The Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet in California, Sonora, and Western Texas

by Frederick Marryat

  CHAPTER XLI.

  The day of the fishing at length arrived; our party of ladies andgentlemen, with the black cooks and twenty slaves, started two hoursbefore sunrise, and, after a smart ride of some twelve miles, we haltedbefore a long row of tents, which had been erected for the occasion, onthe shores of one of these numerous and beautiful western lakes. Fiftynegroes were already on the spot, some cutting wood for fuel, somepreparing breakfast, while others made ready the baits and lines, orcleaned empty barrels, in which our intended victims were to be salted.We scarcely had had time to look around us, when, from twenty differentquarters, we beheld the approach of as many parties, who had beeninvited to share the sport. We greeted them planter fashion;--"Are youhungry, eh, eh?--Sam, Napoleon, Washington, Caesar--quick--thebreakfast."

  For several days previous, all the creeks of the neighbourhood had beendrained of their cray-fish, minnows, and shell-fish. All the dug-outsand canoes from every stream thirty miles round had also been dragged tothe lake, and it was very amusing to see a fleet of eighty boats andcanoes of every variety, in which we were about to embark to prosecuteour intentions against the unsuspecting inhabitants of the water.

  After a hearty, though somewhat hasty meal, we proceeded to business;every white man taking with him a negro, to bait his line and unhook thefish; the paddles were soon put in motion, and the canoes, keeping adistance of fifty yards from each other, having now reached the deepestpart of the lake, bets were made as to who would pull up the first fish,the ladies on shore watching the sport, and the caldrons upon the fireready to receive the first victims. I must not omit to mention, that twoof the larger canoes, manned only by negroes, were ordered to pull upand down the line of fishing-boats and canoes, to take out the fish asthey were captured.

  At a signal given by the ladies, the lines were thrown into the lake,and, almost at the same moment, a deafening hurrah of a hundred voicesannounced that all the baits had been taken before reaching the bottom,every fisherman imagining that he had won his bet. The winner, however,could never be ascertained, and nobody gave it a second thought allbeing now too much excited with the sport. The variety of the fish wasequal to the rapidity with which they were taken: basses, perch,sun-fish, buffaloes, trouts, and twenty other sorts. In less than halfan hour my canoe was full to sinking: and I should certainly have sunkwith my cargo, had it not been most opportunely taken out by one of thespare boats. All was high glee on shore and on the lake, and the scenewas now and then still diversified by comic accidents, causing the moremirth, as there was no possibility of danger.

  The canoe next to me was full to the gunwale, which was not two inchesabove water: it contained the English traveller and a negro, who wasquite an original in his way. As fish succeeded to fish, their positionbecame exceedingly ludicrous: the canoe was positively sinking, and theywere lustily calling for assistance. The spare boat approached rapidly,and had neared them to within five yards, when the Englishman's line wassuddenly jerked by a very heavy fish, and so unexpectedly, that thesportsman lost his equilibrium and fell upon the larboard side ofthe canoe.

  The negro, wishing to restore the equilibrium, threw his weight on theopposite side; unluckily, this had been the simultaneous idea of hiswhite companion, who also rolled over the fish to starboard. The canoeturned the turtle with them, and away went minnows, crawfish, lines,men, and all. Everybody laughed most outrageously, as the occupants ofthe canoe reappeared upon the surface of the water, and made straightfor the shore, not daring to trust to another canoe after their ducking.The others continued fishing till about half-past nine, when the raysof the sun were becoming so powerful as to compel us to seek shelter inthe tents.

  If the scene on the lake had been exciting, it became not less soon-shore, when all the negroes, male and female, crowding together,began to scale, strip, and salt the fish. Each of them had an account togive of some grand fishery, where a monstrous fish, a mile in length,had been taken by some fortunate "Sambo" of the South. The girls gapedwith terror and astonishment, the men winking and trying to look grave,while spinning these yarns, which certainly beat all the wonders of theveracious Baron Munchausen.

  The call to renew the sport broke off their ludicrous inventions. Ourfortune was as great as in the forenoon, and at sunset we returned home,leaving the negroes to salt and pack the fish in barrels, for the supplyof the plantation.

  A few days afterwards, I bade adieu to Mr. Courtenay and his delightfulfamily, and embarked myself and horse on board of one of the steamersbound to St. Louis, which place I reached on the following morning.

  St. Louis has been described by so many travellers, that it is quiteuseless to mention anything about this "queen city of the Mississippi."I will only observe, that my arrival produced a great sensation amongthe inhabitants, to whom the traders in the Far West had often toldstories about the wealth of the Shoshones. In two or three days, Ireceived a hundred or more applications from various speculators, "to goand kill the Indians in the West, and take away their treasures;" and Ishould have undoubtedly received ten thousand more, had I not hit upon agood plan to rid myself of all their importunities. I merely sent allthe notes to the newspapers as fast as I received them; and it excited ahearty laugh amongst the traders, when thirty letters appeared in thecolumns, all of them written in the same tenour and style.

  One evening I found at the post-office a letter from Joseph Smithhimself, in which he invited me to go to him without any loss of time,as the state of affairs having now assumed a certain degree ofimportance, it was highly necessary that we should at once come to acommon understanding. Nothing could have pleased me more than thiscommunication, and the next morning I started from St. Louis, arrivingbefore noon at St. Charles, a small town upon the Missouri, inhabitedalmost entirely by French Creoles, fur-traders, and trappers. There,for the first time, I saw a steam-ferry, and, to say the truth, I do notunderstand well how horses and waggons could have been transported overbefore the existence of steamboats, as, in that particular spot, themighty stream rolls its muddy waters with an incredible velocity,forming whirlpools, which seem strong enough to engulf anything that maycome into them.

  From St. Charles I crossed a hilly land, till I arrived once more uponthe Mississippi; but there "the father of the waters," (as the Indianscall it) presented an aspect entirely new: its waters, not having yetmixed with those of the Missouri, were quite transparent; the banks,too, were several hundred feet high, and recalled to my mind thecountries watered by the Buona Ventura River. For two days I continuedmy road almost always in sight of the stream, till at last, the groundbecoming too broken and hilly, I embarked upon another steam ferry atLouisiana, a rising and promising village, and landed upon the shores ofIllinois, where the level prairies would allow of more rapid travelling.

  The state of Missouri, in point of dimensions, is the second state ofthe Union, being inferior in extent only to Virginia. It extends from36 deg. to 40 deg. 35' N. lat, and from 89 deg. 20' to 95 deg. W. long., having an areaof about 68,500 square miles. Its boundaries, as fixed by theConstitution, are a line drawn from a point in the middle of theMississippi, in 36 deg. N. lat., and along that parallel, west to itsintersection, a meridian line passing through the mouth of the Kansas.Thence, the western boundary was originally at that meridian: but, byact of Congress in 1836, the triangular tract between it and theMissouri, above the mouth of the Kansas, was annexed to the state. Onthe north, the parallel of latitude which passes through the rapids ofthe River Desmoines, forms the boundary between that river andthe Missouri.

  The surface of that portion of the state which lies north of theMissouri is, in general, moderately undulating, consisting of anagreeable interchange of gentle swells and broad valleys, and rarely,though occasionally, rugged, or rising into hills of much elevation.With the exception of narrow strips of woodland along the water-courses,almost the whole of this region is prairie, at least nine-tenths beingwholly destitute of trees. The alluvial patches or river-bottoms areextensive, particularly on the
Missouri, and generally of greatfertility; and the soil of the upland is equal, if not superior, to thatof any other upland tract in the United States. The region south of theMissouri River and west of the Osage, is of the same description; thenorthern and western Missouri country is most delightful, a soil ofinexhaustible fertility, and a salubrious climate, rendering it a mostdesirable and pleasant residence; but south-east of the latter river,the state is traversed by numerous ridges of the Ozark mountains, andthe surface is here highly broken and rugged.

  This mountainous tract has a breadth of from one hundred to one hundredand fifty miles; but although it often shoots up into precipitous peaks,it is believed that they rarely exceed two thousand feet in height; noaccurate measurements of their elevation have, however, been made, andlittle is known of the course and mutual relations of the chains. Thetimber found here is pitch-pine, shrub oaks, cedar, &c., indicative ofthe poverty of the soil; in the uplands of the rest of the state,hickory, post-oak, and white oaks, &c., are the prevailing growth; andin river-bottoms, the cotton-tree, sycamore, or button-wood, maple, ash,walnut, &c., predominate. The south-eastern corner of the state, belowCape Girardeau, and east of the Black River, is a portion of the immenseinundated region which borders the Arkansas. A considerable part of thistract is indeed above the reach of the floods, but these patches areisolated and inaccessible, except by boats, during the rise ofthe waters.

  My friend, Mr. Courtenay, penetrated these swamps with three Indians andtwo negroes. His companions were bogged and lost; he returned, havingkilled seven fine elks, and two buffaloes. Some of these mighty animalshave been breeding there for a long while, undisturbed by man.

  The state of Missouri is abundantly supplied with navigable channels,affording easy access to all parts. The Mississippi washes the easternborder, by the windings of the stream, for a distance of about fourhundred and seventy miles. Above St. Genevieve, it flows for the mostpart between high and abrupt cliffs of limestone, rising to an elevationof from one hundred to four hundred feet above the surface of the river;sometimes separated from it by bottoms of greater or less width, and atothers springing up abruptly from the water's edge. A few miles belowCape Girardeau, and about thirty-five miles above the mouth of the Ohio,are the rocky ledges, called the Little and Grand Chain; and abouthalf-way between that point and St. Genevieve, is the Grand Tower, oneof the wonders of the Mississippi. It is a stupendous pile of rocks, ofa conical form, about one hundred and fifty feet high, and one hundredfeet in circumference at its base, rising up out of the bed of theriver. It seems, in connection with the rocky shores on both sides, tohave been opposed, at some former period, as a barrier to the flow ofthe Mississippi, which must here have had a perpendicular fall of morethan one hundred feet.

  The principal tributaries of the Mississippi, with the exception of theMissouri, are the Desmoines, Wyacond, Fabius, Salt, and Copper Rivers,above that great stream, and the Merrimac, St. Francis and White Riverbelow; the two last passing into Arkansas. Desmoines, which is only aboundary stream, is navigable one hundred and seventy miles, and SaltRiver, whose northern sources are in Iowa, and southern in Boone county,and which takes its name from the salt licks or salines on its borders,may be navigated by steamboats up to Florida (a small village); that isto say, ninety-five or a hundred miles. The Riviere au Cuivre, or CopperRiver, is also a navigable stream; but the navigation of all theserivers is interrupted by ice in winter, and by shoals and bars in thedry season.

  The Missouri river flows through the state for a distance of about sixhundred miles; but although steamboats have ascended it two thousandfive hundred miles from its mouth, its navigation is rendered difficultand dangerous by sand-bars, falling banks, snags, and shifting channels.

  The bank of the Mississippi river, on the Illinois side, is not by farso picturesque as the country I have just described, but its fertilityis astonishing. Consequently, the farms and villages are less scattered,and cities, built with taste and a great display of wealth, are found ata short distance one from the other. Quincy I may mention, among others,as being a truly beautiful town, and quite European in its style ofstructure and neatness. Elegant fountains are pouring their cool watersat the end of every row of houses; some of the squares are magnificent,and, as the town is situated upon a hill several hundred feet above theriver, the prospect is truly grand.

  At every place where I stopped between St. Louis and Quincy, I alwaysheard the Mormons abused and spoken of as a set of scoundrels, but fromQuincy to Nauvoo the reports were totally different. The higher or moreenlightened classes of the people have overlooked the petty tricks ofthe Mormon leaders, to watch with more accuracy the advance and designsof Mormonism. In Joe Smith they recognize a great man, a man of will andenergy, one who has the power of carrying everything before him, andthey fear him accordingly.

  On leaving Quincy, I travelled about seventy miles through a countryentirely flat, but admirably cultivated. I passed through several littlevillages and at noon of the second day I reached my destination.