Rocky Mountains. 421 



animals are still to be found here in plenty. As we rode 

 along these boundless meadows, every object within several 

 miles became visible; the smallest shrub rising a few inches 

 above the surface of the green expanse, could be seen at a 

 mile distant.* Some large agarics and a gigantic lycoper- 

 don peculiar to these regions, are the most conspicuous ob- 

 jects, by which the uniformity of the plains is varied, and 

 these may be seen sometimes at the distance of two or three 

 miles. 



On the evening of the 24th, we arrived on the bank of a 

 beautiful river, at a grove of ash and cotton-wood trees. We 

 had scarce dismounted from our horses, when a violent thun- 

 der shower commenced; the rain fell in such torrents as to 

 extinguish our fire, and the wind blew so violently, that our 

 blanket tent could afford us no protection. Many large trees 

 were blown down in the point of woods where we lay, and 

 one fell a few yards from our camp. As the night was ex- 

 tremely dark, we thought the danger of moving, at least 

 equal to that of remaining where we were, and spent part 

 of the night in the greatest anxiety, listening to the roar of 

 the storm, and the crashing of the timber. As our horses 

 were dispersed about the wood, we had scarce a hope they 

 could all escape uninjured. 



On the day following, after we had rode about eighteen or 

 twenty miles, we observed the surface of the country to be- 

 come suddenly hilly, and soon after were surprised by an 

 unexpected view of the wide valley, the green meadows, and 

 the yellow stream of the Missouri. A little after noon, we 

 encamped in a meadow on the river bottom, and by ascend- 

 ing one of the neighbouring bluffs, sufficiently elevated to 

 overlook a large extent of the surrounding country, we were 

 enabled to discover that we had arrived at the Missouri, at 



* A ceanothus smaller than C. americana, the amorpha canescens, and 

 the symphoria racemosa, are almost the only shrubs seen in the prairies. 



