Page:Rocky Mountain life.djvu/247

 the flutterings of countless water-fowls which beskimmed the crystal blue or rode upon its surface.

No sound disturbed the stillness of its solitude, save that of my own footsteps commingling with the incessant chatter of aquatic birds. In solemn grandeur it lay before the eye a desert of waters, bounded upon three sides by the curving horizon, while from the fourth a beautiful expanse of verdancy smiled upon its solitude.

The island with its lone mountain, of which I have spoken in a former chapter, arose in full view, apparently a short distance to the southwest. It was a grand

45 This stream is named in memory of Gen. Ashley, of Mo., who, while engaged in the fur trade, attempted to descend the Colorado in boats, thinking thus to reach St. Louis by a direct water communication! However, he was compelled to relinquish his strange enterprise at the mouth of this creek, on account of the difficulty and danger attendant upon a further progress.

and imposing spectacle, and I much regretted the impossibility of reaching it. Its giant piles of naked rock and sun-baked clay, seemed scanning the surrounding waves, to smile upon their soft blandishments or frown at their rudeness.

But the Island, the Lake, and the country contiguous, have been fully described in former pages, which of right precludes a further notice at this time.

On resuming our course we continued up Bear river to the famous mineral springs, — thence bearing a northwesterly direction, we arrived at Fort Hall late in the afternoon of Nov. 9th.

The route from Uintah to this point presents many interesting localities some of which call for more than a mere passing notice. That situate upon Green river, known as Brown's-hole,46 coming first in order, seems to assert a merited precedence.

Descending by a steep, difficult pass from the west, fifty miles north of Ashley's Fork, the traveller is ushered into a beautiful valley, some fifteen miles long by ten broad, shut in upon all sides by impassable mountains that guard it from the world without.

46 This locality has received the soubriquet of Brown's-hole from the following circumstance:

Some six or seven years since, a trapper, by the name of Brown, came to it in the fall season for the purpose of hunting in its vicinity. During his stay a fall of snow closed the passes so effectually, he was forced to remain till the succeeding spring before he could escape from his lonely prison.

It was formerly a favorite resort for the Snake Indians, on account of its exhaustless stores of game and wild fruits, as well as its security from the approach of enemies.

NOTE.... —Taking latitude 42 ° north as the northern boundary between Oregon and California, these interesting regions of country are embraced within the limits of the latter; but taking the head-waters of the Arkansas as the true point, and thence, by a line running due west to the Pacific, nearly the whole of it will be found within the United States.

The treaty with Spain in 1819, defining this boundary, which was subsequently confirmed by Mexico, after noting Red river as the northern boundary of its eastern provinces, to longitude 100 ° west from Greenwich, and thence north to the Arkansas, uses the following words:

"Thence, following the course of the south bank of the Arkansas TO ITS SOURCE in latitude 42 ° north, thence by that parallel of latitude to the South Sea."

If the source of the Arkansas, by its south bank, is in lat. 42 ° north, then the matter of boundary admits of no question; but if it is not in that parallel of latitude, should the latter be regarded as the true boundary, when it is evident, from the words of the treaty that the source of the Arkansas by its south bank, was the intended FARTHEST northern extremity of Mexico, where the line between the two countries shall commence, and thence run due west to the Pacific?

But, instead of being in lat. 42 ° north, the source of the Arkansas is in lat. 39 ° north, as indisputably ascertained from recent explorations, and thus an interval of three degrees occurs between the two points named in the above treaty!

If the United States are obligated by this treaty to receive the 42d degree as their southern boundary, Mexico is equally obligated to receive the parallel from the source of the Arkansas due west to the Pacific, as her true northern limits; thus, a territory of eleven hundred and twenty-five miles from east to west, and nearly one hundred and forty from north to south, is left unowned by either party!