by Washington Irving
We emerged towards mid-day from the dreary belt of the Cross
Timber, and to our infinite delight beheld "the great Prairie "
stretching to the right and left before us. We could distinctly trace the
meandering course of the Main Canadian, and various smaller streams by the
strips of green forest that bordered :them. The landscape was vast and
beautiful. There is always an expansion of feeling in looking upon these
boundless and fertile wastes; but I was doubly conscious of it after emerging
from our "close dungeon of innumerable boughs."
From a rising ground Beatte pointed out to the place where
he and his comrades had killed the buffaloes; and we beheld several black
objects moving in the distance, which he said were part of the herd. The
Captain determined to shape his course to a woody bottom about a mile distant
and to encamp there, for a day or two, by way of having a regular buffalo hunt,
and getting a supply of provisions. As the troop defiled along the slope of the
hill towards the camping ground, Beatte proposed to my messmates and myself,
that we should put ourselves under his guidance, promising to take us where we
should have plenty of sport. Leaving the line of march, therefore, we diverged
towards the prairie; traversing a small valley, and ascending a gentle swell of
land. As we reached the summit, we beheld a gang of wild horses about a mile
off. Beatte was immediately on the alert, and no longer thought of buffalo
hunting. He was mounted on his powerful half-wild horse, with a lariat coiled
at the saddle bow and set off in pursuit; while we remained on a rising ground
watching his maneuvres with great solicitude. Taking advantage of a strip of
woodland, he stole quietly along, so as to get close to them before he was
perceived. The moment they caught sight of him a grand scamper took place. We
watched him skirting along the horizon like a privateer in full chase of a
merchantman; at length he passed over the brow of a ridge, and down into a
shallow valley; in a few moments he was on the opposite hill and close upon one
of the horses. He was soon head and head; and appeared to be trying to noose
his prey; but they both disappeared again below the hill, and we saw no more·
of them. It turned out afterwards, that he had noosed a powerful horse, but
could not hold him, and had lost his lariat in the attempt.
While we were waiting for his return, we perceived two
buffalo bulls descending a slope, towards a stream, which wound through a
ravine fringed with trees. The young Count and myself endeavoured to get near
them under covert of the trees. They discovered us while we were yet three or
four hundred yards off, and turning about, retreated up the rising ground; We
urged our horses across the ravine, and gave chase. The immense weight of head
and shoulders causes the buffalo to labour heavily up hill; but it accelerates
his descent. We had the advantage, therefore, and gained rapidly upon the
fugitives, though it was difficult to get our horses to approach them, their
very scent inspiring them with terror. The Count, who had a double barrelled
gun loaded with ball, fired, but missed. The bulls now altered their course,
and galloped down hill with headlong rapidity. As they ran in different
directions, we each singled one and separated. I was provided with a brace of
veteran brass barrelled pistols, which I had borrowed at Fort Gibson, and which
had evidently seen some service. Pistols are very effective in buffalo hunting,
as the hunter can ride up close to the animal, and fire at it while at full
speed; whereas the long heavy rifles used on the frontier, cannot be easily
managed, nor discharged with accurate aim from horseback. My object, therefore,
was to get within pistol shot of the buffalo. This was no very easy matter. I
was well mounted on a horse of excellent speed and bottom, that seemed eager
for the chase, and soon overtook the game; but the moment he came nearly
parallel, he would keep sheering off with ears forked, and pricked forward, and
every symptom of aversion and alarm. It was no wonder. Of all animals, a
buffalo, when close pressed by the hunter, has an aspect the most diabolical.
His two short black horns, curve out of a huge frontlet of shaggy hair; his
eyes glow like coals; his mouth is open, his tongue parched and drawn up into a
half crescent; his tail is erect, and tufted and whisking about in the air, he
is a perfect picture of mingled rage and terror.
It was with difficulty I urged my horse sufficiently near,
when, taking aim, to my chagrin, both pistols missed fire. Unfortunately the
locks of these veteran weapons were so much worn, that in the gallop, the
priming had been shaken out of the pans. At the snapping of the last pistol I
was close upon the buffalo, when, in his despair, he turned round with a sudden
snort and rushed upon me. My horse wheeled about as if on a pivot, made a
convulsive spring, and, as I had been leaning on one side with pistol extended,
I came near being thrown at the feet of the buffalo.
Three or four bounds of the horse carried us out of the
reach of the enemy; who, having merely turned in desperate self defence,
quickly resumed his flight. As soon as I could gather in my panic-stricken
horse, and prime the pistols afresh, I again spurred in pursuit of the buffalo,
who had slackened his speed to take breath. On my approach he again set off
full tilt, heaving himself forward with a heavy rolling gallop, dashing with
headlong precipitation through brakes and ravines, while several deer and
wolves, startled from their coverts by his thundering career, ran helter
skelter to right and left across the waste.
A gallop across the prairies in pursuit of game, is by no
means so smooth a career as those may imagine, who have only the idea of an
open level plain. It is true, the prairies of the hunting ground are not so
much entangled with flowering plants and long herbage as the lower prairies,
and are principally covered with short buffalo grass; but they are diversified
by hill and dale, and where most level, are apt to be cut up by deep rifts and
ravines, made by torrents after rains; and which, yawning from an even surface
are almost like pitfalls in the way of the hunter, checking him suddenly, when
in full career, or subjecting him to the risk of limb and life. The plains,
too, are beset by burrowing holes of small animals, in which the horse is apt
to sink to the fetlock, and throw both himself and his rider. The late rain had
covered some parts of the prairie, where the ground was hard, with a thin sheet
of water, through which the horse had to splash his way. In other parts there
were innumerable shallow hollows, eight or ten feet in diameter, made by the
buffaloes, who wallow in sand and mud like swine. These being filled with
water, shone like mirrors, so that the horse was continually leaping over them
or springing on one side. We had reached, too, a rough part of the prairie,
very much broken and cut up; the buffalo, who was running for life, took no
heed to his course, plunging down breakneck ravines, where it was necessary to
skirt the borders in search of a safer descent. At length we came to where a
winter stream had torn a deep chasm across the whole prairie, leaving open
jagged rocks, and forming a long glen bordered by steep crumbling cliffs of
mingled stone and clay. Down one of these the buffalo flung himself, half
tumbling, half leaping, and then scuttled along the bottom; while I, seeing all
further pursuit useless, pulled up, and gazed quietly after him from the border
of the cliff, until he disappeared amidst the windings of the ravine.
Nothing now remained but to turn my steed and rejoin my
companions. Here at first was some little difficulty. The ardour of the chase
had betrayed me into a long, heedless gallop. I now found myself in the midst
of a lonely waste, in which the prospect was bounded by undulating swells of land,
naked and uniform, where, from the deficiency of landmarks and distinct
features, an inexperienced man may become bewildered, and lose his way as
readily as in the wastes of the ocean. The day too, was overcast, so that I
could not guide myself by the sun; my only mode was to retrace the track my
horse had made in coming, though this I would often lose sight of, where the
ground was covered with parched herbage.
To one unaccustomed to it, there is something inexpressibly
lonely in the solitude of a prairie. The loneliness of a forest seems nothing
to it. There the view is shut in by trees, and the imagination is left free to
picture some livelier scene beyond. But here we have an immense extent of
landscape without a sign of human existence. We have the consciousness of being
far, far beyond the bounds of human habitation; we feel as if moving in the
midst of a desert world. As my horse lagged slowly back over the scenes of our
late scamper, and the delirium of the chase had passed away, I was peculiarly sensible
to these circumstances. The silence of the waste was now and then broken by the
cry of a distant flock of pelicans, stalking like spectres about a shallow
pool; sometimes by the sinister croaking of a raven in the air, while
occasionally a scoundrel wolf would scour off from before me; and, having
attained a safe distance, would sit down and howl and wine with tones that gave
a dreariness to the surrounding solitude.
After pursuing my way for some time, I descried a horseman
on the edge of a distant hill, and soon recognised him to be the Count. He had
been equally unsuccessful with myself; we were shortly afterwards rejoined by
our worthy comrade, the Virtuoso, who, with spectacles on nose, had made two or
three ineffectual shots from horseback.
We determined not to seek the camp until we had made one
more effort. Casting our eyes about the surrounding waste, we descried a herd
of buffalo about two miles distant, scattered apart, and quietly grazing near a
small strip of trees and bushes. It required but little stretch of fancy to
picture them so many cattle grazing on the edge of a common, and that the grove
might shelter some lowly farm house.
We now formed our plan to circumvent the herd, and by
getting on the other side of them to hunt them in the direction where we knew
our camp to be situated: otherwise, the pursuit might take us to such a
distance as to render it impossible for us to find our way back before nightfall.
Taking a wide circuit therefore, we moved slowly and cautiously, pausing
occasionally, when we saw any of the herd desist from grazing. The wind
fortunately set from them, otherwise they might have scented us and have taken
the alarm. In this way, we succeeded in getting round the herd without
disturbing it. It consisted of about forty head, bulls, cows and calves.
Separating to some distance from each other, we now approached slowly in a
parallel line, hoping by degrees to steal near without exciting attention. They
began, however, to move off quietly, stopping at every step or two to graze,
when suddenly a bull that, unobserved by us, had been taking his siesta under a
clump of trees to our left, roused himself from his lair, and hastened to join
his companions. We were still at a considerable distance, but the game had
taken the alarm. We quickened our pace, they broke into a gallop, and now
commenced a full chase.
As the ground was level, they shouldered along with great
speed, following each other in a line; two or three bulls bringing up the rear,
the last of whom, from his enormous size and venerable frontlet, and beard of
sunburnt hair, looked like the patriarch of the herd; and as if he might long
have reigned the monarch of the prairie.
There is a mixture of the awful and the comic in the look of
these huge animals, as they bear their great bulk forwards, with an up and down
motion of the unwieldy head and shoulders; their tail cocked up like the queue
of pantaloon in a pantomine, the end whisking about in a fierce yet whimsical
style, and their eyes glaring venomously with an expression of fright and fury.
For some time I kept parallel with the line, without being
able to force my horse within pistol shot, so much had he been alarmed by the
assault of the buffalo, in the preceding chase. At length I succeeded, but was
again balked by my pistols missing fire. My companions, whose horses were less
fleet, and more way-worn, could not overtake the herd; at length Mr. L. who was
in the rear of the line, and losing ground, levelled his double barrelled gun,
and fired a long raking shot. It struck a buffalo just above the loins, broke
its back bone, and brought it to the ground. He stopped and alighted to
despatch his prey, when borrowing his gun which had yet a charge remaining in
it, I put my horse to his speed, again overtook the herd which was thundering
along, pursued by the Count. With my present weapon there was no need of urging
my horse to such close quarters; galloping along parallel, therefore, I singled
out a buffalo, and by a fortunate shot brought it down on the spot. The ball
had struck a vital part; it would not move from the place where it fell, but
lay there struggling in mortal agony, while the rest of the herd kept on their
headlong career across the prairie.
Dismounting, I now fettered my horse to prevent his
straying, and advanced to contemplate my victim. I am nothing of a sportsman: I
had been prompted to this unwonted exploit by the magnitude of the game, and
the excitement of an adventurous chase. Now that the excitement was over I
could not but look with commiseration upon the poor animal that lay struggling
and bleeding at my feet. His very size and importance, which had before
inspired me with eagerness, now increased my compunction. It seemed as if I had
inflicted pain in proportion to the bulk of my victim, and as if there were a
hundred fold greater waste of life than there would have been in the
destruction of an animal of inferior size. To add to these after qualms of
conscience, the poor animal lingered in his agony. He had evidently received a
mortal wound, but death might be long in coming. It would not do to leave him
here to be torn piecemeal, while yet alive, by the wolves that had already
snuffed his blood, and were skulking and howling at a distance, and waiting for
my departure, and by the ravens that were flapping about, croaking dismally in
the air. It became now an act of mercy to give him his quietus, and put him out
of his misery. I primed one of the pistols, therefore, and advanced close up to
the buffalo. To inflict a wound thus in cool blood, I found a totally different
thing from firing in the heat of the chase. Taking aim, however, just behind
the foreshoulder, my pistol for once proved true; the ball must have passed
through the heart, for the animal gave one convulsive three and expired.
While I stood meditating and moralizing over the wreck I had
so wantonly produced, with my horse grazing near me, I was rejoined by my
fellow sportsman, the Virtuoso; who, being a man of universal adroitness, and
withal, more experienced and hardened in the gentle art of "venerie,"
soon managed to carve out the tongue of the buffalo, and delivered it to me to
bear back to the camp as a trophy.
from A Tour of the Prairies, published in 1835.
