r, visiting practically every important city in the country.

For my grand entrance I made a spectacle which comprised the most
picturesque features of Western life. Sioux, Arapahoes, Brules, and
Cheyennes in war-paint and feathers led the van, shrieking their
war-whoops and waving the weapons with which they were armed in a
manner to inspire both terror and admiration in the tenderfoot
audience.

Next came cowboys and soldiers, all clad exactly as they were when
engaged in their campaigns against the Indians, and lumbering along in
the rear were the old stage-coaches which carried the settlers to the
West in the days before the railroad made the journey easy and
pleasant.

I am sure the people enjoyed this spectacle, for they flocked in crowds
to see it. I know I enjoyed it. There was never a day when, looking
back over the red and white men in my cavalcade, I did not know the
thrill of the trail, and feel a little sorry that my Western adventures
would thereafter have to be lived in spectacles.

Without desiring to dim the glory of any individual I can truthfully
state that the expression "rough riders," which afterward became so
famous, was my own coinage. As I rode out at the front of my parade I
would bow to the audience, circled about on the circus benches, and
shout at the top of my voice:

"Ladies and gentlemen, permit me to introduce you to the rough riders
of the world!"

For three years we toured the United States with great success. One day
an Englishman, whose name I never learned, came to see me after the
show.

"That is a wonderful performance," he told me. "Here in America it
meets with great appreciation, but you have no idea what a sensation it
would be in the Old World, where such things are unheard of."

That set me to thinking. In a few days, after spending hours together
considering the matter, I had made up my mind that Europe should have
an opportunity to study America as nearly at first-hand as possible
through the medium of my entertainment.

Details were soon arranged. In March, 1886, I chartered the steamer
_State of Nebraska_, loaded my Indians, cowboys, horses, and
stage-coaches on board, and set sail for another continent.

It was a strange voyage. The Indians had never been to sea before, and
had never dreamed that such an expanse of water existed on the planet.
They would stand at the rail, after the first days of seasickness were
over, gazing out across the waves, and tryin