JOHN C. FREMONT. 163 



and each man ascended in his turn; for I would 

 only allow one at a time to mount the unstable and 

 precarious slab, which it seemed a breath would 

 hurl into the abyss below. We mounted the baro- 

 meter in the snow of the summit, and, fixing a 

 ramrod in a crevice, unfurled the national flag to 

 wave in the breeze where never flag waved before. 

 During our morning's ascent, we had met no sign 

 of animal life, except the small sparrow-like bird 

 already mentioned. A stillness the most profound, 

 and a terrible solitude, forced themselves constantly 

 on the mind as the great features of the place. 

 Here, on the summit, where the stillness was abso- 

 lute, unbroken by any sound, and the solitude com- 

 plete, we thought ourselves beyond the region of 

 animated life; but while we were sitting on the 

 rock, a solitary bee (bromus, the humble-bee) came 

 winging his flight from the eastern valley, and lit 

 on the knee of one of the men. 



"It was a strange place the icy rock and the 

 highest peak of the Rocky Mountains for a lover 

 of warm sunshine and flowers; and we pleased 

 ourselves with the idea that he was the first of his 

 species to cross the mountain-barrier, a solitary 

 pioneer to foretell the advance of civilization. I 

 believe that a moment's thought would have made 

 us let him continue his way unharmed; but we 



