rst received. The articles written by
me on my return from the trip described in this diary, and published in
Scribner's (now Century) Magazine for May and June, 1871, were regarded
more as the amiable exaggerations of an enthusiastic Munchausen, who is
disposed to tell the whole truth, and as much more as is necessary to
make an undoubted sensation, than as the story of a sober,
matter-of-fact observer who tells what he has seen with his own eyes,
and exaggerates nothing. Dr. Holland, one of the editors of that
magazine, sent to me a number of uncomplimentary criticisms of my
article. One reviewer said: "This Langford must be the champion liar of
the Northwest." Resting for a time under this imputation, I confess to a
feeling of satisfaction in reading from a published letter, written
later in the summer of 1871 from the Upper Geyser basin by a member of
the U.S. Geological Survey, the words: "Langford did not dare tell
one-half of what he saw."

Mr. Charles T. Whitmell, of Cardiff, Wales, a distinguished scholar and
astronomer, who has done much to bring to the notice of our English
brothers the wonders of the Park--which he visited in 1883--in a lecture
delivered before the Cardiff Naturalists' Society on Nov. 12, 1885,
sought to impress upon the minds of his audience the full significance
of the above characterization. He said: "This quite unique description
means a great deal, I can assure you; for Western American lying is not
to be measured by any of our puny European standards of untruthfulness."

But the writings of Wheeler and others, running through a long series of
years and covering an extended range of new discoveries, have vindicated
the truthfulness of the early explorers, and even the stories of Bridger
are not now regarded as exaggerations, and we no longer write for his
epitaph,

Here LIES Bridger.

As I recall the events of this exploration, made thirty-five years ago,
it is a pleasure to bear testimony that there was never a more unselfish
or generous company of men associated for such an expedition; and,
notwithstanding the importance of our discoveries, in the honor of which
each desired to have his just share, there was absolutely neither
jealousy nor ungenerous rivalry, and the various magazine and newspaper
articles first published clearly show how the members of our party were
"In honor preferring one another."

In reviewing my diary, preparatory to its publication, I have
occasionally