lay aside the name of his ancestors. He sought the States; and

instead of lingering in effeminate cities, pushed at once into the

far West with an exploring party of frontiersmen. He was no

ordinary traveller; for he was not only brave and impetuous by

character, but learned in many sciences, and above all in botany,

which he particularly loved. Thus it fell that, before many

months, Fremont himself, the nominal leader of the troop, courted

and bowed to his opinion.

They had pushed, as I have said, into the still unknown regions of

the West. For some time they followed the track of Mormon

caravans, guiding themselves in that vast and melancholy desert by

the skeletons of men and animals. Then they inclined their route a

little to the north, and, losing even these dire memorials, came

into a country of forbidding stillness.

I have often heard my father dwell upon the features of that ride:

rock, cliff, and barren moor alternated; the streams were very far

between; and neither beast nor bird disturbed the solitude. On the

fortieth day they had already run so short of food that it was

judged advisable to call a halt and scatter upon all sides to hunt.

A great fire was built, that its smoke might serve to rally them;

and each man of the party mounted and struck off at a venture into

the surrounding desert.

My father rode for many hours with a steep range of cliffs upon the

one hand, very black and horrible; and upon the other an unwatered

vale dotted with boulders like the site of some subverted city. At

length he found the slot of a great animal, and from the claw-marks

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