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trouble. You have thousands of friends in the East. Gen. Miles and Capt. Lee can reach those friends. I have this confidence; there will be no war on the part of Gen. Miles, if you give up your arms, because through military discipline he can control his men, as soldiers have no interest to shoot Indians. Tell your young men to be calm and have confidence in Gen. Miles, who will see you through. But you must discipline and control your young men. Let every man who talks mean what he says, and not talk to evade the question. I, to show you what confidence I have in Gen. Miles that he will not fire upon you and your women and children when you are disarmed, I will promise to live in your camp until you have confidence that the white chief will see no harm come to you. I am glad to hear that some chiefs are going to Washington, and hope, instead of ten, twenty or twenty-five will go. I will be there to see you, and may go with you. Let us all work for peace between the white men and the red--not for a moment, a day, a year, but for ever, for eternity.
KICKING BEAR.
BILL CODY--(BY AN OLD COMRADE.)
You bet I knew him, partner, he ain't no circus friend. He's Western born and Western bred, if he has been late abroad; I knew him in the days way back, beyond Missouri's flow. When the country round was nothing but a huge Wild Western Show. When the Indians were as thick as fleas, and the man who ventured through. The sand hills of Nebraska had to fight the hostile Sioux; These were hot times, I tell you; and we all remember still. The days when Cody was a scout, and all the men knew Bill.
I knew him first in Kansas, in the days of '68. When the Cheyennes and Arapahoes were wiping from the slate. Old scores against the settlers, and when men who wore the blue. With shoulder-straps and way-up rank, were glad to be helped through. By a bearer of dispatches, who knew each vale and bill. From Dakota down to Texas, and his other name was Bill.
I mind me too of '76, the time when Cody took His scouts upon the Rosebud, along with General Crook. When Custer's Seventh rode to their death for a lack of some such side. To tell them that the sneaking Sioux knew how to ambuscade. I saw Bill's fight with "Yellow Hand," you bet it was a "mill." He downed him well at thirty yards, and all the men cheered Bill.
They tell me that the women folk now take his word as laws. In them days laws were mighty skerce, and hardly passed with squaws. But many a hardy settler's wife and daughter used to rest More quietly because they knew of Cody's dauntless breast; Because they felt from Laramie way down to Old Fort Sill, Bill Cody was a trusted scout, and all their men knew Bil.
I haven't seen him much of late; how does he bear his years? They say he's making educate now from shows and not from "steers." He used to be a judge of "horns," when poured in a tin cup, And left the wine to tenderfeet, and men who felt "well up." Perhaps he cracks a bottle now, perhaps he's had his fill. Who cares; Bill Cody was a scout, and all the world knows Bill.
To see him in his trimmin's he can't hardly look the same. With laundered shirt and diamonds, as if "he runs a game;" He didn't wear biled linen then, or flash up diamond rings. The royalties he dreamed of then were only pastaboard kings, But those who sat behind the queens were apt to get their fill, In the days when Cody was a scout, and all the men knew Bill.
[Gridiron]? Club, Washington D. C., Feb, [18]?, 1891.
WM. E. ANNIN, Lincoln (Neb.) Journal.
MACAULAY'S NEW ZEALANDER--THE LAST OF THE MONICANS,--THE LAST OF THE BUFFALO.
From Manchester Courier, April, 1888.
An addition which has just been made to the United States National Museum at Washington affords important subsidiary evidence, if such were needed, of the unique interest attending the extraordinary exhibition at Manchester illustrative of the Wild West,
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Naturalists have not too soon become alive to the remarkable fact that those shaggy monarchs of the prairie, the ponderous buffalo tribe, are well-nigh extinct. They have dwindled away before the exterminating tread of the hunter and the march of the pioneer of civilization. The prairie no longer shakes beneath the impetuous advance of the mighty herd, and even individual specimens are becoming scarce. The representatives of the Smithsonian Museum in American therefore sent out an expedition into the West in search of what buffaloes there might be remaining, in order that the country might preserve some memento of the millions of those animals which not many years ago roamed over the prairies. Twenty-five animals in all were captured, six of which have been arranged in a group for exhibition. One of the American papers describes this as the transference of a little bit of Montana--a small square patch from the wildest part of the Wild West--to the National Museum. The idea is one which is exactly applicable to COLONEL, W. F. CODY'S collection, which is approaching its last days of residence among us. Those scenes in which the primeval forest and the vast expanse of prairie are represented, with elk and bison careering about, chased by the hunter and the scout, is a transference from the Wild West which, as we now learn, should be even more interesting to the naturalist than it is to either the artistic or the historical student. We leave out of view for the moment the ordinary spectator who goes only to be amused or entertained, independently of any instruction that may be afforded. These scenes, moreover, are all the more interesting to the ethnological student because of the association with them of the red men who have been indigenous to the prairies and their surroundings. The occupation of Uncas, like Othello's, is gone; palatial buildings and busy streets have succeeded to the wigwam and the hunting grounds, and the successor of Fenimore Cooper may find his representative Indians, not where the hunting knife and tomahawk are needed, but in the arena of mimic battle and adventure. The Indian is going out with the buffalo; mayhap we shall ere long see the last of his descendants, with the contemplative gaze of Macaulay's New Zealander, sitting before the group in the Smithsonian Museum, looking upon the last representative of the extinct buffalo, fixed in its prairie-like surroundings. These considerations of facts which force themselves upon the imagination, distinctly enhance the interest of those "pictures" from the Wild West presented with such force and realism by the ruling genius who, anent the purport of these reflections, is so appropriately named "BUFFALO BILL." In the course of a very short time these pictures will permanently vanish from English soil, as they are to be produced in America soon, and it may be expected that those in arrears in information respecting them, and who appreciate, as they deserve to be appreciated, their instructive features, will give to them a concentrated attention ere it is too late.
A POSITION DIFFICULT TO ATTAIN.--A "PLAINS CELEBRITY."--A TITLE IMPERISHABLE.
To gain great local and national fame as a "plains celebrity" in the days of old was not an easy task; rather one of the most competitive struggles that a young man could possibly engage in. The vast, comparatively unknown, even called Great American Desert of twenty-five and thirty years ago was peopled only by the descendants of the sturdy pioneers of the then Far West--Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Kansas, etc., born, raised, and used to hardships and danger--and attracted only the resolute, determined adventurers of the rest of the world, seeking an outlet for pent-up natures, imbued with love of daring adventure. Hundreds of men achieved local, and great numbers national fame for the possession of every manly quality that goes to make up the romantic hero of that once dark and bloody ground. When is brought to mind the work engaged in, the carving out of the advance paths for the more domestically inclined settler, of the dangers and excitements of hunting and trapping, of carrying dispatches, stage driving, freighting cargoes of immense value, guiding successfully the immense wagon trains, gold hunting--it is easy to conceive what a class of sturdy, adventurous young spirits entered the arena to struggle in a daily, deadly, dangerous game to win the "bubble reputation." When such an army of the best human material battled for supremacy, individual distinction gained by the unwritten law of unprejudiced popular promotion possessed a value that made its acquirer a "plains celebrity," stamped indelibly with an honored title rarely possessed unless fairly, openly, and justly won--a prize so pure that its ownership, while envied, crowned the victor with the friendship, a prize so pure that its ownership, while envied, crowned the victor with the friendship, following an admiration of the contestants. Thus Boone, Crockett, Carson, Beal, Fremont, Cody, Bridger, Kinman, Hickok, Cosgrove, Comstock, Frank North, and others, will live in the romance, the poetry, and history of their rach distinctive work for ever. The same spirit and circumstances to have furnished journalists innumerable, who, in the West, imbibed the
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sterling qualities they afterward used to such effect. Notably, Henry M. Stanley, who (in 1866) saw the rising sun of the young empire that stretches to the Rockies; Gen. Greely, of Arctic fame (now of Signal Service), and the equally scientific explorer, Lieut. Schwatka, passed their early career in the same school, and often followed "the trail" led by "BUFFALO BILL,": Finnerty (of the "Chicago Times"): "Modoc" Fox and O'Kelly (of the "New York Herald"), 1876; while later on new blood among the scribblers was initiated to their baptism of fire by Harries (of "Washington Star"), McDonough ("New York World"), Baily (of "Inter-Ocean"), brave young Kelly (of the "Lincoln Journal"), Cressy (of the "Omaha Bee"), Seymour ("Chicago Herald"), and Allen (of the "New York Herald"), present in the battle, who were honoured by three cheers from "Old White Top," Forsythe's gallant Seventh Cavalry, the day after the battle of "Wounded Knee," as they went charging over Wolf Creek to what came near being a crimson day, to the fight "down at the Mission."
Image Caption: UNITED STATES CAVALRY PRACTICE EXERCISE.
HIS MILITARY RANK AND REFERENCES. GENERAL CODY holds his commission in the NATIONAL GUARD of the United States (State of Nebraska), an honourable position, and as high as he can possibly attain. His connection with the Regular Unites States Army has covered a continuous period of fifteen years, and desultory connection of thirty years, in the most troublous era of Western history, as Guide, Scout, and Chief of Scouts-a position unknown in any other service, and for the confidential nature of its services in the past, may be more fully appreciated when it is understood that it commanded, besides horses, subsistence and quarters, [British pound] 2 per day ([British pound] 730 per year), all expenses, and for special service, or "life and death" volunteer missions, special rewards of from [British pound] 20 to [British pound] 100 for carrying a single dispatch, and brought its holder the confidence of Commanding Generals, the fraternal friendship of the Commissioned Officers, the idolization of the ranks, and the universe respect and consideration of the hardy pioneers and settlers of the West. "Billy." CODY's children can point with pride to recorded services under the following officers of world-wide and national flame: General Sherman General Smith General Royall " Miles " King " Penrose " Crook " Van Vlietn " Brisbin " Carr " Anson Mills " Sandy Forsythe " Auger " Reynolds " Palmer " Bankhead " Harney " Dudley " Fry " Greeley " Gibbon " Crittenden " Sheridan " Canby " Merritt " Terry " Blunt " Switzer " Emory " Hayes " Tony Forsythe " Custer " Guy Henry " Duncan " Ord " Hazen " Rucker " Hancock And others
The extracts on the following pages speak for themselves, and will form interesting reading as authenticated references.
FROM GEN. "PHIL" SHERIDAN'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY.
GENERAL SHERIDAN refers to his meeting "BUFFALO BILL," "He undertakes a dangerous task," chapter xii., pp. 281-289, in his autobiography, published in 1888. The world-renowned cavalry commander maintained continuous friendly relations with his old scout, even to social correspondence, friendly assistance, and recognition in his present enterprise up to the year of his death. After relating his conception of the first winter campaign against Indians, on the then uninhabited and bleak plains, in the winter of 1868, he says. "The difficulties and hardships to be encountered had led several experienced officers of the army and some frontiersmen like old Jim Bridger even went so far as to come out from St. Louis to discourage the attempt. I decided to go in person, bent on showing the Indians that they were not secusre from unishment because of inclement weather-an ally on which they had hitherto relied with much assurance. We started, and the very first night a blizzard struck us and carried away our tents. The gale was so violent that they coudl not be put up again; the rain and snow drenched us to the skin. Shivering from wet and cold I took refuge under a wagon, and there spent such a miserable night that, when morning came, the gloomy predictions of old man Bridger and others rose up before me with greatly increased force. The difficulties were now fully realized, the blinding snow mixed with sleet, the piercing wind, thermometer below zero-with green bushes only for fuel-occasioning intense suffering. Our numbers and companionship alone prevented us from being lost or perishing, a fate that stared in the face of the frontiersmen, guides and scouts on their solitary missions.
"An important matter had been to secure competent guides for the different columns of troops, for, as I have said, the section of country to be operated in was comparatively unknown.
"In those days the railroad town of Hays City was filled with so-called 'Indian Scouts,' whose common boast was of having slain scores of redskins, but the real scout-that is, a guide and traler knowing the habits of the Indians- was very scarce, and it was hard to find anybody familiar with the country south of Arkansas, where the campaign was to be made. Still, about the various military posts there was some good material to select from, and we managed to emply several men, who, from their experience on the plains in various capacities, or from natural instinct and aptitude soon become excellent guides and courageous and valuable scouts, some of them, indeed, gaining much distinction. Mr. William F. Cody ('Buffalo Bill'), whose renown has since become world-wide, was one of the men thus selected. He received his sobriquet from his marked success in killing buffaloes to supply fresh meat to the construction parties on the Kansas Pacific Railway. He had lived from boyhodd on the plains and passed every experience; herder, hunter, pony-express rider, stage driver, wagon master in the quartermaster's department, and scout of the army, and was first brought to my notice by distinguishing himself in bringing me an important dispatch from Fort Larned to Fort Hays, a distance of sixty-five miles, through a section interested with Indians. The dispatch informed me that the Indians near Larned were preparing to decamp, and this intelligence required that certain orders should be carried to Fort Dodge, ninety-five miles south of Hays. This too being a particularly dangerous route-several couriers having been killed on it-it was impossible to get one of the various 'Petes,' 'Jacks,' or 'Jims' hanging around Hays City to take my communication. Cody, learning of the strait I was
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in, manfully came to the rescue, and proposed to make the trip to Dodge, though he had just finished his long and perilous ride from Larned. I gratefully accepted his offer, and after a short rest he mounted a fresh horse and hastened on his journey, halting but once to rest on the way, and then only for an hour, the stop being made at Coon Creek, where he got another mount from a troop of cavalry. At Dodge he took some sleep, and them continued on his own post-Fort Larned-with more dispatches. After resting at Larned, he was again in the saddle with tideing for me at Fort Hays, General Hazen sending him, this time, with word that the villages had fled to the south of Arkansas. Thus, in all, Cody rode about 350 miles in less than sixty hours, and such an exhibition of endurance and courage at that time of the year, and in such weather, was more than enough to convince me that his services would be extremely valuable in the campaign, so I retained him at Fort Hays till the battalion of the Fifth Cavalry arrived, and then made him CHIEF OF SCOUTS."
Image Caption: INDIAN WAR DANCE.
Read through the fascinating book, "Campaigning with Crook (Major-General George Crook, U. S. A.), and Stories of Army Life," due to the graphic and soldierly pen of Captain Charles King, of the U. S. Army; published in 1890.
Incidentally the author refers in various pages to COL. CODY as Scout, etc., and testifies to the general esteem and affection in which "BUFFALO BILL," is held by the army.
The subjoined extracts from the book will give our readers an excellent idea of the military scout's calling and its dangers.
"By Jove, General!" says "BUFFALO BILL," sliding backward down the hill, "now's our chance. Let our party mount here out of sight, and we'll cut those fellows off. Come down every other man of you."
Glancing behind me, I see CODY, TAIT and "CHIPS," with five cavalrymen, eagerly bending forward in their saddles, grasping carbine and rifle, every eye bent upon me, watching for the signal. Not a man by myself knows how near they are. That's right, close in you beggars! Ten seconds more, and you are on them! A hundred and twenty-five yards-a hundred-ninety-"Now, lads, in with you."
There's a rush, a wild ringing cheer; then bang, bang, bang! and in a cloud of dust, CODY and his men tumbl in among them, "BUFFALO BILL" closing on a superbly (?)ccoutred warrior. It is the work of a minute; the Indian has fired and missed. CODY's bullet tears through the rider's leg into the pony's heart, and they tumble in a confused heap on the prairie. The Cheyenne struggles to his feet for another shot, but CODY'S second bullet hits the mark. It is now close quarters, knife to knife. After a hand-to-hand struggle, CODY wins, and the young chief, "YELLOW HAND," drops lifeless in his tracks after a hot fight. Baffled and astounded, for once in a lifetime beaten at their own game, their project of joining "SITTING BULL," nipped in the bud, they take hurried flight. But our chief is satisfied. "BUFFALO BILL," is radiant; his are the honors of the day. From page 34
THE GREATEST ARTIST, FRED. REMINGTON, WRITES FROM LONDON TO "HARPER'S WEEKLY."
The most noted depicter of Western scenes of the present day is without doubt the eminent artist, Mr. Frederic Remington. His study of the subject renders him a most competent judge. In returning from an expedition in Russia, passing through London, he visited Buffalo Bill's Wild West, and it is with pride that the projectors point to his endorsement, standing side by side in artistic merit as he does with the grand artiste, Rosa Bonheur:
The Tower, the Parliament, and Westminster Abbey are older institutions in London than Buffalo Bill's show, but when the New Zealander sits on London Bridge and looks over his ancient manuscripts of Murray's Guide-Book, he is going to turn first to the Wild West. At present everyone knows where it is, from the gentlemen in Piccadilly to the dirtiest coster in the remotest slum of Whitechapel. The cabman may have to scratch his head to recall places where the traveller desires to go, but when the "Wild West" is asked for he gathers his reins and uncoils his whip without ceremony. One should no longer ride the deserts of Texas or the rugged uplands of Wyoming to see the Indians and pioneers, but should go to London. It is also quite unnecessary to brave the fleas and the police of the Czar to see the Cossack, or the tempt the waves which roll between New York and the faroff Argentine to study the Gauchos. they are all in London. the Cossacks and Gauchos are the lates addition, and they nearly complete the array of wild riders. There you can sit on a bench and institute comparisons. The Cossacks will charge you with drawn sabres in a most genuine way, will hover over you like buzzards on a battlefield-they soar and whirl about in graceful curves, giving an uncanny impression, which has doubtless been felt by many a poor Russian soldier from the wheat fields of Central Europe as he lay with a bulletin in him on some distant field. They march slowly around over imaginary steppes, singing in a most dolorous way-looking as they did in Joseph Brandt's paintings. They dance over swords in a light-footed and crazy way, and do feats on their running horses which bring the hand clapping. They stand on their heads, vault on and off, chase each other in a game called " chasing the handkerchief," and they reach down at top speed and mark the ground with a stick. Their long coat-tails flap out behind like an animated rag-bag, while their legs and arms are visible by turns. Their grip on the horse is maintained by a clever use of the stirrups, which are twisted and crossed at will. They are armed like "pincushions," and ride on a big leather bag, which makes their seat abnormally high.
The Gauchos are dressed in a sort of Spanish costume, with tremendous pantaloons of cotton, and boots made of colt's skin, which in their construction are very like Apache moccasins. They carry a knife at their back which would make a hole which a doctor couldn't sew up with less than five stitches, if indeed he was troubled at all. They ride a saddle which would floor a Castilian at once. They ride bucking horses by pairs, and amuse the audience by falling off at intervals.
The great interest which attaches to the whole show is that it enables the audience to take sides on the question of which people ride the best and have the best saddles. The whole thing is put in such
Image Caption: RUSSIAN COSSACKS.
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tangible shape as to be a regular challenge to debate to looker-ons. I, for one, formed any opinion, and have sacrificed two or three friends on the altar of my convictions. There is also a man in a pink cost who rides a hunting seat in competition with a yellow savage on a clear horse, and if our Englishman is not wedded to his ideals, he must receive a very had shock is beholding he is a cow-boy.
Next year the whole outfit is coming over to the World's Fair with the rest of Europe, and they are going to bring specimens of all the continental cavalry. The Sioux will talk German, the cow-boys already have an English acct, and the "Gauchos" will be dressed in good English form.
The Wild West show is an evolution of a great idea. It is a great educator, and, with its aggregate of wonders from the out-of-the-way places, it will represent a poetical and harmless protest against the Derby that and the starched linen--those horrible badges of the slavery of our modern social system, when men are physical lay figures, and mental and moral cog-wheels and wastes of uniformity--where the great crime is to be individual, and the unpardonable sin is to be out of the fashion. FREDERIC REMINGTON.
THE WILD WEST REVIEW.
In order to create even the merest outline mind-picture of the superb effects, massed fiery action and equestrian skill made gloriously manifest in the Grand review with which the performances in Buffalo Bill's Wild West are always inaugurated, at precisely 2 and 8.15 p.m., one must imagine a kaleidoscope, with an object field of four and a half acres in extent, occupied by a swiftly moving mass of figures, individually picturesque, brilliant with metallic reflections and gay with colors, momentarily springing and flashing into new combinations and modes of motion, which dazzle, confuse and fascinate the eye of the beholder. The Indians, the Mexican, the Arabs, the Gauchos, the Cossacks, the Cowboys, the cavalry of the different nations, and all the riders come in, one organization at a time, all riding at a dead run. After all are drawn up in line "Buffalo Bill" rides forth and introduces the Congress of the Rough Riders of the World. It is a superb and indescribable picture then--rank after rank of horsemen from all the nations stretching across the plain, shining with steel and aflame with color; tossing manes running along the lines like wheat moving under a breed; above them the plumes and the bright crests, and still higher, held in outstretched arms, the white flashing sabres, until a signal the ranks melt into moving streams of color and light, the horsemen threading their way in and out past one another, circling, halting, advancing, receding, reforming by fours and sixes, trailing out in single file, moving ribbons of men and horses spangled with gleaming metal, until two long lines gallop away evenly and steadily, and disappear whence they came, to be succeeded by the other historic, heroic and strangely fascinating scenes.
COSSACKS WITH THE WILD WEST
In pursuance of their intention to assemble together at the World's Fair a congress of the representative horsemen of the world, MESSRS. CODY and SALSBURY have had their agents in all parts of the earth looking for rough riders who could compete with or excel the original riders of the Wild West, the native product of America. In the Russian Cossack they found a horseman whose style was new novel and striking, and one who could compete with the finest in the world. These Cossacks, in the picturesque garb of the Caucasus, from the latest acquisition of the Wild West. They are a troop of "Cossocks of the Caucasian 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 t he great Cossack family, the Zaporogians, immortalised 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 Crimes, 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 of horsemanship that made the name of Mareppa 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 little steppe horses, as fierce and active as themselves, they proved themselves more than worthy of their sires. During the heroic struggle of the Circassian mountaineers found to be the only cassocks sufficiently skilled to cope with Schamyl's wild mountain horsemen on equal terms. The Don Cossacks were lancers, and 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 engagement 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 completion. A volume would be more fitting to relate its travels, its trials, and triumphant experiences. After the production in an especially erected mammoth building at manchester of all allegorical, pantomimic, and scenic representation of the history of American settlement, a return to the United States was made in a charter steamship, Persian Monarch, of 6,000 tons
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burden. The arrival of this vessel, outside the company's receptions, 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 Bechtel's Wharf) directly on the shores of Staten Island, thus 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 (originatin there, at Madison Square Garden, a now much-copied style of Leviathan spectacle) twice crossing the Atlantic, visiting respectively Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washinton--an uninteruupted season of 2 years and 7 months, starting at St. Louis, Mo., on the Mississippi River, was finished in conjunction with the successful Richmond 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.
JUBILEE YEAR, 1887, EARL'S COURT, LONDON--FAREWELL, 1892. (From a Photo by Elliot & Fry.)
Sufficiently large grounds were secured form thirty-two small different tenants, at a 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 equalled any known in the record of the Premieres of that brilliant Capital des Deux Mondes. President Carnot and his wife, the Members of the Cabinet and families, two American Ministers, Hon. Whitelaw Reid, Hon. Louis MacLean, the Diplomatic Corps, Officers of the 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 Inaguaration 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.
59 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 Corsiea 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 lecalitites 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 conquered through the gentle power of intellectual interest in, and the reciprocal pleasure
COLOSSEUM, ROME. exchanged by, its unusual visitors, the honor being given to "the outfit," as an organization, of attending a dazzling fete 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 adjuncts 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 this modern exhibition of the mimic struggle between that civilization born and emanating from 'neath its very walls and a primitive people who were ne'er dreamed of in a Rome's world-conquering creators' wildest flights of vivid imaginings.
Strolling through its area, 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 friendhip with the American frontierman--once gladiatorial antagonists on the Western Plains. They, listening to the tale on the spot of those whose "morituri te Salutant" was the short prelude to a savage death, formed a novel picture in historic frame! The Wild West in the Colosseum!
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