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Show PLAINS AND MOUNTAINS. 205 three years ago the Snakes were at war with the troops - sta tioned in Utah, but after a severe battle on Bear River, in which they were severely punished, and sustained a great loss, they in the dead of winter, and in an almost starving condition, begged for peace, and for subsistence. When they arrayed themselves against the white men in the terri tory, it was in opposition to the advice of their chief Washiki, who is the finest specimen of an Indian I ever saw. He abandoned the leadership of the tribe, rather than indulge in a war which he knew must prove disastrous to the red man. In their folly they elected another chief, and paid for it in the disaster to which I alluded. During the war, Washiki, with his squaws and a small party, camped in the vicinity 6f Fort Bridger, and after its termination the tribe were only too glad to reinstate him in his former official position. The general appearance of the Indian, and his physique, are too well understood to justify a description of them here. I must add, however, that in stature and in physical strength he fell far below my expectations. The Indians of the West, who go to Washington on business with the Indian Bureau, or to visit their " Great Father," and the noble- looking fig ures which appeared in Mr. Stanley's collection of paintings, destroyed by fire in the Smithsonian Institute a few years ago, are by no means representatives of the masses to which I have just alluded. I have seen but one Indian, Washiki, in all my travels, who could be classed with such as I refer red to. In physical strength and muscular development they are much the inferior of the average of white men, and will never encounter them in single combat. Let me write first about the squaws, though they are of the degraded sex, as I have so much to say about their " lords," who are better known in western parlance as " bucks," that I might occupy all the space allowed for this chapter without referring to them. The beauty of the squaws, as I have observed them, is all a myth. I have yet to see one bearing the slightest com parison in point of beauty with Pocahontas as she is describ ed and painted. I found the large majority of them exceed |
