Page:Rocky Mountain life.djvu/336

 Along the watercourses and intermingled with the rude array of hills and rocks, were many beautiful valleys, prairillons, and plateaux, all clothed with rank vegetation; and, indeed, the soil of the entire section appeared tolerably fertile.

The prevailing rock of this region is feldsphatic granite, gneiss, micaceous sandstone, and slate. These different classifications (here strown about in confused piles, and there again towering in massive walls of immense altitude) presented an impressively grand appearance, and united to render the scenery one of varied sublimity and magnificence.

Sept. 30th. In the afternoon I raised camp and proceeded for ten or twelve miles, through a broad opening between two mountain ridges, bearing a northwesterly direction, to a large valley skirting a tributary of Thompson's creek, where, finding an abundance of deer, I passed the interval till my return to the Fort.

Upon all the principal streams were large quantities of cherries and plums, which proved quite acceptable. The cherry (cerasus virginiana) indigenous to this country is quite similar in appearance to our common wild cherry, though it is generally larger and more pleasantly tasted. It grows upon a small bush, and yields in lavish profusion.

Three different varieties of plums are common to these parts, but are so similar in most respects to the wild species of that fruit found in our Southern and Western States, that I shall not take the trouble to describe them.

The locality of my encampment presented numerous and varied attractions. It seemed, indeed, like a concentration of beautiful lateral valleys, intersected by meandering watercourses, ridged by lofty ledges of precipitous rock, and hemmed in upon the west by vast piles of mountains climbing beyond the clouds, and upon the north, south, and east, by sharp lines of hills that skirted the prairie; while occasional openings, like gateways, pointed to the far-spreading domains of silence and loneliness.

Easterly a wall of red sandstone and slate extended for miles northward and southward, whose counterscarp spread to view a broad and gentle declivity, decked with pines and luxuriant herbage, at the foot of which a lake of several miles in circumference occupies the centre of a basin-like valley, bounded in every direction by verdant hills, that smile upon the bright gem embosomed among them.

This valley is five or six miles in diameter, and possesses a soil well adapted to cultivation. It also affords every variety of game, while the lake is completely crowded with geese, brants, ducks, and gulls, to an extent seldom witnessed. What a charming retreat for some one of the world-hating literati! He might here hold daily converse with himself, Nature, and his God, far removed from the annoyance of man.

Four miles further north the traveller is brought to one of the main branches of Thompson's creek, up which is another pass to the waters of Grand river.

This stream traces its way through a fertile valley, two or three miles broad, stretching from the prairie almost to the base of Long's Peak, —a distance of nearly thirty miles. The valley is well timbered and admirably adapted to stock-raising.

The hills and mountains, enclosing it upon each side are also studded