90 
[Jan. i8, 15;, 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
where the Indians in the season of trade, gather 
in large numbers and barter, and trade, and buy, 
under the guardianship of the carronades of the 
bastions loaded with grape, and looking upon 
them. From this area a passage leads between 
the eastern outer wall and the one-story houses 
to the caral or cavyyard. It occupies the re¬ 
mainder of the space within the walls. Ihis 
is the place for the horses, mules, etc., to repose 
in safety from Indian depredations at night. 
“Beyond the caral to the west and adjoining 
the wall is the wagon house. It is strongly built, 
and large enough to shelter twelve or fifteen of 
those large vehicles which are used in convey¬ 
ing the peltries to St. Louis and goods thence 
to the post. The long drought of summer ren¬ 
ders it necessary to protect them from the sun. 
The walls of the fort, its bastions and houses, 
are constructed of adobies or unburnt bricks, 
cemented together with a mortar of clay. The 
lower floors of the building are made of clay, a 
little moistened and beaten hard with large 
wooden mallets. The upper floors of the two- 
story houses and the roofs of all are made in 
tbe same way and of the same material, and are 
supported by heavy transverse timbers covered 
with brush. The'tops of the houses being flat 
and graveled, furnish a fine promenade in the 
moonlight evenings of this charming climate. 
“The number of men employed in the busi¬ 
ness of this establishment is supposed to be about 
sixty. Fifteen or twenty of them in charge of 
one of the owners are employed in taking to 
market buffalo robes, etc., which are gathered 
at the fort, and in bringing back with them new 
stock of goods for future purposes. Another 
party is employed in hunting buffalo meat in 
the neighborhood plains, and still another in 
guarding the animals while they cut their daily 
food on the banks of the river. And another 
party still, under command of an experienced 
trader, goes into some distant Indian camp to 
trade. One or more of the owners, and one or 
another of these parties that chances to be at 
the post defend it and trade, keep the books of 
the company, etc. Each of these parties en¬ 
counter dangers and hardship from which per¬ 
sons within the borders of civilization would 
shrink. 
“The country in which the fort is situated is 
in a manner a common field of several tribes 
unfriendly alike to one another and the whites, 
the Utaws and Cheyennes of the mountains near 
Sante Fe, and the Pawnees of the Great Platte 
come to the Upper Arkansas to meet the buffalo 
in their annual migrations to the north; and on 
the trail of these animals follow up the trail of 
the Comanches, and thus in the months of June, 
July, August and September there are in the 
neighborhood of these traders from fifteen to 
twenty thousand savages ready and panting for 
plunder and blood. If they engage in battling 
out old causes of contention among themselves, 
the Messrs. Bents feel comparatively safe in their 
solitary fortress. But if they spare each other’s 
property and lives, there are great anxieties at 
Fort William. Every hour of day and night is 
pregnant with danger. * * * 
“Fort William is owned by three brothers by 
the name of Bent from St. Louis. Two of them 
were at the post when we arrived. They seemed 
to be thoroughly initiated into Indian life; dressed 
like chiefs; in moccasins thoroughly garnished 
with beads and porcupine quills; in trousers of 
deer skin, with long fringes of the same extend¬ 
ing along the outer seam from the ankle to the 
hip; in the splendid hunting shirt of the same 
material with sleeves fringed on the elbow seam 
from the wrist to the shoulder, and ornamented 
with figures of porcupine quills of various colors 
and leathern fringe around the lower edge of 
the body; and chiefs they were in the authority 
exercised in their wild and lonely fortress. 
“A trading establishment to be known must 
be seen. A solitary abode of men seeking wealth 
in the teeth of danger and hardship, rearing its 
towers over the uncultivated waste of nature ] 
an old baronial castle that has withstood I 
wars and desolations of centuries, Indian wc.i 
tripping around its battlements in their glie 
ing moccasins and long deer skin wrappers; ( 
children, with most perfect forms and the 3 
nation of the Saxon cheek struggling thr | 
the shading of the Indian, and chattering ; 
Indian, and now Spanish or English; the 
owners and their clerks and traders, seate 
the shade of the piazza smoking the long ni 
pipe, passing it from one to- another, dra.: 
the precious smoke into the lungs by c 
hysterical sucks till filled and then ejectii 
through the nostrils; or it may be, seated an 
their rude table spread with coffee or tea, ju 
buffalo meat, and bread made of unbolted wh t 
meal from Taos, or after* eating laid thems\ 
comfortably upon their pallets of straw i 
Spanish blankets and dreaming to the ' 
notes of a flute; the old trappers withered' 
exposure to the rending elements; the half-tr 
Indian, and half-civilized Mexican serr 
seated on the ground around a large tir f 
of dry meat and a tankard of water, their 
rations, relating adventures about the shor 
Hudson’s Bay on the rivers Columbia and! 
Kenzie, in the great prairie wilderness 3 
among the snow'y heights of the mountains a 
delivering sage opinions about the destii: 
of certain bands of buffalo; of the distan 
the Blackfoot country, and whether my wok 
man was hurt as badly as Bill the Mukv 
when the ‘meal party’ was fired upon b 
Comanches, present a tolerable idea of (2 
thing within its walls.” 
Such was Bent’s Fort in the height 1 
glory. Founded by William Bent and his : 
ner Ceran St. Vrain in the year 1829, it: 
tinued to be a most important post until 1 
the close of the Mexican War. In these 3 
days of the Indian trade, as we have beeit 
by people resident in the post, sugar wa, 
known, and so was coffee. Dried apples v 
a common articles of trade, and these, wit 
and New Orleans molasses, were the chie i 
stuffs offered to the Indians. 
Shortly after the close of the Mexican 
Col. William Bent offered the post to the Ji 
States Government, but as it was not wills 
pay the price which he thought the fort ( 
he destroyed it. 
Before the establishment of Fort Willia. 
Bent brothers had already built a post e, 
Arkansas near the mouth of Fountain Creo 
they subsequently moved down stream. A> 
post at El Pueblo or Fort Pueblo is merit 
by Farnham and other early writers, but 
unimportant. 
There are few pictures of old Fort Be', 
in Doniphan’s Expedition, containing an a< 
of the conquest of New Mexico and Ci 
Kearney’s overland expedition to Cali 1 
there is a quaint engraving on page 35 ; 
gives an idea of the general aspect of thi' 
important post, mention of which occurs 1 
the literature of the early Southwest. 
CAMP SUPPLIES. 
Camp supplies should include Borden’s 1 
Brand Condensed Milk. Peerless Brand I* 
ated Milk and Borden’s Malted Milk, I 
which contain substantial and compact m 
ment, and supplying every milk or cream rl' 
ment.— Adv. 
bent’s fort or fort william. 
From an old print. 
