106 FALLS OF THE LOWER PELOUSE. 



horses too have nearly all been taken from them, 

 and the trails intersecting the hills are about the 

 only records remaining of the herds of mustangs 

 that once scrambled over their rocky slopes. 

 Those of the Pelouse Indians I saw were fine 

 athletic men for savages, but dirty, idle, and 

 greedy to an unusual degree. Their canoes 

 are clumsily dug out, and their lodges are made 

 of rush and bark mats. 



July 3. We make an early start; I leave 

 the mule-train to follow the course of the 

 Pelouse river. The stream forces its way for 

 many miles between vertical walls of basaltic 

 rock; when standing on the edge of the canon, 

 I look down at the surging water, 200 feet 

 below me, and often more ; the faces of the rock 

 walls are quite as smooth as if some giant had 

 hammer-dressed them. I have never seen a 

 more grand or stranger-looking waterfall than 

 is this of the Lower Pelouse. The trail I follow 

 is about a quarter of a mile from the river, 

 winding in tortuous course between immense 

 fragments of rock, that completely hide the 

 country to my left ; ahead, a line of splintered 

 peaks denotes the course of the river canon 

 behind, I gaze back upon the Snake river, and 

 the stupendous cliffs beetling over its frothy 



