CHAPTER VI. 



THE trail to Oregon, followed by traders and emigrants, 

 crosses the Rocky Mountains at a point known as the 

 South Pass, where a break in the chain occurs of such 

 moderate and gradual elevation, as to permit the passage 

 of waggons with tolerable facility. The Sweet Water 

 Valley runs nearly to the point where the dividing ridge 

 of the Pacific and Atlantic waters throws off its streams 

 to their respective oceans. At one end of this valley, 

 and situated on the right bank of the Sweet Water, 

 a huge isolated mass of granitic rock rises to the height 

 of three hundred feet, abruptly from the plain. On the 

 smooth and scarped surface presented by one of its sides, 

 are rudely carved the names and initials of traders, 

 trappers, travellers, and emigrants, who have here 

 recorded the memorial of their sojourn in the remote 

 wilderness of the Far West. The face of the rock is 

 covered with names familiar to the mountaineers as 

 those of the most renowned of their hardy brotherhood ; 

 while others again occur, better known to the science 

 and literature of the Old World than to the unlearned 

 trappers of the Rocky Mountains. The huge mass is a 

 well-known landmark to the Indians and mountaineers; 

 and travellers and emigrants hail it as the half-way 



