into the pockets of the acute professional, who works on half profits. Consequently, in these parts there is generally a large amount of unscrupulous talent. One gentleman judge had knived a waiter and shot a senator; another, almost as "heavy on the shyoot," had in a single season killed one man and wounded another. My informants declared that in and about Carson a dead man for breakfast was the rule; besides accidents perpetually occurring to indifferent or to peace-making parties, they reckoned per annum fifty murders. In a peculiar ​fit of liveliness, an intoxicated gentleman will discharge his revolver in a ballroom, and when a "shyooting" begins in the thin-walled frame houses, those not concerned avoid bullets and splinters by jumping into their beds. During my three days' stay at Carson City I heard of three murders. A man "heavy on the shoulder," who can "hit out straight from the hip," is a valuable acquisition. The gambler or professional player, who in the Eastern States is exceptionably peaceful, because he fears the publicity of a quarrel, here must distinguish himself as a fighting-man. A curious story was told to illustrate how the ends of justice might, at a pinch, in the case of a popular character, be defeated. A man was convicted of killing his adversary after saying to the bystanders, "Stoop down while I shoot the son of a dog (female)." Counsel for the people showed malice prepense; counsel for defense pleaded that his client was rectus in curia, and manifestly couldn't mean a man, but a dog. The judge ratified the verdict of acquittal.
Such was the state of things, realizing the old days of the Californian gold-diggings, when I visited in 1860 Carson City. Its misrule, or rather want of rule, has probably long since passed away, leaving no more traces than a dream. California has been transformed by her Vigilance Committee, so ignorantly and unjustly declaimed against in Europe and in the Eastern States of the Union, from a savage autonomy to one of the most orderly of the American republics, and San Francisco, her capital, from a den of thieves and prostitutes, gamblers and miners, the offscourings of nations, to a social status not inferior to any of the most favored cities.
Hurrah again—in! 19th October.
This day will be the last of my diary. We have now emerged from the deserts of the Basin State, and are debouching upon lands where coaches and the electric telegraph ply.
After a cold night at the hospitable Smith's, and losing the cattle, we managed to hitch to, and crossed, not without difficulty, the deep bed of the Carson River, which runs over sands glittering with mica. A little beyond it we found the station-house, and congratulated ourselves that we had escaped a twelve hours' durance vile in its atmosphere of rum, korn schnapps, stale tobacco, flies, and profane oaths, not to mention the chance of being "wiped out" in a "difference" between a soldier and a gambler, or a miner and a rider.
From the station-house we walked, accompanied by a Mr. O.—who, after being an editor in Texas, had become a mail-rider in Utah Territory—to the fort. It was, upon the principle of its eastern neighbors, a well-disposed cantonment, containing quarters for the officers and barracks for the men. Fort Churchill had been built during the last few months: it lodged about two companies of infantry, and required at least 2000 men. Captain F. F. ​Flint (6th Regiment) was then commanding, and Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Swords, a deputy quarter-master general, was on a tour of inspection. We went straight to the quarter-master's office, and there found Lieutenant Moore, who introduced us to all present, and supplied us with the last newspapers and news. The camp was Teetotalist, and avoided cards like good Moslems: we were not, however, expected to drink water except in the form of strong waters, and the desert had disinclined us to abstain from whisky. Finally, Mr. Byrne, the sutler, put into our ambulance a substantial lunch, with a bottle of cocktail, and another of cognac, especially intended to keep the cold out.
The dull morning had threatened snow, and shortly after noon the west wind brought up cold heavy showers, which continued with intervals to the end of the stage. Our next station was Miller's, distant 15 to 16 miles. The road ran along the valley of Carson River, whose trees were a repose to our eyes, and we congratulated ourselves when we looked down the stiff clay banks, 30 feet high, and wholly unfenced, that our journey was by day. The desert was now "done." At every few miles was a drinking "calaboose:" where sheds were not a kettle hung under a tree, and women peeped out of the log huts. They were probably not charming, but, next to a sea voyage, a desert march is the finest cosmetic ever invented. We looked upon each as if
"Her face was like the Milky Way i' the sky, A meeting of gentle lights without a name."
At Miller's Station, which we reached at 2 30 P.M., there really was one pretty girl—which, according to the author of the Art of Pluck, induces proclivity to temulency. While the rain was heavy we sat round the hot stove, eating bread and cheese, sausages and anchovies, which Rabelais, not to speak of other honest drinkers, enumerates among provocatives to thirst. When we started at 4 P.M. through the cold rain, along the bad road up the river bed, to "liquor up" was manifestly a duty we owed to ourselves. And, finally, when my impatient companions betted a supper that we should reach Carson City before 9 P.M., and sealed it with a "smile," I knew that the only way to win was to ply Mr. Kennedy, the driver, with as many pocula as possible.
Colder waxed the weather and heavier the rain as, diverging from the river, we ascended the little bench upon which China-town lies. The line of ranches and frame houses, a kind of length-without-breadth place, once celebrated in the gold-digging days, looked dreary and grim in the evening gloom. At 5 30 P.M. we were still fourteen miles distant from our destination. The benches and the country round about had been turned topsy-turvy in the search for precious metal, and the soil was still burrowed ​with shaft and tunnel, and crossed at every possible spot by flumes, at which the natives of the Flowery Land still found it worth their while to work. Beyond China-town we quitted the river, and in the cold darkness of night we slowly began to breast the steep ascent of a long divide.
We had been preceded on the way by a young man, driving in a light cart a pair of horses, which looked remarkable by the side of the usual Californian teams, three pair with the near wheeler ridden. Arriving at a bad place, he kindly called out to us, but before his warning could be taken a soft and yielding sensation, succeeded by a decided leaning to the right, and ending with a loud crash, announced an overturn. In due time we were extricated, the pieces were picked up, and, though the gun was broken, the bottle of cocktail fortunately remained whole. The judge, probably and justly offended by my evil habit of laughing out of season, informed us that he had never been thrown before, an announcement which made us expect more "spills." The unhappy Kennedy had jumped off before the wheels pointed up hill; he had not lost a hoof, it is true, on the long march, but he wept spirits and water at the disappointing thought that the ambulance, this time drawn by his best team, and laden with all the dignities, had come to grief, and would not be fit to be seen. After 100 yards more another similar series of sensations announced a repetition of the scene, which deserved the epitaph,
"Hic jacet amphora vini."
This time, however, falling down a bank, we "came to smash;" the bottle (eheu!) was broken, so was the judge's head, while the ear of the judgeling—serve him right for chaffing!—was cut, the pistols and powder-flasks were half buried in the sand, a variety of small objects were lost, and the flying gear of the ambulance was a perfect wreck. Unwilling to risk our necks by another trial, we walked over the rest of the rough ground, and, conducted by the good Croly, found our way to "Dutch Nick's," a ranch and tavern apparently much frequented by the teamsters and other roughs, who seemed, honest fellows! deeply to regret that the accident had not been much more serious.
Remounting after a time, we sped forward, and sighted in front a dark line, but partially lit up about the flanks, with a brilliant illumination in the centre, the Kursaal of Mr. Hopkins, the local Crockford. Our entrance to Penrod House, the Fifth Avenue of Carson City, was by no means of a triumphal order; Nature herself seemed to sympathize with us, besplashing us with tears heavier than Mr. Kennedy's. But after a good supper and change of raiment, a cigar, "something warm," and the certainty of a bed, combined to diffuse over our minds the calm satisfaction of having surmounted our difficulties tant bien que mal. ****** ​ Virginia City. (From the Northeast.)
* ↑ The Panak is a small tribe of 500 souls, now considered dangerous: the greater part resides in Oregon, the smaller about ninety miles in the N.E. of the Territory, where they hunt the bison and the elk. For thirty years they have traded with Fort Bridger, and when first known they numbered 1200 lodges. "Horn," their principal chief, visited the place in April, 1858. Mr. Forney, the late Superintendent of Indian Affairs in Utah Territory, granted them a home in the lands of Washaki, and they have intermarried and lived peaceably with the Shoshonee.
* ↑ These are, 1. Wanamuka's; 2. San Joaquim, near the forks of that river in Carson Valley, numbering 170; 3. Hadsapoke, or Horse-stopper band, of 110, in Gold Kanyon, on Carson River; 4. Wahi or Fox band, on Big Bend of Carson River, 130 in number; 5 and 6. Odakeo, "Tall-man band," and Petodseka, "White-Spot band," round the lakes and sinks of the Carson and Walker Rivers, numbering 484 men, 372 women, and 405 children; 7. Tosarke, "Gray-head band," their neighbors; 8. Tonoziet, "Woman-helper band," on the Truckee River, below Big Meadows, numbering 280 souls; 9. Torape, or "Lean-man band," on the Truckee River, near Lone Crossing, 360 souls; 10. Gonega, the "Dancer band," 290 souls, near the mouth of the Truckee River; 11. Watsequendo, the "Four Crows," along the shores of Pyramid Lake, 320 souls; 12. The second Wanamuka's band, 500 in number, along the shores of the Northern Mud Lake.
* ↑ In the Yuta language meaning "water among the stones."
* ↑ It is said to mean "one who goes on foot."
* ↑ Van Diemen's Land, in the days of Captain Flinders (A.D. 1800, two generations ago), had a population of 100,000 souls, now well-nigh annihilated by strong waters and corrosive sublimate. Neither man nor woman was safe in the vicinity of a native tribe; the Anglo-Scandinavian race thus found it necessary to wipe out a people that could not be civilized—a fair instance of the natural selection of species. And New Zealand now threatens to walk the path of Tasmania.
* ↑ The Spanish is calabozo, the French calabouse. In the Hispano-American countries it is used as a "common jail" or a "dog-hole," and, as usual, is converted into a verb.