The Audubon Reader (9 page)

The nuts were soon nearly all gathered, and I began to perceive that the game must be getting scarce, as the hunters remained in the camp during the greater part of the day. At last, one morning, they packed up their movables, destroyed their abodes and put off in their canoes down the Mississippi for the Little Prairie, bent on moving towards the Arkansas [River]. Their example made us desirous of moving, and I set off with two of the crew to cross the bend of the river and ascertain if the ice still remained too solid to allow us to proceed. The weather was milder, and on reaching the Mississippi, I found the ice so much sunk as to be scarcely discernible above the water, and I toiled along the muddy shore, my fellows keeping about fifty yards behind me, until I reached [the shore opposite]
Cape Girardeau. After calling for some time loudly for a boat, we saw a canoe put off from the opposite shore. When it reached us, a stout dark-colored man leaped on shore who said his name was Lorimier, the son of the Spanish governor of Louisiana. Being a good pilot, he undertook with six stout men of his own in addition to our four hands to bring our boat up, and the bargain was soon arranged. His canoe was hauled into the woods, some blaze was made on the surrounding trees [to mark its location] and he then took us by a direct route through the woods back to Cache Creek in about one third of the time I had occupied in coming and ten times more comfortably. The night was spent in preparations—in making towing ropes of bullocks’ hides and cutting good oars—and at daylight we left Cache Creek to embark on wider waters.

Going down the stream to the mouth of the Ohio was fine sport, and my friend Rozier thought himself near the end of the journey, but alas! when we turned the point and began to ascend the Mississippi we had to stem a current of three miles an hour and to encounter ice which, although sunk, much impeded our progress. The patron, as the director of the boat’s crew is termed, got onshore, and it became the duty of every man to
haul the cordelle
—viz., to tow the boat by a rope fastened to a pole in the
bow, leaving only one man in her to steer. This was slow and heavy work, and we only advanced seven miles during the whole day up the famous Mississippi. On the approach of night, our crew camped on the bank, and having made a tremendous fire, we all ate and drank like men that had worked hard, and went to sleep in a few moments. We started the next morning two hours before daybreak, and made about a mile an hour against the current, our sail lying useless, as the wind was contrary. That night we camped out as before, and another, and another after that. A following day finding us at the same work, with very little progress, and the frost becoming quite severe again, our patron put us into winter quarters in the great bend of
Tawapatee Bottom.

What a place for winter quarters! Not a white man’s cabin within twenty miles on the other side of the river, and on our own, none within at least fifty! A regular camp was raised—trees cut down and a cabin erected in less time than a native of Europe would think possible. In search for objects of natural history, I rambled through the deep forests and soon knew all the
Indian passes and lakes in the neighborhood. The natives, by some intuitive faculty, discover an encampment of this kind almost as quickly as a flight of vultures find a dead deer; and I soon met some strolling in the woods on the lookout. Their numbers gradually increased, and in about a week, several of these unfortunate rambling beings were around us. Some were Osages, but the greater part were Shawnees. The former were athletic, robust, well-formed, of a nobler aspect than the others, from whom they kept apart. They hunted nothing but larger game—the few elks that remain in the country and one or two buffaloes were all that they paid attention to. The latter were more reduced, or rather harder pressed upon by the whites; they condescended to kill opossums and even wild turkeys for their subsistence. Though I was often amongst the Osages and very anxious to observe their manners, as they were a race new to me, yet as they spoke no French and very little English, I could hardly get acquainted with them, being ignorant of their language. They were delighted to see me draw, and when I made a tolerable portrait of one of them in red chalk, the others, to my astonishment, laughed to an excess. They bore the cold better than the Shawnees and were more expert in the use of their bows and arrows.

Our time passed away; after hunting all day with a young Kentuckian of our party [
John Pope], he would join me at night to chase the wolves that were prowling on the ice, crossing the river to and fro, howling and sneaking about the very camp for the bones which we threw away. Meanwhile I studied the habits of the wild turkeys, bears, cougars, raccoons and many other animals and drew more or less every day by the side of our great fire.

I will try to give you some idea of a great fire at a camp of this sort in the woods of America. Just before evening the axemen tumble down four or five trees—probably ash, about three feet in diameter and sixty feet to the first branches, or as we call them, the limbs. These are again cut into logs of about ten feet in length and, with the assistance of some strong sticks, are rolled together into a heap several feet high. A fire is made at the top with brushwood and dry leaves kindled by a flint and steel, and in the course of an hour, there is a flame that would roast you at the distance of five paces. Under the smoke of this, the party go to sleep. It happened, on the only night that my friend Rozier slept on shore [rather than in the keelboat], that being very chill, he drew himself so close to the fire, that the side of his face which lay uppermost was fairly singed and he lost one [side] of his whiskers. We all laughed at this, but it was not a joke to him, and he shaved off the remaining whiskers very ruefully the next morning.

We remained here six weeks. We had plenty of company from our
Indian friends, with whiskey and food in abundance, but our stock of bread began to give way and we got tired of using the breasts of wild turkeys for bread and bear oil instead of meat. The raccoons and opossums, however tender, were at last disliked, and it was decided one morning that I and my Kentuckian friend should cross the bend to procure some Indian cornmeal and have it dragged down by men on skates or otherwise. I was no novice in the woods and my companion bound on his moccasins with great glee and told me to come onwards, and I followed his steps until, meeting a herd of deer, we pursued them, tracking them with great ease through the snow. I shot one, and as we did not know what to do with it, we hung it on a tree, and after marking the place, resumed our course. We walked on till nearly dark, but no river was seen. My friend urged me forward and I still followed
him, knowing very well that the business would end at last in supping on an opossum, when we suddenly struck upon two tracks which I took for those of
Indians. He said that they would guide us to the river, and we followed them until at an opening I saw the wished-for Mississippi. But many shoe tracks were visible and I began to get alarmed. My friend still kept up his spirits until at length we arrived at—our own encampment! The boatmen laughed, and the Indians joined in the chorus. We ate a raccoon supper and were soon after refreshed by sleep. This was a raw expedition, yet nothing was more natural than that it should happen to those not perfectly acquainted with the woods. They start, form a circle, and return to the point where they left at first. I cannot account for this, but the same thing has often occurred to me in my early hunting excursions …

My friend and I were not to be … defeated; we moved off as soon as day broke without mentioning our intentions, taking our guns and my dog, in search of the opposite side of the bend. This time, luckily, we pushed straight across; neither the innumerable flocks of turkeys nor the herds of deer stopped us until we saw
Cape Girardeau, about an hour before sunset. On reaching the river we called in vain for a boat; the ice was running swiftly down the stream, and none dared put out. A small abandoned hut stood close to us, and we made it our home for the night; and our evening meal was principally composed of a pumpkin that had withstood the frost. With a gun and a little powder we soon kindled a fire and lighted some broken branches. We fed the flames with the boards of the abandoned house, and went to sleep very comfortably. What a different life from the one I lead now! And yet that very evening I wrote the day’s occurrences in my journal before going to sleep, just as I do now; and I well remember that I gained more information that evening about the roosting of the
prairie hen than I had ever done before.

Daylight returned, fair and frosty. The trees, covered with snow and icicles, became so brilliant when the sun rose that the wild turkeys, quite dazzled, preferred walking under them to flying amongst their glittering branches. After hailing the opposite shore for some time, we perceived a canoe picking its way towards us through the floating ice. It arrived and we soon told the boatmen
our wishes to procure some bread or flour. They returned, after having been absent nearly the whole day, bringing us a barrel of flour, several large loaves and a bag of
Indian cornmeal. The flour was rolled high on the bank; we thrust our gun barrels through the loaves; and having hung the bag of Indian cornmeal on a tree to preserve it from the wild hogs, we marched for our camp, which we reached about midnight. Four of our men were sent with axes who formed a small sledge, on which they placed the precious cargo and hauled it safely to the camp over the snow.

The river having risen slowly and regularly, as the Mississippi always does, now began to subside; the ice, falling with the water, prepared fresh trouble for us; and in order to keep the boat afloat, it was thought prudent to unload the cargo. It took us two days, with the assistance of the Indian women, to pile our goods safely on the shore and to protect them from the weather. For the security of the boat, we cut down some strong trees with which we framed a kind of jetty a little higher up the stream to ward off the ice, which was rapidly accumulating.

Being now fairly settled in our winter quarters, we spent our time very merrily, and so many deer, bears and wild turkeys suffered in our hunting parties that the trees around our camp looked like butchers’ stalls, being hung round with fat venison &c. Moreover we soon found that the lakes contained abundance of excellent fish, and many of us would walk over the ice with axes, and whenever a trout, pike or catfish rose immediately beneath it, a severe blow on the ice killed the fish, which the hunter secured by opening a large hole in the ice, several feet in diameter. The fish, in search of air, resorted to it from different quarters and were shot as they appeared on the surface of the water. The squaws tanned the deerskins, stretched those of the raccoons and otters and made baskets of canes. [
John Pope] played tolerably on the violin; I had a flute, and our music found pleased hearers, whilst our men danced to the tunes and squaws laughed heartily at our merriment. The Indian hunters formed the outer ring of our auditory, smoking their tomahawk pipes with a degree of composure which no white man ever displayed at such merry-makings.

While our time went pleasantly enough, a sudden and startling catastrophe threatened us without warning. The ice began to break,
and our boat was in instant danger of being cut to pieces by the ice floes or swamped by their pressure. Roused from our sleep, we rushed down pell-mell to the bank as if attacked by savages and discovered the ice was breaking up rapidly. It split with reports like those of heavy artillery; and as the water had suddenly risen from an overflow of the Ohio, the two streams seemed to rush against each other with violence, in consequence of which the congealed mass was broken into large fragments, some of which rose nearly erect here and there and again fell with thundering crash, as the wounded whale, when in the agonies of death, springs up with furious force and again plunges into the foaming waters. To our surprise, the weather, which in the evening had been calm and frosty, had become wet and blowy. The water gushed from the fissures formed in the ice, and the prospect was extremely dismal. When day dawned, a spectacle strange and fearful presented itself: the whole mass of water was violently agitated; its covering was broken into small fragments, and although not a foot of space was without ice, not a step could the most daring have ventured to make upon it. Our boat was in imminent danger, for the trees which had been placed to guard it from the ice were cut or broken into pieces and were thrust against her. It was impossible to move her; but our pilot ordered every man to bring down great bunches of cane, which were lashed along her sides, and before these were destroyed by the ice, she was afloat and riding above it. While we were gazing on the scene, a tremendous crash was heard, which seemed to have taken place about a mile below, when suddenly the great dam of ice gave way. The current of the Mississippi had forced its way against that of the Ohio, and in less than four hours we witnessed the complete breaking up of the ice.

At last our patron said that this was the time to depart for
Cape Girardeau. All was bustle—the cargo was once more put on board—our camp was abandoned and the Indians and we parted like brethren …

The little village of Cape Girardeau contained nothing remarkable or interesting except Mr. Lorimier, the father of our patron, who was indeed an original and the representative of a class of men now fast disappearing from the face of the earth. His portrait is so striking and well worth preserving that I shall attempt to draw it.

Imagine a man not exceeding four feet six inches in height, and thin in proportion, looking as if he had just been shot out of a popgun. He had a spare, meager countenance in which his nose formed decidedly the most prominent feature. It was a true
nez à la Grand Frederic
—a tremendous promontory full three inches in length—hooked like a hawk’s beak and garnished with a pair of eyes resembling those of an eagle. His hair was plastered close to his head with a quantity of pomatum; and behind he wore a long queue rolled up in a dirty ribbon which hung down below his waist. The upper part of his dress was European, and had evidently once been made of the richest materials; and though now woefully patched and dilapidated, you might still observe here and there shreds of gold and silver lace adhering to the worn apparel. His waistcoat, of a fashion as antique as that of his nose, had immense flaps or pockets that covered more than one-half of his lower garments. These latter were of a description totally at variance with the upper part of his costume. They were of dressed buckskin, fitting tight to his attenuated limbs and ornamented with large iron buckles at the knees which served to attach and support a pair of Indian hunting gaiters that had, like the rest of his dress, seen long and hard service. To complete his costume, he wore on his feet a pair of moccasins, or Indian shoes, that were really of most beautiful workmanship. These articles of dress, together with his small stature and singular features, rendered his appearance at a little distance the most ludicrous caricature that can be imagined; but upon approaching nearer and conversing with him, his manners were found to be courteous and polished. He had been, as I before mentioned, the governor of Louisiana while it was in the possession of the Spaniards; when this country was purchased by the Government of the United States, he retired to this little village where he was looked upon as a great general and held in the highest esteem and consideration by all the inhabitants.