PREFACE. 



The growing interest entertained by the American public in reference 

 to the subjects mainly treated upon in the volume now before the reader, is 

 deemed a sufficient apology for its appearance. The late act of our National 

 Legislature in the annexation of Texas, bringing with it, as it does, a very 

 considerable portion of the Province of Santa Fe, together with the existing 

 hostilities between our own and the Republic of Mexico, preparing the way 

 for a no distant acquisition of the Californias, not to mention the recent agita- 

 tion of the American claim to the whole of Oregon, as yet scarcely subsided, 

 has directed the attention of most minds more than usually towards the affairs 

 and condition of the Great West — particularly that section of it contigu- 

 ous to the Rocky Mountains. But, although our newspapers teem with 

 professed descriptions of those countries embraced within its limits, and 

 are redundant with animadversions upon their admitted importance — while 

 the ambitious politician prates of them learnedly, and 'quotes by the day 

 from fugitive paragraphs of doubful verity, gleaned here and there as 

 chance may favor him — a palpable ignorance is evinced throughout in re- 

 gard to a vast store of interesting particulars. 



To fill up in some measure this wide vacuum of general information, is 

 the author's object in his present undertaking. With this view he has en- 

 deavored to present a full and comprehensive picture of the real condition 

 of regions so attractive as are the above, and in so doing he is conscious of 

 having erred in no important particular. Whatever is affirmed, may be 

 relied upon as matter of fact ; while details of a questionable nature may 

 be inferred from the guarded language in which they are expressed. So 

 far as his personal knowledge is concerned, he has spoken without reserve ; 

 but information based upon second-hand authority, is given as such. 



The catalogue of facts relative to the manner in which the fur trade is 

 conducted, and the enormities chargeable upon the individuals engaged in 

 it, may be objected to as unnecessarily minute ; but, regarded, as it should 

 be, as one of the explanatory causes of Indian degradation, it will hardly 

 fail to secure a ready acquiescence from the reader. Justice to the " red 

 man " demands only a rehearsal of the simple truth, that condemnation may 

 be awarded to the doubly guilty. 



