Adventures of Captain Bonneville, U. S. A., in the Rocky Mountains and the Far West , livre ebook

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pubOne.info present you this new edition. 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.

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Publié par	Pub One Info
Date de parution	06 novembre 2010
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9782819931805
Langue	English

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THE ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN BONNEVILLE
Digested from his journal
by Washington Irving
Originally published in 1837
Introductory Notice
WHILE ENGAGED in writing an account of the grandenterprise of Astoria, it was my practice to seek all kinds of oralinformation connected with the subject. Nowhere did I pick up moreinteresting particulars than at the table of Mr. John Jacob Astor;who, being the patriarch of the fur trade in the United States, wasaccustomed to have at his board various persons of adventurousturn, some of whom had been engaged in his own great undertaking;others, on their own account, had made expeditions to the RockyMountains and the waters of the Columbia.
Among these personages, one who peculiarly took myfancy was Captain Bonneville, of the United States army; who, in arambling kind of enterprise, had strangely ingrafted the trapperand hunter upon the soldier. As his expeditions and adventures willform the leading theme of the following pages, a few biographicalparticulars concerning him may not be unacceptable.
Captain Bonneville is of French parentage. Hisfather was a worthy old emigrant, who came to this country manyyears since, and took up his abode in New York. He is representedas a man not much calculated for the sordid struggle of amoney-making world, but possessed of a happy temperament, afestivity of imagination, and a simplicity of heart, that made himproof against its rubs and trials. He was an excellent scholar;well acquainted with Latin and Greek, and fond of the modernclassics. His book was his elysium; once immersed in the pages ofVoltaire, Corneille, or Racine, or of his favorite English author,Shakespeare, he forgot the world and all its concerns. Often wouldhe be seen in summer weather, seated under one of the trees on theBattery, or the portico of St. Paul's church in Broadway, his baldhead uncovered, his hat lying by his side, his eyes riveted to thepage of his book, and his whole soul so engaged, as to lose allconsciousness of the passing throng or the passing hour.
Captain Bonneville, it will be found, inheritedsomething of his father's bonhommie, and his excitable imagination;though the latter was somewhat disciplined in early years, bymathematical studies. He was educated at our national MilitaryAcademy at West Point, where he acquitted himself very creditably;thence, he entered the army, in which he has ever sincecontinued.
The nature of our military service took him to thefrontier, where, for a number of years, he was stationed at variousposts in the Far West. Here he was brought into frequentintercourse with Indian traders, mountain trappers, and otherpioneers of the wilderness; and became so excited by their tales ofwild scenes and wild adventures, and their accounts of vast andmagnificent regions as yet unexplored, that an expedition to theRocky Mountains became the ardent desire of his heart, and anenterprise to explore untrodden tracts, the leading object of hisambition.
By degrees he shaped his vague day-dream into apractical reality. Having made himself acquainted with all therequisites for a trading enterprise beyond the mountains, hedetermined to undertake it. A leave of absence, and a sanction ofhis expedition, was obtained from the major general in chief, onhis offering to combine public utility with his private projects,and to collect statistical information for the War Departmentconcerning the wild countries and wild tribes he might visit in thecourse of his journeyings.
Nothing now was wanting to the darling project ofthe captain, but the ways and means. The expedition would requirean outfit of many thousand dollars; a staggering obstacle to asoldier, whose capital is seldom any thing more than his sword.Full of that buoyant hope, however, which belongs to the sanguinetemperament, he repaired to New-York, the great focus of Americanenterprise, where there are always funds ready for any scheme,however chimerical or romantic. Here he had the good fortune tomeet with a gentleman of high respectability and influence, who hadbeen his associate in boyhood, and who cherished a schoolfellowfriendship for him. He took a general interest in the scheme of thecaptain; introduced him to commercial men of his acquaintance, andin a little while an association was formed, and the necessaryfunds were raised to carry the proposed measure into effect. One ofthe most efficient persons in this association was Mr. AlfredSeton, who, when quite a youth, had accompanied one of theexpeditions sent out by Mr. Astor to his commercial establishmentson the Columbia, and had distinguished himself by his activity andcourage at one of the interior posts. Mr. Seton was one of theAmerican youths who were at Astoria at the time of its surrender tothe British, and who manifested such grief and indignation atseeing the flag of their country hauled down. The hope of seeingthat flag once more planted on the shores of the Columbia, may haveentered into his motives for engaging in the presententerprise.
Thus backed and provided, Captain Bonnevilleundertook his expedition into the Far West, and was soon beyond theRocky Mountains. Year after year elapsed without his return. Theterm of his leave of absence expired, yet no report was made of himat head quarters at Washington. He was considered virtually dead orlost and his name was stricken from the army list.
It was in the autumn of 1835 at the country seat ofMr. John Jacob Astor, at Hellgate, that I first met with CaptainBonneville He was then just returned from a residence of upwards ofthree years among the mountains, and was on his way to reporthimself at head quarters, in the hopes of being reinstated in theservice. From all that I could learn, his wanderings in thewilderness though they had gratified his curiosity and his love ofadventure had not much benefited his fortunes. Like Corporal Trimin his campaigns, he had “satisfied the sentiment, ” and that wasall. In fact, he was too much of the frank, freehearted soldier,and had inherited too much of his father's temperament, to make ascheming trapper, or a thrifty bargainer.
There was something in the whole appearance of thecaptain that prepossessed me in his favor. He was of the middlesize, well made and well set; and a military frock of foreign cut,that had seen service, gave him a look of compactness. Hiscountenance was frank, open, and engaging; well browned by the sun,and had something of a French expression. He had a pleasant blackeye, a high forehead, and, while he kept his hat on, the look of aman in the jocund prime of his days; but the moment his head wasuncovered, a bald crown gained him credit for a few more years thanhe was really entitled to.
Being extremely curious, at the time, about everything connected with the Far West, I addressed numerous questionsto him. They drew from him a number of extremely striking details,which were given with mingled modesty and frankness; and in agentleness of manner, and a soft tone of voice, contrastingsingularly with the wild and often startling nature of his themes.It was difficult to conceive the mild, quiet-looking personagebefore you, the actual hero of the stirring scenes related.
In the course of three or four months, happening tobe at the city of Washington, I again came upon the captain, whowas attending the slow adjustment of his affairs with the WarDepartment. I found him quartered with a worthy brother in arms, amajor in the army. Here he was writing at a table, covered withmaps and papers, in the centre of a large barrack room, fancifullydecorated with Indian arms, and trophies, and war dresses, and theskins of various wild animals, and hung round with pictures ofIndian games and ceremonies, and scenes of war and hunting. In aword, the captain was beguiling the tediousness of attendance atcourt, by an attempt at authorship; and was rewriting and extendinghis travelling notes, and making maps of the regions he hadexplored. As he sat at the table, in this curious apartment, withhis high bald head of somewhat foreign cast, he reminded me of someof those antique pictures of authors that I have seen in oldSpanish volumes.
The result of his labors was a mass of manuscript,which he subsequently put at my disposal, to fit it for publicationand bring it before the world. I found it full of interestingdetails of life among the mountains, and of the singular castes andraces, both white men and red men, among whom he had sojourned. Itbore, too, throughout, the impress of his character, his bonhommie,his kindliness of spirit, and his susceptibility to the grand andbeautiful.
That manuscript has formed the staple of thefollowing work. I have occasionally interwoven facts and details,gathered from various sources, especially from the conversationsand journals of some of the captain's contemporaries, who wereactors in the scenes he describes. I have also given it a tone andcoloring drawn from my own observation, during an excursion intothe Indian country beyond the bounds of civilization; as I beforeobserved, however, the work is substantially the narrative of theworthy captain, and many of its most graphic passages are butlittle varied from his own language.
I shall conclude this notice by a dedication whichhe had made of his manuscript to his hospitable brother in arms, inwhose quarters I found him occupied in his literary labors; it is adedication which, I believe, possesses the qualities, not alwaysfound in complimentary documents of the kind, of being sincere, andbeing merited.
To JAMES HARVEY HOOK, Major, U. S. A. , whosejealousy of its honor, whose anxiety for its interests, and whosesensibility for its wants, have endeared him to the service as TheSoldier's Friend; and whose general amenity, constant cheerfulness,disinterested hospitality, and unwearied benevolence, entitle himto the still loftier title of The Friend of Man, this work isinscribed, etc.
WASHINGTON IRVING
1.
State of the fur trade of the— R