22 NARRATIVE OF A JOURNEY 



myself walked to the town, three miles distant. The country 

 here is very hilly and. rocky, thickly covered with timber, and 

 no prairie within several miles. 



The site of the town is beautiful, an* very well selected, 

 standing on a high point of land, and overlooking the surround- 

 ing country, but the town itself is very indifferent ; the houses, 

 (about fifty,) are very much scattered, composed of logs and 

 clay, and are low and inconvenient. There are six or eight 

 stores here, two taverns, and a few tipling houses. As we did not 

 fancy the town, nor the society that we saw there, we concluded 

 to take up our residence at the house on the landing until the 

 time of starting on our journey. We were very much disap- 

 pointed in not being able to purchase any mules here, all the 

 saleable ones having been bought by the Santa Fee traders, 

 several weeks since. Horses, also, are rather scarce, and are 

 sold at higher prices than we had been taught to expect, the 

 demand for them at this time being greater than usual. Mr. N. 

 and myself have, however, been so fortunate as to find five 

 excellent animals amongst the hundreds of wretched ones offered 

 for sale, and have also engaged a man to attend to packing our 

 loads, and perform the various duties of our camp. 



The men of the party, to the number of about fifty, are en- 

 camped on tlie bank of the river, and their tents whiten the plain 

 for the distance of half a mile. I have often enjoyed the view 

 on a fine moonlight evening from the door of the house, or 

 perched upon a high hill immediately over the spot. The beau- 

 tiful white tents, with alight gleaming from each, the smoulder- 

 ing fires around them, the incessant hum of the men, and 

 occasionally the lively notes of a bacchanalian song, softened 

 and rendered sweeter by distance. I probably contemplate 

 these and similar scenes with the more interest, as they exhibit 

 the manner in which the next five months of my life are to be 

 spent. 



