Page:Route Across the Rocky Mountains with a Description of Oregon and California.djvu/105



Presently, again approaching, with whooping and yelling, we endeavored, the second time, to turn them; but they only gave way, and closed around us, and the dust again obliged us to retire: we finally succeeded in turning a few of the last, yet they were so determined to follow the others, that we only drove them a few hundred yards, towards the coral, before they plunged down a perpendicular bank, fifteen or twenty feet, into the slough, burying themselves completely under the water; and gaining the opposite shore, followed the band. The Spaniards often take the wild horses in this manner, and frequently, by pursuing them, upon the open plain. when they have taken one, they confine it with ropes, saddle it, put a halter on it, and having again loosened it, they mount, and ride it furiously, until it is completely exhausted. And they continue to do this, until the animal becomes tame, and tractable. These wild horses are of almost every color; some of them have a very fine appearance, but they are much smaller than well-bred horses; and their habits are, in some respects, entirely different from those of the domestic horses. From the coral, we proceeded across the country, to Monte Rey. Arriving at Monte Rey, we found a gentleman and his family, who had left the States with us, and with whom, as we have before mentioned, we traveled, as far as Fort Hall. They left Fort Hall for California, under the pilotage of Captain Walker, about the same time that we left it, for the Falls of the Willammette. After traveling through the dreary country of which we have spoken, as far as the California Mountains, they followed that range South, several hundred miles, and entered the Valley of the St. Wakine, by Walker's Pass. The small supply of provisions; which, by very unpleasant means, they at length procured at Fort Hall, after continued and persevering effort; were exhausted, long before they could reach a place where they could be resupplied. A Country so barren, as that through which they were compelled to travel, afforded, neither game, nor food of any kind, except that upon which the few miserable and beast like Indians, who inhabit that region, subsist–lizzards, crickets, ants, and the like—and which would, of course, be revolting to the palate of any other people, unless in the very extremity of starvation. They suffered extremely; and before they arrived at the Pass, they were driven to the necessity, or eating some of the mules and horses, which had served them so faithfully, and which were then poor, and worn out with fatigue, from long and laborious traveling, over a country so rough and barren. They left their