Review by Martha Quillen
History – August 2000 – Colorado Central Magazine –
Mountain Scouting – A Handbook For Officers and Soldiers On the Frontiers
by Edward S. Farrow
Originally published in 1881
Published in 2000 by the University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN 0-8061-3209-4
FROM THE COVER COPY, I figured this book would let me nab two birds with one stone. It would not only serve as a history lesson, but it could also provide some pointers on camping and wilderness survival.
But as a camping manual, Mountain Scouting is more than a trifle outdated. Unless you have some reason to pack enough for a cavalry troop, carry along a howitzer, or build a stockade, there are better how-to books available.
Like many modern outdoor writers, however, Farrow displays a “gearhead” tendency. In his book, he enthusiastically shares information on his favorite rifles, scopes, compasses, saddles, tents, boots, clothing, and accessories.
He also offers detailed instructions on how to shoot, swim, cook, camp, fell trees, set fractures, shoe mules, cache supplies, identify animals, communicate with Indians, and a multitude of other things.
All in all, Farrow’s book offers a cornucopia of practical and impractical advice, strange information, odd facts, and voluminous directions. It includes the Lord’s Prayer in Chinook, offers a complete (19th century) first-aid manual, and teaches the reader how to refer to numerous tribes in sign language. Farrow — quite literally — imparts hundreds of unusual observations. Some examples:
“Avoid raising the arms when driving a horse. He is constantly in fear that they may fly off and strike him.”
“Mules are splendid swimmers, unless by accident they get water in their ears. When this happens they cease to move and drop their ears, and unless gotten out of the water at once will drown.”
“Tobacco may be replaced by either the sumach leaf or red-willow (shongsasha) bark, found along the mountain streams. The bark is roasted and pulverized when it is found to possess most of the narcotic properties of tobacco.”
“Coffee may be very satisfactorily replaced by a decoction of horse mint; and a little gun powder sprinkled on the slightly burnt meat, will impart the taste of a rich salt and pepper seasoning.”
“The Indian and his pony live together, and there seems to be a mutual affection, although the master is unmercifully cruel. He will ride his horse up and down hill until he falls, then force him up and ride again, and when he falls to rise no more, will complacently sit upon him. He can ride any horse twice as far as a white man or Mexican, and can sit gracefully on horseback when he is so drunk that he cannot stand up.”
JUST LIKE THE Boy Scout (or Girl Scout) Handbook, Mountain Scouting — “A Handbook For Officers and __Soldiers On The Frontiers, Profusely Illustrated and Containing Numerous Notes on the Art of Travel, by Edward S. Farrow, U.S. Army, Assistant Instructor of Tactics at the U.S. Military Academy, and Formerly Commanding Indian Scouts in the Department of the Columbia” — offers instructions and diagrams on how to tie knots, start a fire, or pitch a tent.
The notable difference is that Farrow also includes chapters on Indian Character and Skirmishing, and still manages to cram everything into a compact 248 pages (plus an appendix — which includes a Chinook dictionary).
What Mountain Scouting doesn’t offer, however — and what I suspect it never offered — is clear instructions. In explaining virtually anything and everything, Farrow exhibits such a penchant for algebraic equations and geometric formulas that I suspect his convoluted communications must have confounded even a few mathematicians over the years.
Farrow displays a knack for confounding — rather than elucidating — with his instructions (a knack that seems to have caught on with many of our modern technical writers). Yet curiously enough, Farrow’s bizarre instructions contribute a great deal to the charm of this book.
It’s just hard not to like an author who so blithely and matter-of-factly assumes that the reader will soon — with just a few lines of instruction and a little practice — master such things as emergency surgery and negotiating with hostiles.
According to Farrow’s own introduction his book “is not intended for officers who have seen service on the frontier,” but for “the novice, who is so placed that he must depend upon himself in times of emergency.”
Yet Farrow’s instructions are often incredibly cryptic, (as they are when he devotes a scant two paragraphs of directions — plus a mere two diagrams of the finished construction — to building a two-story blockhouse).
Or they are almost comically voluminous (as are the seven pages of instructions on how to build the Farrow portable equipage — a tent he designed).
Or they’re buried entirely in mathematical detail. For example:
“The progressive velocity of fall of the bullet being so much less than its initial velocity, the air resistance opposed to its descent will be inappreciably small in comparison with that in the direction of its motion of translation (the resistances being proportional to the squares of the velocities). Hence, when the bullet would have been at certain points, in vacuo, it will in reality be at points below and in rear of them, by distances increasing from the point of departure (since the resistance of air causes the spaces passed over in equal times to become progressively smaller and smaller), thus causing the trajectory in air to be constantly…”
What makes this book very different from most instruction manuals is Farrow’s friendly optimism. Like the author of The Little Engine That Could,” Farrow presumes his readers can do most anything. And that attitude often makes even the driest and convoluted passages in this book seem both fascinating and humorous.
I was particularly amused by Farrow’s advice on crossing deep ravines, in which he suggests pole vaulting, and offers instructions on how to choose a pole, grasp the pole, position the feet, and twist the body.
Personally, I don’t think I’d go vaulting over any chasms unless I already knew (and had known for a long, long time) how to vault. But I found Farrow’s instructions fascinating none-the-less.
In short, as a usable instruction manual, Mountain Scouting is somewhat lacking.
But as a “quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,” it’s exceptional.
