CHAPTER XLVI.

INDEPENDENCE ROCK.

"Camp No. 87, July 3, 1906.—Odometer 1,065, Independence Rock. We drove over to the 'Rock,' from the 'Devil's Gate,' a distance of six miles, and camped at 10:00 o'clock for the day."

Not being conversant with the work done by others to perpetuate their names on this famous boulder that covers about thirty acres, we groped our way among the inscriptions to find some of them nearly obliterated and many legible only in part, showing how impotent the efforts of individuals to perpetuate the memory of their own names, and, may I add, how foolish it is, in most cases, forgetting, as these individuals have, that it is actions, not words, even if engraved upon stone, that carry one's name down to future generations. We walked all the way around the stone, which was nearly a mile around, of irregular shape, and over a hundred feet high, the walls being so precipitous as to prevent ascending to the top except in two vantage points. Unfortunately, we missed the Fremont inscription made in 1842.

Of this inscription Fremont writes in his journal: "August 23 (1842). Yesterday evening we reached our encampment at Rock Independence, where I took some astronomical observations. Here, not unmindful of the custom of early travelers and explorers in our country, I engraved on this rock of the Far West a symbol of the Christian faith. Among the thickly inscribed names, I made on the hard granite the impression of a large cross, which I covered with a black preparation of India rubber, well calculated to resist the influences of the wind and rain. It stands amidst the names of many who have long since found their way to the grave and for whom the huge rock is a giant gravestone.

"One George Weymouth was sent out to Maine by the Earl of Southampton, Lord Arundel, and others; and in the narrative of their discoveries he says: 'The next day we ascended in our pinnace that part of the river which lies more to the westward, carrying with us a cross—a thing never omitted by any Christian traveler—which we erected at the ultimate end of our route.' This was in the year 1605; and in 1842 I obeyed the feeling of early travelers, and I left the impression of the cross deeply engraved on the vast rock 1,000 miles beyond the Mississippi, to which discoverers have given the national name of Rock Independence."

The reader will note that Fremont writes in 1842 of the name, "to which discoverers have given the national name of Independence Rock," showing that the name of the rock long antedated his visit, as he had inscribed the cross "amidst the names of many."

Of recent years the traveled road leads to the left of the rock, going eastward, instead of to the right and nearer the left bank of the Sweetwater as in early years; and so I selected a spot on the westward sloping face of the stone for the inscription, "Old Oregon Trail, 1843-57," near the present traveled road, where people can see it, as shown in the illustration, and inscribed it with as deep cut letters as we could make with a dulled cold chisel, and painted the sunken letters with the best sign writer's paint in oil. On this expedition, where possible, I have in like manner inscribed a number of boulders, with paint only, which it is to be hoped, before the life of the paint has gone out, may find loving hands to inscribe deep into the stone; but here on this huge boulder I hope the inscription may last for centuries, though not as deeply cut as I would have liked had we but had suitable tools.

FISH CREEK.

Eleven miles out from Independence Rock we nooned on the bank of a small stream, well named Fish Creek, for it literally swarmed with fish of suitable size for the pan, but they would not bite, and we had no appliances for catching with a net, and so consoled ourselves with the exclamation that they were suckers only, and we didn't care, but I came away with the feeling that maybe we were "suckers" ourselves for having wet a blanket in an attempt to seine them, getting into the water over boot top deep, and working all the noon hour instead of resting like an elderly person should, and as the oxen did.