GLEANINGS FROM MY TRAVELLING JOURNALS.

BY LORD WILLIAM LENNOX.

(Continued from page 199.)

A SPORTING TRIP TO THE MISSOURI AND MISSISSIPPI CONTINUED.

HAVING a letter of introduction to a leading partner of a fur company established at St. Louis, we were most hospitably received, and passed a most agreeable week at his residence. St. Louis being the last fitting-out place for the Indian trade of the south-west, was, at the time I write of most fully, if not fashionably attended. There might be seen the boatmen of the Mississippi, men of iron, proof against all weather, hard fare, and perils of every kind, mingling with the gay, good-humoured Canadian voyageurs, who, inheriting much of the gaiety and lightness of heart of their ancestors, were feasting and gaming, and indulging in every gentlemanlike (!) extravagance and revelry. Vagrant Indians of various tribes, deserters from the British army, wandered about the streets. Now and then a stark Kentucky hunter, in leathern hunting dress, with rifle on shoulder, and knife in belt, strode along, looking down upon some bustling active shopkeeper. Here and there were eager men of traffic from the Atlantic states. The streets were narrow, ill-paved, ill-lighted, and there were but few buildings claiming the traveller's attention.

St. Louis was founded by some French traders in 1764. It extends for about two miles along the river, in three parallel streets, rising above each other in terraces. The town has latterly been greatly improved. The houses are, for the most part, built of limestone, and are surrounded with gardens. There are abundance of coffee shops, billiard tables, a theatre, and dancing rooms. St. Louis is now, in fact, a miniature New Orleans. Anxious to avoid a long sejour there, we determined to push up the river as far as possible, to some point where game was plentiful. Accordingly, within two days, we took our departure. Our party was distributed in two boats; one was a barge formerly used in navigating the Mohawk river, and known by the generic name of the Schenectadz barge; the other was a large keel boat, at that time the grand conveyance on the Mississippi. In this way we set out in buoyant spirits, and soon arrived at the mouth of the Missouri. The waters of the Mississippi, at its confluence with the Missouri, are moderately clear, and of a greenish hue. The Missouri is turbid and opaque, of a greyish white colour; and during its floods, which happen twice a year, communicates, almost instantaneously, to the combined stream, its predoininating qualities. We found our sails but of casual assistance, for it required a strong wind to conquer the force of the stream. Our main dependance was on the bodily strength and manual dexterity of our crew.

The boats, in general, required to be propelled by oars and setting poles, or drawn by the hand, and by grappling hooks, from one root or overhanging tree to another; or towed by the long cordelle, or towing

line, where the shores were sufficiently clear of woods and thickets to permit the men to pass along the banks. During this long and tedious progress, our craft were exposed to frequent danger from floating trees, and masses of drift wood, or of being impaled upon snags and sawyers, that is to say, sunken trees, presenting a jagged or pointed end above the surface of the water. As the channel of the river frequently shifted from side to side, according to the bends and sand-banks, the boats had, in the same way, to advance in a zig-zag course. Often, a part of the crew would leap into the water at the shallows, and wade along with the towing line, while their comrades on board toilfully assisted with oar and setting pole.

The territory of the Missouri, while it was in a state of nature, abounded with wild animals, which have, as usual, fled before the approach of civilization, and taken refuge farther in the desert. These were the buffalo and the great brown bear, the latter a formidable animal, both from its size, strength, extreme ferocity, and, above all, its tenacity of life. Wild horses are found in droves, on the prairies, between the Arkansaw and Red Rivers; they are very fleet and difficult to be taken, and of various colours: they are occasionally captured by expert riders, on swift domesticated horses, by means of a noose thrown over their necks with inconceivable dexterity. Deer, elk, bears, wolves, panthers, and antelopes, are numerous. Wolves and panthers follow the buffalo herds, and feast on the calves. The grizzly, or white bear, is found on the head branches of the Missouri, and is as ferocious as the great brown bear. Cabree and moose are plentiful, but Rocky Mountain sheep are the most common animals. The natives, at the point to which we directed our steps, which was an Indian settlement, generally live by fishing. It is true, they occasionally hunt the elk and deer, and ensnare the waterfowl of the ponds and rivers, but these are casual luxuries. Their chief subsistence is derived from the fish, which abound in the rivers and lakes. As the Indians of the plain, who depend upon the chase, are bold and expert riders, and pride themselves upon their horses, so these piscatory tribes excel in the management of canoes, and are never more at home than when riding upon the waves. Their canoes vary in form and size. Some are upwards of thirty feet long, cut out of a single tree. The bow and stern are decorated with grotesque figures of men and animals. In managing them, they kneel, two and two, along the bottom, sitting on their heels, and wielding paddles from four to five feet long, while one sits at the stern, and steers with a paddle of the same kind. The women are equally expert in managing the canoe, and (as ladies are often wont to do) generally take the helm. The first day after our arrival we accompanied our Indians upon a fishing expedition, but it appeared to us tame after what we had previously witnessed. Sometimes they spear sturgeon and salmon, but more frequently use the net, and the hook and line. Occasionally, they sink a cord in the river, by a heavy weight, with a buoy at the upper end to keep it floating. To this cord several hooks are attached by short lines, a few feet distant from each other, and baited with small fish. This apparatus is often set at night, and by the next morning several sturgeon will be found hooked by it; for, though a large and strong fish, they make but little resistance when ensnared. Salmon are taken in vast quantities, principally with the seine. The country we

were now in abounded with aquatic and land birds, such as swans, wild geese, brant, ducks of almost every description, pelicans, herons, gulls, snipes, curlews, eagles, vultures, crows, ravens, magpies, woodpeckers, pigeons, partridges, pheasants, grouse, and a great variety of what Tilburina calls" the finches of the grove." The principal quadrupeds that had been seen by the Indians were the stag, fallow-deer, hart, black and grizzly bear, antelope, ahsahta or bighorn, beaver, otter, musk-rat, fox, wolf, panther, the latter extremely rare. The only domestic animals were horses and dogs. According to the settlers' account, the grizzly bear is the only really formidable quadruped. He is the favourite theme of the hunters of the far west, who describe him as equal in size to a common cow, and of prodigious strength. He makes battle

if assailed; and often, if pressed by hunger, is the assailant. If wounded, he becomes furious, and will pursue the hunter. His speed exceeds that of a man, but is inferior to that of a horse. In attacking, he rears himself on his hind legs, and springs the length of his body. Woe to horse or rider that comes within the sweep of his terrific claws, which are sometimes eight inches in length, and tear everything before them. At the period I am treating of, the grizzly bear had (like some of the broken tribes of the prairies) gradually fallen back before his enemies, and was only to be found in the upland regions, in rugged fastnesses like those of the Black Hills and the Rocky Mountains. Here he lurks in caverns, or holes which he has digged in the sides of hills, or under the roots and trunks of fallen trees. Like the common bear, he is fond of fruits, and mast, and roots, the latter of which he will dig up with his fore claws. He is carnivorous also, and will even attack and conquer the lordly buffalo, dragging his huge carcass to the neighbourhood of his den, that he may prey upon it at his leisure. The hunters, both white and red men, consider this the most heroic game. They prefer to hunt him on horseback, and will venture so near as sometimes to singe his hair with the flash of the rifle.

The hunter of the grizzly bear, however, must be an experienced sportsman, know where to aim at a vital part, and have, to use the phraseology of the pea and thimble fraternity, "a quick h'eye, and a good h'observation;" for, of all quadrupeds, he is the most difficult to be killed. He will receive repeated wounds without flinching; and rarely is a shot mortal, unless through the head or heart.

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While on this theme, I will relate an adventure with a grizzly bear, told of a veteran Kentucky hunter, one John Day. Day was hunting company with one of the clerks of a company established for the fur trade, a lively youngster, a great favourite with old John, but whose vivacity he had continually to keep in check. They were in search of deer, when suddenly a huge grizzly bear emerged from a thicket, about thirty yards distant, rearing himself upon his hind legs, with a terrific growl, and displaying a hideous array of teeth and claws. The rifle of the young man was levelled in an instant; but John Day's iron hand was quickly upon his arm. "Be quiet, boy! be quiet!" exclaimed the hunter, between his clenched teeth, and without turning his eyes from the bear. They remained motionless. The monster regarded them for a time, then, lowering himself on his fore paws, slowly withdrew. He had not gone many paces before he again turned, reared himself on his hind legs, and repeated his menace. Day's hand was

still on the arm of his young companion; he again pressed it hard, and kept repeating between his teeth, "Quiet, boy!-keep quiet!-keep quiet!"-though the latter had not made a move since his first prohibition. The bear again lowered himself on all-fours, retreated some twenty yards farther, and again turned, reared, showed his teeth, and growled. This third menace was too much for the game spirit of John Day. "By Jove!" exclaimed he, " I can stand this no longer," and in an instant a ball from his rifle whizzed into the foe. The wound was not mortal; but, luckily, it dismayed, instead of enraging, the animal, and he retreated into the thicket. Day's young companion reproached him for not practising the caution which he enjoined upon others. Why, boy," replied the veteran, "caution is caution; but one must not put up with too much, even from a bear. Would you have me suffer myself to be bullied all day by a varmint?"

THERE is no one, conversant with the present system of betting, who will not admit it is an estimate far short of the reality, when I assert that, in England, 1,000 persons make engagements annually upon the Derby to the amount of £1,000 each, wholly independent of those who have horses in that race. Here then is a capital of a million sterling, every shilling of which is controlled by the state of the market, as quoted in the weekly returns of the odds current at Tattersall's. Certainly, the majority of those who negotiate this vast sum deserve little protection, but the vagabonds who despoil have no claims to impunity because the victims they plunder are fools. And yet, as some of those prodigious asses who swagger to Hyde Park Corner, there to endow some grim hellite with the hard earnings of their frugal sires, present themselves to my imagination, I am not sure which are the least worthy, the scoundrels who "leg" for a living, or the profligates who affect them, in their desire to be considered sporting men.' These boobies, however, are the levers by which the odds are "got up," when it suits a party to give a horse a lift in the betting, or the instruments used to "send him back," when money is to be invested. Hence, the mischief they do is not confined to themselves, but honest country squires are done as brown as buns, because certain parties without brains have the ambition to sport their patent leather toes at Tattersall's on a Monday afternoon. As a general principle, a public writer should avoid individual allusions and personal references;-but that it

is therefore convenient to deal with the business of turf speculation as if it was the reputation of Cæsar's wife that was under discussion, I am by no means disposed to admit. Tattersall's is no coterie into which one is suffered as matter of courtesy; neither is the "ring" a private circle. Now that, by an order of the Jockey Club, the subscriptionroom in Grosvenor Place has been put upon precisely the same footing as the Stock Exchange, it is right that the working of the system there should be made as public as its results. Commission agents, men who make £20,000 books, and solicit custom as indefatigably as the sons of Israel canvass for old clothes-tradesmen, wholesale, retail, and for exportation-legs, levanters, targets, touts" hoc genus omne," are we to write about such as these "with a neat little crowquill?" It is time to change all that. So much has recently been written and said about changes and remodellings at this ancient temple of Mercury, that it is necessary to allude to its present economy, lest people fancy, because virtue (that is to say, hypocrisy) is the order of the day, a decree of the rulers of the turf has gone forth, that "there shall be no more cakes and ale." Imagine yourself, then, arrived at Hyde Park Corner, intent to enrol your name among those of the distinguished members of the subscription room. Entering that apartment, a cabalistic scrawl of paper is presented, which you sign, thereby selling your moral self to the Jockey Club, for good or evil, to adopt its present ordinances, and all such as it may enact, in sæcula sæculorum. Having perfected this, you pay one pound one shilling, and present the clerk with a crown, or haply, having no silver, you hand to that functionary a sovereign and a half, and receive in return a very well-executed obeisance, which does duty for the change. Of course you had heard all about the black board that was to be hung up, containing the names of defaulters, levanters, and the like (I wonder where space could have been found to hold it!) and look about for the interesting timber. Instead of the dingy indicator, you find a piece of pasteboard hanging over the chimney-piece, exhibiting, in characters of ochre and ruddle, "The Cracks of the Day," which, you conclude, means the swindlers of the day, just as thieves are denominated "cracksmen." But the pasteboard is unstained by ink, and you mentally exclaim, "Are there indeed no rogues to be found at Tattersall's?" Look again, my dear sir; keep your eyes horizontal, and peradventure your search shall not be in vain. It is

Such

The subscription-room is precisely the same that it ever was. exclusively the property of Mr. Tattersall, who, it should be understood, declares his readiness to return his subscription to any one who may object to any rule made subsequent to the payment. Noble lords and ignoble legs there congregate, as heretofore; and the fashion in which debtors and creditors meet and mingle was never equalled since the golden age, when the lion lay down with the lamb. being the unvarnished tale of its social position, we will proceed to consider the state of business since it opened for the season on the 1st of March. On the 7th, a field of some thirty or thirty-three was backed for the Derby, whereof only one, Attila, as it will be seen, found a friend at better odds than 25 to 1. Few people would desire, it may be supposed, to dabble in business at these figures; and yet, to hear the professional gentlemen soliciting customers for their thousands to ten, and the like, was a thing to make the breast of the patriot glow. Per