The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California | Page 5

many little tributaries to the
Kansas, which look like trenches in the prairie, and are usually well
timbered. After crossing this stream, I rode off some miles to the left,
attracted by the appearance of a cluster of huts near the mouth of the
Vermilion. It was a large but deserted Kansas village, scattered in an

open wood, along the margin of the stream, chosen with the customary
Indian fondness for beauty of scenery. The Pawnees had attacked it in
the early spring. Some of the houses were burnt, and others blackened
with smoke, and weeds were already getting possession of the cleared
places. Riding up the Vermilion river, I reached the ford in time to
meet the carts, and, crossing, encamped on its western side. The
weather continued cold, the thermometer being this evening as low as
49°; but the night was sufficiently clear for astronomical observations,
which placed us in longitude 96° 04' 07", and latitude 39° 15' 19". At
sunset, the barometer was at 28.845, thermometer 64°.
We breakfasted the next morning at half-past five, and left our
encampment early. The morning was cool, the thermometer being at
45°. Quitting the river bottom, the road ran along the uplands, over a
rolling country, generally in view of the Kansas from eight to twelve
miles distant. Many large boulders, of a very compact sandstone, of
various shades of red, some of them of four or five tons in weight, were
scattered along the hills; and many beautiful plants in flower, among
which the amorpha canescens was a characteristic, enlivened the green
of the prairie. At the heads of the ravines I remarked, occasionally,
thickets of saix longifolia, the most common willow of the country. We
traveled nineteen miles and pitched our tents at evening on the
head-waters of a small creek, now nearly dry, but having in its bed
several fine springs. The barometer indicated a considerable rise in the
country--here about fourteen hundred feet above the sea--and the
increased elevation appeared already to have some slight influence
upon vegetation. The night was cold, with a heavy dew; the
thermometer at 10 P.M. standing at 46°, barometer 28.483. Our
position was in longitude 96° 14' 49", and latitude 39° 30' 40".
The morning of the 20th was fine, with a southerly breeze and a bright
sky; and at seven o'clock we were on the march. The country to-day
was rather more broken, rising still, and covered everywhere with
fragments of silicious limestone, particularly on the summits, where
they were small, and thickly strewed as pebbles on the shore of the sea.
In these exposed situations grew but few plants; though, whenever the
soil was good and protected from the winds, in the creek bottoms and
ravines, and on the slopes, they flourished abundantly; among them the
amorpha, still retaining its characteristic place. We crossed, at 10 A.M.

the Big Vermilion, which has a rich bottom of about one mile in
breadth, one-third of which is occupied by timber. Making our usual
halt at noon, after a day's march of twenty-four miles, we reached the
Big Blue, and encamped on the uplands of the western side, near a
small creek, where was a fine large spring of very cold water. This is a
clear and handsome stream, about one hundred and twenty feet wide,
running with a rapid current, through a well-timbered valley. To-day
antelope were seen running over the hills, and at evening Carson
brought us a fine deer. Longitude of the camp 96° 32' 35", latitude 39°
45' 08". Thermometer at sunset 75°. A pleasant southerly breeze and
fine morning had given place to a gale, with indications of bad weather;
when, after a march of ten miles, we halted to noon on a small creek,
where the water stood in deep pools. In the bank of the creek limestone
made its appearance in a stratum about one foot thick. In the afternoon,
the people seemed to suffer for want of water. The road led along a
high dry ridge; dark lines of timber indicated the heads of streams in
the plains below; but there was no water near, and the day was
oppressive, with a hot wind, and the thermometer at 90°. Along our
route the amorpha has been in very abundant but variable bloom--in
some places bending beneath the weight of purple clusters; in others
without a flower. It seemed to love best the sunny slopes, with a dark
soil and southern exposure. Everywhere the rose is met with, and
reminds us of cultivated gardens and civilization. It is scattered over the
prairies in small bouquets, and, when glittering in the dews and waving
in the pleasant breeze of the early morning, is the most beautiful of the
prairie flowers. The artemisia, absinthe, or prairie sage, as