TO THE GREAT SOUTH PASS. 79 



we found several of our oxen lying dead in the corral the 

 next morning, and the rest looked about ready to tumble over. 

 We started on, however, for the longer we remained in this 

 awful place, the worse for us all ; but our progress was neces- 

 sarily slow, and our victims were continually dropping in the 

 yoke. The country grew even more desolate as we advanced, 

 and was covered with beds of sand and gravel, which supported 

 a stunted growth of sage. 



The forenoon of the 20th was over a country where desolation 

 reigned supreme. On either side the desert stretched as far 

 as the eye could reach, the dull monotony of its dead level 

 being occasionally broken by abrupt buttes which arose above 

 it, in broken outliness, to the height of from one to five hundred 

 feet. We struck the Sweet Water River at noon, here running 

 through a broad valley, the vegetation of which was dried 

 and withered by the fearful drought which was now spreading 

 like a blight over these regions. The river was about three 

 rods in width, with a depth of two feet, and flowed with a rapid 

 current over a stony bed which was very winding. The valley 

 was bounded on the south by a high, broken range of hills, 

 the precipitous sides of which were covered with sharp, craggy 

 rocks, among which there was not a particle of vegetation, and 

 presented a very forbidding appearance indeed. The road in 

 the afternoon was very bad on account of heavy sand through 

 which we moved slowly. We corralled after sunset near the 

 river, where, doubling upon itself, it formed a sort of peninsula, 

 on which we found a scanty plat of grass, on which we drove 

 our animals for the night. 



Early the next morning we passed a newly erected trading post, 

 and shortly after we arrived at the celebrated Rock Indepen- 

 dence. This is a huge granite rock, somewhat semi-spherical in 

 shape, and is about six hundred feet long and one hundred and 

 fifty feet high, its surface entirely destitute of soil. The outside 

 appears to be covered with sorts of layers or scales of various sizes 



