Yet The Poor Fellows
Made No Murmur Nor Complaint; But Seemed Accustomed To Their Hard
Fare.
If they could not teach the white men their practical
stoicism, they at least made them acquainted with the edible
properties of roots and wild rosebuds, and furnished them a
supply from their own store.
The necessities of the camp at
length became so urgent that Captain Bonneville determined to
dispatch a party to the Horse Prairie, a plain to the north of
his cantonment, to procure a supply of provisions. When the men
were about to depart, he proposed to the Nez Perces that they, or
some of them, should join the hunting-party. To his surprise,
they promptly declined. He inquired the reason for their refusal,
seeing that they were in nearly as starving a situation as his
own people. They replied that it was a sacred day with them, and
the Great Spirit would be angry should they devote it to hunting.
They offered, however, to accompany the party if it would delay
its departure until the following day; but this the pinching
demands of hunger would not permit, and the detachment proceeded.
A few days afterward, four of them signified to Captain
Bonneville that they were about to hunt. "What! " exclaimed he,
"without guns or arrows; and with only one old spear? What do you
expect to kill? " They smiled among themselves, but made no
answer. Preparatory to the chase, they performed some religious
rites, and offered up to the Great Spirit a few short prayers for
safety and success; then, having received the blessings of their
wives, they leaped upon their horses and departed, leaving the
whole party of Christian spectators amazed and rebuked by this
lesson of faith and dependence on a supreme and benevolent Being.
"Accustomed," adds Captain Bonneville, "as I had heretofore been,
to find the wretched Indian revelling in blood, and stained by
every vice which can degrade human nature, I could scarcely
realize the scene which I had witnessed. Wonder at such
unaffected tenderness and piety, where it was least to have been
sought, contended in all our bosoms with shame and confusion, at
receiving such pure and wholesome instructions from creatures so
far below us in the arts and comforts of life." The simple
prayers of the poor Indians were not unheard. In the course of
four or five days they returned, laden with meat. Captain
Bonneville was curious to know how they had attained such success
with such scanty means. They gave him to understand that they had
chased the buffalo at full speed, until they tired them down,
when they easily dispatched them with the spear, and made use of
the same weapon to flay the carcasses. To carry through their
lessons to their Christian friends, the poor savages were as
charitable as they had been pious, and generously shared with
them the spoils of their hunting, giving them food enough to last
for several days.
A further and more intimate intercourse with this tribe gave
Captain Bonneville still greater cause to admire their strong
devotional feeling.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 48 of 230
Words from 24348 to 24863
of 118673
