the barber’s shop. Even clean sheets are to be regarded as a luxury not always met with. On one occasion I had the misfortune to join a boat at an intermediate landing, and was assigned the second berth in a state-room in which one was already appropriated. Finding, in spite of a careful comparison, some difficulty in deciding which of the two was the unoccupied one, the first time I met my room-fellow (an average Western man), I appealed to him, asking him to be kind enough to point out his own. He said he “guessed it didn’t matter much—he’d slept in both.” But against all these disadvantages must be set off the low rate of fare, which rarely exceeds two cents a mile, and in long distances often falls materially short of that sum. This includes board and everything but boot-cleaning, a luxury dispensed with by most of the passengers, but, if indulged in, is charged by the porter at the modest rate of 10 cents (5d.) for every pair of boots. The fare on the present occasion was 10 dollars (2l.) for a distance of some 600 miles and a week’s board.
But to the excursion itself. It was of course crowded, as excursions are the world over. Two boats had been advertised, at least two boat loads of passengers were anxious to go, but they were all economically stowed away into the unhappy Frank Steele. My friend and myself had good reason to congratulate ourselves on having secured berths. At night the saloon was strewn with passengers who had come too late for state-rooms. Many even had to sleep outside in the “guard.” To get a seat at the first set of tables at each meal was a study with those who attempted it, and the requisite hanging about in the neighbourhood to achieve a place even at the second set (beyond which we soon ceased to aspire), was no trifling tax on patience. But such discomforts were not without mitigation. We had the good luck to suffer in common with three fellow-countrymen, two of whom—Black and White—were travelling together, while the third, Blue (he had a weakness for looking at the blue side of things), was for the time being travelling alone, and we managed together to make time pass pleasantly enough, rubbing much of it away in whist. For the scenery, though pretty, was monotonous—a low line of green sloping bluffs at a little distance from the river on one side, the other bank flat and tolerably wooded—and compared poorly with the glorious variety of the Upper Mississippi. But in addition to our English party of five, I may mention another gentleman on board, from five-and-thirty to forty years of age, whose English dress, combined with a dragoon’s moustache and a fashionable drawl, induced us to regard as an Englishman, in spite of one or two points that puzzled us rather. The passengers generally were evidently of our opinion. A report soon reached our ears that there was an “English lord” on board, and before long took a more definite shape, an apoplectic coloured barber remarking to one of us on the second day out (in allusion to the passenger in question), that he was “surprised to find Lord Palmerston so young a man.” So he became known amongst us as “Pam.” We afterwards made acquaintance with him and found we had been mistaken. He proved to be an American, who had, however, spent twelve years of his life in Europe. He was subsequently kind enough to make himself of much use to us at the Agency.
And so we went on, steaming semicircles up the winding course of the stream, now and then touching at some settlement by the way, the whole population of which, attracted by the thrilling strains of the band we carried on board, would come forth to a man, woman, and child to stare us a greeting. But it seemed our fate to be always taking in passengers and never putting any off, and we became more crowded at every landing. Now and then, as we got higher up the river, we varied the monotony of our life by running aground, and so sticking for an hour or so, for the water was falling rapidly; and there was even some question as to whether it would remain deep enough to allow us to reach the Agency. But by the evening of Wednesday (19th), we found ourselves at Fort Ridgeley, a frontier post about thirty miles from our destination, one which has since gained a sad renown as the scene of the recent massacres. Here, though we were glad to rid ourselves of a painfully dirty detachment of volunteers, brought up to relieve the regular garrison, whose services were wanted elsewhere for the war, our troubles came to a climax. The river above this point being narrow and not free from obstructions, we lay off the Fort till daylight. So, in the first place, the mosquitoes, hitherto kept off by the motion of the boat, make a dead set at us, driving some from their berths on to deck, and deterring others from seeking theirs. By about two in the morning, feeling drowsy enough to defy the troublesome insects, we are fairly under way for the land of dreams. But by this time the band is drunk, and will play the liveliest tunes overhead to the confusion of slumber, till, seized by a sudden desire to refresh themselves by a walk in the night air, and rejoin the boat some miles a-head, they tramp off, and the noise of their instruments dies gratefully away in the distance.
To sleep at last—only to be awoke by the pattering rain of a thunderstorm, which comes down in such force as to make a way for itself into the next state-room to Brown’s and mine, washing White out of it, and leaving Black to extract what comfort he can within for the rest of the night out of the floor and an umbrella. However, by daylight on Thursday morning we were off again, and by ten had safely reached our stopping place, the Lower Sioux Agency. We had had warning of our near approach to it for the last mile or so of the way, from a number of swarthy young vagabonds in ragged blankets, who from time to time as they sighted the steamer would give chase for a few yards along the bank, and we were now scarcely well up to the landing before we were boarded by numerous members of the tribe, who at once began to examine everything with the greatest curiosity, and were soon engaged in driving bargains with the passengers.
We had learnt, soon after leaving St. Paul, that the captain had no intention of fulfilling the implied terms of the advertisement by remaining at the Agency a couple of days, but that he would stay a few hours only, and indeed that the date of