WESTERN WILD SPORTS. 
189 
small rivers, which discharge their waters into the east side of 
the Gulf of California, near the dividing line between the pro¬ 
vinces of Biscay and Sonora. We happened at the time to bo 
marching along at the foot of those mountains, and fell in with 
the Indian who had them, when I conceived the idea of bring¬ 
ing them to the United States, for your excellency. Although 
then more than 1600 miles from our frontier post, Natchitoches, 
I purchased them of the savage, and for three or four days 
made my men cany them in their laps on horseback. As they 
would eat nothing but milk, they were in danger of starving. I 
then had a cage prepared for both, which was earned on a 
mule, lashed between two packs, but always ordered them to 
be let out the moment we halted, and not shut up again until 
we were prepared to march. By this treatment they became 
extremely docile when at liberty, following my men, whom 
they learned to distinguish from the Spanish dragoons, by their 
feeding them, and encamping with them, like dogs through 
our camps, the small villages and forts where we halted. When 
well supplied with sustenance they would play like young 
puppies with each other and the soldiers, but the instant they 
were shut up and placed on the mule, they became cross, as the 
jostling of the animal knocked them against each other, a id 
they were sometimes left exposed to the scorching heat of a 
vertical sun for a day without food or a drop of water, in which 
case they would worry and tear each other, until nature was 
exhausted, and they could neither fight nor howl any longer 
They will be one year old on the first of next month—March, 
1308—and, as I am informed, they frequently arrive at the 
weight of eight hundred pounds. 
“ The Grizzly Bear is remarkably tenacious of life, and on 
nany occasions numerous rifle balls have been fired into the 
Dody of an individual, without much apparent injury. Instances 
are related by the travellers who have explored the countries in 
the vicinity of the Rocky Mountains, of from ten to fourteen 
balls having been discharged into the body of one of these 
Bears before it expired. 
