122 THE AMERICAN BISONS. | 
region south of the Sweet Water, as in the country north of the Great Pass. 
This partial distribution can only be accounted for in the great pastoral 
beauty of that country, which bears marks of having long been one of their 
| favorite haunts, and by the fact that the white hunters have more frequented 
/ the northern than the southern region, — it being north of the South Pass 
that the hunters, trappers, and traders have had their rendezvous for many 
years past; and from that section also the greater portion of the beaver and 
rich furs were taken, although always the most dangerous, as well as the 
most profitable, hunting-ground. 
“In that region lying between the Green or Colorado River and the head- 
waters of the Rio del Norte, over the Yampak, Kooyah, White, and Grand Rivers, 
— all of which are the waters of the Colorado, — the buffalo never extended 
so far westward as they did on the waters of the Columbia; and only in one 
or two instances have they been known to descend as far west as the mouth 
of White River. In travelling through the country west of the Rocky Moun- 
tains, observation readily led me to the impression that the buffalo had for 
the first time crossed that range to the waters of the Pacific only a few years 
prior to the period we are considering; and in this opinion I am sustained 
by Mr. Fitzpatrick, and the older trappers in that country. In the region 
west of the Rocky Mountains we never meet with any ancient vestiges 
which, throughout all the country lying upon their eastern waters, are found 
in the great lighways, continuous for hundreds of miles, always several 
inches and sometimes several feet in depth, which the buffalo have made 
in crossing from one river to another, or in traversing the mountain ranges. 
The Snake Indians, more particularly those low down upon Lewis's Fork, 
have always been very grateful to the American trappers for the great kind- 
ness (as they frequently expressed it) which they did to them in driving the 
buffalo so low down the Columbia River.” * 
It would thus seem to be Frémont’s belief that their occupation of the 
Snake River country was temporary, and that they did not pass west of the 
mountains till driven thither, at a comparatively recent period, by persecu- 
‘tion east of the mountains. That they were absent from this region not 
long previously appears evident from the fact that Lewis and Clarke, in 
1805, met with no buffaloes west of the mountains, nor even on the upper 
portion of the three forks of the Missouri, although there was evidence of 
* Report of the Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, in the year 1842, and to Oregon and 
California, in the years 1843-44, p. 144. 
