86 
NARRATIVE AND ITINERARY-NEE-NEE SPRINGS-TYSCH PRAIRIE. 
the ford a little difficult. There are a few stunted cedars in the canon, but very little grass where 
the trail crosses it. Its hanks are often very precipitous, and composed of basaltic rock, and 
earth of various reddish shades. The water of the river is clear and cold ; and it derives its 
name, Warn Chuck or Mil-lil-le Chuck, signifying warm water, from several hot springs upon 
its hanks. Some of them give off an odor of chlorine, and are partly covered with a thick green 
scum containing soluble silica. Others seem perfectly clear and pure. The former class is 
generally bordered by a white solid deposit from the water. Large rocks in the vicinity are 
sometimes incrusted with the same substance. The springs often contain cooked grasshoppers, 
hugs, and snakes, that have unwittingly taken a warm hath. 
The trail leaves the canon by a narrow lateral gorge, with sides in many places vertical or 
even overhanging, and from one to three hundred feet in height. There are large caverns 
high up in these cliffs, to which access without ropes would he impossible. The pass is a vast, 
narrow gateway, whose wild beauty defies description. It preserves this character for about 
a mile, and then suddenly expands into a little basin surrounded by low mountains, and 
abounding in very interesting varieties of silicious rock. This basin contains good grass and 
a spring of pure water, thus forming a better camping place than the river canon. We 
crossed it, and toiling up a rocky mountain, until we gained an elevation above the basin of 
about 1,600 feet, wound round its eastern side near the edge of a deep ravine, into which, in 
many places, a single mis-step would have precipitated us. After gaining the northern side, 
we passed over low, rolling hills for about two miles, and then crossed the dry bed of a stream 
in a small ravine. Passing over an elevated country for about three miles, we next came to a place 
where there were a few small water holes, apparently excavated by the Indians. About two 
miles beyond was a very small stream called Nee-nee, or Willow springs. Here we en¬ 
camped under a few fine trees. There was an abundance of good hunch grass, and our animals 
fared better than they had since we left the main party. The Indians fully appreciate the 
excellence of this kind of grass for their horses, and Nee-nee is one of their favorite resorts. 
We found near camp a large deposit of fine red and white sandstone, which was beautifully 
stratified. 
September 9.—After riding this morning among low, rolling hills for about two miles, we 
reached another moist spot called by the Indians Idy-as Nee-nee, or Great Willow spring. 
Here the trail forks. We took the right hand branch, which led us, by an ascent of about 
200 feet, to the northern border of the elevated spur upon which we had been travelling since 
we left Warn Chuck canon, and which is named, by the white traders, the Mutton mountains. 
About 1,900 feet below us lay a sterile, treeless, basaltic plain, elevated 2,200 feet above the 
sea. It is called Tysch prairie. The thickly timbered foot hills of the Cascade Eange marked 
its western border. About thirteen miles north of where we stood, a smooth ridge, yellow with 
dried grass and unmarked by a single tree, rose abruptly ; and, after extending about thirteen 
miles in an eastern and western direction, suddenly terminated at each extremity. To the 
eastward, beyond the enormous canon of the Des Chutes river, which we could distinctly trace, 
the plain became broken by rolling hills, extending as far as the eye could reach. The descent 
to the prairie was very steep, and we afterwards found that the left branch of the trail at 
Hy-as Nee-nee, was much the better of the two; since it followed the gradual slope of a ravine, 
and joined the other soon after gaining the prairie. This ravine, although entirely dry in the 
summer, is, in the rainy season, the bed of a torrent, whose rocky course, near the base of the 
Mutton mountains, we found bordered by stunted oaks, the first we had seen for many miles. After 
