At Any Rate, To Linger In The Vague Hope
Of Relief From Them Would Be To Run The Risk Of Perishing With
Hunger.
Besides, the winter was rapidly advancing, and they had a
long journey to make through an unknown country, where all kinds
of perils might await them.
They were yet, in fact, a thousand
miles from Astoria, but the distance was unknown to them at the
time: everything before and around them was vague and
conjectural, and wore an aspect calculated to inspire
despondency.
In abandoning the river, they would have to launch forth upon
vast trackless plains destitute of all means of subsistence,
where they might perish of hunger and thirst. A dreary desert of
sand and gravel extends from Snake River almost to the Columbia.
Here and there is a thin and scanty herbage, insufficient for the
pasturage of horse or buffalo. Indeed, these treeless wastes
between the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific are even more
desolate and barren than the naked, upper prairies on the
Atlantic side; they present vast desert tracts that must ever
defy cultivation, and interpose dreary and thirsty wilds between
the habitations of man, in traversing which the wanderer will
often be in danger of perishing.
Seeing the hopeless character of these wastes, Mr. Hunt and his
companions determined to keep along the course of the river,
where they would always have water at hand, and would be able
occasionally to procure fish and beaver, and might perchance meet
with Indians, from whom they could obtain provisions.
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