CHAPTER VIII {III}
The Rocky Mountains and their Spurs—Geography of the Mountain Region—Wyeth—The Outset—The Beaver Catcher's Bride—Trois Butes—Addition from a Monastery—Orisons—A Merry Mountain Trapper—Root Diggers—Enormous Springs—Volcanic Hearths and Chasms—Carbo—An old Chief—A Bluff—Boisais River—Incident of Trade—The Bonaks—The Dead Wail—Fort Boisais, its Salmon, Butter and Hearty Cheer—Mons. Payette—Curiosity—Departure—Passing the Blue Mountains—The Grandeur of them—Their Forests, Flowers, and Torrents—Descent of the Mountains—Plain, a Christian Crane—Arrival at Dr. Whitman's Mission—Wallawalla—People—Farm—Mill—Learning—Religion—Mr. Ermitinger—Blair—Nez Percés—Racing—Indian Horse Training—Sabbath and its joys in the Wilderness.
It will not be uninteresting while pausing here, and making preparations to descend Snake, Lewis, or Saptin river,[183] to lead my readers back over that portion of my journey which lay among the mountains. I do not design to retrace my steps here, however, in order again to attempt a description of sufferings which can never be described. They are past; and let their remembrance {91} die. But a succinct account of the region lying west of the Anahuac ridge, and between latitudes 39° and 42° north—its mountains, its plains, its rivers, &c., will, I persuade myself, be new, and not without interest to the reader.
James' Peak, Pike's Peak, and Long's Peak, may be called the outposts of a lofty range of rocky mountains, which, for convenience in description, I have called Long's Range, extending nearly due north from the Arkansas, in latitude 39°, to the Great Gap in latitude 42° north.[184]
The range is unconnected with any other. It is separated from the Wind River Mountains by the Great Gap or Great Southern Pass, and from the Great Anahuac Range by the upper valleys of the Arkansas, those of the South Fork of the Platte, and those of the Green and Grand rivers. Two spurs spring off from it to the west: the one from James' Peak, the other from Long's Peak. These spurs, as they proceed westward, dip lower and lower till they terminate—the first in the rough cliffs around the upper waters of the Arkansas, and the latter in spherical sand-hills around the lower waters of Grand river.[185] The Anahuac Mountains were seen from about latitude 39° to {92} 42° north. This range lies about two hundred miles west of Long's Range, and between latitude 39 and 40°, has a general course of north north-west. It appeared an unbroken ridge of ice and snow, rising in some points, I think, more than fifteen thousand feet above the level of the sea. From latitude 41° it tends to the north-west by west, past the north-eastern shore of the Great Salt Lake to the northern end of it; and thence westwardly to a point south of Portneuf, where it unites with the range of the Snowy Mountains.
The Snowy Mountains are a transverse range or spur of the Rocky Mountains, which run from the Wind River Mountains, latitude 42° north, in nearly a right line to Cape Mendocino, latitude 40°, in Upper California. Many portions of this range, east as well as west of Fort Hall, are very lofty, and covered with perpetual snow. About one hundred miles from the coast of the Pacific it intersects that range of snowy peaks called the President's Range, which comes down from Puget's sound, and terminates in the arid plains about the mouth of the Colorado of the West.[186]
{93} The Wind River Mountains are a spur which shoots from the great northern chain, commonly called the Rocky Mountains, in latitude 42° and odd minutes north; and running in a south-easterly direction into the Great Prairie Wilderness, forms the northern wall of the Great Gap or Great Southern Pass.[187]
On the northern side of the Wind River Peaks, are the sources of Jefferson, Madison, and Gallatin rivers;[188] on the south-eastern side rises the Sweetwater, the north-western-most branch of the North Fork of the Great Platte; on the southern side the Sheetskadee or Green river, the northern branch of the Colorado of the West; on the north-western side and north of the Snowy Mountains, spring down the Saptin, Snake, or Lewis river, the great southern branch of the Columbia.
On the western side of Long's Range, rises the Grand river, the principal branch of the Colorado of the West.[189] It furnishes four times the quantity of water that Green river does. Further south, in the vicinity of James' Peak, and on the west side of this range, rises the South Fork of the Great Platte.[190]
Close under the eastern base of the Anahuac {94} or Great Main Ridge, and nearly in latitude 39½° north, are the sources of the Arkansas.