Nothing was heard from General Harney, and in his absence no one
possessed instructions adequate to the emergency.
To understand the movements which followed, it is necessary to describe
briefly the topography of the country between Green River and the Great
Salt Lake. The entire interval, one hundred and fifty miles in breadth,
is filled with groups and chains of mountains, the direct route through
which to Salt Lake City lies along water-courses, following them through
canons so narrow that little science is necessary to render the natural
defences impregnable. In this respect, and in the general character of
the scenery, it bears much resemblance to the Tyrol. In the narrowest of
these gorges, Echo Canon, twenty-five miles in length, whose walls of
rock often approach within a stone's throw of each other, it became
known that the Mormons were erecting breastworks and digging ditches,
by means of which they expected to be able to submerge the road to the
depth of several feet, for miles. The only known mode of avoiding a
passage through this gorge was by a circuitous route, following the
eastern slope of the rim of the Great Basin northward, more than a
hundred miles, to Soda Springs, at the northern bend of Bear River, the
principal tributary of the Salt Lake,--then crossing the rim along the
course of the river, and pursuing its valley southward, and that of the
Roseaux or Malade, into Salt Lake Valley.
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