58 HOMEWARD MARCH. 



stated to me by three different Indians, in whose veracity I have much 

 confidence, and I have no doubt are strictly true. The black bear is 

 generally harmless unless wounded, or when accompanied by its youug, 

 when I have known one of them to pursue a man on horseback several 

 hundred yards in the most furious mood, snapping continually at the 

 legs of the horse. 



July 3. — We reached camp to dayfrom the head of the river, having 

 returned over the same route that we ascended, and found all anxiously 

 awaiting us. From this point to the head of the river is sixty-five miles, 

 and for about sixty miles of this distance the river runs through a deep 

 defile, the escarpments of which rise from five to eight hundred feet 

 upon each side, and in many places they approach so near the water's 

 edge that there is not room for a man to pass, and it is often necessary 

 to travel for several miles in the bed of the river before a place is found 

 where a horse can clamber up the precipitous sides of the chasm. 



I could not determine in my own mind whether this remarkable 

 defile had been formed, after a long lapse of time, by the continued 

 action of the current, or had been produced by some great convulsion of 

 nature : perhaps both causes have contributed to its formation, some 

 convulsive operation having first given birth to an extensive fissure, and 

 the ceaseless action of the stream having afterwards reduced it to its 

 present condition. 



A gentleman who is travelling with us, and who was attached as a 

 captain to Col. McLeod's expedition to Santa Fe, so graphically de- 

 scribed by Mr. Kendall, recognised a point, near the head of the river, 

 where his command passed. He is of the opinion that the river which 

 they ascended, and supposed at the time to be the principal branch of 

 Red river, must have been the Big Witchita, and they probably passed 

 entirely to the south of the main branch of the river. The fact that 

 they were for a long time upon the plains of the "Llano estacado" 

 would go to confirm this supposition, as anywhere to the north of this 

 stream they would not have encountered much of it. 



July 4. — This morning at an early hour we turned our faces towards 

 home, and travelled about five miles down the right bank of the river, 

 when we discovered that the country in advance upon that side was so 

 much broken into deep gullies and abrupt ridges that it would be im- 

 practicable to get our wagons over them. We therefore crossed to the 

 north side of the river, where we found a most excellent road over 

 smooth prairie. At our present position we have a pond of excellent 

 water, with an abundance of hackberry and cotton-wood for fuel. On 

 approaching the pond, Capt. McClellan and myself, who were in advance 



