failed, and they returned at evening to the
camp. The next day they ascended a long defile on mule-back,
and soon had the satisfaction to find that they had taken the
right course. Finally, leaving their mules, they continued on
foot, eventually reaching a point near the summit. Here was an
overhanging buttress of rock, which could be surmounted only by
passing around one side of it, which was the face of a
precipice several hundred feet in depth.]

Putting hands and feet in the crevices between the blocks, I succeeded
in getting over it, and when I reached the top, found my companions in
a small valley below. Descending to them, we continued climbing, and in
a short time reached the crest. I sprang upon the summit, and another
step would have precipitated me into an immense snow-field five hundred
feet below. To the edge of this field was a sheer icy precipice; and
then, with a gradual fall, the field sloped off for about a mile, until
it struck the foot of another lower ridge. I stood on a narrow crest,
about three feet in width, with an inclination of about 20 deg. north, 51 deg.
east.

As soon as I had gratified the first feeling of curiosity I descended,
and each man ascended in his turn; for I would only allow one at a time
to mount the unstable and precarious slab, which it seemed a breath
would precipitate into the abyss below. We mounted the barometer in the
snow of the summit, and, fixing a ramrod in a crevice, unfurled the
national flag to wave in the breeze where never flag waved before.
During our morning's ascent we had met no sign of animal life, except a
small sparrow-like bird. A stillness the most profound and a terrible
solitude forced themselves constantly on the mind as the great features
of the place. Here, on the summit, where the stillness was absolute,
unbroken by any sound, and solitude complete, we thought ourselves
beyond the region of animated life; but while we were sitting on the
rock, a solitary bee (_Bombus, the bumble-bee_) came winging his flight
from the eastern valley, and lit on the knee of one of the men.

It was a strange place, the icy rock and the highest peak of the Rocky
Mountains, for a lover of warm sunshine and flowers; and we pleased
ourselves with the idea that he was the first of his species to cross
the mountain barrier,--a solitary pioneer to foretell the advance of
civilization. I believe that a moment's thought would have made us