Their horses had dangerous falls in some of these passes.

One of them rolled, with his load, nearly two hundred feet down hill into the river, but without receiving any injury.

At length they emerged from these stupendous defiles, and continued for several miles along the bank of Hoback's River, through one of the stern mountain valleys.

Here it was joined by a river of greater magnitude and swifter current, and their united waters swept off through the valley in one impetuous stream, which, from its rapidity and turbulence, had received the name of the Mad River.

At the confluence of these streams the travellers encamped.