Wild Sports In The Far West. Gerstaecker Frederick

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СКАЧАТЬ of which there were plenty, but I hadn’t the heart to eat one of these happy little creatures. Luckily I shot a hare, and had now the comfort of being able to appease my hunger. It was out of the question to think of finding a house for the night, as I was no longer in a track, but in the thick of the forest, and so, before it became quite dark, I collected as much dry wood as I could, cleared away the snow from under a fallen tree, and lighted a fire beneath it, which soon blazed up merrily. When I had got comfortably warm, I set to work on my hare. I opened it, cleaned it out with snow as well as I could, and stuck it on a piece of wood before the fire, placing a piece of bark under it to catch the dripping, with which I basted it. I felt very much the want of salt and bread, but hunger is a good sauce. With the exception of the two legs, which I reserved for breakfast, I devoured the whole. When I had finished, I heaped more wood on the fire, and prepared to pass my first night in the open air in America. I laid my game-bag under my head, pulled my cap well over my ears, and with my feet to the fire was soon asleep. I slept soundly till the sharp morning air awoke me. The fire had burned out, and I was quite benumbed by the frost, and shook so that I could hardly light the fire again. At last I succeeded, and gradually thawed. The rising sun found me deep in consideration of my two legs of hare, which I looked at so long that at length I could see only the bones. After thus taking care of myself, I resumed my march southwards with fresh vigor, and about ten o’clock the crowing of a cock denoted that I was not very far from a human habitation. I hastened forward, and was soon saluted by the barking of dogs. The proprietor was in the forest, cutting wood for a fence. His wife, a pretty little American woman, treated me hospitably with bread and milk, and assured me that I was not above twenty miles from the Buffalo road, and that I should find plenty of farm-houses as I went south. She would not on any account accept payment for my refreshment, and so, with hearty thanks, and working my way through a legion of dogs, I sallied joyfully forth, making the Canadian woods resound with German songs.

      On the following morning I reached the Buffalo road, lined on both sides with farms, and on which a sort of stage-coach runs. I was now again in the cultivated part of the country. Wheat is grown in large quantities, and answers very well, as do oats and barley; Indian corn does not attain the degree of perfection in which it is found further south. The ears were small, and most of those I saw had yellow grain.

      About thirty miles from the town, I overtook a cattle dealer from the United States, who was on his road back. He seemed a good sort of fellow, and I resolved to travel the thirty miles in his company. We soon became acquainted. He had two enormously fat oxen, which he had bought in Canada, and a dreadfully thin horse, on which he kindly invited me to take turns to ride, as he would willingly walk a little.

      A light but penetrating rain was falling, and the ride would not have been disagreeable, though the road had become slippery; only the good man was constantly offering the horse, while I was riding, to every person he met, and would have been glad to exchange it for a couple of cows. When tired, he mounted again, and I walked. He carried a book in his pocket containing a deeply affecting tragedy, and as soon as he was firmly fixed in the saddle, he invariably took it out, and began to declaim, holding the book in his left hand, and gesticulating vehemently with his right, in which he brandished his long cattle whip. Whenever the more interesting parts of the tragedy occasioned an extra forcible movement of the right arm, and with it of the whip so formidable to the oxen, an implement on which they kept a constant watch, they started on one side or ran back, and only the prosaic “Quiet there! Gently!” &c., &c., uttered in a pathetic tone, brought back the horned audience to their duty.

      On the evening of the 11th of November, I came a second time to the Falls of Niagara, and could now admire their grandeur and majesty from the Canadian side. From thence a beautiful road runs along the Niagara river to Lake Erie. The road itself is good and dry; on the left the glorious wide river, shaded with trees of the original dark forest, on the right a succession of prosperous farms, with excellent orchards; altogether a most enchanting prospect. The whole distance appeared scarcely more than a few paces. A few miles from Buffalo I crossed a ferry worked by horses in a large perpendicular wheel, and was now in the United States again. What I saw of Canada, showed me that it is, at least this part of it, a beautiful and fertile country, with a healthy, though very cold climate, too cold to suit me. It produces excellent corn, but except in the thickly inhabited parts, sheep and pigs do not succeed on account of the numerous wolves. Many Canadian farmers assured me that the bite of a wolf was like that of a venomous reptile to these animals, and that however slightly they may have been bitten, they are sure to die. But perhaps these deaths may have been caused by the bites of rabid wolves.

      It was Sunday afternoon when I stepped into the public room of the “William Tell,” in Buffalo, and seated myself in a corner to rest. The eyes of several respectable German operatives, who were all in hot political debate, were at first attracted with astonishment towards the armed stranger, but soon following up their dispute they forgot all listeners, and I think it might very likely have come to more than words, if the host, a little fat figure, had not rolled himself in amongst them, and restored peace with the conciliatory words: “You are all as foolish as so many stockfish.” In these words, the equality of persons was proclaimed, and their feelings were pacified. It was, however, no trifle that formed the subject of their dispute; for an honest shoemaker would by no means allow that the English could send any troops over, on account of the disturbances in Canada, because the Russian was sitting across their necks. A cabinet-maker, seated opposite to him, maintained that Russia was too far off from England to be able to make war so quickly; but the shoemaker proved to him so clearly that Russia was close to England on the north, and that there was only a broad strip of land between the two Principalities, that the astonished cabinet-maker was silenced by the overwhelming amount of solid learning; the shoemaker admitted that the march from Russia to England was difficult, as the soldiers had sometimes to wade up to their shoulders in sand. Whence the good man had obtained his idea of a march through sand, and his geographical knowledge, is more than I can say, but the debate was amusing enough; and when the shoemaker appealed to me for my opinion, I agreed with him of course, but told him that the Russians intended to lay down bear-skins on the sand to make the march easier, upon which he exclaimed, in astonishment, “What desperate fellows!”

      I was up early on the following morning in order to see the town; it is a very pretty place, and contains many Germans; it must become, and in fact is already, the central point of all the interior commerce of the north, for railroads, canals, steamers, and sailing vessels rival each other in bringing and taking away produce.

      CHAPTER III

      OHIO – INDIANA – ILLINOIS – MISSOURI

      Lake Erie – Cleveland – Double-beds – March through the forest – Canton – Cincinnati – Lawrencebourg – A burning forest – Deserted farm-house – Wet weather and swollen rivers – A drunken companion – Versailles – Intrepid German Jews – Vincennes – Fording a river – The prairies of Illinois – Shooting deer – Salem – An Illinois settler – Lebanon – Ague – Passage of the Mississippi – St. Louis – German emigrants – A week’s work in the forest – Lead mines of Missouri – Courant river, the boundary of Missouri.

      About noon the steamer “North America” left for Cleveland, in Ohio State, and with it my worthy self. There was such a number of passengers in the steerage, that it was hardly possible to move, and the state of affairs was made worse by each of the American ladies1 having a short pipe in her mouth. Yet worse was coming. Lake Erie, under the influence of a strong breeze, began to get very rough in its treatment of the boat; one pipe after another was extinguished, and the visages lengthened and whitened very suspiciously. I observed this change with horror, and took refuge in one of the uppermost of three rows of sleeping berths, to be out of range of shot.

      It was dark when we arrived at Cleveland, and I stood on the shore in some difficulty, not knowing exactly where to look for shelter, when a young German, who, by the light of a lantern, recognized me by my costume for a fellow countryman, asked me if I would like to pass the night СКАЧАТЬ