The Fame Of The Captain As A Healer Of Diseases, Had Accompanied
Him To This Village, And The Great Chief,
O-push-y-e-cut, now
entreated him to exert his skill on his daughter, who had been
for three
Days racked with pains, for which the Pierced-nose
doctors could devise no alleviation. The captain found her
extended on a pallet of mats in excruciating pain. Her father
manifested the strongest paternal affection for her, and assured
the captain that if he would but cure her, he would place the
Americans near his heart. The worthy captain needed no such
inducement. His kind heart was already touched by the sufferings
of the poor girl, and his sympathies quickened by her appearance;
for she was but about sixteen years of age, and uncommonly
beautiful in form and feature. The only difficulty with the
captain was, that he knew nothing of her malady, and that his
medical science was of a most haphazard kind. After considering
and cogitating for some time, as a man is apt to do when in a
maze of vague ideas, he made a desperate dash at a remedy. By his
directions, the girl was placed in a sort of rude vapor bath,
much used by the Nez Perces, where she was kept until near
fainting. He then gave her a dose of gunpowder dissolved in cold
water, and ordered her to be wrapped in buffalo robes and put to
sleep under a load of furs and blankets. The remedy succeeded:
the next morning she was free from pain, though extremely
languid; whereupon, the captain prescribed for her a bowl of
colt's head broth, and that she should be kept for a time on
simple diet.
The great chief was unbounded in his expressions of gratitude for
the recovery of his daughter. He would fain have detained the
captain a long time as his guest, but the time for departure had
arrived. When the captain's horse was brought for him to mount,
the chief declared that the steed was not worthy of him, and sent
for one of his best horses, which he presented in its stead;
declaring that it made his heart glad to see his friend so well
mounted. He then appointed a young Nez Perce to accompany his
guest to the next village, and "to carry his talk" concerning
them; and the two parties separated with mutual expressions of
good will.
The vapor bath of which we have made mention is in frequent use
among the Nez Perce tribe, chiefly for cleanliness. Their
sweating houses, as they call them, are small and close lodges,
and the vapor is produced by water poured slowly upon red-hot
stones.
On passing the limits of O-push-y-e-cut's domains, the travellers
left the elevated table-lands, and all the wild and romantic
scenery which has just been described. They now traversed a
gently undulating country, of such fertility that it excited the
rapturous admiration of two of the captain's followers, a
Kentuckian and a native of Ohio.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 157 of 230
Words from 80784 to 81295
of 118673
