GENERAL DESCRIPTION. 17 



bad as is the water, this country abounds in game, and is a 

 favourite wintering-place of the Cheyenne and Arrapahoe 

 Indians. 



In strong contrast to the beauty of this well- 

 watered gypsum country is the horrible sterility of the 

 ajkajijolains. West of the North Platte, towards GreenS 

 Eiver, there stretches one of the most horrible of these j 

 deserts, called the ' Bitter Creek Country.' Scarcely a / 

 shrub or blade of grass relieves the eye. The dry earthy 

 is covered with a whitish efflorescence, and every puff of 

 the sultry wind fills each pore with an acrid caustic dust, 

 irritating and inflammatory to an intolerable degree. The 

 skin cracks ; the eyes becoming inflamed, bloodshot, and 

 watery, cannot bear the horrible glare ; the tongue swells, 

 the lips bleed, and the throat is parched. The water 

 quenches not the thirst, but irritates the alimentary canal, 

 disarranges the whole internal economy ; and many days 

 of travel in this country sometimes brings the hapless 

 traveller to an end, as full of suffering and torture as 

 could be devised by the most inventive Indian. 



Almost similar, though not quite so bad, is the alkali \ 

 desert of the Upper Red Eiver. Numberless others, of / 

 greater or less extent, give a not always pleasurable 

 variety of travel on the plains. 



About twenty-five miles from Fort Lyon, on the Pur- 

 gatory Eiver, is a curious picture on stone. The rocky 

 bluff is of carboniferous sandstone, about fifty feet high, 

 and nearly perpendicular. Somewhat less than half way 

 up is the picture of a bear rudely drawn, and a little 

 larger than life size. Scientific men have examined it, 

 each of whom had a different opinion. The yellowish 

 grey rock is blackened to the depth of about two inches. 

 It is not painted, it is not an infiltration. The composi- 

 tion of the blackened rock is the same as that not dis- 

 coloured. One savant claimed that it is a photograph 

 of a bear taken by lightning on the rock ! Whatever it 

 is, it certainly is a remarkable freak of nature. 



c 



