From Near
This Point, Where The Platte River Empties Into The Missouri,
To The Mouth Of The Columbia, On The
Pacific - which we
ultimately reached - is at least 1,500 miles as the crow
flies; for us (as we had
To follow watercourses and avoid
impassable ridges) it was very much more. Some five-and-
forty miles from our starting-place we passed a small village
called Savannah. Between it and Vancouver there was not a
single white man's abode, with the exception of three trading
stations - mere mud buildings - Fort Laramie, Fort Hall, and
Fort Boise.
The vast prairies on this side of the Rocky Mountains were
grazed by herds of countless bison, wapiti, antelope, and
deer of various species. These were hunted by moving tribes
of Indians - Pawnees, Omahaws, Cheyennes, Ponkaws, Sioux, &c.
On the Pacific side of the great range, a due west course -
which ours was as near as we could keep it - lay across a
huge rocky desert of volcanic debris, where hardly any
vegetation was to be met with, save artemisia - a species of
wormwood - scanty blades of gramma grass, and occasional
osiers by river-banks. The rivers themselves often ran
through canons or gulches, so deep that one might travel for
days within a hundred feet of water yet perish (some of our
animals did so) for the want of a drop to drink. Game was
here very scarce - a few antelope, wolves, and abundance of
rattlesnakes, were nearly the only living things we saw.
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