In the Odd Fellows’ Library at San Francisco I found a map of North America, signed “John Harris, A.M.,” and dated “1605,” which shows a great lake in the country now comprised in the Territories of Utah and Dakota. It has a width of fifteen degrees, and is named “Thongo, or Thoya.” It is not likely that this inland sea is a mere exaggeration of the present Great Salt Lake, because the views of that sheet of water are everywhere limited by islands in such a way as to give to the eye the effect of exceeding narrowness. It is possible that the Jesuit Fathers, and other Spanish travelers from California, may have looked from the Utah mountains on the dwindling remnant of a great inland sea. On we jogged and jolted, till we lost sight of the American dead sea and of its lovely valley, and got into a canyon floored with huge boulders and slabs of roughened rock, where I expected each minute to undergo the fate of that Indian traveler who received such a jolt that he bit off the tip of his own tongue, or of Horace Greeley, whose head was bumped, it is said, through the roof of his conveyance. Here, as upon the eastern side of the Wasatch, the track was marked by never-ending lines of skeletons of mules and oxen. On the first evening from Salt Lake, we escaped once more from man at Stockton, a Gentile mining settlement in Rush Valley, too small to be called a village, though possessed of a municipality, and claiming the title of “city.” By night we crossed by Reynolds’ Pass the Parolom or Cedar Range, in a two-horse “jerky,” to which we had been shifted for speed and safety. Upon the heights the frost was bitter; and when we stopped at 3 A.M. for “supper,” in which breakfast was combined, we crawled into the stable like flies in autumn, half killed by the sudden chill. My miner spoke but once all night. “It‘s right cold,” he said; but fifty times at least he sang “The Wearing of the Green.” It was his only tune. Soon after light, we passed the spot where Captain Gunnison of the Federal Engineers, who had been in 1853 the first explorer of the Smoky Hill route, was killed “by the Ute Indians.” Gunnison was an old enemy of the Mormons, and the spot is ominously near to Rockwell‘s home. Here we came out once more into the alkali, and our troubles from dust began. For hours we were in a desert white as snow; but for reward we gained a glorious view of the Goshoot Range, which we crossed by night, climbing silently on foot for hours in the moonlight. The walking saved us from the cold. The third day--a Sunday morning--we were at the foot of the Waroja Mountains, with Egan Canyon for our pass, hewn by nature through the living rock. You dare swear you see the chisel-marks upon the stone. A gold-mill had years ago been erected here, and failed. The heavy machinery was lost upon the road; but the four stone walls contained between them the wreck of the lighter “plant.” [Illustration]