The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1875-08-25
KIT CARSON.

The broad piazza of our house at o'
Louis was always the welcome gathering
place of the trappers and hunters, as well
as the traders to Santa Fe, and the noun:
tain men generally. With these my father
loved to talk, and gain the knowledge alter
wards put to such good use. There, also,
narratives of endurance, sagacity, daring
and self denying courage were told IN the
quiet, matter of-course manner OF men 10
whom the opposite qualities were unknown
When Washington Irving was about TO
make his journey in the Indian country, ne
was often at our house while in st. Louis,
and his comments on the simplicity as well
as the fine courage of these men was my hrst
perception that there was any thing unusual
in them. l am not qualified to do justice to
the best of tbese-only men who have shared
their lives can do so. But as child IN ST.
Louis, then in our winter home in Washing
ton, and for many years after on our own
frontier, on that Of California, and in long
weeks of camping out travel, ! had many OPP
portunities Of knowing them well. They
were "princes in tAeir way" as one Of them
said to me who had had his feelings little
hurt by man Of High position in Washing
ton. "Who would have thought it of him,
such a fair-looking gentleman, too? They
are great men here-princes in their way
but when they come out to the plains, we are
the princes, and they could not live without
us" >-.-o------
When needy King John tried to collect
revenue by requiring each noble to produce
his titles and written deeds, or, failing, for
felt them to the crown, one old earls answer
was charming. He drew his great sword,
and flung it on the table before the kings
ENJOYS:
"Tell your master l am no clerk, nor were
nv ancestors before me. These lands are
ours by the sword, and by the sword we will
hold them
So with our mountain men--they were
not clerks, but they were great men.
One of them to whom | had been reading
Mazeppa, said to me:
"Read that part again where he comes
back with twice FIVE hundred men to Thank
him for his courteous ride. That's the way
! felt when the Blackfeet destroyed my each
es, and went back and thanked them for
it. Now, if l had had reading like that, ]
might have made scholar. was young
bow in the school-house when the cry came
'Indiansp Jumped to my rife, and threw
down the spelling book, and thar it lays"
Our dear, good friend Carson made mis-
mark true and high however, without the
need of any more scholarship than the from,
tier school house gave.
His instinct was true and delicate, and LED
him to act as correctly courteous as the most
thorough training could do.
When the first boat that had ever rested
on the lonely silent waters of the Salt Lake
made its way to the island near the centre,
and the man at the bow was jumping ashore
to draw her up, Carson held him down with,
" the captain steps there first.
1 liked greatly an expression of bis, refer,
ring to a man wlP had done him mischief
" If ever get !fe chance, | will do him an
honest injury Nothing that was not hon
est and fair and open and of good repute,
found its place in this wholesome nature.
Carson had eminently the nature that rem
dered him sortout douce ct facile dams te
commerce de la vie'-the nature that comes
from gentleness combined with strength,
from that innate sense of justice which gives
to others what we require for ourselves,
from healthy nature to which cheerfulness
is so natural, that instinctively they feel its
lack and seek to impart it, 10 such ma
ture the morbid, the nervous, the heartsick
and weary, come and are comforted, and fee
as invalidS do when they get into those ia
vored climates where an even temperature
and the certainty of daily returning SUM-
shine and no surprises of frosts or rains in.
sensibly bring calm and healing.
Such nature attracts to itself and re-
tains only what is best in all it meets, and
as the character engraves itself upon the
countenance, so the many years since had
seen Carson had done their ennobling work
SO effectually, that my old friend was per-
fectly in keeping with the beautiful library
of the friends house in which we met again.
He had lived what we idealize in writings
and love to read Of And about him, too,
was the dignity of coming death.
| had been written to from Washington
that Carson was there, i'll and depressed /;
that he had not consulted physician yet,
but thought he had had the heart injured in
an accident; that if l would urge him to
come to me and be well-nursed, and see a
physician, something might yet be done, al
though his condition seemed very serious.
Carson had been for years an important
part of my life, when it was all filled with
energetic action, and when true friends in
the old home watched for and protected the
absent, and welcomed them back on the re
turn from long dangers and now that death,
and political differences as relentless, and the
war, had completely ended that life, saw
for the last time, one of the few who had not
changed from that old time of youth, and
health, and friends and q complete home.
But Carson was only troubled by my emo
ton, and told me, with his own simplicity Of
courage, that he had seen DIR. Sayre, who
had told him that he might live to reach his
home lat Tuos, near Santa Fe,) but that he
might also die at any moment, as the heart
was fatally injured by the accident from
which Carson dated his illness. In trying to
save mule, he had become wound in its
lariet, and both fell together over a steep
precipice- Carson'S left side getting the blow
as he fell on the rocks below. His open air
and absolutely temperate life delayed the in
evitable end.
His only wish now was to get home, and
not let his wife have the shock of hearing of
his DEATH
Yesterday 1 thought I was gone" he
told me. The Indian chief who was with
him in his room told him what he had said
he himself only knew that all at once he "felt
the bed rise with him." and with that a
G. I,t