Incidents of a Return Trip from Santa Fé -- Calibre of our Party -- Return Caravans -- Remittances -- Death of Mr. Langham -- Burial in the Desert -- A sudden Attack -- Confusion in the Camp -- A Wolfish Escort -- Scarcity of Buffalo -- Unprofitable Delusion -- Arrival -- Table of Camping Sites and Distances -- Condition of the Town of Independence -- The Mormons -- Their Dishonesty and Immorality -- Their high-handed Measures, and a Rising of the People -- A fatal Skirmish -- A chivalrous Parade of the Citizens -- Expulsion of the Mormons -- The Meteoric Shower, and Superstition, etc. -- Wanderings and Improprieties of the 'Latter-day Saints' -- Gov. Boggs' Recipe -- The City of Nauvoo -- Contemplated Retribution of the Mormons.
I do not propose to detain the reader with an account of my journeyings between Mexico and the United States, during the seven years subsequent to my first arrival at Santa Fé. I will here merely remark, that I crossed the plains to the United States in the falls of 1833 and 1836, and returned to Santa Fé with goods each succeeding spring. It was only in 1838, however, that I eventually closed up my affairs in Northern Mexico, and prepared to take my leave of the country, as I then supposed, forever. But in this I was mistaken, as will appear in the sequel.
The most usual season for the return of the { 306} caravans to the United States is the autumn, and not one has elapsed since the commencement of the trade which has not witnessed some departure from Santa Fé with that destination. They have also crossed occasionally in the spring, but without any regularity or frequency, and generally in very small parties. Even the 'fall companies,' in fact, are small when compared with the outward-bound caravans; for besides the numbers who remain permanently in the country, many of those who trade southward return to the United States _via_ Matamoros or some other Southern port. The return parties of autumn are therefore comparatively small, varying in number from fifty to a hundred [Pg088] men. They leave Santa Fé some four or five weeks after their arrival--generally about the first of September. In these companies there are rarely over thirty or forty wagons; for a large portion of those taken out by the annual caravans are disposed of in the country.