to crocodiles they are little regarded, being more afraid of man than he of them. On account of these snags and sawyers, boatmen avoid passing in the night, and are obliged to keep a sharp look out in the day-time. The sawyers when forced to the bottom or near it by a strong current, or by eddies, rise again with such force that few boats can withstand the shock. The course of the boat was so tediously slow, that many of us concluded to get out and walk on the banks of the river. This, while it gave us agreeable exercise, was of some service in lightening our boat, for with other passengers from St. Louis, we amounted to a considerable crew. The ground was level, and free from underwood. We passed plenty of deer, wild turkeys, and some other wild fowl unknown to us, and expected to find it so all the way.
We arrived at a town or settlement called Independence.[1] This is the last white settlement on our route to the Oregon, and this circumstance gave a different cast to our peregrination, and operated not a little on our hopes, and our fears, and our imaginations. Some of our company began to ask each other some serious questions; such as, Where are we going? and what are we going for? and sundry other questions, which would have been wiser had we asked them before we left Cambridge, and ruminated well on the answers. But Westward ho! was our watchword, and checked all doubts, and silenced all expressions of fear.
Just before we started from this place, a company of sixty-two in number arrived from St. Louis, under the command of William Sublet, Esq., and experienced Indian trader, bound, like ourselves, [27] to the American Alps, the Rocky Mountains, and we joined company with him,
- ↑ For Independence, see Gregg's Commerce of the Prairies, in our volume xix, p. 189, note 34.—Ed.
