140 NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST 



the functions of the highest offices in the nation. He had 

 been acquainted with the country twenty-five or thirty years, 

 and had been to the mountains, as many of these men do. 

 It is not uncommon for young men of weaUhy famihes in St. 

 Louis to leave the refinements and luxuries of the city for a 

 trading trip to the mountains, or to Santa Fe. To this initial 

 population have been added, Germans, English, Scotch, 

 Irish, and a mixture from each of the States. They are, 

 of course, of every shade of character ; and the traveller 

 from the denser and older portions of the world would fre- 

 quently have his astonishment excited, on entering a very 

 rough log-cabin, consisting of one room, with a puncheon 

 floor and mud chimney, to find a farmer of a cultivated mind 

 and manners,* or a lady who has graced the gay and fashion- 

 able parties of the city, or, frequently, her superior, whom 

 education has endowed with the solid and shining accom- 

 phshments of woman, and fitted for the highest spheres of 

 life. Among these may be found, in most free intercourse 

 and fellowship, the differing and various shades of character : 

 the rough in extreme, but honest and worthy; the vulgar and 

 clown of all shapes and dimensions, whether rich or poor, 

 laboring or professional ; the counterfeiter and horse-thief, 

 sitting side by side with the judge and senator. There is a 

 general and equal association of all persons, without regard 

 to character, condition, or circumstances, making society one 

 smooth and perfect level. This is not a very agreeable con- 



* The remarks of Mr. Birkbeck, an intelligent and observing English- 

 man, who came to Illinois about the period when it became a state, made 

 in relation to the western people generally of that time, will, I think, well 

 apply to the population now inhabiting this portion of it : — " Refinement," 

 he says, " is unquestionably far more rare than in our mature and highly- 

 cultivated state of society ; but so is extreme vulgarity. In every depart- 

 ment of common life, we here see employed persons superior in habits and 

 education to the same class in England." 



