310 



ing of seventy men and two hundred and fifty horses, began 

 its march. Capt. Wyeth and Milton Sublette took the lead, 

 Mr. Nuttall and myself beside them ; then the men in double 

 file, each leading with a line two horses heavily laden ; Capt. 

 Thing (Wyeth's assistant) brought up the rear ; then the band 

 of missionaries, with their horned cattle, rode along the flanks, 

 and they proceeded over 



' Vast savannas, where the wandering eye, 

 Unfixt, is in a verdant ocean lost,' 



across the arid plains of the far West, beyond the steppes of 

 the Rocky Mountains, down to the Oregon, and to the ex- 

 tended shores of the Pacific." 



I shall not follow our bold adventurers in their long and 

 perilous journey, so well described in Mr. Townsend's narra- 

 tive.* They successively crossed interminable green plains 

 and great sandy wastes, grassy glades and black hills, high 

 mountains and delightful valleys, along refreshing streams ; 

 sufi'ering from fatigue, thirst, and hunger ; tormented by gnats, 

 constantly alive to the danger of the short rattlesnake of the 

 prairies, of the grizzly bear, that formidable inhabitant of the 

 mountain, and withal to the arrow and tomahawk of the sa- 

 vage and treacherous Indian, always prowling about the white 

 men's caravans to steal or murder. But what's all that, if 

 our naturalists can gather the harvest of the cherished objects 

 of their explorations ? " To me," said Mr. Nuttall, '' hard- 

 ships and privations are cheaply purchased, if I may but roam 

 over the wild domain of primeval Nature, and behold 



' Another Flora there, of bolder hues, 

 And richer sweets, beyond our garden's pride.' 



How often did I realize the poet's buoyant hopes amidst my 

 solitary rambles. My chief converse has been in the wilder- 

 ness w^ith the spontaneous productions of Nature ; and the 

 study of these objects and their contemplation have been to 

 me a source of constant delight." 



* Narrative of a Journey across the Rocky Mountains to the Columbia 

 River, &c. Philadelphia, 1839. 



