86 NARRATIVE AND ITINERARY NEE-NEE SPRINGS TYSCH PRAIRIE. 



the ford a little difficult. There are a few stunted cedars in the canon, but very little grass where 

 the trail crosses it. Its banks are often very precipitous, and composed of basaltic rock, and 

 earth of various reddish shades. The water of the river is clear and cold ; and it derives its 

 name, Warn Chuck or Mil-lil-le Chuck, signifying warm water, from several hot springs upon 

 its banks. Some of them give off an odor of chlorine, and are partly covered with a thick green 

 scum containing soluble silica. Others seem perfectly clear and pure. The former class is 

 generally bordered by a white solid deposit from the water. Large rocks in the vicinity are 

 sometimes incrusted with the same substance. The springs often contain cooked grasshoppers, 

 bugs, and snakes, that have unwittingly taken a warm bath. 



The trail leaves the canon by a narrow lateral gorge, with sides in many places vertical or 

 even overhanging, and from one to three hundred feet in height. There are* large caverns 

 high up in these cliffs, to which access without ropes would be impossible. The pass is a vast, 

 narrow gateway, whose wild beauty defies description. It preserves this character for about 

 a mile, and then suddenly expands into a little basin surrounded by low mountains, and 

 abounding in very interesting varieties of silicious rock. This basin contains good grass and 

 a spring of pure water, thus forming a better camping place than the river canon. We 

 crossed it, and toiling up a rocky mountain, until we gained an elevation above the basin of 

 about 1,600 feet, wound round its eastern side near the edge of a deep ravine, into which, in 

 many places, a single mis-step would have precipitated us. After gaining the northern side, 

 we passed over low, rolling hills for about two miles, and then crossed the dry bed of a stream 

 in a small ravine. Passing over an elevated country for about three miles, we next came to a place 

 where there were a few small water holes, apparently excavated by the Indians. About two 

 miles beyond was a very small stream called Nee-nee, or Willow springs. Here we en 

 camped under a few fine trees. There was an abundance of good bunch grass, and our animals 

 fared better than they had since we left the main party. The Indians fully appreciate the 

 excellence of this kind of grass for their horses, and Nee-nee is one of their favorite resorts. 

 We found near camp a large deposit of fine red and white sandstone, which was beautifully 

 stratified. 



September 9. After riding this morning among low, rolling hills for about two miles, we 

 reached another moist spot called by the Indians Hy-as Nee-nee, or Great Willow spring. 

 Here the trail forks. We took the right hand branch, which led us, by an ascent of about 

 200 feet, to the northern border of the elevated spur upon which we had been travelling since 

 we left Warn Chuck caiion, and which is named, by the white traders, the Mutton mountains. 

 About 1,900 feet below us lay a sterile, treeless, basaltic plain, elevated 2,200 feet above the 

 sea. It is called Tysch prairie. The thickly timbered foot hills of the Cascade Range marked 

 its western border. About thirteen miles north of where we stood, a smooth ridge, yellow with 

 dried grass and unmarked by a single tree, rose abruptly ; and, after extending about thirteen 

 miles in an eastern and western direction, suddenly terminated at each extremity. To the 

 eastward, beyond the enormous canon of the Des Chutes river, which we could distinctly trace, 

 the plain became broken by rolling hills, extending as far as the eye could reach. The descent 

 to the prairie was very steep, and we afterwards found that the left branch of the trail at 

 Hy-as Nee-nee, was much the better of the two ; since it followed the gradual slope of a ravine, 

 and joined the other soon after gaining the prairie. This ravine, although entirely dry in the 

 summer, is, in the rainy season, the bed of a torrent, whose rocky course, near the base of the 

 Mutton mountains, we found bordered by stunted oaks, the first we had seen for many miles. After 



