&. 
[im] 166 
have reached the point of the peeve, at a place which had been pre- 
viously agreed upon. In the course of our narrative, we shail be able to 
give you some information of the fortune which attended the movements 
of these adventurots travellers. 
Having discovered our error, we immediately regained the line along 
the river, which the road quitted about noon, and encamped at 5 o’clock 
on a’stream called Raft river, onanage aux Cajeux, ) having travelled only 
13 miles, In the north, the Salmon river mountains are visible at a very 
far distance ; and on the lett, ‘Ke ridge in which Raft river heads is about 
— 20 miles distant, rocky, and tolerably high. Thermometer at sunset =a 
with a partially "clouded sky, and a sharp wind from the 
Sepiember 27.—\t was now no longer possible, as in our previous Sie. 
to travel regularly every day, and find at any moment a conyenient place 
for repose at noon or a camp at night; but the halting places were now 
generally fixed along the road, by the nature of the country, at places where, 
with wateg there was a little scanty grass. Since leaving the American 
falls, ad frequently been very bad ; the many short, steep ascents, 
exbalarting the strength of our worn-out animals, requiring always at such 
places the assistance of the men to get up each cart, one by one ; and our 
progress with twelve or fourteen wheeled carriages, though light and made 
for the purpose, in such a rocky country, was extremely slow ; and I again 
determined to. gain time by a division of the camp. Accordingly, to-day 
the parties again separated, constituted very much as before—Mr-. Fitzpat- 
rick remaining in charge of the Heavier ba 
The ner hn, was pod and-clear, with a white frost, and the tempera- 
ture at su 24° 
o-day the country had a very forbidding appearance ; and, after travel- 
ling 20 miles over a slightly undulating plain, we encamped ata consider- 
able spring, called Swamp creek, rising in low grounds near the point of a 
spur oe the mountain. Returning with as small party in a starving con- 
dition from the westward 12 or 14 years since, Carson had met here three 
or four buffalo bulls, two of which were killed. They were among the 
pioneers which had made the experiment of colonizing in the valley of the 
Columbia, aud which had failed, as heretofore stated. At sunset the ther- 
mometer was at 46°, and the evening was overcast, with a cold wind from 
the SB., and to- -night we had only sage for fire wood, Mingled with the 
artemisia was a shrubby aud thorny chenopodiaceous plant. 
Sepiember 28.—Thermometer at sunrise 40°. The wind rose early to 
a gale from the west, with a very cold driving rain; and, after an uncom-. 
fortable day’s ride of 25 miles, we were glad when at evening we found a 
shelfered camp, where there was an abundance uf wood, at some elevated, 
rocky islands covered with cedar, near the commencement of another long 
canon of the river. With the exception of a short detention at a deep little 
ream called Goose creek, and some occasional rocky places, we had to- 
day a very good road ; but ‘the country has a barren appearance, sandy, and 
densely covered with tie artemisias from the banks of the river to the foot: 
of the mountains. Here | remarked, among the sage ie, yan hanphes, 
of what is called the second growth of grass. The river to-day has 
from rapids, with a low, sandy hill slope bt ars 
smooth appeara ee 
: SS bottoms, in which there is a little good soil. ‘Thermometer at sunset 
45°, bl 
15°, blowi ju a 5 Ore mcesy cold. 
eptemo sunrise 36°, with s baight sun, and. 
