When we got back to
camp, Dorothea laved the burns for me with cool milk. Ah!
she was very pretty; and, what 'blackguard' Heine, as
Carlyle dubs him, would have called 'naive schmutzig.' When
we parted next morning I thought with a sigh that before the
autumn was over, she would be in the seraglio of Mr. Brigham
Young; who, Artemus Ward used to say, was 'the most married
man he ever knew.'
CHAPTER XXI
SPORT had been the final cause of my trip to America - sport
and the love of adventure. As the bison - buffalo, as they
are called - are now extinct, except in preserved districts,
a few words about them as they then were may interest game
hunters of the present day.
No description could convey an adequate conception of the
numbers in which they congregated. The admirable
illustrations in Catlin's great work on the North American
Indians, afford the best idea to those who have never seen
the wonderful sight itself. The districts they frequented
were vast sandy uplands sparsely covered with the tufty
buffalo or gramma grass. These regions were always within
reach of the water-courses; to which morning and evening the
herds descended by paths, after the manner of sheep or cattle
in a pasture.
