Tuesday, August 30.--We broke camp about 9 o'clock a.m., traveling in a
southerly direction over the hills adjoining our camp, and then
descended the ridge in a southwesterly direction, heading off several
ravines, till we came into a small valley; thence we crossed over a
succession of ridges of fallen timber to a creek, where we halted about
ten miles from our morning camp and about a mile from the upper fall of
the Yellowstone. Mr. Hedges gave the name "Cascade creek" to this
stream.

When we left our camp this morning at Hell-Broth springs, I remarked to
Mr. Hedges and General Washburn that the wonders of which we were in
pursuit had not disappointed us in their first exhibitions, and that I
was encouraged in the faith that greater curiosities lay before us. We
believed that the great cataracts of the Yellowstone were within two
days', or at most three days', travel. So when we reached Cascade creek,
on which we are now encamped, after a short day of journeying, it was
with much astonishment as well as delight that we found ourselves in the
immediate presence of the falls. Their roar, smothered by the vast depth
of the cañon into which they plunge, was not heard until they were
before us. With remarkable deliberation we unsaddled and lariated our
horses, and even refreshed ourselves with such creature comforts as our
larder readily afforded, before we deigned a survey of these great
wonders of nature. On our walk down the creek to the river, struck with
the beauty of its cascades, we even neglected the greater, to admire the
lesser wonders. Bushing with great celerity through a deep defile of
lava and obsidian, worn into caverns and fissures, the stream,
one-fourth of a mile from its debouchure, breaks into a continuous
cascade of remarkable beauty, consisting of a fall of five feet,