The base of the peak before me was skirted with thickets of this beautiful tree, intermingled with the dog-wood, then in the glory of its flower, and three or four varieties of the acacia and Canadian redbud. Here and there on the very hill-side were expanses grown up with the tall green-cane and the beautiful Mexican oats. Through such a growth I commenced my ascent, and soon passed by the sinuosities of an Indian trail into an expanse of cupriferous volcanic rock, almost without any other growth than the red-root, or Indian tea. Passing through this, I came into a belt of tall pines, reaching far above the crest of the peak. No engineer could have constructed a glacis with a more regular inclination than this portion of the mountain displayed. At last I stood upon the crest, and a prospect opened before me I have never seen surpassed or equaled. I was on the very backbone of the ridge, and before me lay a succession of peaks, gradually descending into the bosom of a vale perhaps ten miles wide, while beyond this happy valley rose another ridge, parallel, descending gradually as the one on which I stood had become elevated. A clear, cold stream ran at the foot of the peak on which I was, and amid the stillness of a calm spring day I distinctly heard the murmur of its ripples. Down the bleak hill-sides of the other ridge I could trace more than one silver line which marked the descent of tributary rills. I could have remained long on that bald mountain-peak, but was warned by the descent of the sun to proceed downward. Taking the horses by the bridle, for I committed the care of the pack-mule to poor Barny, I began carefully to follow the pathway, and was ultimately enabled to reach the base in spite of sundry falls of the heavy pack, which, in spite of discipline, wrung hearty curses from poor Barny’s over-burdened heart. I encamped at the foot of the peak, on a branch of the Boggy, or _Bogue_, itself a tributary of the Red. After many days of painful travel, precisely similar to the one I have described, except that the western ridge was more difficult than the eastern, I reached the prairie through which the Red River runs. On the summit of several of the peaks I had found large springs and pools of water, and in the valleys the streams expanded into beautiful lakes. In some of these valleys were grand groves of the wild-plum, and a variety of other growths, among which was the iron-wood and box-elder. The cotton-wood, so common northward, has disappeared. At last I arrived at Fort Towson. I had missed the direction, and to reach a point about one hundred miles from Gibson, had traveled three. Twenty miles after leaving the latter post, I had seen the smoke of not one hearth till I reached the yellow water, about ten miles from Fort Towson, yet during all this time I had been in a small labyrinth of mountains, surrounded on all sides by the dense population of the Cherokee and Chickasa nation, the Opeloulas of Louisiana and Western Texas.