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33 PROF. SWEENEY AND HIS FAMOUS COWBOY BAND.
"A MERITORIOUS MUSICAL FEATURE." –London Times
Not the least interesting and popular adjunct of the Wild West entertainment is the music furnished by the famous Cow-boy Band. This band has always taken a prominent place with the organization, and has received the highest praise from educated musicians as well as the public in all parts of the world. It consists of thirty-six cow-boy musicians, each of whom would be considered a solist on his own instrument, and when combined and playing otgether under the capable direction of Mr. William Sweeney, their leader, they make music tht compels the admiration of the masses. They give a concert before each performance, and incidental music that is a source of pleasure to all who hear it, and are daily greeted with rounds of applause. This band has been the recipient of commendations from nearly all the musical connoisseurs and leaders and members of the finest bands in Europe, Lieut. Dan Godfrey, the leader of the famous Grenadler Guards Band, having presented Mr. Sweeney, after six months' engagement in the gardens connected with the Wild West in London, with a solid gold cornet, at the same time saying that the thirty-six members of the Cow-boy Band would produce more good music than any band he had ever heard with even double the number of musicians. For thirty minutes prior to the entertainment this band will give selections of both classical and popular music.
SOUTH AMERICAN GAUCHOS AT THE "WILD WEST."
The latest addition to BUFFALO BILL's "Wild West" makes the sixth delegation to the "Congress of the Rough Riders of the World," which MESSRS. CODY and SALSBURY have organized in order to present the different schools of horsemanship to the world.
Having seen the performances of the Cow-boy, the Indian, the Vaquero, and, lastly, of the Cossacks of the Caucasian line, our appetites are considerably whetted at the prospect of seeing how the wild life on the South American pampas contrasts with theirs.
To the student of human progress, of racial peculiarities, of national characteristics, the Gauchos are a subject of investigation as remarkable as anything modern history has to show
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34 The Gaucho differs in many respects from the other rough riders of the only partially civilized sections of the earth. He is the product of a peculiar scheme of existence, and of savage conditions of life, that obtain in no part of the world save on the boundless Llanos of South America.
The Gauchos are the descendants of the early Spanish colonizers of the South American wilds. The fiery Hispanian temperament, the infusion of the native Indian blood, together, with the wild lonely life on the ocean-like pampas, are the conditions responsible for the production of the Gauchos.
The civilization that the Spanish colonists took with them to the Llanos gradually became subdued by the savagery of the new situations, until their descendants, the Gauchos, were as wild and fericious as the aborigines, the Indians. They were, forsooth, compelled to adopt in no small degree the manners and customs of these latter as a means of subsistence.
Like the North American Indian, the Cow-boy, the Vaquero, the Cossack, and the Prairie Scout, now for the first time in history his companion horsemen, the Gaucho is a near approach to the mythical centaur. Like them the Gaucho spends the greater portion of his life on horseback, and is associated with the wild equines of the pampus in even a more intense degree than any of the equastrian races.
In no other part of the world has man been so completely dependent on the horse as on the South American plains. The pampas without horses would be, for the uses of man, as an ocean without ships or boats. Hence this Gaucho breed of centaur is the natural growth of peculiar surroundings.
GAUCHOS FROM SOUTH AMERICA.
It may be intersting to state that from their primitive mode of existence, the Gaucho makes enarly every thing connected with his "outfit," even the rude saddle, from raw-hide the lasso, the "bolas" and even his boots–which are made from the skin (taken from the knee down, and shaped to the leg and foot while warm) of a freshly killed colt, sewed at the toe, thus forming ratically a leather stocking without heal or sole. They are fond of music, are good dancers, retaining in many respects the poetic traditions and tendencies of their Castilian ancestors.
Enough has been said here, however, of their peculiarities. They will prove a welcome acquisition to the to the "Wild West," for they, no less than the Cossacks, have a distinct rôle of their own to play in this truly gigantic enterprise of a "Congress" of the World's Rough Riders."
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COSSACKS WITH THE WILD WEST.
In pursuance of their intention to assem ble together at the World's Fair a congress of the representative horsemen of the world, MESSRS. CODY and SALS BURY have had their agents in all parts of the earth looking for rough riders who could com pete with or excel the original riders of the Wild West, the native product of America. In the Russian Cossack they found a horseman who style was new, novel and striking, and one who could compete with the finest in the world. These Cos sacks, in the picturesque garb of the Caucasus, form the latest acquisition of the Wild West. They are a troop of "Cossacks of the Causcasian Line," under the command of Prince Soucca.
The Prince and his comrades, it is interesting to the public to know, belong to the same branch of the great Cossack family, the Zaporogians, immortalized by Byron's "Mazeppa." Mazeppa was the chief of the Zaporogian community of the Cossacks of the Ukraine.
When Byron's famous hero came to grief at the battle of Poltava, the Cossacks fled to the Crimea, then Turkish territory, to avoid the vengeance of Peter the Great. Subsequently they were deported to the Kuban, and settled along the river as military colonists to defend the Russian frontier against the marauding tribes of the Caucasus.
On this dangerous frontier the qualities or horsemanship that made the name of Mazeppa and his warlike followers household words throughout the whole of Europe, became still further developed in the following generations, so that the Kuban Cossacks' quickly became, in many respects, the most remarkable riders in the world.
On their lithe steppe horses as fierce and active as themselves, they proved themselves more than worthy of their sires. During the heroic struggle of the Circassians quickly learned to dodge within their guard and cut them down, they being among the most expert swordsmen in the world.
FOREIGN TOURS AND TRIUMPHS.
Since the visit of "BUFFALO BILL'S" Wild West to England and its remarkable en gagement in London, at West Brompton, in 1887, a history and tour have been made such as no organization of its magnitude and requirements ever accomplished.
A slight reference to this will be instructive and interesting, and the practical mind can, partially, at a glance, recognize the difficulties and arduous duties involved in its com pletion. A volume would be more fitting to relate its travels, its trials, and triumphant ex periences. After the production in an especially erected mammoth building at Manchester of an allegorical, pantomimic, and scenic representation of the history of American settlement a return to the United States was made in a chartered steamship, Persian Monarch, of 6,000 tons
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burden. The arrival of this vessel, outside of the company's reception, was an event of future commercial importance to the port of New York, from the fact of her being the first passenger ship of her size, draught and class to effect a landing (at Betchel's Wharf) directly on the shores of Staten Island, this demonstrating the marine value of some ten miles of seashore of what in a few short years must be a part of the Greater New York.
After a successful summer season at Erastina, S. I., and New York (originating there, at Madison Square Garden, a now much-copied style of Leviathan spectacle) twice crossing the Atlantic, visiting respectively Philedelphia, Baltimore, and Washington–an uninterrupted season of 2 years and 7 months, starting at St. Louis, Mo., on the Mississippi River, was finished in conjunction with the successful Rishmond Exposition on the James River (Virginia).
The members of the organization returned over the vast continent to their respective localities (ranging from Texas Cow-boy and Vaquero and his southern valley of the Rio Grande, to the Sioux warrior and his weather-beaten foothills of Dakota), to be reunited in the following spring on board S. S. Persian Monarch, bound once more across the Atlantic to Havre, and consigned to the Great Universal Exhibition at Paris.
Sufficiently large grounds were secured from thirty-two small different tenants, at a
JUBILEE YEAR, 1887. EARL'S COURT, LONDON.–FAREWELL, 1892.
great expense–two streets being officially authorized to be closed by the municipality so as to condense the whole–in Neuilly (close by the Porte des ternes, the Bois de Boulogne, and within sight of the Exposition). Expensive improvements were made, grand stand, scenery, a $25,000 electric plant erected, and a beautiful camping ground built.
The opening occurred before an audience said to have equaled any known in the record of Premières of that brilliant Capitale des Deux Mondes. President Carnot and his wife, the Members of his Cabinet and families, two American Ministers, Hon. Whitelaw Reid, Hon. Louis MacLean, the Diplomatic Corps, Officers of United States Marines, etc., etc.–a representative audience, in fact, of ladies and gentlemen of distinction, known the world over, in society, literature, art, professions and commerce–honored the Inauguration by their presence, and launched, amidst great enthusiasm, a seven months' engagement of such pronounced success as to place the Wild West second only in public interest apparently to the great Exposition itself.
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After a short tour in the South of France in the fall, a vessel was chartered at Marseilles, the Mediterranean crossed to Barcelona–landing the first band of American Indians, with accompanying associates, scouts, cow-boys, Mexican horses of Spanish descent, and wild buffaloes, etc., on the very spot where on his return to Spain landed the world's greatest explorer, Christopher Columbus. Here the patrons were demonstratively eulogistic, the exhibition seeming to delight them greatly, savoring as it did of an addenda to their national history, recalling, after a lapse of 400 years, the resplendent glories of Spanish conquests under Ferdinand and Isabella, of the sainted hero, Cristobal Colon–1492, Columbus in America–1890, "BUFFALO BILL" and the native American Indian in Spain !
Recrossing the Mediterranean, via Corsica and Sardinia (encountering a tremendous storm) Naples (the placid waters of whose noble bay gave a welcome refuge) was reached, and in the shadow of "Old Vesuvius," which in fact formed a superbly grand scenic background, another peg in history was pinned by the visit of the cow-boy and Indian to the various noted localities that here abound ; the ruins of Herculaneum, Pompeii, and the great crater of "the burning mountain," striking wonder and awe as well as giving geological and geographical knowledge to the stoical "Red man."
Then the "famed of the famous cities" of the world, Rome, was next visited, to be con
COLOSSEUM, ROME.
quered through the gentle power of intellectual interest in, and the reciprocal pleasure exchanged by, its unusual visitors, the honor being given to "the outfit," as an organization, of attending a dazzling fête given in the Vatican by His Holiness Pope Leo XIII, and of receiving the exalted Pontiff's blessing. The grandeur of the spectacle, the heavenly music, the entrancing singing, and impressive adjunts produced a most profound impression on the astonished children of the Prairie. The Wild West in the Vatican !
The company were photographed in the Colosseum, which stately ruin seemed to silently and solemnly regret that its famed ancient arena was too small for his modern exhibition of the mimic struggle between that civilization born and emanating from 'neath its very walls and primitive people who were ne'er dreamed of in a Rome's world-conquering creators' wildest flights of vivid imaginings.
Strolling through its arena, gazing at its lions' dens, or lolling lazily on its convenient ruins, hearing its interpreted history–of Romulus, of Caesar, of Nero–roamed this band of Wild West Sioux (a people whose history in barbaric deeds equals, if not excels, the ancient Romans), now hand in hand in peace and firmly-cemented friendship with the American frontiersman–once gladiatorial antagonists on the Western Plains. They, listening to the tale on the spot of those whose "Moriture te Salutant" was the short prelude to a savage death, formed a novel picture in historic frame ! The Wild West in the Colosseum !