Introduction

WHILE ENGAGED in writing an account of the grand enterprise of

Astoria, it was my practice to seek all kinds of oral information

connected with the subject. Nowhere did I pick up more

interesting particulars than at the table of Mr. John Jacob

Astor; who, being the patriarch of the fur trade in the United

States, was accustomed to have at his board various persons of

adventurous turn, some of whom had been engaged in his own great

undertaking; others, on their own account, had made expeditions

to the Rocky Mountains and the waters of the Columbia.

Among these personages, one who peculiarly took my fancy was

Captain Bonneville, of the United States army; who, in a rambling

kind of enterprise, had strangely ingrafted the trapper and

hunter upon the soldier. As his expeditions and adventures will

form the leading theme of the following pages, a few biographical

particulars concerning him may not be unacceptable.

Captain Bonneville is of French parentage. His father was a

worthy old emigrant, who came to this country many years since,

and took up his abode in New York. He is represented as a man not

much calculated for the sordid struggle of a money-making world,

but possessed of a happy temperament, a festivity of imagination,

and a simplicity of heart, that made him proof against its rubs

and trials. He was an excellent scholar; well acquainted with

Latin and Greek, and fond of the modern classics. His book was

his elysium; once immersed in the pages of Voltaire, Corneille,

or Racine, or of his favorite English author, Shakespeare, he

forgot the world and all its concerns. Often would he be seen in

summer weather, seated under one of the trees on the Battery, or

the portico of St. Paul's church in Broadway, his bald head

uncovered, his hat lying by his side, his eyes riveted to the

page of his book, and his whole soul so engaged, as to lose all

consciousness of the passing throng or the passing hour.

Captain Bonneville, it will be found, inherited something of his

father's bonhommie, and his excitable imagination; though the

latter was somewhat disciplined in early years, by mathematical

studies. He was educated at our national Military Academy at West

Point, where he acquitted himself very creditably; thence, he

entered the army, in which he has ever since continued.

The nature of our military service took him to the frontier,

where, for a number of years, he was stationed at various posts

in the Far West. Here he was brought into frequent intercourse

with Indian traders, mountain 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 Rocky

Mountains. Year after year elapsed without his return. The term

of his leave of absence expired, yet no report was made of him at

head quarters at Washington. He was considered virtually dead or

lost and his name was stricken from the army list.

It was in the autumn of 1835 at the country seat of Mr. John

Jacob Astor, at Hellgate, that I first met with Captain

Bonneville He was then just returned from a residence of upwards

of three years among the mountains, and was on his way to report

himself at head quarters, in the hopes of being reinstated in the

service. From all that I could learn, his wanderings in the

wilderness though they had gratified his curiosity and his love

of adventure had not much benefited his fortunes. Like Corporal

Trim in his campaigns, he had "satisfied the sentiment," and that

was all. In fact, he was too much of the frank, freehearted

soldier, and had inherited too much of his father's temperament,

to make a scheming trapper, or a thrifty bargainer.

There was something in the whole appearance of the captain that

prepossessed me in his favor. He was of the middle size, well

made and well set; and a military frock of foreign cut, that had

seen service, gave him a look of compactness. His countenance was

frank, open, and engaging; well browned by the sun, and had

something of a French expression. He had a pleasant black eye, a

high forehead, and, while he kept his hat on, the look of a man

in the jocund prime of his days; but the moment his head was

uncovered, a bald crown gained him credit for a few more years

than he was really entitled to.

Being extremely curious, at the time, about every thing connected

with the Far West, I addressed numerous questions to him. They

drew from him a number of extremely striking details, which were

given with mingled modesty and frankness; and in a gentleness of

manner, and a soft tone of voice, contrasting singularly with the

wild and often startling nature of his themes. It was difficult

to conceive the mild, quiet-looking personage before you, the

actual hero of the stirring scenes related.

In the course of three or four months, happening to be at the

city of Washington, I again came upon the captain, who was

attending the slow adjustment of his affairs with the War

Department. I found him quartered with a worthy brother in arms,

a major in the army. Here he was writing at a table, covered with

maps and papers, in the centre of a large barrack room,

fancifully decorated with Indian arms, and trophies, and war

dresses, and the skins of various wild animals, and hung round

with pictures of Indian games and ceremonies, and scenes of war

and hunting. In a word, the captain was beguiling the tediousness

of attendance at court, by an attempt at authorship; and was

rewriting and extending his travelling notes, and making maps of

the regions he had explored. As he sat at the table, in this

curious apartment, with his high bald head of somewhat foreign

cast, he reminded me of some of those antique pictures of authors

that I have seen in old Spanish volumes.

The result of his labors was a mass of manuscript, which he

subsequently put at my disposal, to fit it for publication and

bring it before the world. I found it full of interesting details

of life among the mountains, and of the singular castes and

races, both white men and red men, among whom he had sojourned.

It bore, too, throughout, the impress of his character, his

bonhommie, his kindliness of spirit, and his susceptibility to

the grand and beautiful.

That manuscript has formed the staple of the following work. I

have occasionally interwoven facts and details, gathered from

various sources, especially from the conversations and journals

of some of the captain's contemporaries, who were actors in the

scenes he describes. I have also given it a tone and coloring

drawn from my own observation, during an excursion into the

Indian country beyond the bounds of civilization; as I before

observed, however, the work is substantially the narrative of the

worthy captain, and many of its most graphic passages are but

little varied from his own language.

I shall conclude this notice by a dedication which he had made of

his manuscript to his hospitable brother in arms, in whose

quarters I found him occupied in his literary labors; it is a

dedication which, I believe, possesses the qualities, not always

found in complimentary documents of the kind, of being sincere,

and being merited.

To JAMES HARVEY HOOK, Major, U. S. A.,

whose jealousy of its honor, whose anxiety for its interests, and

whose sensibility for its wants, have endeared him to the service

as The Soldier's Friend;

and whose general amenity, constant cheerfulness. disinterested

hospitality, and unwearied benevolence, entitle him to the still

loftier title of The Friend of Man,

this work is inscribed, etc.

WASHINGTON IRVING

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