Thirty Years of Army Life on the Border
By , U. S. A. With Numerous Illustrations. New York : Harper and Brothers.
THERE is not much variety in frontier life, it must be confessed, though there is abundant adventure. A family likeness runs through nearly all histories of bear-fights, and one Indian-fight might readily be mistaken for another. So also bear-fighters and Indian-fighters are akin in character, and the pioneers who appear in literature leave a sense of sameness upon the reader’s mind. Nevertheless, one continues to read of them with considerable patience, and likes the stories because he liked their ancestral legends when a boy.
Colonel Marcy’s book offers something more than the usual attractions of the class to which it belongs ; for it contains the history of his own famous passage of the Rocky Mountains in mid-winter, and notices of many frontiersmen of original and striking character (like the immortal Captain Scott), as well as much shrewd observation of Indian nature and other wildbeast nature. All topics are treated with perfect common-sense ; if our soldierly author sometimes philosophizes rather narrowly, he never sentimentalizes, though he is not without poetry ; and he is thoroughly imbued with the importance of his theme. One, therefore, suffers a great deal from him, in the way of unnecessary detail, without a murmur, and now and then willingly accepts an old story from him, charmed by the simplicity and good faith with which he attempts to pass it off as new.
The style of the book is clear and direct, except in those parts where light and humorous narration is required. There it is bad, and seems to have been formed upon the style of the sporting newspapers and the local reporters, with now and then a hint from the witty passages of the circus, as in this colloquy : —
“ ' Mought you be the boss hossifer of that thar army ?'
“ ‘ I am the commanding officer of that detachment, sir.’
“ ‘ Wall, Mr. Hossifer, be them sure ’nuff sogers, or is they only make-believe chaps, like I see down to Orleans ? ’
“ ' They have passed through the Mexican war, and I trust have proved themselves not only worthy of the appellation of real, genuine soldiers, but of veterans, sir.’ ”
And so forth. We like Colonel Mercy when he talks of himself better than when he talks for himself. In the latter case he is often what we see him above, and in the former he is always modest, discreet, and entertaining.