18 EXPLORATIONS ACROSS THE GREAT BASIN OF UTAH. 



no danger of lacking food. As a precaution, however, the party halted on Bear River, 

 and hunted for a few days, until they had laid in a supply of dried buffalo meat and 

 venison; they then passed by the headwaters of the Cassie River, and soon found them- 

 selves launched on an immense sandy desert. Southwardly, on their left, they beheld 

 the Great Salt Lake, spread out like a sea, but they found no stream running into it. 

 A desert extended around them, and stretched to the southwest as far as the eye could 

 reach, rivaling the deserts of Asia and Africa in sterility. There was neither tree nor 

 herbage, nor spring, nor pool, nor running stream, nothing but parched wastes of sand 

 where horse and rider were in danger of perishing. 



"Their sufferings at length became so great that they abandoned their intended 

 course, and made toward a range of snowy mountains, brightening in the north, where 

 they hoped to find water. After a time they came upon a small stream, leading directly 

 toward these mountains. Having quenched their burning thirst, and refreshed them- 

 selves and their weary horses for a time, they kept along this stream, which gradually, 

 increased in size, being fed by numerous brooks. After approaching the mountains it 

 took a sweep toward the southwest, and the travelers still kept along it, trapping bea- 

 ver as they went, on the flesh of which they subsisted for the present, husbanding 

 their dried meat for future necessities. 



"The stream on which they had thus Mien is called by some Mary's River, but 

 is more generally known as Ogden's River, from Mr. Peter Ogden, an enterprising and 

 intrepid leader of the Hudson's Bay Company, who first explored it." m * * 



^The trappers continued down Ogden's River, until they ascertained that it lost 

 itself in a great swampy lake, to which there was no apparent discharge. They then 

 struck directly westward across the great chain of California mountains intervening 

 between these interior plains and the shores of the Pacific. 11 



"For three and twenty days they were entangled among these mountains, the 

 peaks and ridges of which are in many places covered with perpetual snow. Then- 

 passes and defiles present the wildest scenery, partaking of the sublime rather than the 

 beautiful, and abounding with frightful precipices. The sufferings of the travelers 

 among these savage mountains were extreme; for a part of the time they were nearly 

 starved. At length they made their way through these, and came down upon the plains 

 of New California, a fertile region extending along the coast, with magnificent forests, 

 verdant savannas, and prairies that look like stately parks. Here they found deer and 

 other game in abundance, and indemnified themselves for past famine. They now 

 turned toward the south, and, passing numerous small bands of natives posted upon 

 various streams, arrived at the Spanish village and post of Monterey." 



It would thus seem that Walker and his party failed in exploring around the west 

 portion of the Great Salt Lake on account of the desert in that region, and were forced 

 to take a route along the northern section of the Great Basin to California- audit is 



(w) Since the explorations of Fremont in 1845-'46, this river has been known Altogether bvm I ta 7 

 as the Humboldt River, the name Fremont gave it. ' ^ >Y emi S rant8 an<l others 



(«) Irving is here in error. Walker did not go directly westward from the Swamp hrinlrt of the 0«W. Ri™ r«*. 

 Humboldt) across the great chain of California mountains (the Sierra Neva., 



down along theire^ side for nearly 50 of latitude before he'erossed ^^'^^^^^T£ 

 since known as Walker's Pass. I get this information from Mr E M Kern the «««»♦«„♦ Z VI f T ' * P 

 subseouenUy was guided by Walker over this very route, (^e S^ ^ ' ^ 



(0) Bonnevilie's Adventures, pp. 32C-328. ^ppenuix y.j 



