Minnesota -- Description and travel; Northwest, Canadian; Northwestern States; Red River of the North
It is a supper fit for sovereigns,--and every one is a sovereign out
here, on the unsurveyed lands, of which we, in common with the rest of
the people, are proprietors. We are lords of the manor, and we have sat
down to a feast. Our eggs are newly laid by the hens of Dakota City,
our milk is fresh from the cows whose bells are tinkling in the bushes
along the bank of the river, and the cakes upon our table are of the
finest flour in the world. Hunger furnishes the best relish, and when
the cloth is removed we sit around the camp-fire during the evening,
passing away the hours with wit, repartee, and jest, mingled with sober
argument and high intellectual thought.
Our tents are pitched upon the river's bank. Far away to the south we
trace the dim outline of the timber on the streams flowing in from the
west. Turning our eyes in that direction, we see only the level sea of
verdure,--the green grass waving in the evening breeze. At this place
our company will divide,--Governor Marshall, Mr. Holmes, and several
other gentlemen, going on to the Missouri, while the rest of us will
travel eastward to Lake Superior.
It would be a pleasure to go with them,--to ride over the rolling
prairies, to fall in with buffaloes and try my pony in a race with
a big bull. It would be thrilling,--only if the hunted should right
about face, and toss the hunter on his horns, the thrill would be of a
different sort!
We sit by our camp-fires at night with our faces and hands smeared
with an abominable mixture prepared by our M. D., ostensibly to keep
the mosquitoes from presenting their bills, but which we surmise is a
little game of his to daub us with a diabolical mixture of glycerine,
soap, and tar! Our tents are as odorous as the shop of a keeper of
naval stores. There is an all-pervading smell of oakum and turpentine.
Clouds of mosquitoes come, take a whiff, and retire in disgust. We can
hear them having a big swear at the Doctor for compounding such an
ointment!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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