An easier route might, perhaps, be found by following the Canoe River, which is situate about twenty miles south of The Cache, to its source in the Cariboo district, but nothing is known of the country between Tête Jaune Cache and Cariboo, beyond the general view of mountain and forest seen from Richfield and The Cache. A third line offers itself by following the North Thompson to the point where the Wentworth River enters it, about eighty miles north of Kamloops. This stream, the Shushwaps informed us, came from the Cariboo Lake, and passed through a tolerably open region. And lastly, a road could be made down the valley of the Thompson to Kamloops, from whence the Shushwap, Okanagan, and Kootanie districts--where diggings of the richest kind have lately been discovered--and the road on the Fraser, are easily accessible. From The Cache to within eighty miles of Kamloops the only way lies through a succession of narrow gorges, shut in on each side by lofty and inaccessible mountains. The whole of this is obstructed by growing and fallen timber, generally of the largest size; but the fact of our success in bringing our horses through without any previous track being cut open, proves sufficiently that there are no serious obstacles in the way of an engineer. There are no great ascents or descents, and no bluffs of solid rock occur until the last forty miles, where the country is otherwise open and unobstructed. The flooding of the river by the melted snows from the mountains does not interfere with the passage along the valley, for we traversed it at the season when the waters are at the highest. The most serious difficulty to the adoption of a route by Jasper House would be the want of pasturage for cattle. The patches of open are few on the eastern side, and although larger and more numerous within the mountains, on the western side the forest is unbroken for above a hundred miles. Of the passes to the south, all, with the exception of the Vermilion Pass,[14] descend abruptly on the west through rugged and difficult country. The Vermilion Pass, which is the lowest, is 4,944 feet above the level of the sea, or above 1,000 feet higher than the Leather Pass; and although Dr. Hector states[15] that a road might be constructed across it without material difficulty, it is open to the same objection as the rest, that it communicates with the valley of the Columbia, far to the south of the gold regions of Cariboo, passes through the battle-ground of the Crees and Blackfeet, and is in unsafe proximity to the American frontier.