EBOOK, THE OLD SANTA FE TRAIL ***
Etext Edition edited by MICHAEL S. OVERTON
THE OLD SANTA FE TRAIL
The Story of a Great Highway
By COLONEL HENRY INMAN
Late Assistant Quartermaster, United States Army
With a Preface by W. F. "BUFFALO BILL" CODY
PREFACE.
As we look into the open fire for our fancies, so we are apt to
study the dim past for the wonderful and sublime, forgetful of the
fact that the present is a constant romance, and that the happenings
of to-day which we count of little importance are sure to startle
somebody in the future, and engage the pen of the historian,
philosopher, and poet.
Accustomed as we are to think of the vast steppes of Russia and
Siberia as alike strange and boundless, and to deal with the unkown
interior of Africa as an impenetrable mystery, we lose sight of a
locality in our own country that once surpassed all these in
virgin grandeur, in majestic solitude, and in all the attributes
of a tremendous wilderness.
The story of the Old Santa Fe Trail, so truthfully recalled by
Colonel Henry Inman, ex-officer of the old Regular Army, in these pages,
is a most thrilling one. The vast area through which the famous
highway ran is still imperfectly known to most people as "The West";
a designation once appropriate, but hardly applicable now; for in
these days of easy communication the real trail region is not
so far removed from New York as Buffalo was seventy years ago.
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