He
Soon Found That He Had Undertaken A Tremendous Task; But The
Pride Of Man Is Never More Obstinate Than When Climbing
Mountains.
The ascent was so steep and rugged that he and his
companion were frequently obliged to clamber on hands and knees,
with their guns slung upon their backs.
Frequently, exhausted
with fatigue, and dripping with perspiration, they threw
themselves upon the snow, and took handfuls of it to allay their
parching thirst. At one place, they even stripped off their coats
and hung them upon the bushes, and thus lightly clad, proceeded
to scramble over these eternal snows. As they ascended still
higher, there were cool breezes that refreshed and braced them,
and springing with new ardor to their task, they at length
attained the summit.
Here a scene burst upon the view of Captain Bonneville, that for
a time astonished and overwhelmed him with its immensity. He
stood, in fact, upon that dividing ridge which Indians regard as
the crest of the world; and on each side of which, the landscape
may be said to decline to the two cardinal oceans of the globe.
Whichever way he turned his eye, it was confounded by the
vastness and variety of objects. Beneath him, the Rocky Mountains
seemed to open all their secret recesses: deep, solemn valleys;
treasured lakes; dreary passes; rugged defiles, and foaming
torrents; while beyond their savage precincts, the eye was lost
in an almost immeasurable landscape; stretching on every side
into dim and hazy distance, like the expanse of a summer's sea.
Whichever way he looked, he beheld vast plains glimmering with
reflected sunshine; mighty streams wandering on their shining
course toward either ocean, and snowy mountains, chain beyond
chain, and peak beyond peak, till they melted like clouds into
the horizon.
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