_May 26th._—I find I shall have to ferry the Des Chutes river. Send on four of my men ahead, to collect timber for a raft. Find, on arriving at the river-bank, that a heap of dry timber has been collected. With axes and an auger—and here let me advise all who travel with packhorses or mules never to go without a three-inch auger—we soon build a raft 12 feet long by 6½ feet wide; the timber is fastened together with wooden trenails. The stream makes a bend at this spot, and does not run quite so swiftly, about eighty yards wide, with a dry bank on the side we are, but swampy on the opposite. We launch our raft; she floats like a boat, make ropes fast to her, and stow a coil on board; with one man I commence crossing, paddling with rough oars hewn from a pine-branch. They pay-out rope as we near the opposite bank; twice we whirl round, and come very near being a wreck, but right again. We are over. Now we make fast our rope, and the men on the other side haul her back; and thus we tug her from side to side, heavily freighted; we have made a very successful crossing, neither losing nor damaging anything. The mules swam the river, and also got safely over. _May 27th._—Fine morning: made an early start; kept close along on the course of the river for about twenty miles, following a ridge lightly timbered. The opposite or east bank is an enormous mass of black basaltic rock, extending several miles in length. The top is like a table, reaching as far as one could see, quite black, and not the vestige of a plant visible. The black expanse had exactly the appearance of a bed of rocks, over which the tide ebbed and flowed. Crossed a creek fifteen miles from camp, deep and swift, and about fifteen yards wide; five miles beyond this cross another creek, about half the size. Leave the timber and come out on a wide sandy kind of desert, covered with wild-sage and stunted juniper-trees, frightfully dusty, and most tiresome for the mules; no chance of camping until quite over it, which is twenty miles. After a weary march reach a creek, where I stop; a capital camping-ground, with fine grass and water. Passed close along the bases of the Three Sisters, lofty mountains, at this time covered with snow. Saw a great many abandoned lodges, but no Indians. The sandy places were quite alive with the Oregon horned toad (_Tapaya Douglassii_), which is a lizard really very harmless, and particularly ugly. Every stream too was thronged with beaver. _May 28th._—Mules all in at 4 A.M. Got off in good time: weather not nearly so cold. Looked over the creek, but saw no gold, but any quantity of beaver-workings; trees four feet round had been cut down by them. Passed through a tract of lightly-timbered land and open grassy valleys; crossed a small creek about eight miles from camp, descending rapidly all the way for about eighteen miles.