Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1874-10-15
FROM THE FAR WEST.
The Yellowstone Expedition :
Life in the Rocky Mountains.
HEADWATERS OF THE COLORADO
RIVER OF THE WEST,
SeDtember. IS. 1874,

sketches of mountaineering life in the
high Rockies. In the early spring L
began what had been nearly two years
delayed, but before anything could be
sent to you our expedition had entered
the mountains, and since then we have
been as completely shut out from COM
municatiOn with the world as if i'm
prisoned in the Bastile. Let me pass
over the usual scenes and incidents of
Railroad travel-not that they lack in
terest-for what can be more charming
than the hills of Pennsylvania and
Ohio, and the prairies Of Illinois and
Iowa, rich with verdure and the golden
harvest? But stranger lands, of which
the outside world has hardly heard,
may carry deeper inrerest in their
description.
Eight hundred miles west of the Mis-
sissippi we approach the borders of the
great Plains, and get our first view of
the Rocky Mountain, rising like a
great wall before us-broken and rag
ged ON the crest, blue in the distance
and heightened into awe-inspiring ma
jesty by the deceitful mirage, they pre-
sent themselves seeming impossible
barrier to travel, without gateway
almost without pass. In this border
region lies the f1ouriShing and hand
some city of Denver. 1t looks as if
in journeying-as traveller from the
far East to the Ell Dorado in the Pacific
coast, it had paused weary and fOrsa-
ken before the snow-capped mountains
in hope that the barrier might fall. But
the time soon came when it no longer
needed to dream of the golden lands of
California. The dirt at its door, the
black forbidding hills, the ice-clad
mountains were all ready to yield
harvest rich and inexhaustible, and
now, twenty years from the day Of its
foundation, it is al Thoroughly live city
of some 10000 inhabitants, promising
railroad centre, and surrounded by the
richest agricultural regions of the Great
West.
Here it is that we are to bid good
bye to the civilized modes of life and
outfit ourselves for the almost savage.
That we really are in the land of saw
ages is plainly evident from the hum
dreds of grotesque figures that are to be
met at every turn in every street of the
busy city. Indians-real live Indi-
ans-with their lean, crafty, copper
colcred faces, with their bows and ar
rows and hatchets and knives, with
their moccasins of buckskin, their
beads, their tinkling gew-gaws and
gaudy blankets. Here too are some
with their faces and hair bedaubed
with greasy paints, looking as CHASTITY
as death, and as devilish as demons
from hell. Their get up is in the
highest degree satisfactory. The poet |
or artist could hardly prepare them
more perfectly to our taste. and still
we wo'd hardly desire them as pets;no,
nor as neighbors or panions-fOr |!
the traditional nobility is nearly gone,
and its place is filled by crafty deceit |
and beastly yulgarity. AS to who is
am unable to say. But
let us observe them farther: Quite a
large number of them are gathering
around the store rooms of the U. S.
Agent to receive the supplies furnished
them by the Government. Here come
the women-the squaws-the daugh-
ters of the forest; anything but our
ideal Indian H1aidens, with dirty faces,
short unwieldly figures, with coarse
tangled hair, and dull downcast looks.
They wrap themselves up in the most
unbecoming manner, in ragged blank
cts, in faded and dirt stained calicoes.
They are the drudges of the camp, the
slaves of the proud chiefs and braves.
Many came on ponies, with as many as
two and three children clinging on be-
fore and behind, and PROBABLY pa
poose tied upon board, and strapped
upon their own back. They crowd
around the store room and await their
turn. Flour and meat and blankets
are to be distributed. The mighty
Wash-a-kee, stands up in the
iOor and makes speech. 1t is brief,
but we'll delivered, and listened to
with attention. He finishes; a MUIR
nur runs through the crowd, and the
scene becomes lively. See the pictu-
'esque groupes as they push forward!
What grotesque movements, what
pleased, puzzled faces! How perfectly
'atisfied for the time, they are to re-
,eive a couple of pounds of meat and
half sack of flour. They are sure of
)ne good square meal,' and are not
'pt to borrow trouble from the fact
hat they may starve for the next two
weeks. There is an old squaw who has
eceived her flour in torn sack, has
ost part of it on the ground, and is try
ng to gatherit up in blanket. 9th
,rs trample over her as she works, and
he ponies, becoming frightened at ,
ome passing wagon, seem liable to
rush her. She is having peck of .
rouble about less amount of -four, ,
md to add to her perplexity, as she I
toops forward to pick up her -four, the .
,apoose on her back is having lively !
urn at standing on its head, and in ,
lnisOn with half dozen other incipi- ,
mt chieftains, is screaming a war
yhoop worthy of a nation of scalp
hunters. During all this trouble of the !
,Oor old woman, there is no one to |
end a helping hand. The men sit .
bout Oh their horses so proud and so
azy that, if she were perishing, they s
would hardly move a muscle. But I
ny companion, however, being white ,