Frederick Samuel Dellenbaugh

“ About noon, timber line, 11,720 feet, was reached, and by four o'clock they stood on the mighty summit, 14,108 feet above 225 the sea, and 8000 above the plains, and could see on the east the prairie ocean melting into the limitless distance, while on the other hand spread away a broad chaos of peaks, canyons, valleys, fading into the depths of the unknown Wilderness. Vast clouds of grasshoppers were flying over the peak, sometimes so dense as almost to obscure the light. After about half an hour on the majestic summit, now reached by a prosaic railway, the descent began. ”

“ At the same time they sounded the same knell for every living thing in the whole vast wilderness, and now, a century after, not only is it next to impossible to find a beaver colony in that immense array of mountain and plain, but all wild animals have become more or less of a curiosity, only preserved from absolute extermination by the most rigorous game laws. Killing for fun is even more destructive than killing for profit. ”

“ CHAPTER I Extent of the Wilderness—The First White Man—The Backbone of the Continent—A Vanished Sea and a Petrified Ocean—The Biggest Trees—The Spike of Gold.
The natural habitat of man is the wilderness. No matter how civilised he may become, his heart turns with longing to the woods, to the sea, and to the mountains. There he is unconventional; animals are his compeers, the forest his friend, the free-flowing stream nectar to his lips. Civilised peoples, after all, are but wanderers driven from the Garden of Eden by the sword of necessity. ”

“ The hardships of the explorers to the mouth of the Columbia passed unheeded, for the men who now came to match nerve and muscle against the entrenched mystery were in their natural element when battling with danger and difficulty in the uplifting air, and, like the eagle sailing high, were never more at home than when pushing their daring tread into some virgin valley, where falling waters broke the calm and fostered multitudes of beaver, where game bounded from every nook and glade, and the rich bunch-grass fattened their patient horses. ”

“ So by these waterways, numerously ramifying from the mouth of the St. Lawrence into the vast western Unknown, the Frenchmen, with the beautiful birch-bark canoe of the Amerind, whose skill they also speedily acquired, entered the Wilderness with a sailor's light-heartedness, singing their gay chansons as they paddled along; songs with little sense but much rhythm, like all the ditties sailors use for expediting their labours, which, like rowing or paddling, require to be accomplished in unison. ”

“ This small creature, then, that offered its life as a bait to entice the white man into the depths of the wilderness, was one of the most remarkable on the continent, and its likeness, as the emblem of the American Republic, would be far more appropriate than the carrion eagle, which has little to commend it, as compared with the beaver, the model of gentleness, industry, ingenuity, and painstaking skill, and which formed a stepping-stone to the power and greatness of the Union of States now spreading from ocean to ocean. ”

“ As the harmless little snow-birds flit before the advance of winter's desolation, so a few hapless Spaniards cast up by the sea were forerunners in the Wilderness of the pressing swarms of Europe. These men were a small remnant of the expedition which Panfilo de Narvaez in 1527 led with rosy banners for the conquest of Florida, where a few years before Ponce de Leon, instead of his sought-for waters of perpetual youth, had found a shroud. ”

“ With compact muscles and solid frame, partners of fresh air, exercise, and simple fare, they had a clear, wide gaze, flinching before neither man nor beast; and unfailing nerve that often whipped prospective disaster to success.
The routine of the frontier and especially of the deeper Wilderness precluded any great lapse from physical excellence. When a man was alive he was generally well. Indeed, the average American trapper had a constitution that seemed invincible. ”

“ Through his enthusiastic labours the Far West began to be more clearly understood than ever before. He took no pessimistic view of the resources of the Wilderness as Pike and Long had done, but was rather inclined to the other side. It seems notable that he should so commandingly have stepped into the vast field at a moment coincident with the collapse of beaver trapping as a business; an industry which, as we have seen, was responsible for the breaking of all the main trails of the Wilderness, and for searching out every important secret save that of the hidden fury of the Colorado. ”

“ Four large rivers of immense length took their rise towards the north on the summits of the Backbone, the greatest three springing like triplets of a single mother from practically the same spot in what is now Wyoming. One of these, rushing toward the north-west over a cataract that rivals Niagara, and over falls and wild rapids, swept into the Pacific through a line of dangerous breakers which, notwithstanding the labours of our best engineers, still remains a barrier to the entrance. ”

“ A dismal pall seems to pervade the once pure valley and doubtless always will. At the north end the cutting of floods in the stream-bed has destroyed a large part of the tillable soil, and springs that once flowed abundantly have disappeared. Several houses stand there, but they have a forlorn and dilapidated appearance. The hand of Fate has laid a blight on the place, and it will yet be many a long year before that awful tragedy will not live again as the traveller passes over the fatal road. ”

“ As the third decade of the nineteenth century came in, the trappers and traders began more than ever to long for the conquest of the great mountain Wilderness, whose solemn front, ending the wide rolling plain, reared its craggy barriers with soothing outlines tantalisingly suggestive of wealth and wonder easily accessible behind. ”

“ All furnished subsistence to the man who was there, the Amerind. Because this person was not a European he has often been regarded as hardly worth consideration, but he was a good specimen of mankind in the hunter state. Physically and mentally he had few superiors. He knew the country as well as we know it to-day. He knew every pass in the mountains, every buffalo trail. Each tribe knew its own land limits, as well as those of its neighbours, and each defended its home with unsurpassed daring and bravery. ”

“ Though the canyons of the Colorado had now been crossed midway of the great six-hundred-mile stretch, and farther north near Green River Valley had far back in the century been penetrated to a limited extent, almost nothing was actually known about them. Even at the most favourable points approach to the brink was extremely difficult, and descent to the water generally impossible. On each side the country was for many miles forbidding wilderness, for the journeys of the trappers, where they had penetrated, had left 320 no impression. It was as if no white man had ever looked upon it. ”

“ But when the white man came he quickly gave the native points in the game of useless destruction. The buffalo range immediately was transformed into a vast slaughter-house, and the carcasses were left to rot and dry under the western sun. And the more civilised the hunter—that is, the more unaccustomed to the frontier—the greater the waste of bison life at his hands. More than sixteen thousand were shot for sport alone, on the plains of Kansas and Colorado, in 1871. ”

“ The great fur companies each used it in their trade because the others did; but with the officers of the United States Army there was no excuse for employing this means of gaining the Amerind favour.
The expedition mounted the river without any serious drawback, and the boats, increased to four all told, were Pike's pride, for he exclaims on one occasion: "Our four boats under full sail, their flags streaming before the wind, were altogether a prospect so variegated and romantic that a man may scarce expect to enjoy such a one but twice or thrice in the course of his life." ”

“ At Green River a number of adobe houses were built, the ruins of which were still standing at the time of my first visit to that locality in 1871. Even two or three miles up the 336 track I found dugouts and a large amount of wreckage to remind one of the late "prosperity." The life at these places had all the most vicious qualities of our civilization, and few of its good ones. There were no policemen, and the state of disorder may be imagined. It was a feverish nightmare of horrors, in striking contrast to the sobriety of the life the Mormons brought to the Wilderness. ”

“ On the prairies of what is now Kansas flourished the sensitive plant, covering the ground with its lovely rose-coloured, rose-scented blossoms, round as a puff-ball, the delicate stems withering at the touch of a human hand, to lift themselves again when the intruder had withdrawn. Farther west the antithesis of this exquisitely sensitive growth, the cactus, spread its defiant lances everywhere, and there it was the human hand and not the plant which withered at the touch. ”

“ It is probable that in the American Civil War alone more men were killed than ever at one time in aboriginal days occupied the same area. Almost four thousand were destroyed at the battle of Shiloh, and in the battles of the Wilderness fully fifteen thousand. Even proportionately the wars of the "savages" were mere child's play compared to this. But when the white man crossed the Mississippi and began to encroach from the east and then from the west and one tribe was forced back upon another as the wind beats the combing waves upon a lee shore, matters began to change. ”

“ A whole tribe could occupy fortifications, like the Pueblo villages for example, in the midst of some wide valley, near a river or other water supply, or could retire to some fastness of cliff or mountain, easily defended, where ample crops could be grown on bottom lands, and where recesses in cliffs afforded sites for secure and comfortable homes, as well as great quantities of fallen débris for building purposes. Such were hundreds of villages scattered over the South-west as far north as the southern parts of Utah and Colorado; and even perhaps to Salt Lake. ”

“ Horses were cheap and the men ate their fill, though these Amerinds did not eat horses or dogs. Proceeding they came at last to the Columbia, having occupied six months in traversing the Wilderness from the Arikara village. Had they stuck to their horses, they might have done it in four. Part of this wide stretch had been entirely unknown to white men, and Hunt's expedition, therefore, as an American exploration, ranks second to that of Lewis and Clark, while in its bearing on the future of that great unclaimed region then known as Oregon, it stands on an equal footing. ”

“ For example, the Europeans forged ahead mainly because they were possessed of animals easily domesticated that would supply their needs. The Amerind had no such animals in North America except the bison and the dog. The latter he utilised to the full as a draught and pack animal, as a wool producer, and as a supply of animal food. Why he did not domesticate the bison is a problem. Perhaps it was because there were too many of them. The store of animal food was usually over-abundant with all Amerinds living in the range of the buffalo, so there was no spur to economy. ”

“ It must be acknowledged that these people were Wilderness breakers of high quality. They not only broke it, but they kept it broken; and instead of the gin mill and the gambling hell, as corner stones of their progress, and as examples to the natives of white men's superiority, they planted orchards, gardens, farms, schoolhouses, and peaceful homes. [107] There is to-day, no part of the United States where human life is safer than in the land of the Mormons; no place where there is less lawlessness. ”

“ One starts with a desire for perfection, but without the resources of a Carnegie he is apt to fall so far short of the mark that he fears to look in the glass at all.
With the Wilderness, however, I can claim some degree of familiarity, for I may be said to have been "in at the death," as I was one of Powell's companions down the Colorado on his second voyage, 1871-72, and have been over portions of almost every one of the principal historical trails. I have travelled there on foot, on horseback, by boat, by waggon, and by railway,—even by Pullman "Palace" car. ”

“ The traders were there to take every advantage of the natives, and, except the Hudson Bay Company, they hesitated at nothing that would bring them money. They would have been perfectly willing to exterminate the whole Amerind population in twenty-four hours if they could have done it with great profit. In other words, their sole care was to fleece the native for a company's benefit. The beaver by 1835 were beginning to be alarmingly scarce and attention was turned more and more to buffalo robes and other furs, but there was yet much money to be made in this field. ”

“ For half a century longer the New Mexican and Californian missions remained about as far apart as ever. Those in California waxed rich and had little cause to desire the world to come to them. When it did come it was the beginning of their end.
The Spaniards were as brave a people as ever lived. They had now firmly established themselves in Texas, in New Mexico, and in California, and their claims on the basis of first exploration covered a vast area. In every direction they opposed the entrance of other nationalities. The lands were forced to pay tribute to Spain ”

“ While the name of Daniel Boone is familiar to every child, names of men equally eminent in the same pursuits, like Jedediah Smith, Bridger, Fitzpatrick, etc., are scarcely known at all. Nor have many persons a just appreciation of the numerous attempts that were made to explore the Western Wilderness, or of the extremely early period in the history of North America when these attempts began. Many are surprised, therefore, to learn that the first European entrance into the western part of the United States occurred over three and a quarter centuries ago. ”

“ The Mexicans were restless over the advent of the numerous Americans who now appeared in their settled valley, which, for more than a century and a half, had lain completely isolated from the outer world, a lone child of the Wilderness, a sort of dreamland where one day was like another day, and where years rolled into decades, even centuries, without any one knowing it. ”

“ Powell left the river here, but Jack Sumner and the others, except Walter Powell, went on down by river to Yuma where Sumner and Andrew Hall wintered, going the next year to the Gulf, the first and, so far as I have heard, the only human beings ever to accomplish the entire voyage from Green River Valley to tidewater. Sumner was a born trapper, hunter, and prospector, and at last accounts was still roaming the mountains engaged in these pursuits, another of those extraordinary characters that belong to the original Wilderness and will never live again. ”

“ This vanished sea is now known as Lake Bonneville, its old bed as the "Great Basin." Its southern rim breaks down from an altitude of about ten thousand feet in a series of mighty cliffs, like cyclopean steps, to the canyons of the Colorado, and near the summit of this rim a river starts north down into the basin, sweeping along for many miles to turn suddenly to the westward and end in a lake without visible outlet, in the middle of a stretch of desert. ”

“ The herd came as one animal, sweeping everything before it as an avalanche descends some precipice in the Alps. "Their lion-like fronts and dangling beards—their open mouths and hanging tongues—as they come puffing like a locomotive engine at every bound do at first make the blood settle a little heavy about the heart." Woe to the caravan or horseman who failed to evade this resistless approach! ”