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BELFORD'S GUIDE
European. The one saving
exhibit on the side of the daring
and picturesque in our life
as a nation, is Buffalo Bill and
his army of peerless horsemen.
Now, as in the phenomenal
this great scout
throughout Europe, his person
and the performance of
his comrades must bring the
strange and thrilling career of
the American pioneer before the world in striking fashion. There are
phases and epochs of history we should not willingly let die or slip from
memory, among them the struggle and warfare waged against savagery
by the Boones, Carsons and Buffalo Bills of the American continent.
These men formed the opening wedge, clearing the way for the conquest
of peace and civilization, and their history is our chief chronicle
of romance and bravery.

There can be no question of the historical value of this gathering of
remarkable types at the doors
of the international celebration,
comprising as it does the
Red Man of North America,
the Cossack, Tartar, Arab;
representative bodies from the
armies of England, France,
Germany, Italy, Russia and
the United States; the South
American Gaucho, Mexican
Ruralie, the Caballero of the Rio Grande, and that roughest of all
riders, the cowboy of the western plains. No display of gilded Dianas,
huge Ajaxes, winged houris and exultant dragons, can in any wise
compare with these in pertinent and living interest.

When the unique and masterly performance opens on the mighty
stage of natural earth, and the groups of horsemen from all quarters
of the globe are marshaled in glittering and picturesque phalanx, and
Buffalo Bill, one of the most superb figures upon this or any other
field, dashes to the front and salutes the cheering spectators, one cannot
restrain a thrill of admiration
for the free and open life
of the plainsman, and a sigh
and grain of contempt for the
starched and cuffed and convention
bedeviled existence of
the "refined " individual. It
illustrates what man was and
is outside the cramped cog-
wheel life of the slavish commercial
world, and makes one