hness?

I say I wish that some tongue or brush or pen might tell the story of
our people at that time. Once I saw it in part told in color and line,
in a painting done by a master hand, almost one fit to record the
spirit of that day, although it wrought in this instance with another
and yet earlier time. In this old canvas, depicting an early Teutonic
tribal wandering, appeared some scores of human figures, men and women
half savage in their look, clad in skins, with fillets of hide for head
covering; men whose beards were strong and large, whose limbs, wrapped
loose in hides, were strong and large; women, strong and large, who bore
burdens on their backs. Yet in the faces of all these there shone, not
savagery alone, but intelligence and resolution. With them were flocks
and herds and beasts of burden and carts of rude build; and beside these
traveled children. There were young and old men and women, and some were
gaunt and weary, but most were bold and strong. There were weapons for
all, and rude implements, as well, of industry. In the faces of all
there was visible the spirit of their yellow-bearded leader, who made
the center of the picture's foreground.

I saw the soul of that canvas--a splendid resolution--a look forward, a
purpose, an aim to be attained at no counting of cost. I say, as I gazed
at that canvas, I saw in it the columns of my own people moving westward
across the Land, fierce-eyed, fearless, doubting nothing, fearing
nothing. That was the genius of America when I myself was young. I
believe it still to be the spirit of a triumphant democracy, knowing
its own, taking its own, holding its own. They travel yet, the dauntless
figures of that earlier day. Let them not despair. No imaginary line
will ever hold them back, no mandate of any monarch ever can restrain
them.

In our own caravans, now pressing on for the general movement west of
the Missouri, there was material for a hundred canvases like yonder one,
and yet more vast. The world of our great western country was then still
before us. A stern and warlike people was resolved to hold it and
increase it. Of these west-bound I now was one. I felt the joy of that
thought. I was going West!

At this time, the new railroad from Baltimore extended no farther
westward than Cumberland, yet it served to carry one well toward the
Ohio River at Pittsburg; whence, down the Ohio and up the Missouri to
Leavenworth, my journey was to be made by steamboats.