brown, or even black. A strip of snowy whiteness extends from ham to ham, including the tail, which is short and tipped with black.
Instead of wool, they are covered with hair, which is shed annually. Their cry is much like that of domestic sheep, and the same natural odor is common to both.
It is extremely difficult to capture any of them alive, even while young, —and it is next to impossible to make them live and thrive in any other climate than their own. Hence, the mountain sheep has never yet found a place in our most extensive zoological collections.
Remaining three days at this place, we were again en route, and, bearing to the right, passed over a ridge of rough, rocky summits, and struck the valley of the Sweet Water. Continuing up the latter, a short ride brought us to the vicinity of a
noted landmark of the country, known as Independence Rock, where we encamped.
The soil of the river bottoms is good, but the adjoining prairies are sandy and somewhat sterile.
The distance from this to the cañon is not far from twenty-three miles.
Independence Rock is a solid and isolated mass of naked granite, situated about three hundred yards from the right bank of the Sweet Water. It covers an area of four or five acres, and rises to a height of nearly three hundred feet. The general shape is oval, with the exception of a slight depression in its summit where a scanty soil supports a few shrubs and a solitary dwarf-pine.
It derives its name from a party of Americans on their way to Oregon, under the lead of one Tharp, who celebrated the fourth of July at this place, —they being the first company of whites that ever made the journey from the States, via South Pass.
The surface is covered with the names of travellers, traders, trappers, and emigrants, engraven upon it in almost every practicable part, for the distance of many feet above its base, —but most prominent among them all is the word "Independence," inscribed by the patriotic band who first christened this lonely monument of nature in honor of Liberty's birthday.
I went to the rock for the purpose of recording my name with the swollen catalogue of others traced upon its sides; but, having glanced over the strange medley, I became disgusted, and, turning away, resolved, "If there remains no other mode of immortalizing myself, I will be content to descend to the grave 'unhonored and unsung."'
The day following, a heavy fall of snow and sleet forced us to remain in camp, and the consequent muddiness of the route prolonged our stay still further.
The vicinity afforded an abundance of game and a sufficiency of dry fuel; it would, therefore, have been folly in us to care for wind or weather, detracting as did either so little from our comfort.
During this interval I rode into the prairie a short distance, in quest of game, and struck the river a few miles above camp, at a place where the stream cuts its way through a high ridge of hills, forming another cañon
