["Voltigeur," Letter from the Lander Expedition, Alta California, September 5, 1860]

 

LETTER FROM THE LANDER EXPEDITION.

__________

IN CAMP, NEAL'S RANCH, HONEY LAKE )

VALLEY, August 20, 1860 )

            Editors Alta : Since my last, dated at Rabbit-Hole Springs, I have been engaged exploring the mysteries of the Black Rock country — so called, I suppose, from the fact of there being no black rock in the entire region. A pack party of fifteen men, under charge of the Chief Engineer, constituted our force — rather a small party, you may say, to explore a hostile Indian country ; but Major Dodge says that there are no Pah-Utes here, and Major Dodge having conversed with a friendly Indian at Washoe, of course knows.

            Our first camp we made at Sulphur Springs, where we found a prospecting party from Honey Lake, busily engaged, fruitlessly endeavoring to make argentiferous discoveries, and as the settlers here have been engaged in the same attempts since '50, we may reasonably suppose that their endeavors for ten years to come will be attended with like results. Their hopes of gain are founded on the tale of an Oregon emigrant, who passed over this route in the famous fall of '49, and one day picked up a twenty pound lump of the pure metal, but not knowing its value, threw it carelessly in his wagon, and carried it into California, where a keen dealer in the precious metals, after purchasing the lump, as a cabinet specimen, for two woolen shirts, kindly informed him that as it was silver, he had better return and get as much more as possible. Says Irving: "Nothing certainly is more magnificent than the imagination of a beggar," and the gulled Oregonian, thinking that he had at last struck the tide which would lead him on to fortune, invested all his available means in the purchase of an outfit, and turned his steps towards Black Rock, where he had found his ore. But, pass, presto, when he reached his destination, the scene had changed. Old Dame Nature repented of having exposed her treasures to mortal eye, and with a landslide had enveloped the lead beneath a veil of earth.

            For twelve long months the Oregonian lingered around the locality, or as near to it as he could guess, but his labors were unrewarded, and finally, with exhausted purse and broken health he returned to California to die in a hospital. Such is the tale as 'twas told to me. Romantic, isn't it ? On the strength of that fable, however, for years back, this country has been annually invaded by troops of adventurers who dig and delve amidst bleak, inhospitable mountains until their grub and patience are exhausted, and return to the settlements to send fresh fools on a wild-goose chase. Only the other day a party came from Petaluma, one or two of whom are now with the Honey Lakers. The rest gave up the search, disgusted, and with good cause, for of all the desolate, barren, sterile regions, this takes the lead. The whole face of the country indicates that it is of volcanic origin — as if one vast mass of heated lava and other rock had been upheaved by a grand convulsion of Nature and suddenly cooled by a flood — mayhaps the Noahian deluge. Even now, the majority of the springs bubble and burst from the dry ground, as hot as though just from the realms of his Satanic majesty, which Gov. Roop — who seems thoroughly conversant with the subject — assures me lay not far from here. No animals are found but scorpions, rattlesnakes and Pah-Utes. The latter claim the country, and, as far as my interest is concerned, they may have it with all its products, silver, saleratus and sage brush. Minerals certainly abound to some extent, cinnabar, iron, lead, copper, etc., but should large mines ever be discovered, they cannot be worked from the scarcity of water. The honest miner might earn a hundred dollars a week, and at the end of that time willingly give it all for a drink of pure, cold water — a thing almost unknown.

            Possessing, however, something of a taste for geological investigation, I managed to pass time very pleasantly for a few days while lying in camp, by strolling over the hills, hammering rocks and filling my satchel with curious specimens of stones and ores. Nor were my excursions always unattended with adventure. In one of my lonely peregrinations I was fired upon by a party of belligerent and excitable prospectors, who, mistaking me for a Pah-Ute, hastily abandoned their picks and pans, and devoted themselves to the laudable purpose of securing my scalp, which, deprived of Ciprico's care for the past three months, no doubt bears a strong resemblance to the capillary covering of a Pah-Ute warrior. Your correspondent being naturally dull of perception and slow to anger, uncomplainingly stood two or three shots at long range, and endeavored by waving a handkerchief that had once been white, to appease their warlike ardor. But when the irrepressible disciples of Plutus crept into good rifle range, paying no attention to my pacific signals, I had to drop my bag of specimens and hammer, and, hurriedly digging the spurs into Stephen A — (my mule) make hasty tracks for camp. My revenge, though, came in the evening, on the return of the prospectors, when I heard myself, a modest, unobtrusive, emaciated small man, described as a gigantic chief, splendidly mounted, gorgeously arrayed in raj plumes and trappings, and backed by a dozen long-haired fighting scions of the first families of Utah.

            With secret satisfaction I quietly listened to their glowing account of their own courage and the aforesaid chief's precipitate flight and probable death at the bands of one of the party, who distinctly saw him reel in his saddle after a well directed volley, and gallop off to the hills where he doubtless lay down and died. They were unable to appreciate the joke, though, when they discovered that gigantic, orientally arrayed and fine looking warrior sitting peacefully by their side, luxuriating over jerked beef and dry slap-jacks, and resembling a Pah-Ute in nothing save dirt and appetite.

            After completing our observations about Black Rock, we proceeded to High Rock Cañon, to visit the "big tree." The story of its size and splendor has doubtless reached you ere this, exaggerated tenfold by distance.

            Let not enthusiastic geologists turn with contempt from this paragraph, or boarding school misses who treasure up little petrified mementoes from sentimental assistant engineers, curl their pretty coral lips when I pronounce the big tree an unmitigated humbug, a regular canard. As a petrifaction it will command only a passing glance, for thousands similar may be found in Virginia, Kentucky or Missouri, and in size it would wither with shame were it endowed with life and placed among the giants of the vegetable kingdom found in Calaveras. There are twenty or thirty chunks lying scattered over an area of at least two acres, the largest being forty or fifty feet in length and ten feet in diameter. The aggregate length of every piece, measuring even those but three feet in length, is one thousand and twenty-seven feet. They are pieces beyond doubt of several trees, and the only wonder to my mind it how the deuce they ever came there, where a two-inch sago brush serves as a back log to a camp fire.

            I have preserved several unique and pretty specimens which I will leave in your office for inspection. Libraries, military companies, or other associations, need not apply, as I am allowed but one pack mule to transport my quarry.

            Far more worthy of attention and admiration than silver mines or petty petrifications, is High Rock Cañon, which has received but a meagre meed of praise from passing travelers. You enter the cañon from an arid, barren desert, and the scene at once is changed. For twelve miles gigantic battlements of solid rock frown down upon you, hundreds of feet in height. Vegetation is as rank and luxuriant as in the Tropics — wild currants, cherries, buffalo berries, and all descriptions of roots and herbs, such at are used by the natives as food. The cañon is watered by a noisy little brook, abounding with speckled trout, and, to our great satisfaction, we found deer and antelope almost as tame as though domesticated. High Rock Cañon is decidedly the redeeming feature of this Satanic region — like a jewel in the breast of an ugly woman, although it has been so long since I have seen a woman, that I seriously doubt whether there are any ugly ones. You will, perhaps, wonder at my remaining in this country, disliking it as I do ; but a saying among the frontiersmen, translated from the Pah-Ute, explains it: "'Merican man travel in cañon, Pi-Yoot kill um ; 'Merican man stay at home, starve to death — all the same." And so it is. Death, by starvation, is unpleasant, especially when you have respectable relations in the vicinity.

            As we lay in camp at the Big Tree, we were fired upon by some graceless scouts of old Winnemuck's band, and one of our men sallying forth to give battle, was assailed with opprobrious epithets, and, as the immortal Phoenix once said, "strong doubts were cast upon the respectability of his parentage." To their amiable invitation to come up in the rocks and have a friendly set to, he replied by sending a Minnie ball dancing in among them, which had the effect of scaring them badly, although none were seen to "drop."

            We found our main train on our return, at Antelope Springs. The Colonel had met little Winnemuck — the result of the interview will be found in Col. Lander's letter to the military commandant at Honey Lake — a copy of which letter, by the kindness of Mr. Burche, Paymaster, I am enabled to lay before your readers. The Colonel makes the arrangement, or truce, as you please, subject of course to the ratification of Major Dodge, or the General Government. He is actuated principally by a desire to shield the immigration, which would undoubtedly have suffered severely had hostilities continued.

_____

Lieut. Hamilton, U. S. Army, Honey Lake Valley :

            Dear Sir :— It is with great pleasure that I am enabled to inform you of the result of a long interview with Little Winnemucca, Chief of the band of Pah-Utes, now upon the Humboldt River. Since our council this Chief considers the war closed on the part of the Indians, and assures me that it will not be re-opened, except in retaliation for some now act of hostility committed by the whites. As proofs of his peaceful intentions Little Winnemucca visited my camp with twenty-one unarmed warriors, women and children. He has sent runners along the Humboldt into the Black Rock country, and to the Truckee River, to apprise the Indians of a cessation of hostilities, and tells me that in two weeks unarmed whites may travel with perfect safety in any part of the Pah-Ute territory.

            I have yet to see the principal War Chief, who was in command at the battle near Pyramid Lake. Two Indians have gone out after him, and a place of meeting has been designated.

            As I do not know the views of the Government, any arrangement of mine must be subject to the approval of Major Dodge, the regular Indian Agent of this tribe, or of the Department.

            The unprotected state of the overland emigration, and the presence of large bodies of Indians in their vicinity, must appear as my justification.

            The terms accepted by the Indians are the suspension of hostilities for one year ; then, if no act of aggression has been committed by them, my endeavors to procure the payment, by Government, for those portions of their lands now occupied by white settlers.

            They are especially desirous of being furnished with cattle and implements of husbandry, that they may be taught to farm, and that the land near Pyramid Lake be reserved to them.

            John Deming, a citizen of the Honey Lake settlement, whose brother was killed last winter, his home burned, and property destroyed by the Pah-Utes, and who was very bitter against them, was present at the Council, and believes that the arrangement made will prove satisfactory to the whites.

            I could have brought in the twenty-one Pah-Utes as prisoners, but have not the provisions to subsist them.

            I send this letter by Mr. George H. Butler, who has been of much service in these relations, by securing, with the aid of two of the employés of the expedition, five Pah-Ute warriors, who were visiting a trading camp on the Humboldt. Through the agency of these prisoners, my interview with Winnemucca was obtained.

            Please regard this letter as qualifying my hurried communication of the 11th inst., which was written prior to my interview with Winnemucca, and with no anticipations of so favorable a result.

I am, respectfully, yours,

F. W. LANDER, S. U. S. W. R.

            ANTELOPE SPRINGS, WESTERN UTAH, Aug. 15th.

            The train now lays at Smoke Creek Cañon, and I am anxiously awaiting the result of the Colonel's interview with the Pah-Ute chief. I anticipate a collision should the chief refuse to accede to the terms offered, which the settlers here think is more than probable ; and the rangers under Captain Weatherlow hold themselves in readiness to march immediately upon the receipt of the news of a fight.

            In conclusion, I will add that the settlers here want to see the Government agent. Where is he?

                                                                                                Yours, truly,

VOLTIGEUR.