Army officers though we were, we could not repress a mild hurrah, and how intensely proud we felt of the loyal North! Surely we were a great and noble people, after all. Step by step--_nulla vestigia retrorsum_--we had overcome all obstacles, in the name of Humanity and Justice; and now, evidently, our reactionary leaders had better take care how they trifled with the Republic! We talked it all over among ourselves, as we sat around the camp-fires, at that distant post in Idaho; and thanked God for America, and that there was "life in the old land yet!" Recruited up again pretty well by our stay at Boisè, we left there Nov. 19th for Umatilla and the Columbia. Stages ran three times a week, but they were going so crowded, and the roads were reported so heavy, that I deemed it more advisable to proceed by ambulance. It was three hundred miles, and by ambulance it would take three times as long; but this would give me an opportunity of resting at night, and I feared to venture on otherwise, anxious as we were to reach the Columbia before winter set in. Our route lay substantially down the valley of the Boisè, and other tributaries of the Snake, to the Snake at Farewell Bend, and thence across the Blue Mountains to the Umatilla, and down that to the Columbia. The chief tributaries of the Snake just there were the Boisè, Pratt's River, Burnt River, and Powder River, and we traversed the valleys of each of these successively. These valleys were all substantially alike, and consisted usually of bottoms from two to three miles wide, very fertile throughout, but all requiring irrigation, except for grass which grew tolerably well without this. Here and there irrigation had been resorted to, to some extent, with fine crops in return; but only a very little of the land had yet been brought under cultivation. Generally, beyond these bottoms, on either side, were elevated benches or plateaus, from five to six miles in width, extending back to the outlying bluffs or mountains. These were covered chiefly with the inevitable sage-brush and grease-wood; but the soil looked fat and fertile enough, and evidently required only patient irrigation, to become as prolific as the fields of Utah. Water for this might be supplied in part from the rivers mentioned, and in part perhaps from the neighboring cañons, if they be not dry cañons. The chief drawback of the country to the Snake, indeed, seemed to be the scarcity of timber, for fencing and building purposes. For fuel, coal had been discovered, both at Farewell Bend and near Boisè City; but timber for other purposes was everywhere scarce and dear. In the valley of the Boisè, "Shanghai" fences were frequent, such as we had seen in eastern Kansas; but the Idahoans used thongs instead of nails, to fasten the boards or rails to the posts--hides evidently being cheaper there, than hardware.