I found him quartered
with a worthy brother in arms, a major in the army. Here he was writing
at a table, covered with maps and papers, in the centre of a large
barrack room, fancifully decorated with Indian arms, and trophies, and
war dresses, and the skins of various wild animals, and hung round with
pictures of Indian games and ceremonies, and scenes of war and hunting.
In a word, the captain was beguiling the tediousness of attendance at
court, by an attempt at authorship; and was rewriting and extending his
travelling notes, and making maps of the regions he had explored. As he
sat at the table, in this curious apartment, with his high bald head of
somewhat foreign cast, he reminded me of some of those antique pictures
of authors that I have seen in old Spanish volumes.
The result of his labors was a mass of manuscript, which he subsequently
put at my disposal, to fit it for publication and bring it before
the world. I found it full of interesting details of life among the
mountains, and of the singular castes and races, both white men and red
men, among whom he had sojourned. It bore, too, throughout, the impress
of his character, his bonhommie, his kindliness of spirit, and his
susceptibility to the grand and beautiful.
That manuscript has formed the staple of the following work. I have
occasionally interwoven facts and details, gathered from various
sources, especially from the conversations and journals of some of the
captain's contemporaries, who were actors in the scenes he describes.
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