DAINTY FISH.
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accasionally skirt the margin of the river. These, with small willows, and a variety of diminutive shrubs and rank weeds, with an occasional opening of grass, make up the vegetation of the valley.
The river flows down, with a lively current of limpid water, over a rocky bed ; and the green vegetation along its banks contrasts finely with the brown sterility of the adjacent mountains. My sensations while travelling along its banks and in sight of its sparkling waters, are something like those experienced in a stormy and wintry day, when comfortably seated in a warm library or parlor, with a view from the window of the violent strife and bitter frigidity of the elements without. The water and grass are our comfort, and our security for the realization of our hopes, in regard to our destination.
We travelled at a rapid gait, the trail being good and our spirits buoyant; and at three o'clock, coming to an excellent camping-ground, with fine grass, water, and wood, we halted, and encamped for the day. During the day's march we have forded the river about twenty times. This is necessary, in order to avoid the canaries, on one side or the other of the narrow valley. Among numerous footprints of Indians, to-day, I saw a plain and fresh shoe-track, showing that some person who has walked here has had communication with civilization.
I experimented with the hook and line in the river again, but without success. Not even a nibble compensated my patient perseverance. Along the banks of the river there are myriads of diminutive toads, or frogs, about an inch in length, which, when disturbed, leap into the water, furnishing abundant food for all the fish in the stream. The bait on the hook, therefore, has no temptations for these well-fed gentry of the clear mountain torrent.    Distance 25 miles.
August 23.—When I rose this morning, just after the dawn of day, I discovered that the dew-drops condensed upon an India-rubber cloth lying by my side, were congealed, and that my buffalo-skins were hoary with frost. Ice as thick as window-glass, had also formed upon the water left in our buckets.    The dawn was glorious, and the sun, when it rose