These ranges in several places thin out, as it were, leaving a large tract of level country completely embosomed in snowy ridges in the very heart of the system. These plains are known as “parks.” They are found throughout the range. Several of them are of vast extent,—the four principal ones forming the series called, in their order,
“North,” “Middle,” “South,” and “Saint Louis” Parks. Portions of them, thoroughly irrigated, remain beautifully green throughout the year, and herbage over the whole region is abundant. Sheltered from the blasts to which the lower plains are exposed, these parks enjoy an equable climate; and old hunters, who have camped in them for many seasons, describe life there as an earthly paradise. They abound in animals of all sorts. Elk, deer, and antelope feed on their rich grasses. Hither also the puma follows its prey, and there are several other creatures of the feline tribe. Bears, wolves, and foxes likewise range across them. In some of them herds of buffalo pass their lives; for, unlike their brethren of the plain, they are not migratory. It is doubtful whether or not they are of the same species, but they are said to be larger and fiercer.
The appropriate designation of the Rocky Mountain-system is that of a chain. On crossing one of its basins or plateaux, the traveller finds himself within a link such as has just been described. A break in one of these links is called a “pass,” or “canon.” As he passes through this break he enters another link, belonging to another parallel either of a higher or lower series. In some of the minor plateaux between the snowy ridges no vegetation appears. Granite and sandstone rocks outcrop even in the general sandy level, rising bare and perpendicularly from 50 to 300 feet; as a late traveller describes it, “looking like a mere clean skeleton of the world.” Nothing is visible but pure rock on every side. Vast stones lie heaped up into pyramids, as if they had been rent from the sky. Cubical masses, each covering an acre of surface, and reaching to a perpendicular height of thirty or forty feet, suggest the buttresses of some gigantic palace, whose superstructure has crumbled away with the race of its Titanic builders. It is these regions especially which have given the mighty range the appropriate name of the Rocky Mountains.
The Sage Cock.
In some spots, the limitless wastes are covered by a scrubby plant known as mountain sage. It rises from a tough gnarled root in a number of spiral shoots, which finally form a single trunk, varying in circumference from six inches to two feet. The leaves are grey, with a strong offensive smell resembling true sage. In other places there appear mixed with it the equally scrubby but somewhat greener grease-wood—the two resinous shrubs affording the only fuel on which the emigrant can rely while following the Rocky Mountain trail.
These sage regions are the habitation of a magnificent bird—the Sage Cock. He may well be called the King of the grouse tribe. When stalking erect through the sage, he looks as large as a good-sized wild turkey—his average length being, indeed, about thirty-two inches, and that of the hen two feet. They differ somewhat, according to the season of the year. The prevailing colour is that of a yellowish-brown or warm grey, mottled with darker brown, shading from cinnamon to jet-black. The dark spots are laid on in a longitudinal series of crescents. The under parts are a light grey, sometimes almost pure white, barred with streaks of brown, or pied with black patches. In the elegance of his figure and fineness of his outlines he vies with the golden pheasant. His tail differs from that of the grouse family in general by coming to a point instead of opening like a fan. On each side of his neck he has a bare orange-coloured spot, and near it a downy epaulet. His call is a rapid “Cut, cut, cut!” followed by a hollow blowing sound. He has the partridge’s habit of drumming with his wings, while the hen-bird knows the trick of misleading the enemy from her young brood. He seldom rises from the ground, his occasional flights being low, short, and laboured. He runs with great speed, and in his favourite habitat dodges and skulks with rapidity, favoured by the resemblance of his colour to the natural tints of the scrub. Though sometimes called the Cock of the Plains, he never descends into the plains, being always found on the higher mountain regions.
When the snow begins to melt, the sage hen builds in the bush a nest of sticks and reeds artistically matted together, and lays from a dozen to twenty eggs, rather larger than those of the domestic fowl, of a tawny colour, irregularly marked with chocolate blotches on the larger end. When a brood is strong enough to travel, the parents lead their young into general society. They are excessively tame, or bold. Often they may be seen strutting between the gnarled trunk and ashen masses of foliage peculiar to the sage scrub, and paying no more attention to the traveller than would a barnyard drove of turkeys; the cocks now and then stopping to play the dandy before their more Quakerly little hens, inflating the little yellow pouches of skin on either side of their necks, till they globe out like the pouches of a pigeon.
Winter Scene among the Rocky Mountains.
Descending the precipitous slopes of the Rocky Mountains on the west, we enter on a vast plain no less than 2000 miles in length, though comparatively narrow—the great basin of California and Oregon. Its greatest width, from the Sierra Nevada to the Rocky Mountains, is nearly 600 miles, but is generally much less. The largest lake found on it is 4200 feet above the level of the sea, and is connected with the Salt Lake of Utah. The mean elevation of the plain is about 6000 feet above the sea. A mountain-chain runs across it, and through it flows the large Colorado River, amidst gorges of the most picturesque magnificence.