and cupolas, shady streets, neat gardens, and fields of ripening grain. The mountains, which bound the horizon on every side, except where a wavering stream of heated air shows the beginning of the Great Desert, are tinged with a soft purple haze, in anticipation of the sunset, but every patch of green grass on their slopes glows through it like an emerald, while along the summits runs an undulating thread of snow. Throughout this vast line of road, the only white inhabitants are the garrisons of the military posts, the keepers of mail-stations, and _voyageurs_ and mountaineers, whose cabins may be found in every locality favorable to Indian trade. These last are a singular race of men, fast disappearing, like the Indian and the buffalo, their neighbors. Most of them are of French extraction, and some have died without having learned to speak a word of English. Their wealth consists in cattle and horses, and little stocks of goods which they purchase from the sutlers at the forts or the merchants at Salt Lake City. Some of the more considerable among them have the means of sending to the States for an annual supply of blankets, beads, vermilion, and other stuff for Indian traffic; but the most are thriftless, and all are living in concubinage or marriage with squaws, and surrounded by troops of unwashed, screeching half-breeds. Once in from three to six years, they will make a journey to St. Louis, and gamble away so much of their savings since the last visit as has escaped being wasted over greasy card-tables during the long winter-evenings among the mountains. The Indian tribes along the way are numerous and formidable, the road passing through country occupied by Pawnees, Cheyennes, Sioux, Arapahoes, Crows, Snakes, and Utahs. With the Cheyennes war had been waged by the United States for more than two years, which interfered seriously with the expedition; for, during the month of June, a war-party from that tribe intercepted and dispersed the herd of beef-cattle intended for the use of the army.