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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 chronic tour of romance and bravery.
There can be no question of the historical value of this gathering d 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 can- not 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