Floating Down About Two Miles Further, They Came In Sight Of The
First Band, Scattered Along The River Bank, All Well Mounted;
Some Armed With Guns, Others With Bows And Arrows, And A Few With
Lances.
They made a wildly picturesque appearance managing their
horses with their accustomed dexterity and grace.
Nothing can be
more spirited than a band of Crow cavaliers. They are a fine race
of men averaging six feet in height, lithe and active, with
hawks' eyes and Roman noses. The latter feature is common to the
Indians on the east side of the Rocky Mountains; those on the
western side have generally straight or flat noses.
Wyeth would fain have slipped by this cavalcade unnoticed; but
the river, at this place, was not more than ninety yards across;
he was perceived, therefore, and hailed by the vagabond warriors,
and, we presume, in no very choice language; for, among their
other accomplishments, the Crows are famed for possessing a
Billingsgate vocabulary of unrivalled opulence, and for being by
no means sparing of it whenever an occasion offers. Indeed,
though Indians are generally very lofty, rhetorical, and
figurative in their language at all great talks, and high
ceremonials, yet, if trappers and traders may be believed, they
are the most unsavory vagabonds in their ordinary colloquies;
they make no hesitation to call a spade a spade; and when they
once undertake to call hard names, the famous pot and kettle, of
vituperating memory, are not to be compared with them for
scurrility of epithet.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 358 of 442
Words from 95946 to 96201
of 118673
