THE GEORGE CATLIN INDIAN GALLERY. 547 



a very popular work, which, is being read with great avidity, from the pen of a gentle- 

 man whose name gives currency to any book, and whose fine taste pleasure to all 

 who read. Tho work I refer to, "The Rocky Mountains, or Adventures in the Far 

 West, by W. Irving," is a very interesting one, and its incidents, no doubt, are given 

 with great candor, by the excellent officer, Captain Bonneville, who spent five years 

 in the region of the Rocky Mountains on a furlough, endeavouring, in competition 

 with others, to add to his fortune by pushing the fur trade to some of the wildest 

 tribes in those remote regions. 



" The worthy captain [says the author] started into the country with one hundred 

 and ten men, whose very appearance and equipment exhibited a piebald mixture — 

 half-civilized and half-savage," &c. And he also preludes his work by saying that 

 it was revised by himself from Captain Bonneville's own notes, which can, no doubt, 

 be relied on. 



This medley group, it seems, traversed the country to the Rocky Mountains, where 

 amongst the Nez Perce's and Flatheads, he says, "They were friendly in their dispo- 

 sitions, and honest to the most scrupulous degreo in their intercourse with the white 

 men." And of tho same people the captain continues: " Simply to call these people 

 religious would convey but a faint idea of tho deep hue of piety and devotion which 

 pervades tho whole of their conduct. Their honesty is immaculate, aud their purity 

 of purposo and their observance of tho rites of their religion are most uniform and 

 remarkable. They are certainly more like a nation of saints than a horde of savages." 



Afterwards, of the Root-Diggers in tho vicinity of tho Great Salt Lake r who are a 

 band of tho Snake tribe (and of whom he speaks thus: "In fact, they are a simple, 

 timid, inoffensive race, and scarce provided with any weapons, except for tho chase"), 

 ho says that, '"'one morning one of his trappers of a violent and savage character, 

 discovering that his traps had been carried off in the night, took a horrid oath that 

 ho would kill the first Indian he should meet, innocent or guilty. As he was return- 

 ing with his comrades to camp, ho beheld two unfortunate Root-Diggers seated on 

 •the river bank fishing : advancing upon them, he leveled his rifle, shot one upon the 

 spot, and ilung his bleeding body into the stream." 



A short time afterward, when his party of trappers " were about to cross Ogden's 

 River, a great number of Shoshokies, or Root-Diggers, wero posted on the opposite 

 bank, when they imagined they were there with hostile intent; they advanced upon 

 them, leveled their rifles, and killed twenty-five of them on tho spot. The rest fled 

 to a short distance, then halted and turned about, howling and whining like wolves, 

 and uttering tho most i>iteous wailings. The trappers chased them in every direc- 

 tion ; the poor wretches made no defense, but fled with terror. Neither does it ap- 

 pear from the accounts of the boasted victors that a weapon had been wielded or a 

 weapon launched by the Indians throughout the affair." 



After this affair this piebald band of trappers wandered off to Monterey, on the 

 coast of California, and on their return on horseback through an immense tract of 

 the Root-Digger's country, he gives the further following accounts of their transac- 

 tions : 



" In. the course of their journey through the country of the poor Root Diggers there 

 seems to have been an emulation between them which could inflict the greatest out- 

 rages upon the natives. The trappers still considered them in the light of dangerous 

 foes, and the Mexicans, very probably, charged them with the sin of horse-stealing; 

 we have no other mode of accounting for the infamous barbarities of which, accord- 

 ing to their own story, they were guilty ; hunting the poor Indians like wild beasts, 

 and killing them without mercy ; chasing their unfortunate victims at full speed, 

 noosing them around the neck with their lassos, and then dragging them to death. " 



It is due to Captain Bonneville that tho world should know that these cruel (not 

 savage) atrocities were committed by his men, when they were on a tour to explore 

 tho shores of the Great Salt Lake, and many hundreds of miles from him and beyond 



