Introduction - Page 2

trappers, and other pioneers of the

wilderness; and became so excited by their tales of wild scenes

and wild adventures, and their accounts of vast and magnificent

regions as yet unexplored, that an expedition to the Rocky

Mountains became the ardent desire of his heart, and an

enterprise to explore untrodden tracts, the leading object of his

ambition.

By degrees he shaped his vague day-dream into a practical

reality. Having made himself acquainted with all the requisites

for a trading enterprise beyond the mountains, he determined to

undertake it. A leave of absence, and a sanction of his

expedition, was obtained from the major general in chief, on his

offering to combine public utility with his private projects, and

to collect statistical information for the War Department

concerning the wild countries and wild tribes he might visit in

the course of his journeyings.

Nothing now was wanting to the darling project of the captain,

but the ways and means. The expedition would require an outfit of

many thousand dollars; a staggering obstacle to a soldier, whose

capital is seldom any thing more than his sword. Full of that

buoyant hope, however, which belongs to the sanguine temperament,

he repaired to New-York, the great focus of American enterprise,

where there are always funds ready for any scheme, however

chimerical or romantic. Here he had the good fortune to meet with

a gentleman of high respectability and influence, who had been

his associate in boyhood, and who cherished a schoolfellow

friendship for him. He took a general interest in the scheme of

the captain; introduced him to commercial men of his

acquaintance, and in a little while an association was formed,

and the necessary funds were raised to carry the proposed measure

into effect. One of the most efficient persons in this

association was Mr. Alfred Seton, who, when quite a youth, had

accompanied one of the expeditions sent out by Mr. Astor to his

commercial establishments on the Columbia, and had distinguished

himself by his activity and courage at one of the interior posts.

Mr. Seton was one of the American youths who were at Astoria at

the time of its surrender to the British, and who manifested such

grief and indignation at seeing the flag of their country hauled

down. The hope of seeing that flag once more planted on the

shores of the Columbia, may have entered into his motives for

engaging in the present enterprise.

Thus backed and provided, Captain Bonneville undertook his

expedition into the Far West, and was soon beyond the