We Stop At A Little Wharf, Where Waits A
Little Steamer Of Uncouth Construction; We Step In, A Steam-Whistle Breaks
The Silence Of That Dewy Dawn, And At A Very Rapid Rate We Run Between
High Wooded Bluff's, Down A Turbid Stream, Whirling In Rapid Eddies.
We
steam for three miles, and land at a clearing containing the small
settlement of Davenport.
We had come down the Mississippi, mightiest of
rivers! half a mile wide seventeen hundred miles from its mouth, and were
in the far West. Waggons with white tilts, thick-hided oxen with heavy
yokes, mettlesome steeds with high peaked saddles, picketed to stumps of
trees, lashing away the flies with their tails; emigrants on blue boxes,
wondering if this were the El Dorado of their dreams; arms, accoutrements,
and baggage surrounded the house or shed where we were to breakfast. Most
of our companions were bound for Nebraska, Oregon, and Utah, the most
distant districts of which they would scarcely reach with their slow-paced
animals for four months: exposed in the mean time to the attacks of the
Sioux, Comanches, and Blackfeet.
There, in a long wooden shed with blackened rafters and an earthen floor,
we breakfasted, at seven o'clock, on johnny-cake, squirrels, buffalo-hump,
dampers, and buckwheat, tea and corn spirit, with a crowd of emigrants,
hunters, and adventurers; and soon after re-embarked for Rock Island, our
little steamer with difficulty stemming the mighty tide of the Father of
Rivers. The machinery, such as it was, was very visible, the boiler
patched in several places, and steam escaped in different directions.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 148 of 478
Words from 40450 to 40718
of 129941
