ON THE ARKANSAS, Oct. 10.

    There were but few hours left of September when I departed from Chicago, en route for this point. They were consumed on the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad, and October greeted me at Quincy. Nothing and nobody else did. The citizens had suddenly become independent, and the omnibus drivers at the depot sat indifferent on their seats, saying little and very careless whether people went in their conveyances or not. One might say much of the discomforts of a Quincy hotel; of the two chairs in a barroom, which are supposed to be equivalent to a bed; and of the prices of bread or pie, which represent dinner; and many people in Illinois would own the picture true; but the fair is over, and it is generous to forgive, even if one cannot forget.

    To go from Quincy to St. Joseph requires patience, much charity and fourteen hours. The conversation among the inmates of the smoking car, to which the lack of brass or a female companion drives men, was not of a very high-toned character. It related only to land and to women. The nature of the anecdotes which were related was very animal and were mainly such as were current in New England grocery stores fifteen years ago.
    A night and a morning at St. Joseph were not unprofitably spent. The Saunders House still receives guests, and refreshing slumber can be obtained there. The town itself is, in many respects, noticeable. Streets have been cut through the ridge which intersects the place, and the result is earth walls, perpendicular and twenty feet high, which, when faced with masonry, give a very military, fortified appearance. Gloomy houses lower down upon one, perched on the verge of beetling cliffs, like robber castles on the banks of the Rhine. But instead of mailed chieftains, who descend on merchant trains, there dwell there pacific people, who do business down town and prefer to make slower and more legitimate profits. The true representatives of the warrior chiefs are, at present, dwelling on the plains that stretch southward from the Platte to the Arkansas. One point of difference, however, is that they torment their prisoners--not to force a disclosure of hidden wealth--but simply for their own entertainment and the amusement of their children.
    But that does not relate to St. Joseph, a town which spreads over much ground, which does considerable business and which has the best market west of Chicago, which has none. I went there after breakfast; it is the place to study the habits and tastes of people and their wives. The country people who had brought in produce remained perfectly quiet. There was not a loud word, not an attempt to attract the attention of passers by. One man, while languidly discussing with a customer the price of a peck of beets, turned aside, purchased the last New York Ledger, and seated himself on a mammoth cabbage, where he remained until he had ascertained the fate of the Heroine, when he returned to his beets. This devotion to literature in its ten cent forms is pleasant.

    The Missouri Valley Railroad runs from St. Joseph to East Leavenworth, a place consisting of a depot, two store-houses, a few shanties and an unfinished hotel. A ferry boat takes the passengers to the other bank and to Leavenworth itself. At this point there was a halt. The kegs of whiskey, and the other articles which composed the outfit, had to be brought together in readiness for transportation to the front. The Leavenworth papers did not enter heartily into co-operation with the Commission, and triflingly spoke of its members as High Priests of the Full Moon, and Olive Plants of the Prairie. All the people whom I and my idler companion, the representative of an Eastern paper, met there, contrived, with great success, to unite in one and the same speeches the warmest hopes for our safety and the most earnest assurances that we would inevitably be converted into trophies.
    And the representative of the Eastern paper mused for a space, and then said: "We must drink up that whiskey before we get to Medicine Lodge Creek. I am indolent, but I will make an effort."
    The kind friends in Leavenworth suggested the propriety of disposing of the liquor then and there, in order, as they said, to preclude the possibility of the red men getting it. Their hatred for the red men would have driven them to the immediate liquidation of five gallons of regal bourbon.

    On Monday morning early we left Leavenworth and the sympathizing friends, as well as our pampered menial, even Nicodemus, whose remarkable inefficiency at North Platte, whose outrageousness elsewhere, and whose tendency to borrow from all parties on his employers' credit, had made him obnoxious to said impoverished employers.
    By ten o'clock we arrived at Lawrence, and there found the train from Wyandotte with a majority of the members of the Commission; and if we fell upon their necks and wept for joy, was it strange? We missed--ah! how we missed!--the pleasant face and outstretched hand of the Lieutenant General. We had not the privilege of falling on that beloved neck. We moved on from Lawrence, famous for its raid, up the Valley of the Kaw, and then up the Smoky Hill Fork. These bottoms are far more attractive than those of the Platte. There is far more timber than is found on the northern stream; but apart from that the general appearance of the land is much the same. We took supper at Salma, at the place where the bell rang and not the gong, this being virtuous. The gong-smiter--a "foul Gongorian wight," as Ancient Pistoll calls all such--observed that it was a "d----d unprofitable outfit," and put up the shutters. The bell ringer was a compound of a strict Republican and a negro hater, and when a colored servant attempted to sit down to eat shoved him out, remarking in an incidental way, that no d----d nigger should eat there--no, not even Andy Johnson.

    At 10 o'clock we reached Fort Harker, and got out in the darkness, which was illumined by the jocular face of Jack Howland, artist, &c. Those who read Harper's know Jack, whose only fault is that he drinks neither before nor after meals. But notwithstanding the cheerful presence of the artist, the scene was not agreeable, since it was impossible to see where we were to sleep, unless we enjoyed the sweet restorer out on the prairie. But at last we bundled into ambulances and drove across the crest of the hill and came upon the fort. I found myself and my plunder ignominiously dumped out in the open air. But there being some empty tents near by, I pre-empted one, and made up a bed, which is equivalent to putting up a rail fence and breaking an acre of land.
    The various members of the party scattered themselves in all directions. The band was routed out, arranged in front of headquarters, and induced to play a variety of cheerful tunes, "smoothing the raven down of darkness till it smiled." The lights, which glimmered in various parts of the camp, went out one by one; but
    Though the many lights dwindle to one light,
    There is help if the heavens have one."
And so, by the aid of the crescent moon, we made our way back through tents of troops white and troops black, through teams and guns, to the hospital tents, where we were expected to dream the night away. With robes and blankets, we made our beds and went to sleep, to waken early, to take a miscellaneous wash in a common pail, and roam out after breakfast. Passing along between the various buildings, officers' quarters, storehouses, etc., I came to the place where my friend Combs "kept a shebang." Despite the bad company in which we came, to-wit, the Indian Commissioners, he received us hospitably. We were attended to by a waiter with pistols and a bowie knife strapped to his body, and then he declined to receive pay therefor.
    Fort Harker being the depot whence government freight is transhipped up the Smoky Hill Fork, as well as to Larned and Santa Fe, is quite an extensive post. Several companies of cavalry and colored infantry were stationed there. The post is commanded by Alfred Gibbs, Major of the Seventh Cavalry and Brevet Major General, and is one which it is really beyond his capacity to command. The station on the road just beyond Harker and four miles distant, is Ellsworth, a place which has, until within a few days, held out as many inducements to the Home Missionary Society as Julesburg. The task has been partially taken out of the hands of that excellent body, by the Vigilants, who hung a couple of people of whom they thought poorly, and left them suspended with placards stating that it should be a warning to all such.

    It had been the intention to leave the fort early in the morning, but the delays were so numerous that it was eleven o'clock before the outfit started. In front went a couple of companies of the Seventh Cavalry, commanded by Major Elliott, followed by the ambulances containing the Commissioners and their attaches, while the rear was brought up by the wagons containing tents and baggage and one colored soldier detailed for fatigue duty. We had but passed over a mile of prairie when we reached the Smoky Hill Fork, a narrow, shallow stream, flowing over a sandy bottom. Within three hundred yards of the fork the train stopped and the tents were laboriously pitched under artistical supervision. It was no easy task. The wind was blowing furiously, and the large hospital tents, when an attempt was made to pitch them, caught the wind and swelled out like a balloon or a Brevet Major General. Naturally, the first one was for the cook, and that worthy tried his 'prentice hand in cooking on the plains. But it was soon discovered that some such essential articles as coffee mills, nutmeg graters, &c., had been left at North Platte. As a part of the press outfit had likewise come to grief, I went over with Howland, of the buckskin suit, and the sutler's stock of tin cups, dishes, knives, forks and spoons was called into requisition.
    We returned to find all the tents pitched, including the wedge tents of the cavalry. The cook stove was in full blast, but dinner there was none. The Commissioners and General Harney sat in a pensive row, eating cake, drinking ale and meditating upon the possibilities of substantial food. Good news had come in, however. Colonel Murphy's letter had been received, stating that he had succeeded in inducing a large number of Indians to come in, even from recently hostile bands. So each member said to the other, "I told you so." Governor Crawford, of Kansas, joined the party and accompanies it to the front. He does not breathe all peace, but favors hostilities which will require the enlistment of ten thousand Kansas troops. He has much to say of the rascality of Indian agents, and more of the rascality of Indians. To him the life of one male inhabitant of Ellsworth is worth more than the lives of all the aborigines that ever lived in North America, including those who tolerated and protected white men 260 years ago.
    The wind blew on and the preparations continued until night came, and with it dinner. The first, it was also the worst, and was eaten recklessly, since no one had partaken meat since early morning.
    One large tent had been assigned to the correspondents, five of whom were present. They tumbled in, wrapped up in wealth of issued blankets. But to the five were added straightway four others. One person had become intoxicated, as was then supposed, from overly much liquor, but, as he stated on the morrow, from excessive abstinence from food. He suddenly developed an intense admiration for "Grissom," who was the most eloquent writer in ----.
    "Did the Eastern rep. man know Grissom?"
    "Did the Chicago one know him?"
    "No."
    He was then and there entreated to state who "Grissom" was, but declined. One who did not know "Grissom" was not fit to know him.
    On the morrow the Itemizer was questioned concerning his friend, but returned simply the evasive answer of "d--n it."
    The Commissioners were ensconsced each one in his A tent, with the exception of General Sibley, who carried his own Sibley, with a special stove of his own personal devising. The Commissioners shivered. Inside the press tent all were warm, but restless. There were loud words and bursts of song, and the war cry of "Says the old Obadiah to the young Obadiah," floated out upon the prairie breezes, and was borne far northward to where the vigilant commander of Fort Harker slept his dreamless sleep.
    But that press tent was invaded like that of the Turk, name unknown, who was surprised by that guerilla Bozzaris. In rushed the two newspaper whisperers, the big B. and the little B., who had come upon the Tuesday train. We had not seen them since the parting in Chicago last month. So there were "hows" in profusion, interrupted by the arrival of the Secretary fresh from Washington, who burst in with a "Curse it all, boys, but its d----d hard lines. Here I am, left at a depot made out of a broken down car, and asked to pack a chest weighing 150 pounds. Boys, it has twelve bottles of whiskey in it." Cheers, and a blessing asked for his grandmother.
    "But it's all broken."
    Groans, and disparaging remarks about the Secretary and his female relative.
    Then the Secretary roamed around among the tents on a hunt after the members of the commission, but they had heard his statement about the loss of the liquor, knew his anger was great, and declined to respond, shivering with cold as they declined. So he returned to our tent, where young-eyed virtue had nestled and slipped in between the artist and me, and was heard of no more, except in the middle of the night, when some one took his head for a pillow.
    The Secretary woke up and murmured something about its being hard lines. Public opinion was with him.
    Still later the Itemizer awoke from his slumbers, went to the door of the tent, said "It is a grand night, I wish Grissom was here to write it up;" drank up half a pail of water, thus compelling half the outfit to go with unwashed faces the next morning, and went to sleep again.

    The raw, chilly, frosty morning came. A breakfast was cooked and hurriedly eaten. Strong coffee was gulped and the outfit started, but not before Senator Ross had come across and joined us. Then we moved on across a woodless prairie, along the beaten track, pursuing the order adopted on the previous day. About eleven o'clock we came to Cow Creek, where there is an excellent spring, and where a halt was made to lunch. The first one, made before the baggage wagon came up, was made up of water in tin cups, water in tumblers, water in flasks, and cheese. But when the cook did appear, ham and tongue and champagne filled us. Again we started and at an early hour in the afternoon reached Plum Creek, at twenty-seven miles from the Smoky Hill. The tents were pitched on the sward, covered with the short buffalo grass.
    The buffalo themselves had not made their appearance, though they had been solemnly promised. The only romantic substitute had been the moaning of the coyotes around the first camp, some antelopes seen on Wednesday, and the prairie dogs inhabiting some villages which we passed through on that day.
    The dinner was a great improvement, and was perfectly satisfactory. After that we went to a quieter bed, having first played seven-up to see who should draw the water. It was very still, and we started to-day in a good season. It was hot, dusty, disagreeable. Some of the members of the commission, who had on the previous day ridden, kept, to a great extent, in their ambulances. We took our nooning on Walnut Creek, half a mile from Fort Zarah, a fort where forty men are stationed under a Lieutenant. The ranche and the fort are much alike, built of adobe. Long before night came, we saw the trees that fringed the Arkansas, and in the afternoon came up to the wide sandy bed of the stream. Here arose an excitement. We were told that the buffalo were in sight.

Source:

Unknown, "The Indian Commission; Its Journey to, and Arrival at, Fort Harker," Chicago Tribune, Chicago, Illinois, Saturday, 19 October, 1867, Page 2.