A Half-Century of Conflict, vol 2 | Page 8

name by
which the Comanches are occasionally known to this day. See Whipple
and Turner, _Reports upon Indian Tribes,_ in _Explorations and
Surveys for the Pacific Railroad,_ (Senate Doc., 1853,1854).]
Bourgmont pitched his tents at a pistol-shot from the Comanche lodges,
whence a crowd of warriors presently came to visit him. They spread
buffalo-robes on the ground, placed upon them the French commander,
his officers, and his young son; then lifted each, with its honored load,
and carried them all, with yells of joy and gratulation, to the lodge of
the Great Chief, where there was a feast of ceremony lasting till
nightfall.
On the next day Bourgmont displayed to his hosts the marvellous store
of gifts he had brought for them--guns, swords, hatchets, kettles,
gunpowder, bullets, red cloth, blue cloth, hand-mirrors, knives, shirts,
awls, scissors, needles, hawks' bells, vermilion, beads, and other
enviable commodities, of the like of which they had never dreamed.
Two hundred savages gathered before the French tents, where
Bourgmont, with the gifts spread on the ground before him, stood with
a French flag in his hand, surrounded by his officers and the Indian
chiefs of his party, and harangued the admiring auditors.
He told them that he had come to bring them a message from the King,
his master, who was the Great Chief of all the nations of the earth, and
whose will it was that the Comanches should live in peace with his

other children,--the Missouris, Osages, Kansas, Otoes, Omahas, and
Pawnees,--with whom they had long been at war; that the chiefs of
these tribes were now present, ready to renounce their old enmities; that
the Comanches should henceforth regard them as friends, share with
them the blessing of alliance and trade with the French, and give to
these last free passage through their country to trade with the Spaniards
of New Mexico. Bourgmont then gave the French flag to the Great
Chief, to be kept forever as a pledge of that day's compact. The chief
took the flag, and promised in behalf of his people to keep peace
inviolate with the Indian children of the King. Then, with unspeakable
delight, he and his tribesmen took and divided the gifts.
The next two days were spent in feasts and rejoicings. "Is it true that
you are men?" asked the Great Chief. "I have heard wonders of the
French, but I never could have believed what I see this day." Then,
taking up a handful of earth, "The Spaniards are like this; but you are
like the sun." And he offered Bourgmont, in case of need, the aid of his
two thousand Comanche warriors. The pleasing manners of his visitors,
and their unparalleled generosity, had completely won his heart.
As the object of the expedition was accomplished, or seemed to be so,
the party set out on their return. A ride of ten days brought them again
to the Missouri; they descended in canoes to Fort Orléans, and sang Te
Deum in honor of the peace. [Footnote: _Relation du Voyage du Sieur
de Bourgmont, Juin-Nov._, 1724, in Margry, VI. 398. Le Page du Pratz,
III. 141.]
No farther discovery in this direction was made for the next fifteen
years. Though the French had explored the Missouri as far as the site of
Fort Clark and the Mandan villages, they were possessed by the
idea--due, perhaps, to Indian reports concerning the great tributary river,
the Yellowstone--that in its upper course the main stream bent so far
southward as to form a waterway to New Mexico, with which it was
the constant desire of the authorities of Louisiana to open trade. A way
thither was at last made known by two brothers named Mallet, who
with six companions went up the Platte to its South Fork, which they
called River of the Padoucas,--a name given it on some maps down to

the middle of this century. They followed the South Fork for some
distance, and then, turning southward and southwestward, crossed the
plains of Colorado. Here the dried dung of the buffalo was their only
fuel; and it has continued to feed the camp-fire of the traveller in this
treeless region within the memory of many now living. They crossed
the upper Arkansas, and apparently the Cimarron, passed Taos, and on
the 22d of July reached Santa Fé, where they spent the winter. On the
1st of May, 1740, they began their return journey, three of them
crossing the plains to the Pawnee villages, and the rest descending the
Arkansas to the Mississippi. [Footnote: _Journal du Voyage des Frères
Mallet, présenté à MM. de Bienville et Salmon_. This narrative is
meagre and confused, but serves to establish the main points. _Copie
du Certificat donné à Santa Fé aux sept [huit] Français par le Général
Hurtado, 24 Juillet, 1739.