On
the
morning
of
the
sixteenth
day
out
from
St.
Joseph
we
arrived
at
the
entrance
of
Rocky
Canyon,
two
hundred
and
fifty
miles
from
Salt
Lake.
It
was
along
in
this
wild
country
somewhere,
and
far
from
any
habitation
of
white
men,
except
the
stage
stations,
that
we
came
across
the
wretchedest type
of
mankind
I
have
ever
seen,
up
to
this
writing. I
refer
to
the
Goshoot Indians.
From
what
we
could
see
and
all
we
could
learn,
they
are
very
considerably inferior
to
even
the
despised
Digger Indians
of
California; inferior
to
all
races
of
savages
on
our
continent; inferior
to
even
the
Terra
del Fuegans; inferior
to
the
Hottentots,
and
actually inferior
in
some
respects
to
the
Kytches
of
Africa. Indeed, I
have
been obliged
to
look
the
bulky
volumes
of
Wood's "Uncivilized
Races
of
Men" clear
through
in
order
to
find a savage
tribe
degraded
enough
to
take
rank
with
the
Goshoots. I find
but
one
people
fairly
open
to
that
shameful
verdict.
It
is
the
Bosjesmans (Bushmen)
of
South
Africa.
Such
of
the
Goshoots
as
we
saw,
along
the
road
and
hanging
about
the
stations,
were
small, lean, "scrawny" creatures;
in
complexion
a
dull
black
like
the
ordinary
American negro;
their
faces
and
hands
bearing
dirt
which
they
had been
hoarding
and
accumulating
for
months, years,
and
even
generations, according
to
the
age
of
the
proprietor; a silent, sneaking,
treacherous
looking
race;
taking
note
of
everything, covertly,
like
all
the
other
"Noble
Red
Men"
that
we
(do not) read about,
and
betraying
no
sign
in
their
countenances; indolent, everlastingly
patient
and
tireless,
like
all
other
Indians; prideless beggars—for
if
the
beggar
instinct
were
left
out
of
an
Indian
he
would
not
"go,"
any
more
than
a clock
without
a pendulum; hungry,
always
hungry,
and
yet
never
refusing
anything
that
a
hog
would
eat,
though
often
eating
what
a
hog
would
decline; hunters,
but
having
no
higher
ambition
than
to
kill
and
eat
jack-ass rabbits,
crickets
and
grasshoppers,
and
embezzle
carrion
from
the
buzzards
and
cayotes; savages who,
when
asked
if
they
have
the
common
Indian
belief
in
a
Great
Spirit
show
a
something
which
almost
amounts
to
emotion,
thinking
whiskey
is
referred
to; a thin, scattering
race
of
almost
naked
black
children,
these
Goshoots are,
who
produce
nothing
at
all,
and
have
no
villages,
and
no
gatherings
together
into
strictly
defined
tribal
communities—a
people
whose
only
shelter
is
a
rag
cast
on
a bush
to
keep
off
a
portion
of
the
snow,
and
yet
who
inhabit
one
of
the
most
rocky, wintry,
repulsive
wastes
that
our
country
or
any
other
can
exhibit.
The
Bushmen
and
our
Goshoots
are
manifestly
descended
from
the
self-same gorilla,
or
kangaroo,
or
Norway
rat, which-ever animal—Adam
the
Darwinians
trace
them
to.
One
would
as
soon
expect
the
rabbits
to
fight
as
the
Goshoots,
and
yet
they
used
to
live
off
the
offal
and
refuse
of
the
stations
a
few
months
and
then
come
some
dark
night
when
no
mischief
was
expected,
and
burn
down
the
buildings
and
kill
the
men
from
ambush
as
they
rushed
out.
And
once,
in
the
night,
they
attacked
the
stage-coach
when
a
District
Judge,
of
Nevada
Territory,
was
the
only
passenger,
and
with
their
first
volley
of
arrows
(and a
bullet
or
two)
they
riddled
the
stage
curtains,
wounded
a
horse
or
two
and
mortally
wounded
the
driver.
The
latter
was
full
of
pluck,
and
so
was
his
passenger.
At
the
driver's
call
Judge
Mott swung
himself
out,
clambered
to
the
box
and
seized
the
reins
of
the
team,
and
away
they
plunged,
through
the
racing mob
of
skeletons
and
under
a hurtling
storm
of
missiles.
The
stricken driver had sunk
down
on
the
boot
as
soon
as
he
was
wounded,
but
had
held
on
to
the
reins
and
said
he
would
manage
to
keep
hold
of
them
until
relieved.
And
after
they
were
taken
from
his
relaxing
grasp,
he
lay
with
his
head
between
Judge
Mott's feet,
and
tranquilly
gave directions
about
the
road;
he
said
he
believed
he
could
live
till
the
miscreants
were
outrun
and
left behind,
and
that
if
he
managed
that,
the
main
difficulty
would
be
at
an
end,
and
then
if
the
Judge
drove
so
and
so
(giving directions
about
bad
places
in
the
road,
and
general
course)
he
would
reach
the
next
station
without
trouble.
The
Judge
distanced
the
enemy
and
at
last
rattled
up
to
the
station
and
knew
that
the
night's
perils
were
done;
but
there
was
no
comrade-in-arms
for
him
to
rejoice
with,
for
the
soldierly driver
was
dead.
Let
us
forget
that
we
have
been
saying
harsh
things
about
the
Overland drivers, now.
The
disgust
which
the
Goshoots gave me, a
disciple
of
Cooper
and
a worshipper
of
the
Red
Man—even
of
the
scholarly savages
in
the
"Last
of
the
Mohicans"
who
are
fittingly associated
with
backwoodsmen
who
divide
each
sentence
into
two
equal parts:
one
part
critically
grammatical, refined
and
choice
of
language,
and
the
other
part
just
such
an
attempt
to
talk
like
a
hunter
or
a mountaineer,
as
a Broadway clerk
might
make
after
eating
an
edition
of
Emerson Bennett's
works
and
studying
frontier
life
at
the
Bowery
Theatre
a
couple
of
weeks—I
say
that
the
nausea
which
the
Goshoots gave me,
an
Indian worshipper,
set
me
to
examining
authorities,
to
see
if
perchance
I had been over-estimating
the
Red
Man
while
viewing
him
through
the
mellow moonshine
of
romance.
The
revelations
that
came
were
disenchanting.
It
was
curious
to
see
how
quickly
the
paint
and
tinsel
fell
away
from
him
and
left
him
treacherous, filthy
and
repulsive—and
how
quickly
the
evidences accumulated
that
wherever
one
finds
an
Indian
tribe
he
has
only
found Goshoots
more
or
less
modified
by
circumstances
and
surroundings—but Goshoots,
after
all.
They
deserve
pity,
poor
creatures;
and
they
can
have
mine—at
this
distance.
Nearer
by,
they
never
get
anybody's.
There
is
an
impression
abroad
that
the
Baltimore
and
Washington
Railroad
Company
and
many
of
its
employees
are
Goshoots;
but
it
is
an
error.
There
is
only
a
plausible
resemblance, which,
while
it
is
apt
enough
to
mislead
the
ignorant, cannot
deceive
parties
who
have
contemplated
both
tribes.
But
seriously,
it
was
not
only
poor
wit,
but
very
wrong
to
start
the
report
referred
to
above;
for
however
innocent
the
motive
may
have
been,
the
necessary
effect
was
to
injure
the
reputation
of
a
class
who
have
a
hard
enough
time
of
it
in
the
pitiless
deserts
of
the
Rocky
Mountains,
Heaven
knows!
If
we
cannot find
it
in
our
hearts
to
give
those
poor
naked
creatures
our
Christian
sympathy
and
compassion,
in
God's
name
let
us
at
least
not
throw
mud
at
them.