FROM BITTER ROOT VALLEY TO FORT HALL. 
333 
December 11, 1853.—Commences cool, cloudy, and snowing, the thermometer at sunrise being 
34°. We found the ground this morning covered with two inches of snow, and the weather 
giving every prospect of a gloomy day. We resumed our march at 8 a. m., which for a mile 
lay along the right bank of the Kamas Prairie creek, which we crossed, with water two feet deep. 
At this point we left the river, which, at the distance of six miles, we again struck where it forms 
a lake, called the Kamas Prairie lake, which is one mile wide and three long. Our trail, in the 
mean while, led through the sage desert of the Snake river valley. 
Sixteen miles from our camp of last night we came in view of a large lake, which stopped our 
progress to the Snake river in the direction in which we were then travelling. Here it became 
necessary to make a detour to the east or west. The road to the right is shorter, but is through 
a country rough and rugged. That to the left is better. This we took, keeping along the 
margin of the lake; over, however, a very rocky, sage-covered road, where no trace of a trail 
had ever been made. Where the high and rugged sage-bushes did not stop our progress, our 
road was impeded by broken fragments and large beds of black volcanic rock, terrible for our 
animals’ feet. 
Travelling along this lake for a distance of six or eight miles, we left it to our right, and in a 
short time fell upon the main stream of the Snake river, or Lewis’s fork of the Columbia, which 
we found to be from one hundred and fifty to two hundred yards wide, and very deep, with high 
clay banks, bordered with a slight growth of willow. The guide represented that heretofore the 
bed of this lake has been a beautiful prairie basin, where every year, up to the last season, buf- 
f do have been hunted and killed, and at times in such large numbers that, among the trappers 
and hunters of the mountains, it obtained the name of “The Market”—certainly a very appro¬ 
priate name, for whenever they were out of provisions they always made a visit to this noted 
spot, and were ever rewarded for their labor. But during the last summer it has changed its 
character completely. I have supposed that the lake has been formed by the overflow of the 
Snake river waters, and am confirmed in this belief by the fact that the bed the lake now 
occupies is represented as having been a basin-shaped prairie, and that during the last season 
the Snake river overflowed its banks to a greater extent than has been known for many years, 
from the melting of the snows that fell during the winter of 1852. Besides, it is but a few miles 
from the lake to the river, and the country intervening is a level sage prairie. Again, in passing 
from the lake to the river we met with much driftwood, consisting in some places of large trees, 
carried to a great distance from the bank of the stream, which shows that a great depth of water 
was necessary ihus to transport these large and heavy masses. There is no stream known 
through the valley that could thus form the lake, and, from the circumstances, I could only sup¬ 
pose that it was formed by the overflow of the Snake river. It might possibly be the outlet of 
some subterranean stream, but the more probable cause has been mentioned. 
The day has been so cloudy and gloomy that we were unable to see the Tetons or the Buttes 
of the valley. When within five or six miles of the Snake river, we descried on its banks a single 
lodge; when, being very desirous of obtaining fresh meat, and supposing this to be the lodge of 
some Indian hunting or trapping, Gabriel, the guide, started to ascertain who its inmates were, 
and to secure, if possible, enough fresh meat to carry us to Fort Hall. The Indian, with his two 
boys, were off a short distance hunting, leaving his squaw alone at the lodge. Espying whites 
travelling towards her lodge, she seized a gun and ran to some neighboring rocks, and there 
couched herself, expecting some misfortune about to befal her, and resolved to fight to the last. 
Finding her in this strong place, and her lodge deserted, Gabriel spoke to her in Indian, asking 
where her husband was. She answered, “Yonder in the field, hunting.” Seeing from their 
conduct they were friends and not enemies, as she had supposed, she emerged from her hiding- 
place and discharged her gun—a signal for her husband to return—when, in a few minutes, the 
major-domo was on the ground. It was a lodge of Banax, on their way to the mountains for 
game, and had stopped here to fish and hunt for their subsistence by the way, and they told us 
