resumed their course along an old Indian road.  In the afternoon they reached a handsome valley watered by a large creek, both of which extend a considerable distance into the mountain:  this they crossed, and during the evening travelled over a mountainous country covered with sharp fragments of flint-rock:  these bruised and cut their feet very much, but were scarcely less troublesome than the prickly pear of the open plains, which have now become so abundant that it is impossible to avoid them, and the thorns are so strong that they pierce a double soal of dressed deer skin:  the best resource against them is a soal of buffaloe hide in parchment.  At night they reached the river much fatigued, having passed two mountains in the course of the day and having travelled thirty miles.  Captain Clarke’s first employment on lighting a fire was to extract from his feet the briars, which he found seventeen in number.

In the meantime we proceeded on very well, though the water appears to increase in rapidity as we advance:  the current has indeed been strong during the day and obstructed by some rapids, which are not however much broken by rocks, and are perfectly safe:  the river is deep, and its general width is from one hundred to one hundred and fifty yards wide.  For more than thirteen miles we went along the numerous bends of the river and then reached two small islands; three and three quarter miles beyond which is a small creek in a bend to the left, above a small island on the right side of the river.  We were regaled about ten o’clock P.M. with a thunder storm of rain and hail which lasted for an hour, but during the day in this confined valley, through which we are passing, the heat is almost insupportable; yet whenever we obtain a glimpse of the lofty tops of the mountains we are tantalized with a view of the snow.  These mountains have their sides and summits partially varied with little copses of pine, cedar, and balsam fir.  A mile and a half beyond this creek the rocks approach the river on both sides, forming a most sublime and extraordinary spectacle.  For five and three quarter miles these rocks rise perpendicularly from the water’s edge to the height of nearly twelve hundred feet.  They are composed of a black granite near its base, but from its lighter colour above and from the fragments we suppose the upper part to be flint of a yellowish brown and cream colour.  Nothing can be imagined more tremendous than the frowning darkness of these rocks, which project over the river and menace us with destruction.  The river, of one hundred and fifty yards in width, seems to have forced its channel down this solid mass, but so reluctantly has it given way that during the whole distance the water is very deep even at the edges, and for the first three miles there is not a spot except one of a few yards, in which a man could stand between the water and the towering perpendicular of the mountain:  the convulsion of the passage must have been terrible, since at its