232 THE GEORGE CATLIN INDIAN GALtE&Y. 



often been taken out of the water by mystery-men and carried up the bank and turned 

 against my wigwam, and by them again safely carried to the river's edge and put 

 afloat upon the water when I was ready to take a seat in it. 



Saint Louis, which is fourteen hundred miles west of New York, is a flourishing 

 town of 15,000 inhabitants, and destined to be the great emporium of the West — the 

 greatest inland town in America. Its location is on the western bank of the Missis- 

 sippi River, twenty miles below the mouth of the Missouri, and fourteen hundred above 

 the entrance of the Mississippi into the Gulf of Mexico. 



This is the great depot of all the fur-trading companies to the Upper Missouri and 

 Rocky Mountains and their starting place ; and also for the Santa F6 and other 

 trading companies who reach the Mexican borders overland, to trade for silver bullion 

 from the extensive mines of that rich country. 



I have also made it my starting point and place of deposit, to which I send from 

 different quarters my packages of paintings and Indian articles, minerals, fossils, &c, 

 as I collect them in various regions, here to be stored till my return, and where, on 

 my last return, if I ever make it, I shall hustle them all together and remove them to 

 the East. 



To this place I had transmitted by steamer and other conveyance about twenty 

 boxes and packages at different times, as my note-book showed, and I have, on look- 

 ing them np and enumerating them, been lucky enough to recover and recognize about 

 fifteen of the twenty, which is a pretty fair proportion for this wild and desperate 

 country, and the very conscientious hands they often are doomed to pass through. — 

 Pages 29, 30, vol. 2, Catlin's Eight Years. 



Mr. Catlin, in " Life Amongst the Indians," 1861 (pages 169-172), 

 writes : 



The day before we reached Saint Louis [voyage down the Mississippi, 1836], being 

 fatigued with paddling nine hundred miles, and having a strong wind against us, we 

 hailed a steamer descending the river, and with ourselves had our little canoe.and its 

 contents lifted on board. I related to the captain my former misfortune in losing my 

 canoe at Saint Louis, and told him I should take more care of this. He laughed at me 

 heartily and said, "You have been very unlucky, but you shall at least be sure of one." 



We arrived at Saint Louis too late in the evening to remove my canoe, and in the 

 morning I was saved the trouble ; and with it, on this occasion, had departed for- 

 ever a large package which I had left in the cabin, with my name on it, containing 

 several very beautiful articles of Indian costumes, pipes, &c. For the loss of these 

 things on his vessel I remonstrated with the captain, and severely so, for the parcel 

 taken from the cabin of his steamer with my name on it. For this he laughed me in 

 the face again and said, " Why, don't you know, sir, that if you leave a box or a par- 

 cel in any steamboat on the Missouri or the Mississippi, with George Catlin marked 

 on it, it is known at once by all the world to be filled with Indian curiosities, and that 

 you will never see it again unless it goes ashore with you?" 



This accounted for the losses I had met with on former occasions of boxes and par- 

 cels sent by steamers and other boats, from various remote places in the Indian coun- 

 tries to Saint Louis, containing one-third at least of all the Indian manufactures I 

 ever procured, after I had purchased them at exorbitant prices; and oftentimes the 

 poor Indians had stored them and carried them over rivers, and transported them over 

 long distances in safety for me. What a comment is this upon the glorious advant- 

 ages of civilization ! 



312. Beautiful Prairie Bluffs, view on Upper Mississippi, everywhere covered with 

 a green turf. Painted in 1832. 



(See Plate No. 119, vol. 2, Voyage down the Missouri, Catlin's Eight 

 Years.) 



