Here they were safe from the elements
and wild beasts, but not from man. Some anxiety is felt, as we have
learned that a party of Indians have been camped near the place for
several weeks. Our fears are soon allayed, for we find the _cache_
undisturbed. Our chronometer wheels have not been taken for hair
ornaments, our barometer tubes for beads, or the sextant thrown into the
river as "bad medicine," as had been predicted. Taking up our _cache,_
we pass down to the foot of the Uinta Mountains and in a cold storm go
into camp.
The river is running to the south; the mountains have an easterly and
westerly trend directly athwart its course, yet it glides on in a quiet
way as if it thought a mountain range no formidable obstruction. It
enters the range by a flaring, brilliant red gorge, that may be seen
from the north a score of miles away. The great mass of the mountain
ridge through which the gorge is cut is composed of bright vermilion
rocks; but they are surmounted by broad bands of mottled buff and gray,
and these bands come down with a gentle curve to the water's edge on the
nearer slope of the mountain.
This is the head of the first of the canyons we are about to explore--an
introductory one to a series made by the river through this range. We
name it Flaming Gorge. The cliffs, or walls, we find on measurement to
be about 1,200 feet high.
_May 27.--_To-day it rains, and we employ the time in repairing one of
our barometers, which was broken on the way from New York.
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