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Trumball Journal
Index
THE WASHBURN YELLOWSTONE EXPEDITION.
NO. II.
Page 12
Leaving the hot lakes, we continued homeward. On the way we passed through
two beautiful caņons; one on the Fire Hole, and one on the Madison.
The caņon on the Fire Hole is grand and beautiful. Its sides are
granite, nearly perpendicular, and from eight hundred to a thousand feet
high. It is cut on both sides by small, lateral ravines, which are filled
with evergreens; and on both sides of the river is a narrow bottom, also
covered with trees and verdure. The caņon on the Yellowstone is
grand and gloomy. This one is beautiful and cheerful. The first was seen
from above, the last from below. The former inspires one with awe, the
latter with delight.
The Madison Caņon may be less grand, but scarcely less beautiful. Its
walls are not so high, and generally not quite so precipitous. It is filled
with fine timber, affords splendid and picturesque camping-places, and is
watered not only by the Madison River, but by pleasant, clear, rippling
brooks, which flow through ravines entering the sides of the caņon.
On the 22d day of September, just one month after leaving Fort Ellis,
the party reached Farley's, the frontier rancho on the Madison
River. It was a little strange to feel that we were again within the pale
of civilization. During our month's absence, we had seen so much that was
new and strange that it seemed more like a year. Every one felt funny; and
we looked at each other and laughed in a silly way, as one small boy does,
when, on entering church or any other place where he ought to keep quiet, he
catches the eye of another small-boy acquaintance. There was a pleasure in
getting home; and all felt curious to hear the news. papers, old and new,
were alike seized, and devoured with wonderful avidity. One gentleman even
got hold of a Norwegian paper, but it was too much for his brain.
As an agricultural country, I was not favorably impressed with the great
Yellowstone basin; but its brimstone resources are ample for all the
matchmakers of the world. A snow-storm in September, two feet deep, is
hardly conducive to any kind of agricultural enterprise or stock-raising;
still, I think sheep would do well in that country, if some shelter were
erected for them in winter. When, however, by means of the Northern Pacific
Railroad, the falls of the Yellowstone and the geyser basin are rendered
easy of access, probably no portion of America will be more popular as a
watering-place or summer resort than that which we had the pleasure of
viewing, in all the glory and grandeur of its primeval solitude.
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