nchmen and Hollanders, who are preferred for the
service by the company. They were of slight make, and little calculated,
from their appearance, to encounter the hardships of such a life; but I
was told they soon become hardened, and return strong, athletic men. The
employment is, however, beset with danger, from the hostile dispositions
of the various tribes of Indians in the western wilds, who view their
intrusion with vindictive feelings, and seize every opportunity of
attacking and annihilating small parties, notwithstanding their
professions of friendship. Not long after my arrival, a party of
trappers arrived from the Upper Missouri in two boats, which were loaded
with buffalo and other furs. The stalwart look of these hardy
mountaineers proved the hardening effect of their mode of life. They
were brawny fellows of a ruddy brown complexion, of the true Indian hue,
and habited in skins. These men, I ascertained, had been in the
mountains for four or five years, during which time they had subsisted
entirely on Buffalo and other meat, bread not being used or cared for.
Their healthy look under such circumstances completely shook my faith in
the Brahminical vegetarian theory, and goes far, I think, to prove that
man was intended by his Maker to be a carnivorous animal.

Just before the steamer approached the city, a circumstance occurred on
board that filled me and my fellow-passengers with horror. We were
taking breakfast in the cabin, congratulating each other on the near
termination of our tedious passage, when a sudden shriek, followed by
shouts from the deck-hands of the vessel, disturbed our meal. Hastening
in great perturbation to the deck, we soon discovered the cause of the
disturbance. One of the white waiters was lying on the deck, with a
frightful gash in his side, from which the blood was fast oozing. Our
first care was to attend to the sufferer, and a surgeon being
fortunately amongst the passengers, the hemorrhage was soon abated, but
the wound was pronounced to be of a fatal character. The poor fellow,
who was a lad of about eighteen years of age, moaned piteously. Every
attention that skill and kindness could suggest was paid to him. He was
immediately carried to a state-room in the cabin, where he remained in
great agony until the vessel was moored alongside the levee, when he was
carefully removed on a litter to a hospital on shore. The perpetrator of
the savage act proved to be a negro, filling the