Illustrations of the manners, customs, & condition of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 2): With letters and notes, written during eight years of travel and adventure among the wildest and most remarkable tribes now existingCatlin, George
History
Illustrations of the manners, customs, & condition of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 2): With letters and notes, written during eight years of travel and adventure among the wildest and most remarkable tribes now existing
Catlin, George
Indians of North America
Day by day I thus pranced and galloped along, the whole way through
waving grass and green fields, occasionally dismounting and lying in
the grass an hour or so, until the grim shaking and chattering of
an ague chill had passed off; and through the nights, slept on my
bear-skin spread upon the grass, with my saddle for my pillow, and
my buffalo robe drawn over me for my covering. My horse Charley was
picketed near me at the end of his laso, which gave him room for his
grazing; and thus we snored and nodded away the nights, and never were
denied the doleful serenades of the gangs of sneaking wolves that were
nightly perambulating our little encampment, and stationed at a safe
distance from us at sunrise in the morning—gazing at us, and impatient
to pick up the crumbs and bones that were left, when we moved away from
our feeble fire that had faintly flickered through the night, and in
the absence of timber, had been made of dried buffalo dung, (+plate+
184).
This “_Charley_” was a noble animal of the Camanchee wild breed, of
a clay bank colour; and from our long and tried acquaintance, we had
become very much attached to each other, and acquired a wonderful
facility both of mutual accommodation, and of construing each other’s
views and intentions. In fact, we had been so long tried together, that
there would have seemed to the spectator almost an unity of _interest_;
and at all events, an unity of feelings on the subject of attachment,
as well as on that of mutual dependence and protection.
I purchased this very showy and well-known animal of Colonel Burbank,
of the ninth regiment, and rode it the whole distance to the Camanchee
villages and back again; and at the time when most of the horses of the
regiment were drooping and giving out by the way—_Charley_ flourished
and came in in good flesh and good spirits.
On this journey, while he and I were twenty-five days alone, we had
much time, and the best of circumstances, under which to learn what we
had as yet overlooked in each other’s characters, as well as to draw
great pleasure and real benefit from what we already had learned of
each other in our former travels.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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