THE ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN BONNEVILLE

Digested from his journal

by Washington Irving


Originally published in 1837




Introductory Notice


WHILE ENGAGED in writing an account of the grand enterprise of Astoria,
it was my practice to seek all kinds of oral information connected with
the subject. Nowhere did I pick up more interesting particulars than at
the table of Mr. John Jacob Astor; who, being the patriarch of the fur
trade in the United States, was accustomed to have at his board various
persons of adventurous turn, some of whom had been engaged in his own
great undertaking; others, on their own account, had made expeditions to
the Rocky Mountains and the waters of the Columbia.

Among these personages, one who peculiarly took my fancy was Captain
Bonneville, of the United States army; who, in a rambling kind of
enterprise, had strangely ingrafted the trapper and hunter upon the
soldier. As his expeditions and adventures will form the leading theme
of the following pages, a few biographical particulars concerning him
may not be unacceptable.