and battered by mountain service. The captain, also was
increasing his stock of provisions; so that the delay was all in his
favor.

To any one who merely contemplates a map of the country this difficulty
of getting from Godin to Malade River will appear inexplicable, as the
intervening mountains terminate in the great Snake River plain, so that,
apparently, it would be perfectly easy to proceed round their bases.

Here, however, occur some of the striking phenomena of this wild and
sublime region. The great lower plain which extends to the feet of
these mountains is broken up near their bases into crests, and ridges
resembling the surges of the ocean breaking on a rocky shore.

In a line with the mountains the plain is gashed with numerous and
dangerous chasms, from four to ten feet wide, and of great depth.
Captain Bonneville attempted to sound some of these openings, but
without any satisfactory result. A stone dropped into one of them
reverberated against the sides for apparently a very great depth, and,
by its sound, indicated the same kind of substance with the surface, as
long as the strokes could be heard. The horse, instinctively sagacious
in avoiding danger, shrinks back in alarm from the least of these
chasms, pricking up his ears, snorting and pawing, until permitted to
turn away.

We have been told by a person well acquainted with the country that it
is sometimes necessary to travel fifty and sixty miles to get round one
of these tremendous ravines. Considerable streams, like that of Godin's
River, that run with a bold, free current, lose themselves in this
plain; some of them end in swamps, others suddenly disappear, finding,
no doubt, subterranean outlets.

Opposite to these chasms Snake River makes two desperate leaps over
precipices, at a short distance from each other; one twenty, the other
forty feet in height.

The volcanic plain in question forms an area of about sixty miles in
diameter, where nothing meets the eye but a desolate and awful waste;
where no grass grows nor water runs, and where nothing is to be seen but
lava. Ranges of mountains skirt this plain, and, in Captain Bonneville's
opinion, were formerly connected, until rent asunder by some convulsion
of nature. Far to the east the Three Tetons lift their heads sublimely,
and dominate this wide sea of lava--one of the most striking features
of a wilderness where everything seems on a scale of stern and simple
grandeur.

We look for