Oregon and Eldorado; or, Romance of the RiversBulfinch, Thomas
History
Oregon and Eldorado; or, Romance of the Rivers
Bulfinch, Thomas
Amazon River; Columbia River; El Dorado; Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804-1806); Oregon -- Discovery and exploration
"May 30, 1805.--We passed a precipice about one hundred and twenty feet
high, under which lay scattered the fragments of at least a hundred
carcasses of buffaloes. These buffaloes had been chased down the
precipice in a way very common on the Missouri, and by which vast herds
are destroyed in a moment. The mode of hunting is to select one of the
most active and fleet young men, who is disguised by a buffalo-skin
round his body; the skin of the head, with the ears and horns, fastened
on his own head in such a way as to deceive the buffaloes. Thus dressed,
he fixes himself at a convenient distance between a herd of buffaloes
and any of the river precipices, which sometimes extend for some miles.
His companions, in the mean time, get in the rear and side of the herd,
and, at a given signal, show themselves, and advance towards the
buffaloes. They instantly take the alarm; and, finding the hunters
beside them, they run toward the disguised Indian, or decoy, who leads
them on, at full speed, toward the river; when, suddenly securing
himself in some crevice of the cliff which he had previously fixed on,
the herd is left on the brink of the precipice. It is then in vain for
the foremost to retreat, or even to stop. They are pressed on by the
hindmost rank, who, seeing no danger but from the hunters, goad on those
before them, till the whole are precipitated over the cliff, and the
shore is covered with their dead bodies. Sometimes, in this perilous
adventure, the Indian decoy is either trodden under foot, or, missing
his footing in the cliff, is urged down the precipice by the falling
herd."
WHICH IS THE TRUE RIVER?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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