10th. Fifteen miles over "cut rock" and wormwood deserts; and at mid-day descended {105} about six hundred feet in the chasm of the Saptin, and travelled along the brink of the river a short distance; crossed at a place called "The Islands," to the eastern shore.[197]
The river has been dipping deeper in the plain the last three days. A bird's eye view of it for sixty miles above the Islands would present a tortuous chasm, walled by basalt, trap, &c., and sunk along the centre of the valley, from one hundred to eight hundred feet deep, a black chasm, destitute of timber and other evidences of fertility, from a quarter to half a mile in width. In the centre of the bottom rushes the Saptin; over rocks and gravel a clear, pure, strong stream, with a current of five miles to the hour; water three and four feet in depth. Travelled seven or eight miles from the ford and fell in with eight or ten springs of limpid water, bubbling through the flinty crust of the plain. The sun was pouring upon us his fiercest rays, and our thirst was excessive. A halting, dismounting and rushing to the water, the application of our giant's lips to the liquid—a paralysis of his thirst produced by the boiling hot sensation which it imparted to his swearing apparatus, prepared us to resume our ride. Hot springs, {106} boiling hot—no apparent mineral properties.[198]
11th. Travelled to-day thirty-five miles over an irregular, rough, unseemly desert; volcanic stones strewn every where on a black, impenetrable, baked surface; soil too poor to bear the wormwood—trail too far east to see the river. At ten o'clock, met a petty chief of the Snake Root Diggers and his son on horseback, from Boisais river. He was dressed in a blanket coat, deer skin pants, and moccasins garnished with cut glass beads and strips of red flannel; the boy entirely naked. Carbo learned from him the situation of his tribe, and a few bits of Indian scandal, ascertained that we could reach Boisais river the next day, and that we could probably obtain fresh horses there. His copper-coloured highness than left us to pursue his way to Fort Hall, to get his guns repaired, and we continued ours to the lower Columbia, to get out of this grave of desolation. I had not seen an acre of land since leaving Fort Hall, capable of producing the grains or vegetables. Encamped on a small brook running westwardly towards the Saptin.
12th. On route at six o'clock in the morning; horses weary, and getting crippled {107} pitifully on the "cut rock;" face of the country absolute sterility; our trail near the mountains, about two hundred miles east of the Saptin.[199] At nine o'clock, came to the bluff overlooking Boisais river. Here the valley is sunken six or seven hundred feet; the whole of it below, to the limit of sight, appears to have subsided nearly to a level with the waters of the Saptin. Lines of timber ran along the Boisais, and plats of green grass and shrubs dotted its banks. The mountains, whence the river came, rose in dark stratified ridges. Where the stream escaped from them, there was an immense chasm, with perpendicular sides, which seemed to open into their most distant bases. Horrid crags beetled over its dismal depths. Lofty, rocky ridges extended far into the north. In the west and north-west towered the Blue Mountains.
We descended the bluff, followed down the Boisais three or four miles, and crossed the river into an encampment of Snake fishermen.[200] They were employed in laying in their winter store of salmon. Many horses were feeding on the plain. We turned ours loose also for a bite of the fresh {108} grass, while we bought fish, &c., and made other arrangements to improve digestion and our speed in travelling. Our business was transacted as follows:—For one large fish-hook we bought one salmon; for one paper of vermillion, six bunches of spawn; for one butcher-knife, one leathern fish rope. Carbo exchanged horses; disposed of one worth five shillings for one worth three, and gave a blanket and ten loads of ammunition to boot. He was vastly pleased with his bargain, and endeavoured to show himself so, by trying to grin like a white man; but he was not skilled in the science of manufacturing laughter, and made a deplorable failure of it. One of my own horses, whose feet were worn and tender, was exchanged with like profit to the shrewd jockeys.
These Indians are more filthy than the Hottentots. Both sexes were nearly naked. Their shelters were made with rush mats wrapped around cones of poles.
Having finished our trading, we travelled about ten miles down the stream, and encamped upon its bank. The plains were well covered with grass; many portions seemed susceptible of cultivation. The bed of {109} the river presented the usual characteristics of a mountain torrent; broad, shallow, with extensive bars of coarse gravel crossing the channel in all directions. The water limpid, and its quantity might be expressed by saying that the average depth was six inches, width ten yards, rate of current three miles an hour. In the month of June, however, it is said to bring from its maternal mountains immense floods.
13th. A breakfast of boiled spawn, and on trail at sunrise; travelled rapidly down the grassy intervales of Boisais; passed many small groves of timber. Many Indians employed in drying salmon, nearly naked, and dirty and miserable, ran after us for tobacco, and to drive a bargain for horses. All Indians have a mania for barter. They will trade for good or evil to themselves, at every opportunity. Here they beset us on every side. And if at any moment we began to felicitate ourselves on having at last escaped from their annoying petitions for "shmoke" and "hos," the next moment the air would resound with whips and hoofs, and "shmoke, shmoke," "hos," from half a dozen new applicants, more troublesome than their predecessors. No Jew, with old clothes and a pinch-beck watch to sell, ever {110} pressed customers with more assiduity than did these savages. But when we had travelled about thirty miles from our night camp, they all suddenly disappeared; and neither hut nor Shoshonie was seen more. They dare not pass the boundary between themselves and the Bonaks.
Soon after being relieved from these pests, our guide, Carbo, intimated that it would be according to the rules of etiquette in that country for him to leave us, unacquainted though we were with the right trail among the ten thousand that crossed the country in every direction, and proceed to Fort Boisais, to make the important announcement that four white faces were approaching the post. I remonstrated; but remonstrance was mere air in comparison with the importance of doing his duty in the most approved style; and away he shot, like an arrow from the bows of his tribe, over hillock and through the streams and copses, till lost from view. It was about four o'clock. The trails were so numerous, that we found it useless to continue on any of them. For if we selected any single one, that one branched into many every half mile. Thus we deemed it best to 'take our course,' as the {111} mariner would say, and disregard them altogether. In following this determination, we crossed the Boisais again and again; floundered in quagmires, and dodged along among whipping boughs and underbrush; and, when unimpeded by such obstacles, pelted the dusty plain with as sturdy a trot as ever echoed there, till the sun went down, and his twilight had left the sky. No Fort yet! nor had we yet seen the Saptin. We halted, held a council, and determined to "hold our course" westward; listened—heard nothing but the muttering Boisais, and travelled on. In half an hour, came to us a frightful, mournful yell, which brought us to an instantaneous halt. We were within fifty yards of the Bonak Indians, and were discovered!