Forth their
wailings for the dead, call to mind the beautiful and affecting
passage of Scripture, "In Rama was there a voice heard,
lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for
her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not. "
CHAPTER XXII.
Wilderness of the Far West.- Great American Desert- Parched
Seasons. -Black Hills.- Rocky Mountains.- Wandering and Predatory
Hordes. -Speculations on What May Be the Future Population.-
Apprehended Dangers.-A Plot to Desert.-Rose the Interpreter.- His
Sinister Character- Departure From the Arickara Village.
WHILE Mr. Hunt was diligently preparing for his arduous journey,
some of his men began to lose heart at the perilous prospect
before them; but before we accuse them of want of spirit, it is
proper to consider the nature of the wilderness into which they
were about to adventure. It was a region almost as vast and
trackless as the ocean, and, at the time of which we treat, but
little known, excepting through the vague accounts of Indian
hunters. A part of their route would lay across an immense tract,
stretching north and south for hundreds of miles along the foot
of the Rocky Mountains, and drained by the tributary streams of
the Missouri and the Mississippi.
