South Pass, and the next morning set out for the dividing
ridge.]

About six miles from our encampment brought us to the summit. The ascent
had been so gradual that, with all the intimate knowledge possessed by
Carson, who had made the country his home for seventeen years, we were
obliged to watch very closely to find the place at which we reached the
culminating point. This was between two low hills, rising on either
hand fifty or sixty feet. When I looked back at them, from the foot of
the immediate slope on the western plain, their summits appeared to be
about one hundred and twenty feet above. From the impression on my mind
at this time, and subsequently on our return, I should compare the
elevation which we mounted immediately at the Pass to the ascent of the
Capitol hill from the avenue at Washington. It is difficult for me to
fix positively the breadth of this pass. From the broken ground where
it commences, at the foot of the White River chain, the view to the
southeast is over a champaign country, broken, at the distance of
nineteen miles, by the Table Rock, which, with the other isolated hills
in its vicinity, seem to stand in a comparative plain. This I judged to
be its termination, the ridge recovering its rugged character with the
Table Rock.

It will be seen that it in no manner resembles the places to which the
term is commonly applied,--nothing of the gorge-like character and
winding ascents of the Alleghany passes in America; nothing of the Great
St. Bernard and Simplon passes in Europe. Approaching it from the mouth
of the Sweet Water, a sandy plain, one hundred and twenty miles long,
conducts, by a gradual and regular ascent, to the summit, about seven
thousand feet above the sea; and the traveller, without being reminded
of any change by toilsome ascents, suddenly finds himself on the waters
which flow to the Pacific Ocean. By the route we had travelled, the
distance from Fort Laramie is three hundred and twenty miles, or nine
hundred and fifty from the mouth of the Kansas.

[They continued their course westward, crossing several
tributaries of the Colorado River, and on the 10th reached
unexpectedly a beautiful lake.]

Here a view of the intensest magnificence and grandeur burst upon our
eyes. With nothing between us and their feet to lessen the effect of the
whole height, a grand bed of snow-capped mountains rose before us, pile
upon pile, glowing in the bright light of