among themselves are remarkable. People have too long been accustomed to judge the savages of the interior by those of the frontier; these last have learned the vices of the whites, who, guided by the insatiable thirst for sordid gain, endeavor to corrupt them and encourage them by their example.
I found the camp of the Flatheads and Pend d'Oreilles in the valley called Pierre's Hole. This valley is situated at the foot of the three Tetons,s sharp-peaked mountains of a prodigious height, rising almost perpendicularly more than
I o,ooo feet, and covered with perpetual snow. There are five of them, but only three can be seen at any great dis-, tance. Thence we ascended one of the principal forks of Henry's [Fork of Snake] river," making every day little camps nine or ten miles apart. Often, in these little stages, we passed and repassed high hills, wide and swift torrents. narrow and dangerous defiles. Often also we came upon lovely valleys, level and open, rich in pasture grounds of a beautiful verdure, dotted with flowers, and where the mountain balsam (the travelers' tea) abounds. This tea, even after it has been crushed beneath the feet of thousands of horses, still perfumes the air with its delicious scent. In the valleys and defiles which we traversed, several more mountains drew our attention; some were in the form of cones, rising to a height of several thousand feet at an angle of forty-five to fifty degrees, very smooth and covered with a fair verdure; others represented domes; others were red as well-burned brick, and still bore the imprints of some great convulsion of nature; there were scoria and lava so porous that they floated on water; they were found scattered in all
9 The Teton Mountains are the most interesting, historically and otherwise, in the United States. The principal summit, the Grand Teton, is 13,691 feet high. Jackson Hole (named for the fur trader, David Jackson), is a very celebrated valley at the eastern base of the range.
1o Named for Andrew Henry, a fur trader, who built a fort in its valley in the fall of 18io.