The Boy Travellers in the Far East [Part First]: Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey to Japan and ChinaKnox, Thomas Wallace
General
The Boy Travellers in the Far East [Part First]: Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey to Japan and China
Knox, Thomas Wallace
China -- Description and travel -- Juvenile literature; Japan -- Description and travel -- Juvenile literature
"We walked by the side of our teams or behind the wagons, we slept on
the ground at night, we did our own cooking, we washed our knives by
sticking them into the ground rapidly a few times, and we washed our
plates with sand and wisps of grass. When we stopped, we arranged our
wagons in a circle, and thus formed a 'corral,' or yard, where we drove
our oxen to yoke them up. And the corral was often very useful as a
fort, or camp, for defending ourselves against the Indians. Do you see
that little hollow down there?" he asked, pointing to a depression in
the ground a short distance to the right of the train. "Well, in that
hollow our wagon-train was kept three days and nights by the Indians.
Three days and nights they stayed around, and made several attacks. Two
of our men were killed and three were wounded by their arrows, and
others had narrow escapes. One arrow hit me on the throat, but I was
saved by the knot of my neckerchief, and the point only tore the skin a
little. Since that time I have always had a fondness for large neckties.
I don't know how many of the Indians we killed, as they carried off
their dead and wounded, to save them from being scalped. Next to getting
the scalps of their enemies, the most important thing with the Indians
is to save their own. We had several fights during our journey, but that
one was the worst. Once a little party of us were surrounded in a small
'wallow,' and had a tough time to defend ourselves successfully. Luckily
for us, the Indians had no fire-arms then, and their bows and arrows
were no match for our rifles. Nowadays they are well armed, but there
are not so many of them, and they are not inclined to trouble the
railway trains. They used to do a great deal of mischief in the old
times, and many a poor fellow has been killed by them."
Frank asked if the Doctor saw any buffaloes in his first journey, and if
he ever went on a buffalo-hunt.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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