IT WAS ON THE 20TH of July that Captain Bonneville first came in sight
of the grand region of his hopes and anticipations, the Rocky Mountains.
He had been making a bend to the south, to avoid some obstacles along
the river, and had attained a high, rocky ridge, when a magnificent
prospect burst upon his sight. To the west rose the Wind River
Mountains, with their bleached and snowy summits towering into the
clouds. These stretched far to the north-northwest, until they melted
away into what appeared to be faint clouds, but which the experienced
eyes of the veteran hunters of the party recognized for the rugged
mountains of the Yellowstone; at the feet of which extended the wild
Crow country: a perilous, though profitable region for the trapper.

To the southwest, the eye ranged over an immense extent of wilderness,
with what appeared to be a snowy vapor resting upon its horizon. This,
however, was pointed out as another branch of the Great Chippewyan, or
Rocky chain; being the Eutaw Mountains, at whose basis the wandering
tribe of hunters of the same name pitch their tents. We can imagine the
enthusiasm of the worthy captain when he beheld the vast and mountainous
scene of his adventurous enterprise thus suddenly unveiled before him.
We can imagine with what feelings of awe and admiration he must have
contemplated the Wind River Sierra, or bed of mountains; that great
fountainhead from whose springs, and lakes, and melted snows some of
those mighty rivers take their rise, which wander over hundreds of miles
of varied country and clime, and find their way to the opposite waves of
the Atlantic and the Pacific.

The Wind River Mountains are, in fact, among the most remarkable of the
whole Rocky chain; and would appear to be among the loftiest. They form,
as it were, a great bed of mountains, about eighty miles in length,