- plorers became incrusted with salt, the boat was brought within wading
distance of one of the smaller islands, and, landing, Fremont carefully examined its strange cliffs and masses, finding them also covered with the apparently omnipresent salt. A few temporary tents were then constructed of the driftwood scattered on the shores, and after kindling large fires to excite the wonder of any straggling savage on the lake shore, the successful explorers—the first of their race to spend a night near the site of the now world-famous Salt Lake City—lay down to sleep.
In the morning, to the surprise of all, the noise of huge waves breaking on the rocks was the first sound to greet their ears, and no time was lost in making their way back to the mainland. The "still and lifeless bosom" of the lake had changed its character, and, though powerless to give or nourish vitality, proved its capacity to destroy. The fragile india-rubber bark was more than once nearly swallowed up in its treacherous waters, but late in the day all landed from it in safety, and on the 12th September the journey was resumed.
Following much the same route as that taken on the way to the lake, our hero now led his men back to the Bear River, and thence through the great basin bearing his name, and inclosing the vast system of rivers and creeks belonging to the newly discovered Dead Sea, to a ravine commanding a pass in the dividing ridge between the waters of the Bear River and the Snake or Lewis fork of the Columbia; thus, so to speak, throwing a bridge of connection across from his own work to that of his predecessors.
On the 19th September the expedition arrived in safety at Fort Hall, a trading post situated in a low and fertile valley, some twenty miles long, formed by the confluence of the Portneuf and Snake Rivers. The winter was now rapidly approaching, yet Fremont resolved to push on first to the Columbia River, and from thence home by a new route, making what he characterizes as a "great circuit to the south and south-east," with a view to the exploration of the Great Basin between the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada. No persuasions could induce him to alter this determination, although the task he had set himself was pronounced absolutely impracticable. He arrived in safety at Fort Vancouver, about ninety miles from the mouth of the Columbia, on the 16th November, and almost immediately commenced the return journey; but he had not proceeded far, when he found himself in a pathless wilderness haunted by bands of wandering Indians, from whom scarcely any guidance and no food could be obtained.
