t discourages
all hope of cultivation, and can only be traversed with safety by
keeping near the streams which intersect it. Extensive plains likewise
occur among the higher regions of the mountains, of considerable
fertility. Indeed, these lofty plats of table-land seem to form a
peculiar feature in the American continents. Some occur among the
Cordilleras of the Andes, where cities, and towns, and cultivated farms
are to be seen eight thousand feet above the level of the sea.

The Rocky Mountains, as we have already observed, occur sometimes singly
or in groups, and occasionally in collateral ridges. Between these are
deep valleys, with small streams winding through them, which find their
way into the lower plains, augmenting as they proceed, and ultimately
discharging themselves into those vast rivers, which traverse the
prairies like great arteries, and drain the continent.

While the granitic summits of the Rocky Mountains are bleak and bare,
many of the inferior ridges are scantily clothed with scrubbed pines,
oaks, cedar, and furze. Various parts of the mountains also bear traces
of volcanic action. Some of the interior valleys are strewed with scoria
and broken stones, evidently of volcanic origin; the surrounding rocks
bear the like character, and vestiges of extinguished craters are to be
seen on the elevated heights.

We have already noticed the superstitious feelings with which the
Indians regard the Black Hills; but this immense range of mountains,
which divides all that they know of the world, and gives birth to such
mighty rivers, is still more an object of awe and veneration. They call
it "the crest of the world," and think that Wacondah, or the master of
life, as they designate the Supreme Being, has his residence among
these aerial heights. The tribes on the eastern prairies call them
the mountains of the setting sun. Some of them place the "happy
hunting-grounds," their ideal paradise, among the recesses of these
mountains; but say that they are invisible to living men. Here also is
the "Land of Souls," in which are the "towns of the free and generous
spirits," where those who have pleased the master of life while living,
enjoy after death all manner of delights.

Wonders are told of these mountains by the distant tribes, whose
warriors or hunters have ever wandered in their neighborhood. It is
thought by some that, after death, they will have to travel to these
mountains and ascend one of their h