After Astoria was lost to the British in 1814 (due to neglect by the American government), John Jacob Astor abandoned further attempts to extend his trading enterprises beyond the Rocky Mountains. [18] After recounting the history of Astoria, Irving turned to the traders that succeeded those failed enterprises. The fur traders and Indians eventually re-established the tremontaine fur trade routes. In describing the "Mountaineers", Irving quotes a Veteran: "There is, perhaps, no class of men on the face of the earth, says Captain Bonneville, who led a life of more continued exertion, peril, and excitement, and who are more enamored of their occupations, than the free trappers of the West". [23] In 1833, Captain Bonneville departed from Fort Osage on the Missouri with 110 mountaineers, into a trackless wilderness....