17th. An event of great interest occurred this day. It was the arrival of Paul Richardson and three of his companions from Fort Hall. This old Yankee woodsman had been upon one of his favourite summer trips from St. Louis to the borders of Oregon. He had acted as guide and hunter to a party of missionaries to the Oregon Indians. {49} Several other persons from the western states had accompanied them: one with the lofty intention of conquering California; and others with the intention of trading, farming, &c., on the lower Columbia; and others to explore the Rocky Mountains, and the wonders of nature along the shores of the Pacific.[164] The events of their tour were freely discussed. They had storms of hail and human wrath. The conqueror of California had been disposed to act the general before he had received his epaulettes; had proved to be so troublesome that he was expelled from camp a short distance from the frontier, and obliged to ride, sleep, and eat, at a comfortable distance from his companions, during the remainder of the journey.

The missionaries, too, Messrs. Monger and Griffith,[165] and their ladies, had had causes of irritability; so that between all the conflicting feelings and opinions of the party, their little camp, it was said, was frequently full of trouble. Oregon also came under discussion. Mr. Richardson had travelled over the territory; knew it well; it was not so productive as New England; fifteen bushels of wheat to the acre was an extraordinary crop; corn and {50} potatoes did not yield the seed planted; rain fell incessantly five months of the year; the remainder was unblessed even with dew; the Indians and whites residing there had the fever and ague, or bilious fever, the year through; that what little of human life was left by these causes of destruction, was consumed by musquitoes and fleas; that the Columbia river was unfit for navigation—fit only for an Indian fish-pond. Such a description of Oregon (the part of the American domain represented by traders, trappers, and travellers, as most delightful, beautiful, and productive) was astonishing, unlooked-for, and discouraging. And did I not recollect that Mr. Richardson had reasons for desiring to increase the strength of his party through the dangerous plains towards the States, I should, after having seen Oregon, be at a loss to divine the purpose of such a representation of it.

18th. Mr. Richardson's description of Oregon had the effect of drawing off two of my companions. They had no evidence to oppose to his account; he had resided two years in the Territory, and on the knowledge acquired by that means, had represented it to be in no sense a desirable place of abode. They therefore forsook the chase after a {51} desert, and joined him for the green glades of the valley States. On the morning of the 18th, they left me. It was the most disheartening event which had befallen me on the journey. Oakley and Wood had stood by me in the trials and storms of the plains; had evinced a firmness of purpose equal to every emergency that had occurred, were men on whom reliance could be placed; humane men, always ready to do their duty promptly and cheerfully. It was painful therefore to part with them at a time when their services were most needed. Alone in the heart of the Rocky Mountains, a traveller through the range of the Blackfeet war parties, in bad health, no men save poor old Blair, and the worse than useless vagabond Smith, alias Carroll, to aid me in resisting these savages: I felt alone.

I was indeed kindly offered quarters for the winter at Brown's Hole; but if I accepted them, I should find it impossible to return to the States the next year. I determined therefore to reach the Columbia river that season, be the risk and manner what it might. Accordingly I engaged a Snake Indian, whom the whites called "Jim," to pilot me to Fort Hall, the march to commence on the morning of the 19th—distance two {52} hundred miles, compensation fifty loads of ammunition, and three bunches of beads.

There is in this valley, and in some other parts of the mountains, a fruit called bulberry.[166] It is the most delightful acid in the vegetable kingdom; of the size of the common red currant, with larger seeds than are found in that fruit; colour deep red. It grows upon bushes eight or ten feet high, which in general appearance resemble a young beech tree. Of these berries I obtained a small quantity, had a dog butchered, took a pound or two of dried buffalo meat which Mr. St. Clair kindly gave me, purchased a horse of Mr. Robinson for the use of Blair, and on the morning of the 19th of August left the hospitalities of Fort David Crockett for the dreary waste and starving plains between it and Fort Hall. Blair, Smith, and my guide Jim, constituted my whole force. Numerous war-parties of Blackfeet and Sioux were hovering over my trail. If discovered by them, death was certain; if not, and starvation did not assail us, we might reach the waters of Snake river. At all events the trial was to be made; and at ten o'clock, A. M., we were winding our way up the Sheetskadee.

Of the regrets at leaving this beautiful {53} little valley, there was no one that I remember more vividly than that of parting with my old guide. Kelly was a man of many excellent qualities. He was brave without ostentation, kind without making you feel an obligation; and preferred on all occasions the happiness of others to his own ease or safety. The river during the twelve miles' travel of the day, appeared to be about one hundred yards wide, a rapid current two feet deep, water limpid. The mountains on either side rose half a mile from the river in dark stratified masses, one thousand feet above the level of the stream. On their sides were a few shrub cedars. The lower hills were covered with the hated wild wormwood and prickly pear. The banks were of white clay, alternated with the loose light coloured sandy soil of the mountain districts. The rocks were quartz, red sand-stone, and limestone. Our camp was pitched at night on the high bank of the stream among the bushes; and a supper of stewed dog-meat prepared us for sleep.

20th. At seven o'clock in the morning we had breakfasted and were on our way. We travelled three miles up the east bank of the river, and came to a mountain, through which it broke its way with a noise which indicated the fall to be great, and the {54} channel to be a deep rugged chasm.[167] Near the place where it leaves the chasm, we turned to the right, and followed up a rough, deep gorge, the distance of five miles, and emerged into a plain. This gorge had been formed by the action of a tributary of Green River, upon the soft red sand-stone that formed the precipices around. It winds in the distance of five miles to every point of the compass. Along much of its course also the cliffs hang over the stream in such a manner as to render it impossible to travel the water-side. Hence the necessity, in ascending the gorge, of clambering over immense precipices, along brinks of yawning caverns, on paths twelve or fourteen inches in width, with not a bush to cling to in the event of a false step. And yet our Indian horses were so well used to passes of the kind, that they travelled them without fear or accident till the worst were behind us.

How delusive the past as a test of the future! I was felicitating myself upon our good fortune, as the caravan wound its way slowly over a sharp cliff before me, when the shout from the men in advance, "Well done, Puebla," made me hasten to the top of the ridge. My Puebla mare had left the track. Instead of following a wide, {55} well-beaten way down the mountain, she in her wisdom had chosen to tread the shelf of a cliff, which, wide at the place where it sprang from the pathway, gradually became narrower, till it was lost in the perpendicular face of the mountain. She was under a high bulky back at the time, and before she had quite explored the nethermost inch of the interesting stratum which she was disposed to trace to its lowest dip, the centre of gravity was suddenly thrown without the base, and over she reeled, and fell ten or twelve feet among broken rocks, then rolled and tumbled six hundred feet more of short perpendicular descents and inclined plains, into the stream below. On descending and examining her, I found her horribly mangled, the blood running from the nostrils, ears, and other parts of the body. As it was apparent she would soon die, I stripped her of her packs and gear, drove her to a plat of grass where she could find food, should she need it, and left her to her fate.

This accident being disposed of, we emerged from this gorge, travelled over barren gravelly plains, dotted with pyramidal hills of the same material, whose {56} sides were belted with strata of coarse grey sand-stone. About four o'clock P. M., Jim halted beside a little brook, and pointing ahead, said, "Wat, ugh, u—gh;" by which I understood that the next water on our way was too far distant to be reached that night; and we encamped. The scenery to the west was very beautiful. A hundred rods from our camp, in that direction, rose an apparently perfect pyramid of regular stratified black rocks, about six hundred feet in height, with a basilar diameter of about eight hundred feet, and partially covered with bushes. Beyond it, some five hundred yards, crept away a circling ridge of the same kind of rocks, leaving a beautiful lawn between. And still beyond, sixty miles to the south-west, through a break in the hills that lay in clusters over the intervening country, a portion of the Anahuac range was seen, sweeping away in the direction of the Great Salt Lake.

Jim had turned his horse loose as soon as he saw we were disposed to encamp according to his wishes, and was away with his rifle to the hills. In an instant he was on their heights, creeping stealthily among the bushes and rocks; and the crack of {57} his rifle, and the tumbling of some kind of game over the cliffs, immediately succeeded. More nimble and sure of step than the mountain goat, he sprang down again from cliff to cliff, reached the plain, and the next moment was in camp, crying "hos, ugh, yes." I sent my horse and brought in his game; a noble buck antelope, of about forty pounds weight. In consequence of this windfall, our dog meat was thrown among the willows for the behoof of the wolves. My guide, poor fellow, had eaten nothing since we left the Fort. His tribe have a superstition of some kind which forbids them the use of such meat. A dog-eater is a term of reproach among them. If one of their number incurs the displeasure of another, he is called "Arrapahoe," the name of the tribe previously described, who fatten these animals for some great annual feast. Jim's creed, however, raised no objections to the flesh of the antelope. He ate enormously, washed himself neatly, combed his long dark hair, pulled out his beard with his right thumb and left forefinger nails, and "turned in."

21st. Twenty miles to-day. The ride of the forenoon was over plains and hills of coarse gravel, destitute of grass, timber, {58} or brush, the everywhere present wild wormwood excepted; that of the afternoon was among broken hills, alternately of gravel and brown sand, here and there dotted with a tuft of bunch grass. From some few of the hills protruded strata of beautiful slate. The bottom lands of the river, even, were as barren as Sahara. The only living things seen, were the small prairie wolf, and flocks of magpie. This bird inhabits the most dreary portions of the mountains, and seems to delight in making the parched and silent deserts more lonely by its ominous croak of welcome to its desolate habitation.

The raven indeed was about us, throwing his funeral wing upon the light of the setting sun. In fine, to-day, as often before, I found nothing in nature from which to derive a single pulse of pleasure, save the vastness of desolate wastes, the tombs of the washing of the flood! Towards night, however, we were gratified by finding a few decrepid old cotton-wood trees, on the bank of the Sheetskadee, among which to encamp. Our horses having had little food for the last forty-eight hours, devoured with eager appetite the dry grass along the banks. Since {59} leaving Brown's Hole, our course had been nearly due north.

22nd. Travelled up Green River about three miles, crossed it three times, and took to the hills on its western side. The course of the river, as far as seen in this valley, is nearly south; the bottom and banks generally of gravel; the face of the country a dry, barren, undulating plain.[168] Our course, after leaving the river, was north-west by north. About two o'clock, we struck Ham's Fork, a tributary of Green River, and encamped near the water-side.[169] This stream probably pours down immense bodies of water when the snow melts upon the neighbouring highlands; for its channel, at the place where we struck it, was half a mile in width, and two hundred feet deep. Very little water is said to run in it during July, August and September. The current was three or four inches in depth, a rod wide, and sluggish. Three butes appeared in the north-east, about twelve o'clock, fifteen miles distant. One of them resembled a vast church, surmounted by a perpendicular shaft of rock, probably three hundred feet in height. The swelling base resembled in colour the sands of this region. The rock shaft was dark, probably basalt.

{60} By the side of this, springing immediately from the plain, rose another shaft of rock, about one hundred and fifty feet high, of regular outline, and about fifteen feet in diameter. Seven or eight miles to the north, rose another bute, a perpendicular shaft, fifty or sixty feet in height, resting upon a base of hills which rise about three hundred feet above the plain. Beyond these butes, to the east, the country seemed to be an open plain. To the south of them extends a range of dark mountains, reaching far into the dimly-discerned neighbourhood of Long's Peak.[170] The whole circle of vision presented no other means of life for man or beast than a few small patches of dry grass, and the water of the stream. Many of the sandy bluffs were covered with the prickly pear and wild wormwood. Generally, however, nothing green, nothing but the burnt, unproductive waste appeared, which no art of man can reclaim. Yet far in the north, the snowy peaks of Wind River Mountains, and to the south-west, a portion of the Anahuac ridge indicated that it might be possible to find along the borders of this great grave of vegetation, green vales and purling brooks to alleviate the desolation of the scene.

We travelled fifteen miles to-day, and {61} encamped upon the bank of the stream; cooked supper, and wrapping ourselves in our blankets, with saddles for pillows, and curtained by the starry firmament, slept sweetly among the overhanging willows. Near midnight, the light of the moon aroused me. It was a lovely night. The stars seemed smaller than they do in less elevated situations, but not less beautiful. For, although they are not so brilliant, they burn steadily, brightly on the hours of night in these magnificent wastes. It was midnight. The wolves are correct time-keepers.

I had scarcely viewed the delightful scene around me, when these sleepless sentinels of the deserts raised their midnight howl. It rung along the chambers of the mountains, was, at intervals, taken up by kennel after kennel, till, in the deep and distant vales, it yielded again to the all-pervading silence of night. This is one of the habits that instinct has taught their race. As soon as the first light of morning appears in the east, they raise a reveille howl in the prairies of the Western States which, keeping company with the hours, swells along the vast plains from Texas to the sources of the Mississippi, and from Missouri to the depths of the Rocky Mountains. All day {62} they lurk in silence. At midnight, another howl awakens the sleeping wilderness—more horrible and prolonged; and it is remarkable with what exactness they hit the hour.

23rd. We were up this morning before the light; and while the sun rose in the Great Gap, mounted our jaded horses for the day's ride. As we moved onward upon the elevated bluffs which border the river, the light of the morning showed the butes clearly on the eastern horizon. Jim paid little regard to the course of the stream to-day; but struck a bee line for some object, unseen by us, across the hills—at times among wild wormwood, at others among sharp, flinty stones, so thickly laid over the ground that none but an Indian horse would travel over them. We occasionally approached the stream, and were gratified with the appearance of a few solitary old cotton-wood trees on its banks. A poor, stinted shrub willow, too, made great effort here and there to prolong existence, but with little success. Even in one little nook, the wild rose, currant, and bulberry bushes had the effrontery to bear leaves.

About four o'clock, P. M., small patches of dry grass were seen in the ravines. On one {63} of these were five buffalo; but they proved to us more delightful to the sight than to any other sense, since I was unable to induce my guide to halt and hunt them. This apparently unpardonable stubbornness was afterward explained. He had the only animal which could run fast enough to approach them—he alone could ride him—and having lost his right thumb, protested that he could not discharge his piece from a running horse. But having no interpreter with us to render his furious protestations intelligible, I attributed his unwillingness to lay in a supply of good meat here to mere malicious indifference. At five o'clock, we came upon a plat of excellent grass, around a clump of yellow pines. Near this, weary and hungry, we made our camp for the night; ate the half of the meat in our possession—a mere mite—and gorged ourselves with wild currants, which grew plentifully among the pines, until the darkness bade us cease. Course as yesterday: the butes out of sight during the afternoon. We supposed we had travelled twenty miles; weather exceedingly warm.

24th. Rode on a fast trot till about three o'clock, P. M., made about twenty-five miles. Our route lay over sandy and gravelly {64} swells, and the bottom lands of Ham's Fork; the latter, like the former, were well nigh destitute of vegetation.[171] When about to encamp, we had the excellent fortune to espy an antelope on a bluff hard by. He fell before the well levelled rifle of our one-thumbed guide. A fat one he was too; just such an one as the imaginations of our hungry stomachs had all the day been figuring to themselves would afford a pleasant variety in the matter of starvation. The circle of vision, the last day or two, had been very much circumscribed by the increasing size of the undulating bluffs, among which our way usually ran. And from their tops, whenever we chanced to go over them, neither the Wind River Mountains nor the Anahuac range were visible. In all directions, to the limit of sight, rolled away the dead, leafless, thirsty swells. Wolves and ravens live among them; but whence they derive subsistence is a difficult problem even for themselves to solve. Their howlings and croakings evidently came from famished mouths.

25th. Fifteen miles to-day along the river; course as on the 24th, N. W. by W., among the bluffs that border the stream; or if that were tortuous, we travelled from bend {65} to bend, over the table lands on either side. In the valley of the stream, small groves of young and thrifty cotton-wood trees, currant bushes, and the black alder, gave us hopes of soon seeing the grasses and flowers, and the cool springs of the highlands, between us and the Great Beaver [Bear] River. The day, however, was sultry; scarcely a breath of wind moved; the dust that rose from our track lay on the air as the smoke of a village does on a still May morning. So that these occasional appearances of vegetable life imparted less pleasure than they would have done if we had been able to see them through another medium than the dripping mud, manufactured from dust and perspiration.

Near mid-day, we crossed the river from its northern to its southern side, and were emerging from the bushes which entangled our egress, when Jim, uttering a shrill whoop, pointing to a solitary horseman urging his horse up the bluff a half mile below us. Beckoning him to us, we dismounted to allow our jaded animals to feed until he should arrive. In the style of a true mountaineer, he dashed up to us on a rapid gallop, greeting us with as hearty a shake of the hand as he could have bestowed {66} upon a brother, and asked our names and destination; said his name was "Midison Gordon, an independent trapper, that he was bound to Brown's Hole for his squaw and 'possibles,' and was glad to see us," in less time than is usually employed in saying half as much; and accepting an invitation to encamp with us, he continued to express his pleasure at seeing us, till our attention was diverted from him by a halt for the night.

These remnants of the great trapping parties of the American Fur Company,[172] commonly make Brown's Hole their winter quarters. Indeed, I believe the owners of that post to be old trappers of the Company, who, having lost all their relish for former habits of life, by a long residence in the mountains, have established themselves there in order to bring around them, not only the means of subsistence according to their taste, but their merry old companions with their tales, jests, and songs, and honest and brave hearts. Gordon, like all other trappers whom I saw in the mountains, was convinced that there were so few beaver, so little meat, and so many dangers among them, that "a white man had no business there." He, therefore, was going for his {67} squaw and "possibles," preparatory to descending the Columbia to open a farm in the valley of the Willamette. He said that was also the intention of nearly all his fellow-trappers. They proposed to take with them their Indian wives and children, settle in one neighbourhood, and cultivate the earth, or hunt, as inclination or necessity might suggest, and thus pass the evening of their days among the wild pleasures of that delightful wilderness.

26th. Course north-west; distance twenty miles; sometimes on the banks of the river, and again over the swells, to avoid its windings. The country through which we passed to-day, was in some respects more interesting than any we had seen since leaving Brown's Hole. Instead of plateaux, baked and flinty, or hills of loose unproductive loam and sand, shorn by perpetual drought of flower, shrub, and tree, a journey of twenty miles over which would hardly cross grass enough to feed a dozen horses a single day, the slopes of a thousand spherical hills, as green as the fields of the States in May, sent forth the sweet fragrance of teeming vegetation; little streams ran away among the black, white, and orange pebbles; and the dandelion, {68} anemone, and other flowers rejoiced in the spring-day breezes which crept over them. It was May indeed here. The snow had lately disappeared, and the rains had still later been falling, as they do in April in other places. The insects were piping the note of an opening year.

It was the dividing ridge between the tributaries of the Sheetskadee and Great Bear River; and yet not a ridge.[173] When viewed from its highest points, it appeared an elevated plateau of slightly conical swells, so raised above the vast deserts on the east of it, as to attract the moisture of the clouds. The soil of this region is, however, poor,—not sufficient to bear timber. The grasses grow rankly over most of its surface; and those parts which are barren are covered with red or white sand, that contrasts beautifully with the matted green of other portions. In a word, it was one of those places among the mountains where all is pure. There the air is dense—the water cold—the vegetation fresh; there the snow lies nine months of the year, and when it eventually melts before the warm suns of June and July, the earth is clothed with vegetation almost in a day. About sunset, we descended a sharp declivity of broken {69} rocks, and encamped on a small stream running north. My indefatigable Jim Shoshonie killed an antelope for our suppers. An unexpected favour this; for, from the representations given me of this part of my route, I expected to commence here a long-consuming fast, which would not be broken till I reached Fort Hall, or my grave.

27th. Our last night's encampment proved to have been on a branch of the Great Bear River—the principal, if not the only feeder of the Great Salt Lake.[174] We started down along its verdant little valley about seven o'clock in the morning, and reached the main river about twelve at noon. It was twenty yards wide—water two feet deep, and transparent, current four miles per hour, bottom of brown sand and gravel. After feeding our animals, we descended the river till four o'clock, and halted on its banks for the night. We had travelled thirty miles. The mountains which hemmed in the valley were generally of a conical form, primitive, and often verdant. Their height varied from five hundred to two thousand five hundred feet above the level of the stream. The bottom lands were from one to three miles wide, of a {70} loose, dry, gravelly soil, covered with withered bunch grass. By the water side grew various kinds of trees, as quaking-asp, black birch, and willows; also shrubs of various kinds, as the black alder, small willow, wild wormwood, black currant, and service berry. In the ravines of the mountains, groves of trees sometimes appeared peering up luxuriantly among the black projecting cliffs.

28th. An early rising, a hurried meal, and a rapid saddling and packing of horses, started us from camp at six o'clock. While girding our saddle animals, the last act done in breaking up camp in mountain life, Jim's eagle eye discerned in the distance down the river, "hos, hos."

Indian like, for we had become such in our habits, we put new caps on our rifles, mounted quickly, and circled out behind a barricade of brushwood, in order to ascertain the number, colour, and purpose of such unceremonious intruders upon the territories of our solitude. Jim peered through the leaves with the utmost intensity of an Indian's vision. It was the place for war-parties of the Crows, Sioux, and Blackfeet; and this early appearance of individuals approaching our camp was a circumstance that scented strongly of bows {71} and arrows. But suspense became certainty, a pleasant certainty, as Jim reined his horse from concealment, and galloped away to the stranger, now within rifle-shot of us.

A strong and warm shake of the hand, and various contortions of the face, and uncouth gestures of recognition between them, completed their interview, and the swarthy old trapper approached myself and men. He was no less a personage than the bear-killer, Meek, who figures in the St. Louis Museum, with the paws of an immense grisly bear upon his shoulders in front, the fingers and thumb of his left hand bitten off, while with his right hand he holds the hunter's knife, plunged deeply in the animal's jugular vein.[175] He accosted me with, "Good morning, how are ye?—stranger in the mountains, eh?" And before I could make a monosyllabic reply, he continued, "Have you any meat? Come, I've got the shoulder of a goat, (antelope); let us go back to your camp, and cook, and eat, and talk awhile." We were harnessed for the day's ride, and felt unwilling to lose the cool hours of the morning, and much more so to consume the generous man's last pound of meat. Thanking him, {72} therefore, for his honest kindness, we satisfied him with our refusal, by the assurance that we had meat, and had already breakfasted. On hearing that we were travelling to the Columbia river, he informed us that we might probably go down with the Nez PercÉs Indians, who, he stated, were encamped at the time on Salmon river, one day's journey from Fort Hall. He was on his way to Brown's Hole for his squaw and "possibles," with the design of joining their camp. These Indians would leave their hunting grounds for their homes about ten days from that date.

This was another remnant of the American Fur Company's trapping parties. He came to the mountains many years ago, and has so long associated with Indians that his manners much resemble theirs. The same wild, unsettled, watchful expression of the eye, the same unnatural gesticulation in conversation, the same unwillingness to use words when a sign, a contortion of the face or body, or movement of the hand will manifest thought; in standing, walking, riding, in all but complexion, he was an Indian. Bidding us good morning, and wheeling away to the day's ride, he said, "Keep your eye shining for the Blackfeet. {73} They are about the 'Beer Springs'; and stay, my white horse tired, one camp down the river; was obliged to 'cache' my pack and leave him; use him if you can, and take him on to the Fort; and look here, I have told you I am Meek, the bear-killer, and so I am. But I think the boys at the museum in St. Louis might have done me up as it really was. The beast only jumped on my back, and stripped off my blanket; scratched some, but didn't pull my shoulder blade off. Well, after he had robbed me of my blanket, I shoved my rifle against him, and blew out his heart. That's all—no fingers bitten off, no knifing; I merely drove a little lead into his palpitator."

So saying, he spurred his weary animal to a trot, and was soon hidden among the underbrush of the intervales. Meek was evidently very poor. He had scarcely clothing enough to cover his body; and while talking with us, the frosty winds which sucked up the valley, made him shiver like an aspen leaf. He reverted to his destitute situation, and complained of the injustice of his former employers, the little remuneration he had received for the toils and dangers he had endured on their account, &c., a complaint which I had {74} heard from every trapper whom I had met on my journey. The valley opened wider as we pursued our way along its northern side; the soil, the water, and vegetation much the same in quantity and quality as those which we had passed on the 27th. The mountains on either hand spread into rocky precipitous ridges, piled confusedly one above another in dark threatening masses. Among them hung, in beautiful wildness from the crevices of the cliffs, numerous shrub cedars.

The mountain flax was very abundant and ripe. The root resembled that of perennial plants, the fibres that of the annual blue-bowl of the States, the flower the same, the seed vessel the same; but the seeds themselves were much smaller, and of a very dark brown colour. This valley is the grain-field and root-garden of the Shoshonie Indians; for there grow in it a number of kinds of edible roots, which they dig in August, and dry for winter use. There is also here a kind of grass, bearing a seed of half the size of the common rye, and similar in form. This they also gather, and parch and store away in leather sacks, for the season of want. These Indians had been gathering in their roots, &c., a few {75} days previous to our arrival. I was informed, however, that the crop was barely sufficient to subsist them while harvesting it. But, in order to prevent their enemies from finding whatever might have escaped their own search, they had burned over large sections of the most productive part. This day's ride was estimated at thirty miles. Our camp at night was in a dense copse of black alders by the water-side. Ate our last meat for supper—no prospect of getting more until we should arrive at Fort Hall, four days' ride.

29th. Up with the sun and on march. After an hour's ride, we came upon Meek's white horse. He came to us on as fast a gallop, and with as noisy a neighing as if Zimmerman had never dipt his quill in solitude, and wrote the laws for destroying nature, for nature's good. Jim now put spur to his noble animal, with the regularity of the march of the tread-mill. And, by way of apology for his haste, pointed to the ground, and laying his head on one shoulder, and snoring, said, "u—gh, ugh," which being interpreted, meant that our next snoring place was a very, very long day's journey away. And one acquainted with Indian firmness, would have read in {76} his countenance, while making this communication, a determination to reach it before nightfall, whatever might be the consequences. And so we did. At sunset our camp kettle was bubbling over the bones of a pelican at the "Steamboat spring." The part of the valley seen to-day was generally covered with a stout coat of bunch grass. This, and other indications, led me to suppose it fertile. Yet it appeared questionable if it would yield the ordinary fruits of agriculture without being irrigated.[176]

I noticed, however, during the day's ride, a number of points at which the waters of the river might be conducted over very large tracts of excellent soil. The scarcity of fencing timber appeared an obstacle, certainly; but other than this, there seemed to me no considerable cause of doubt that the valley of the Great Bear River will, in the course of time, become one of the most prosperous abodes of cultivated life. Its situation, so remote from either ocean, only increases our expectation of such an event, when it is recollected that the most practicable waggon route between the States and Oregon Territory and the Californias, runs through it.

The north end of the Great Salt Lake is {77} thirty miles from our present encampment, and the mountains on the borders of the valley are more abrupt and craggy, the water of the stream more abundant, and the soil more productive, than in the part already described. A number of creeks also entering the main stream from the East, open up among the black heights a number of lesser and charming vales; and around the union of the river with the Lake are excellent water, soil and timber, under skies of perpetual spring. Of the Lake itself I heard much from different individuals who had visited different portions of its coast.

The substance of their statements, in which they all agree, is that it is about two hundred miles long, eighty or one hundred wide; the water exceedingly heavy; and so salt, say they in their simple way, that pieces of wood dipped in it and dried in the sun are thickly frosted with pure white salt; that its coasts are generally composed of swells of sand and barren brown loam, on which sufficient moisture does not fall to sustain any other vegetation than the wild wormwood and prickly pear; that all attempts to go round it in canoes have, after a day or two of trial, been abandoned {78} for want of fresh water; that the Great Bear River is the only considerable stream putting into it; that high land is seen near the centre of it;—but whether this be an island or a long peninsula there was a difference of opinion among my informants. The valleys of the Great Bear River and its tributaries, as well as the northern portion of the Lake, are supposed to be within the territory of the States.[177]

The immediate neighbourhood of our encampment is one of the most remarkable in the Rocky Mountains. The facts that the trail to Oregon and California will for ever of necessity, pass within three hundred yards of the place where our camp fire is burning; that near this spot must be erected a resting-place for the long lines of caravans between the harbours of the Pacific and the waters of the Missouri, would of themselves interest all who are witnessing the irresistible movements of civilization upon the American continent. But this spot has other objects of interest: its Geology and its Mineralogy, and I might well say the Chemistry of it, (for there are laboratories and gases here in the greatest profusion), will hereafter occupy the attention of the lovers of these sciences. The Soda Springs, called {79} by the fur traders Beer Springs, are the most remarkable objects of the kind within my knowledge. They are situated on the north-west side of the river, a few rods below a grove of shrub cedars, and about two hundred yards from the shore. There are six groups of them; or in other words, there are six small hollows sunken about two feet below the ground around, of circular form, seven or eight feet in diameter, in which are a number of fountains sending up large quantities of gas and water, and emitting a noise resembling the boiling of immense cauldrons. These pools are usually clear, with a gravelly bottom. In some of them, however, grow bogs or hassocks of coarse grass, among which are many little wells, where the water bubbled so merrily that I was tempted to drink at one of them. But as I proceeded to do so, the suffocating properties of the gas instantly drove me from my purpose. After this rebuff, however, I made another attempt at a more open fountain, and drank with little difficulty.

The waters appeared to be more highly impregnated with soda and acid than those of Saratoga; were extremely pleasant to the taste, and fumed from the {80} stomach like the soda water of the shops. Some of them threw off at least four gallons of gas a second. And although they cast up large masses of water continually, for which there appeared no outlet, yet at different times of observation I could perceive no increase or diminution of the quantity visible. There are five or six other springs in the bank of the river just below, the waters of which resemble those I have described. One of them discharges about forty gallons a minute.

One fourth of a mile down stream from the Soda Spring, is what is called "The Steamboat Spring." The orifice from which it casts its water is in the face of a perpendicular rock on the brink of the stream, which seems to have been formed by the depositions of the fountain. It is eight inches in diameter. Six feet from this, and on the horizontal plane of the rock, is another orifice in the cavern below. On approaching the spring, a deep gurgling, hissing sound is heard underground. It appears to be produced by the generating of gas in a cavernous receiver. This, when the chamber is filled, bursts through another cavern filled with water, which it thrusts frothing and foaming into the stream. In {81} passing the smaller orifice, the pent gas escapes with very much the same sound as steam makes in the escape-pipe of a steamboat. Hence the name. The periods of discharge are very irregular. At times, they occur once in two, at others, once in three, four or five minutes. The force of its action also is subject to great variation. Those who have been there, often say that its noise has been heard to echo far among the hills. When I visited it I could not hear it at the distance of two hundred yards. There is also said to be a difference at different times in the temperature of the water. When I examined it, it was a little above blood heat. Others have seen it much higher.

The most remarkable phenomenon connected with these springs, remains yet to be noticed. The whole river, from the Steamboat spring to the Soda Springs, (a distance of more than a fourth of a mile), is a sheet of springs, thousands in number, which bursting through two feet of superincumbent running water, throw their foaming jets, some six inches, and some less, above the surface. The water is much the same in its constituent qualities, as that of the Soda springs.[178]

{82} There are in the immediate vicinity of the Steamboat Spring, and on the opposite side of the river numerous rocks with orifices in their centres, and other evidences of having been formed by intermittent springs that have long ago ceased to act.

The scenery around these wonderful fountains, is very wild. To the east north-east, opens up the upper valley of Great Bear River, walled in on either side by dark primitive mountains, beetling over the vale, and towering on the sky. To the south south-west sweeps away the lower valley.—On either side of it rise lofty mountains of naked rocks, the wild sublimity of which contrasts strikingly with the sweet beauty of the stream and vale below.

Although statements in regard to what shall transpire in the future, are always a work more befitting a seer than a journalist, yet I cannot forbear expressing the belief that the healthiness and beauty of their locality—the magnificence of the scenery on the best routes to them from the States and from the Pacific, the manifest superiority of these waters over any others, will cause "The Soda Springs" to be thronged with the gay and fashionable of both sides of the continent.

{83} 30th. Our sleep had been interrupted at midnight by the blazing fires of an Indian encampment on a neighbouring hill. And once awakened by such a cause, the tracks of a war party, probably of Blackfeet, which we had crossed during the day, were sufficient to put us on duty the remainder of the night. At early dawn, we saddled and moved in silence a few hundred yards down the river, turned to the right around the Bute in the rear of the Steamboat spring, entered the "Valley of chasms," and soon brought the mountains on its northern border, between us and our suspicious neighbours.

This valley derives its name from the numerous cracks or chasms in the volcanic rocks on which it rests. They are so wide and deep that the natives, for many miles at the lower part of it, have been obliged to run their trail over the lower swells of the hills on its north-western side. Up this trail Jim rode on a brisk trot, beckoning us, in an ominous manner to follow, and keep in a body near him. The "cut rock" and scoriÆ lay every where, and crippled the poor animals at almost every step. Onward he led us, with all the speed which the severest inflictions of spur and whip could {84} produce, till the shutting in of night deposited us among the willows on the stream of the valley, forty miles from our last night's encampment. The rapidity of our travelling to-day, allowed me little time to examine this singular valley. I noticed merely that it was, like the intervales of Bear River, covered with bunch-grass, which the thirsty suns of summer had dried to hay. A curious gas spring also attracted my attention about nine o'clock in the morning. Its bubbling and its beautiful reservoir appeared to arouse the admiration even of my dogged guide Jim: he halted to look at it. Jim, for the first time since I had had the honour of his acquaintance, absolutely stopped to look at, and admire a portion of the earth. It was a fine specimen of Nature's masonry. The basin was about six feet in diameter; the bottom a circular horizontal plane; around the edge rose a rim or flanche, eight inches in height; all one solid rock. In the centre of the bottom arose the gas and water: the latter was six inches deep, limpid, and slightly acid. This fountain was situated a few rods to the right of the trail.

31st. We took to our saddles, and in three hours reached the foot of the mountains {85} which divide the "Valley of chasms" from Snake River. There is a wide depression through the heights here of so gentle a declination, that loaded waggons can pass from one valley to the other without difficulty. Up this we turned. It was covered with green grass and shrubs and trees, among which a little brook was whispering to the solitude.[179]

The small birds, too, were chirping among the bright flowers and bending boughs; and on either hand, as if to guard so much loveliness from the winds of surrounding desolation, the black crags rose and frowned one thousand five hundred feet in air. But hunger!! Every bud was fed; every bird had its nourishment; the lizards even were not starving. We were. When about half way up the gorge, one of Smith's horses tired and refused to go farther. The fellow's wound, received in the plains, had healed; and with strength from time to time, his petty tyranny towards his animals increased till being entirely recovered, he seemed to have resumed a degree of malignity towards them whenever they did not chance to comprehend his wishes, or were unable to comply with them, that would be incredible if described. In this case, he {86} cut a strong goad; and following the slow steps of the worn-out animal, struck her lengthwise over the almost denuded ribs as frequently and as long as he had strength to do it; and then would rest and strike again with renewed vengeance, until his beast dropped her head and received his blows without a movement. Remonstrance, and the astonished gazing of my savage guide, only increased his severity. And thus he continued to beat the poor animal, till, being convinced against his will, that he even could not make a dying horse heed his command, he bestowed upon her a farewell kick and curse and left her.

About four o'clock we stood on the high ground which divides the waters of the little brook which we had followed up, from a small head stream of Portneuf. The valley of the great southern branch of the Columbia, was spread out before us. Slaking our thirst at a cool spring, we travelled five miles down the mountain, and encamped in sight of the Trois Butes.[180] When we halted, I was too much exhausted with hunger and fatigue to unsaddle my horse. We had been on short allowance most of the time since leaving Fort David Crockett. The day on which we arrived at the Soda Springs, I ate {87} the eighth part of a pelican; the two last past days, nothing. But I suffered less from the gnawings of hunger than I had on the previous night. A deadly stupor pervaded the gastric and nervous systems; a sluggish action of the heart, a dimness of vision and painful prostration of every energy of life were creeping upon me. After a little rest, however, I crept to the bushes, and after a long search, found two red rosebuds! These I gladly ate, and went to my couch to dream of feasts.

The 1st of September was a fine day. The sun was bright and unclouded, as he came in his strength over the eastern mountains, and awakened us from our slumbers among the alders on the bank of Portneuf. Hunger, indeed, was still gnawing at our vitals. But sleep had banished weariness, and added something to the small stock of our remaining strength; and the recollection of past perils—perils of floods, of tempests, of Indian foes—death threatened at every step during a journey of three months in the plains and mountains—the inspiring view of the vale of the great southern branch of the Columbia, so long promised us in hope along our weary way—the fact that we were in Oregon, unmoored the mind from {88} its anxieties, and shed over us a gladness which can only be comprehended by those who, having suffered as we had, have viewed as we did, from some bright height, their sufferings ended, in the rich, ripe possession of the objects so ardently sought. We were in Oregon. Fort Hall lay in the plain before us. Its hospitalities would be enjoyed ere sunset. Our wardrobes were overhauled, our razors put on duty, our sunburnt frames bathed in the Portneuf; and equipped in our best, our hearts beat joyfully back the rapid clattering of our horses' hoofs on the pavements of the mountains, as we rushed to the plains. An hour among the sands and wild wormwood, an hour among the oozing springs, and green grass around them, an hour along the banks of Saptin River, and we passed a line of timber springing at right angles into the plain; and before us rose the white battlements of Fort Hall![181]

As we emerged from this wood, Jim intimated that we should discharge our rifles; and as we did so, a single armed horseman issued from the gate of the Fort approached us warily, and skulking among the copses, scanned us in the most inquisitive manner. Having satisfied himself at {89} last that our skins were originally intended to be white, he came alongside; and learning that we were from the States; that we had no hostile intentions; that we knew Mr. Walker to be in the Fort, and would be glad to have our compliments conveyed to him, he returned; and Mr. Walker immediately appeared.[182] A friendly salutation was followed by an invitation to enter the Fort; and a "welcome to Fort Hall," was given in a manner so kind and obliging, that nothing seemed wanting to make us feel that we were at home. A generous flagon of Old Jamaica, wheaten bread, and butter newly churned, and buffalo tongues fresh from the neighbouring mountains, made their appearance as soon as we had rid ourselves of the equipage and dust of journeying, and allayed the dreadful sense of starvation.

[164] This was the party of which Dr. Wislizenus of St. Louis was a member (see ante, p. 173, note 108). They left the frontier in a caravan of twenty-seven persons, of whom nine were employÉs of Chouteau's fur company, and the others heterogeneous travellers and immigrants. Wislizenus had intended to go on to Oregon and then to California; but the divisions in the party, and the lateness of the season, determined him to return from Fort Hall. Two of his companions joined him, and they engaged Richardson, who had taken the outward journey in the capacity of hunter, to guide them back, purposing to take the southerly route on the return. Dr. Wislizenus had undertaken this journey for the sake of his health, as well as in order to see the marvels of the Western mountains. Richardson was chief hunter for Wyeth's party in 1833. Townsend well describes him in his Narrative, in our volume xxi, pp. 152-155; see also pp 171, 211, 255, 256, 264.—Ed.