Page:Columbus and other heroes of American discovery; (IA columbusotherher00bell).pdf/252

 given, in honor of the leader of the expedition; and, provisions now running short, it was resolved to turn back. To us who have access only to the official reports of the work done, the result obtained on this trip seems to have been very inadequate to the preparations made; but, as we have more than once had occasion to feel, it is in the byways rather than the highways of our present subject that our pulse is stirred in sympathy with heroic deeds. The history of American exploration, properly so called, is almost entirely wanting in that element of romance, springing from the conquering of apparently insurmountable difficulties, which lends so subtle a charm to the record of the solving of the problems of African geography.

Long and James, leaders of the second of the two expeditions we have alluded to, embarked at St. Louis in a steam packet named the Western Engineer, the first to be launched on the inland waters of the Republic, in July, 1819; but a little above the mouth of the Kansas, they were robbed of all they possessed by Pawnee Indians, and compelled to return and refit.

Early in September a second start was made; but the season was now so far advanced that it was necessary to winter near the mouth of the Platte, or Nebraska, so that it was not until the summer of 1820 that the actual journey of discovery can be said to have commenced. The first purpose of the expedition was now, in obedience to orders from headquarters, laid aside for a time, while a trip was made up the Nebraska, which was followed through the extensive level tracts—traversed by vast hordes of bisons and antelopes of various kinds, and rich in quarries of sandstone and limestone—forming the Platte valley, until the point at which the Nebraska divides into two forks was reached.

Here a halt was made, and it was resolved to follow the southern branch to its source in the Rocky Mountains. On the 30th June, the first buttresses of that now well known chain came in sight; and on the 6th of the ensuing month, the camp was pitched opposite the chasm from which the Platte issues from its mountain home on its way to its junction, first with its northern branch, and then with the Missouri.

At this point, situated in N. lat. 39°, W. long. 105°, the Rocky Mountains presented an almost impassable barrier, a perpendicular wall of sandstone, some 200 feet high, running along on either side as far as the eye could reach, with granite masses towering beyond it to the sky. Several attempts were made to scale this wall, and from one height gained a view was obtained of both branches of the Platte, one coming from the north