The Boat Was Loaded Until The Water Broke Alternately Over Her
Guards.
Her upper deck was covered with large weapons of a peculiar
form, for the Santa Fe trade, and her hold was crammed with goods for
the same destination.
There were also the equipments and provisions
of a party of Oregon emigrants, a band of mules and horses, piles of
saddles and harness, and a multitude of nondescript articles,
indispensable on the prairies. Almost hidden in this medley one
might have seen a small French cart, of the sort very appropriately
called a "mule-killer" beyond the frontiers, and not far distant a
tent, together with a miscellaneous assortment of boxes and barrels.
The whole equipage was far from prepossessing in its appearance; yet,
such as it was, it was destined to a long and arduous journey, on
which the persevering reader will accompany it.
The passengers on board the Radnor corresponded with her freight. In
her cabin were Santa Fe traders, gamblers, speculators, and
adventurers of various descriptions, and her steerage was crowded
with Oregon emigrants, "mountain men," negroes, and a party of Kansas
Indians, who had been on a visit to St. Louis.
Thus laden, the boat struggled upward for seven or eight days against
the rapid current of the Missouri, grating upon snags, and hanging
for two or three hours at a time upon sand-bars. We entered the
mouth of the Missouri in a drizzling rain, but the weather soon
became clear, and showed distinctly the broad and turbid river, with
its eddies, its sand-bars, its ragged islands, and forest-covered
shores.
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