Occasionally The Monotony Of This Vast Wilderness Is Interrupted
By Mountainous Belts Of Sand And Limestone, Broken Into Confused
Masses; With Precipitous Cliffs And Yawning Ravines, Looking Like
The Ruins Of A World; Or Is Traversed By Lofty And Barren Ridges
Of Rock, Almost Impassable, Like Those Denominated The Black
Hills.
Beyond these rise the stern barriers of the Rocky
Mountains, the limits, as it were, of the Atlantic world.
The
rugged defiles and deep valleys of this vast chain form
sheltering places for restless and ferocious bands of savages,
many of them the remnants of tribes, once inhabitants of the
prairies, but broken up by war and violence, and who carry into
their mountain haunts the fierce passions and reckless habits of
desperadoes.
Such is the nature of this immense wilderness of the far West;
which apparently defies cultivation, and the habitation of
civilized life. Some portions of it along the rivers may
partially be subdued by agriculture, others may form vast
pastoral tracts, like those of the East; but it is to be feared
that a great part of it will form a lawless interval between the
abodes of civilized man, like the wastes of the ocean or the
deserts of Arabia; and, like them, be subject to the depredations
of the marauder. Here may spring up new and mongrel races, like
new formations in geology, the amalgamation of the "debris" and
"abrasions" of former races, civilized and savage; the remains of
broken and almost extinguished tribes; the descendants of
wandering hunters and trappers; of fugitives from the Spanish and
American frontiers; of adventurers and desperadoes of every class
and country, yearly ejected from the bosom of society into the
wilderness. We are contributing incessantly to swell this
singular and heterogeneous cloud of wild population that is to
hang about our frontier, by the transfer of whole tribes from the
east of the Mississippi to the great wastes of the far West. Many
of these bear with them the smart of real or fancied injuries;
many consider themselves expatriated beings, wrongfully exiled
from their hereditary homes, and the sepulchres of their fathers,
and cherish a deep and abiding animosity against the race that
has dispossessed them. Some may gradually become pastoral hordes,
like those rude and migratory people, half shepherd, half
warrior, who, with their flocks and herds, roam the plains of
upper Asia; but others, it is to be apprehended, will become
predatory bands, mounted on the fleet steeds of the prairies,
with the open plains for their marauding grounds, and the
mountains for their retreats and lurking-places. Here they may
resemble those great hordes of the North, "Gog and Magog with
their bands," that haunted the gloomy imaginations of the
prophets. "A great company and a mighty host, all riding upon
horses, and warring upon those nations which were at rest, and
dwelt peaceably, and had gotten cattle and goods."
The Spaniards changed the whole character and habits of the
Indians when they brought the horse among them.
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