Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet. Фредерик Марриет
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behaved to us with the greatest kindness and hospitality. The chief knew Gabriel, and invited us to go in company with them to their place of encampment. The chief was a tall, fine fellow, and with beautiful symmetry of figure. He spoke Spanish well, and the conversation was carried on in that tongue until the evening, when I addressed him in Shoshone, which beautiful dialect is common to the Comanches, Apaches, and Arrapahoes, and related to him the circumstances of our captivity on the shores of the Colorado of the West. As I told my story the chief was mute with astonishment, until at last, throwing aside the usual Indian decorum, he grasped me firmly by the hand. He knew I was neither a Yankee nor a Mexican, and swore that for my sake every Canadian or Frenchman falling in their power should be treated as a friend. After our meal, we sat comfortably round the fires, and listened to several speeches and traditions of the warriors.
One point struck me forcibly during my conversation with that noble warrior. According to his version, the Comanches were in the beginning very partial to the Texians, as they were brave, and some of them generous. But he said, that afterwards, as they increased their numbers and established their power, they became a rascally people, cowards and murderers. One circumstance above all fired the blood of the Comanches, and since that time it has been and will be with them a war of extinction against the Texians.
An old Comanche, with a daughter, had separated himself from their tribe. He was a chief, but he had been unfortunate; and being sick, he retired to San Antonio to try the skill of the treat Pale-face medecin. His daughter was a noble and handsome girl of eighteen, and she had not been long in the place before she attracted the attention of a certain doctor, a young man from Kentucky, who had been tried for murder in the States. He was the greatest scoundrel in the world, but being a desperate character, he was feared, and, of course, courted by his fellow Texians.
Perceiving that he could not succeed in his views so long as the girl was with her father, he contrived to throw the old man into jail, and, inducing her to come to his house to see what could be done to release him, he abused her most shamefully, using blows and violence, to accomplish his purpose, to such a degree, that he left her for dead. Towards the evening, she regained some strength, and found a shelter in the dwelling of some humane Mexican.
The old Indian was soon liberated: he found his daughter, but it was on her death-bed, and then he learned the circumstances of the shameful transaction, and deeply vowed revenge. A Mexican gentleman, indignant at such a cowardly deed, in the name of outraged nature and humanity, laid the cause before a jury of Texians. The doctor was acquitted by the Texian jury, upon the ground that the laws were not made for the benefit of the Comanches.
The consequences may be told in a few words. One day Dr Cobbet was found in an adjoining field stabbed to the heart and scalped. The Indian had run away, and meeting with a party of Comanches, he related his wrongs and his revenge. They received him again into the tribe, but the injury was a national one, not sufficiently punished: that week twenty-three Texians lost their scalps, and fourteen women were carried into the wilderness, there to die in captivity.
The Comanche chief advised us to keep close to the shores of the Rio Grande, that we might not meet with the parties of the Pawnee Loups; and so much was he pleased with us, that he resolved to turn out of his way and accompany us with his men some thirty miles farther, when we should be comparatively out of danger. The next morning we started, the chief and I riding close together and speaking of the Shoshones. We exchanged our knives as a token of friendship, and when we parted, he assembled all his men and made the following speech:—
“The young chief of the Shoshones is returning to his brave people across the rugged mountains. Learn his name, so that you may tell your children that they have a friend in Owato Wanisha. He is neither a Shakanath (an Englishman) nor a Kishemoc Comoanak (a long knife, a Yankee). He is a chief among the tribe of our great-grandfathers, he is a chief, though he is very, very young.”
At this moment all the warriors came, one after the other, to shake hands with me, and when this ceremony was terminated, the chief resumed his discourse.
“Owato Wanisha, we met as strangers, we part as friends. Tell your young warriors you have been among the Comanches, and that we would like to know them. Tell them to come, a few or many, to our waikiams (lodges) they will find the moshkataj (buffalo) in plenty.
“Farewell, young chief, with a pale face and an Indian heart; the earth be light to thee and thine. May the white Manitou clear for thee the mountain path, and may you never fail to remember Opishka Toaki (the White Raven), who is thy Comanche friend, and who would fain share with thee his home, his wealth, and his wide prairies. I have said: young brother, farewell.”
The tears stood in our eyes as gallantly the band wheeled round. We watched them till they had all disappeared in the horizon. And these noble fellows were Indians; had they been Texians they would have murdered us to obtain our horses and rifles.
Two days after we crossed the Rio Grande, and entered the dreary path of the mountains in the hostile and inhospitable country of the Navahoes and the Crows.10
We had been travelling eight days on a most awful stony road, when at last we reached the head waters of the Colorado of the West, but we were very weak, not having touched any food during the last five days, except two small rattlesnakes, and a few berries we had picked up on the way. On the morning we had chased a large grizzly bear, but to no purpose; our poor horses and ourselves were too exhausted to follow the animal for any time, and with its disappearance vanished away all hopes of a dinner.
It was evening before we reached the river, and, by that time, we were so much maddened with hunger, that we seriously thought of killing one of our horses. Luckily, at that instant we espied a smoke rising from a camp of Indians in a small valley. That they were foes we had no doubt; but hunger can make heroes, and we determined to take a meal at their expense. The fellows had been lucky, for around their tents they had hung upon poles large pieces of meat to dry. They had no horses, and only a few dogs scattered about the camp. We skirted the plain in silence, and at dark we had arrived at three hundred yards from them, concealed by the projecting rocks which formed a kind of belt around the camp.
Now was our time. Giving the Shoshone war-whoop and making as much noise as we could, we spurred on our horses, and in a few moments each of us had secured a piece of meat from the poles. The Crows (for the camp contained fifteen Crows and three Arrapahoes), on hearing the war-whoop, were so terrified that they had all run away without ever looking behind them; but the Arrapahoes stood their ground, and having recovered from their first surprise, they assaulted us bravely with their lances and arrows.
Roche was severely bruised by his horse falling, and my pistol, by disabling his opponent, who was advancing with his tomahawk, saved his life. Gabriel had coolly thrown his lasso round his opponent, and had already strangled him, while the third had been in the very beginning of the attack run over by my horse. Gabriel lighted on the ground, entered the lodges, cut the strings of all the bows he could find, and, collecting a few more pieces of the meat, we started at a full gallop, not being inclined to wait till the Crows should have recovered from their panic. Though our horses were very tired, we rode thirteen miles more that night, and, about ten o’clock, arrived at a beautiful spot with plenty of fine grass and cool water, upon which both we and our horses stretched ourselves most luxuriously even before eating.
Capital jokes were passed round that night while we were discussing the qualities of the mountain-goat flesh, but yet I felt annoyed at our feat; the thing, to be sure, had been gallantly done, still it was nothing better than highway robbery. Hunger, however, is a good palliative for conscience, and, having well rubbed our horses, who seemed to enjoy their grazing amazingly, we turned to repose, watching alternately for every three hours.
The next day at noon we met with unexpected sport and company. As we were going along, we perceived two men at a distance, sitting close together upon the ground, and apparently in a vehement conversation. As they were white men, we dismounted and secured our horses, and then crept silently along until we were near the strangers. They were two very queer looking beings; one long and lean, the other short and stout.
“Bless me,” the fat one said, “bless me, Pat Swiney, but I think the Frenchers will never return, and so we must die here like
The Crows are gallant horsemen; but, although they have assumed the manners and customs of the Shoshones, they are of the Dahcotah breed. There is a great difference between the Shoshone tribes and the Crows. The latter want that spirit of chivalry so remarkable among the Comanches, the Arrapahoes, and the Shoshones—that nobility of feeling which scorns to take an enemy at a disadvantage. I should say that the Shoshone tribes are the lions and the Crows the tigers of these deserts.