AND THEIR CHARACTERISTICS—MUSHROOM ROCK—A VALUABLE DISCOVERY—FOOTPRINTS IN THE ROCK—THE PRIMEVAL PAUL AND VIRGINIA.
We noticed many fine rivers rolling from the northward into the Kaw, which stream we found was known by that name only after receiving the Republican, at Junction City. Above that point, under the name of the Smoky Hill, it stretches far out across the plains, and into the eastern portion of Colorado. Along its desolate banks we afterward saw the sun rise and set upon many a weary and many a gorgeous day.
All the large tributaries of the Kansas river, consisting of the Big Blue, Republican, Solomon, and Saline, came in on our right. Upon our left, toward the South, only small creeks joined waters with the Kaw, the pitch of the great "divides" there being towards the Arkansas and its feeders, the Cottonwood and Neosho.
We had now fairly entered on the great Smoky Hill trail. Here Fremont marked out his path towards the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific, and on many of the high buttes we discovered the pillars of stone which he had set up as guides for emigrant trains, looking wonderfully like sentinels standing guard over the valleys beneath. Indeed we did at first take them for solitary herders, watching their cattle in some choice pasture out of sight.
Most of our party had expected to find Indians in promiscuous abundance over the entire State, and we were therefore surprised to see the country, after passing St. Mary's Mission, entirely free of them. Muggs asked Gripe if the American Indian was hostile to all nationalities alike, or simply to those who robbed him of his hunting-grounds. The orator replied as follows:
"Sir, the aborigine of the western plains cares not what color or flavor the fruit possesses which hangs from his roof tree. The cue of the Chinaman is equally as acceptable as hairs from the mane of the English lion. A red lock is as welcome as a black one, and disputes as to ownership usually result in a dead-lock. His abhorrence is a wig, which he considers a contrivance of the devil to cheat honest Indian industry. I would advise geologists on the plains to carry, along with their picks for breaking stones, a bottle of patent hair restorative. It is handy to have in one's pocket when his scalp is far on its way towards some Cheyenne war-pole. The scalping process, gentlemen, is the way in which savages levy and collect their poll-tax. Any person in search of romantic wigwams can have his wig warmed very thoroughly on the Arkansas or Texas borders. On the plains along the western border of Kansas, however, geologists can find a rich and comparatively safe field for exploration. It is doubtful if the savages ever wander there again.
"Of the Indian warrior on the plains we may well say, requiescat in pace, and may his pace be rapid towards either civilization or the happy hunting ground. History shows that his reaching the first has generally given him quick transit to the second. The white man's country has proved a spirit-land to Lo, whose noble soul seems to sink when the scalping-knife gathers any other rust than that of blood, and whose prophetic spirit takes flight at the prospect of exchanging boiled puppies and dirt for the white brother's pork and beans. Very often, however, it must be said, Lo's soul is gathered to his fathers by reason of its tabernacle being smitten too sorely by corn lightning."
As Gripe paused, the Professor took up the subject in a somewhat different strain:
"We have here in this State," remarked he, "a tribe which may well be called the Indian Ishmael. Its hand is and ever has been, since history took record of it, against its brethren, and its brethren's against it. I refer to the pitiful remnant of the once great Delawares. From the shores of the Atlantic they have steadily retreated before civilization, marking their path westward by constant conflicts with other races of red men. The nation in its eastern forests once numbered thousands of warriors. Now, three hundred miserable survivors are hastening to extinction by way of their Kansas reservation.
"A number of their best warriors have been employed as scouts by the government, when administering well merited chastisement to other murdering bands. The Delawares, I have often thought, are like blood-hounds on the track of the savages of the plains. They take fierce delight in scanning the ground for trails and the lines of the streams for camps. There is something strangely unnatural in the wild eyes of these Ishmaelites, as they lead the destroyers against their race, and assist in blotting it from the face of the continent. Themselves so nearly joined to the nations known only in history, it is like a plague-stricken man pressing eagerly forward to carry the curse, before he dies, to the remainder of his people."
The valleys of the Saline, Solomon, and Smoky Hill, as we passed them in rapid succession, seemed very rich and were already thickly dotted with houses. This is one of the best cattle regions of the state, and vast herds of the long-horned Texan breed covered the prairies. We were informed that they often graze throughout the entire winter. As early in the spring as the grass starts sufficiently along the trail from Texas to Kansas, the stock dealers of the former State commence moving their immense herds over it. The cattle are driven slowly forward, feeding as they come, and reach the vicinity of the Kansas railroads when the grass is in good condition for their summer fattening. As many as five hundred thousand head of these long horns have been brought into the State in a single season. Some are sold on arrival and others kept until fall, when the choicest beeves are shipped East for packing purposes, or into Illinois for corn feeding. The latter is the case when they are destined eventually for consumption in Eastern markets, grass-fed beef lacking the solid fatness of the corn-fed, and suffering more by long transportation.
This very important trade in cattle, when fully developed, will probably be about equally divided between southern and central Kansas, each of which possesses its peculiar advantages for the business. While the valley of the Arkansas has longer grass, and more of it, the dealers in the Kaw region claim that their "feed" is the most nutritious. My own opinion, carefully formed, is that both sections are about equally good, and that the whole of western Kansas, with Colorado, will yet become the greatest stock-raising region of the world. The climate is peculiarly favorable. Two seasons out of three, on an average, cattle and sheep can graze during the winter, without any other cover than that of the ravines and the timber along the creeks.
The herders who manage these large bodies of cattle are a distinctive and peculiar class. We saw numbers of them scurrying along over the country on their wild, lean mustangs, in appearance a species of centaur, half horse, half man, with immense rattling spurs, tanned skin, and dare-devil, almost ferocious faces. After an extensive acquaintance with the genus Texan, and with all due allowance for the better portion of it, I must say, as my deliberate judgment, that it embraces a larger number of murderers and desperadoes than can be found elsewhere in any civilized nation. A majority of these herders would think no more of snuffing out a life than of snuffing out a candle. Texas, in her rude solitude, formerly stretched protecting arms to the evil doers from other states, and to her these classes flocked. She offered them not a city but a whole empire of refuge.
Just beyond Brookville, two hundred miles from the eastern border of Kansas, our road commenced ascending the Harker Bluffs, a series of sandstone ridges bordering on the plains.
On our left, Mushroom Rock was pointed out to us, a huge table of stone poised on a solitary pillar, and strangely resembling the plant from which it is named. As the professor informed us, we were on the eastern shore of a once vast inland ocean, the bed of which now forms the plains. Sachem thought the rock might be a petrified toad-stool, on a scale with the gigantic toads which hopped around in the mud of that age of monsters. The professor thought it was fashioned by the waters, in their eddyings and washings.
Subsequent examinations showed this entire region to be one of remarkable interest to the geologist. A few miles east of Mushroom Rock, near Bavaria, as we learned from the conductor, human foot-prints had been discovered in the sandstone. The professor, who had long ascribed to man an earlier existence upon earth than that given him by geology, was greatly excited, and at his earnest request, when the down train was met, we returned upon it to Bavaria.
MUSHROOM ROCK,
On
