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LIVING AMERICAN ARTISTS 607

In the spring of the following year he made his first artistic tour across the Plains, with the Pacific Wagon-Road Expedition under General Lander. During this trip the party encountered much danger and exposure, and it might be assumed that the artist's love of adventure had somewhat cooled by the time they had reached the base of the Rocky Mountains. And so it had, in a measure. Yet he decided to make the journey back under even less favorable auspices, and came East with two companions only. 

This return trip was fraught with much greater risk to life and limb than the outward one, for it lay through forests and over mountains inhabited only by the Indian. For a great portion of the time, we are told, the party had to depend on game for food, and were often without water for days together. They all reached home safe, however, and Bierstadt, at least profited materially by the journey. "The Rocky Mountains" and " Laramie Peak," two pictures, the painting of which established his position firmly, were the immediate results of this adventure.

Ordinary appetites would have been quite satisfied, doubtless, with this one experience of the Rocky Mountains, But not so that of Bierstadt, for again, in 1863, he set out on a journey which gave promise of five-fold perils and privations. This time he visited Salt Lake City, crossed the Humboldt mountains to Virginia City, and the Sierra Nevadas to San Francisco; thence, after a short stay he passed on to the Yosemite, where he spent seven weeks, devoted, in the main, to making studies and sketches of its wonders of valley and mountain.

With a full portfolio he returned to Sacramento, whence he proceeded to Tehama by steamboat. Here he and his companions landed and took horse for Shasta Peak – that wonderful extinct volcano, as picturesque as it is wonderful. Remaining but a short time, the party set out for Oregon. On their way there, unfortunately, one of them fell ill, and they were compelled to seek shelter and rest for him in the cabin of a backwoodsman, where the party remained long enough to enable the sick man to regain strength. Here Bierstadt's kindliness of heart was manifested in his patient waiting by the side of his suffering companion, who afterwards wrote home of the solicitude of the artist in the most grateful terms.

This experience over, Bierstadt went to Portland, thence to Willamette, up the Columbia, and over Fort Vancouver to Dallas, where he sketched Mount Hood, and made studies in color of details of the country round about. Then back to Portland again, which he soon left for San Francisco, whence he returned home after a brief stay.

The experiences of this sketching tour could not be told, had I every page of this number at my service; but remembering how much more difficult it was eight years ago than it is now is – whilst it is still no trifling matter – to make long journeys through the Western wilderness, and considering how many thousand of miles were conquered in pioneer fashion, a quick imagination will supply its owner with some idea of the dangers and fatigues encountered and overcome by this heroic hungerer after knowledge, this seeker of the sublime in nature in her most secret places – on mountains, the virgin snow of whose cloud o'er-topping summits had never, since the creation's dawn, been pressed by foot of man before; in valleys still close-clad in the primeval raiment, and echoing, for the first time, the white man's voice and footstep.

The fruits of this journey were manifold, for it not only provided the artist with material for many years of work but it quickened the general interest in him and in his labors.

After his return from the West this time, Bierstadt painted industriously and profitably in New York for three years, his larger works bringing very high prices. In 1866 he moved to Irvington, on the Hudson, where he had built himself a home with a studio attached to it. Here he continued his work uninterruptedly until June of the following year, when he left for Europe to make studies for two painting, commissioned by the Government, and to be placed in the Capitol at Washington. The subject suggested for one of these was the discovery of the Hudson River by Hendrick Hudson.

During this absence he spent most of his time in London, but found leisure to make a flying visit to Italy, where he made sketches for and painted his large picture of "Vesuvius in Eruption," exhibited after his return at the gallery of G. P. Putnam.

In 1868, Bierstadt's sight began to fail him somewhat, and it became imperative that he should have rest. This he took for a short time, during which his eyes recovered their strength, and his health generally improved. 

During these years, since his return from the West in 1863 until the present date, the records show that he has painted the following important and well-known pictures: "Sunset in California," now in the possession of Miss E. Bierstadt; "Storm in the Rocky Mountains,"