snow-shoes, they sunk in twelve inches at every step. On the 17th, they crossed the dividing ridge, and by the 20th, owing to the extreme difficulty of walking in snow-shoes, and the softness of the snow, had succeeded in reaching only twenty miles in advance of their cabins. On that day, the sun rose clear and beautiful, and cheered by its sparkling rays, they pursued their weary way. On this day they traveled eight miles, but one of their number, Mr. Stanton, being unable to keep up with them, remained behind and perished in the snow. A severe storm having come on, they remained in camp until the 23d, when, although the storm continued, they traveled eight miles and encamped in a deep valley. Here the appearance of the country was so different from what they had anticipated, that they concluded that they were lost, but determined to go on rather than return to their miserable cabins. They were also at this time out of provisions, and partly agreed that, in case of necessity, they would cast lots who should die to preserve the remainder. By morning, the snow had so increased that they could not travel; while, to add to their sufferings, their fire had been put out by the rain, and all their endeavors to light another, proved abortive. Already death was in the midst of them, Antonio and Mr. Graves dying at that time.

In this critical moment, the presence of mind of Mr. William Eddy suggested the plan for keeping themselves warm, practiced among the trappers of the Rocky Mountains when caught in the snow without fire. It is simply to spread a blanket on the snow, when the party-if small-with the exception of one, sit down upon it in a circle, closely as possible, their feet piled over one another in the center, room being left for the person who has to complete the arrangement. As many blankets as are necessary are then spread over the heads of the party, the ends being kept down by billets of wood or snow. After everything is completed, the person outside takes his place in the circle. As the snow falls, it closes up the pores of the blankets, while the breath of the party underneath soon causes a comfortable warmth. In this situation, they remained a day and a half; one of the men, Patrick Doolan, and Murphy, a boy, having in the meanwhile become delirious,

died.

On the afternoon of the 26th, they succeeded in getting fire into a dry pine tree. Having been four days without food, and since October on short allowance, they had now no alternative but starvation or of preserving life by eating the corpses of the dead. This horrible expedient was resorted to with great reluctance. They cut the flesh from the arms and legs of Doolan, and roasted and ate it, averting their faces from each other and weeping.

Having stripped and dried the flesh from the bodies, they left the camp on the 30th, and with heavy hearts pressed on, wading through the snow and climbing the mountains with almost incredible fatigue; the blood from their frozen feet staining the snow over which they passed. Thus they continued on until the 5th of

January, when Mr. Fosdick gave out, and his flesh was preserved to sustain life in the remainder. Soon after, Lewis laid down and died.

On the 17th, Mr. Eddy, who stood the fatigues better than any of the others, and had gone in advance of the rest, reached the settlement on Bear Creek, from whence relief was dispatched to the remains of his party. Of these, the females had borne up wonderfully. Not one had perished, while men of strong frames and nerves had gone down in the death-struggle. Never was the fortitude, the passive, enduring courage of woman more signally displayed, than in this dreadful march; they encouraged the men by words and example, to bear up under their sufferings and persevere unto the end.

As soon as the people of San Francisco received from the settlement on Bear River intelligence of the dangerous situation of the emigrants encamped on Truckee Lake, they sent out several parties to their relief. Captain Sutter also displayed his characteristic benevolence on the occasion, furnishing in advance of the others, men and mules laden with provisions for the relief of the perishing sufferers. But such were the difficulties of reaching them, that it was not until the 29th of April that the last of the party was brought into Sutter's Fort.

A more shocking scene cannot be imagined than that witnessed by the parties who went to the relief of the unfortunate emigrants. Large numbers had perished from cold and starvation. The bones of those who had died and been devoured by the miserable survivors, were lying around their tents and cabins. Bodies of men, women, and children, with half the flesh torn from them, lay on every side. A woman sat by the side of the body of her husband, who had just died, and was in the act of cutting out his tongue; the heart she had already taken out, broiled, and eaten. The daughter was seen eating the flesh of the father-the mother, that of the children-children, that of parents. The emaciated, wild, and ghastly appearance of the survivors added to the horror of the scene. The awful change cannot be described, which a few weeks of dire suffering had wrought in the minds of these wretched beings. Those who but one month before would have shuddered and sickened at the thought of eating human flesh, or of killing their companions and relatives, to preserve their own lives, now looked upon the opportunity these acts afforded them of escaping death as a providential interference. Calculations were coldly made as they sat around their gloomy camp-fires, for the next and succeeding meals. Various expedients were devised to prevent the dreadful crime of murder, but they finally resolved to kill those who had the least claims to longer existence, when just at that moment some of them died, which afforded temporary relief.

After the first few deaths, but the one all-absorbing thought of individual self-preservation prevailed. The feelings of natural affection were dried up. The cords that once vibrated with connu

bial, parental, and filial affection, were rent asunder, and each one seemed resolved, without regard to the fate of others, to escape from the impending calamity.

So changed had they become, that on the arrival of the first party with food, some of them cast it aside, preferring the putrid human flesh that remained. The day previous, one of the emigrants took a small child in bed with him and devoured the whole before morning.

With but few exceptions, all the sufferers, both those who perished and those who survived, manifested a species of insanity. Objects delightful to the senses, often flitted across the imagination, and a thousand fantasies filled and disturbed the disordered brain.

Although in the midst of winter, their deluded fancies often represented to them during the day beautiful farm-houses, and extensive fields and gardens in the distance, toward which they would press forward with all the energy with which alternate hope and despair would inspire them. During the night, they often heard men talking, dogs barking, cocks crowing, and bells tinkling, Many believed that they were surrounded by familiar faces and old friends, and that they saw objects associated with scenes of other years and places. Some saw persons coming to their relief, and called to them to hasten. There were instances of persons suspecting, at times, that the terrible circumstances by which they were in reality surrounded, were but the illusions of most horrible dreams, and they would rub their eyes and put their hands upon their heads to assure themselves, if it were possible, that all was not the result of a dreadful vision or nightmare.

Some of the party, though sometimes during brief intervals perfectly sane when awake, suffered from most painful and terrifying dreams-in which they saw combats and cries of despair and anguish, together with visions of famine and death, while floundering in fathomless snows.

Some of these unhappy emigrants felt a general sinking of all their mental and bodily energies, without, however, experiencing the gnawings of hunger. This absence of the sensation of hunger was followed by an irresistible desire to sleep. In the course of half an hour after falling into this torpor, they breathed unnaturally and with difficulty, speedily followed by a rattling in the throat. This continued from one to four hours, when death closed the scene; the individual, in the meantime, appearing to be in a profound slumber. A few became furious, and died without sinking into this slumber. Others died calm and peaceful, taking affectionate leave of friends, and expressing a confident hope in the mercy of the blessed Redeemer.

The last relief party was conducted by Mr. Fallen, by which time all of the living sufferers had been taken into the settlements, excepting Mr. and Mrs. Donner, and a vile wretch named Keysburg. When the others left, Mrs. Donner remained with her

husband, who was unable to travel. Why Keysburg remained, can only be guessed. Donner was a highly respectable and wealthy farmer of Illinois, and his lady a woman of great activity and energy, and of a polished education. They had with them abundant means in money and merchandise.

Fallen and his party reached the cabins sometime in April, in one of which they found Keysburg reclining upon the floor smoking a pipe. Near his head a fire was blazing, upon which was a camp-kettle filled with human flesh. His feet were resting upon skulls and dislocated limbs stripped of their flesh. A bucket, partly filled with blood, was standing near, and pieces of human Hesh fresh and bloody, strewed around. His appearance was haggard and revolting. His beard was of great length; his finger nails had grown out until they resembled the claws of a wild beast. He was ragged and filthy, and the expression of his countenance ferocious. He stated that the Donners were both dead; that Mrs. Donner was the last to die, and had expired two days previously; that she had left her husband's camp eight miles distant, and came to his cabin. She attempted to return in the evening to the camp, but becoming bewildered, she came back to the cabin and died in the course of the night.

He was accused of having murdered her for her flesh, and the money the Donners were known to possess, but denied it, and also all knowledge of their money; but Fallen placed a rope around his neck and commenced hanging him to the limb of a tree, when to save his life, he confessed that he knew all about the money. They released him, and he produced $517 in gold, which he had secreted. Against his will, they then compelled him to accompany them to the nearest settlements. The body of Donner was found in his cabin, where he had been carefully laid out by his wife, and a sheet wrapt around the corpse. This was the last act probably that she performed ere visiting the cabin of Keysburg.

On the 22d of June, 1847, the return party of General Kearney halted at the scene of these horrible occurrences to collect and bury the remains. Near the principal cabins were two bodies entire, with the exception that their abdomens had been cut open and their entrails extracted. Their flesh had been either wasted by famine or evaporated by exposure to a dry atmosphere, and they presented the appearance of mummies. Strewn about the cabins, were dislocated and broken bones, skulls-some of which had been sawed apart carefully to extract their brains-human skeletons, in short, in every variety of mutilation, all presenting a most appalling and revolting spectacle.

UTAH.

THE name Utah is derived from that of a native tribe, and is given to it in the Act of Congress of 1850, which formed it into a Territory of the United States. The name Deseret was applied to it by the Mormons, and is said to signify virtue and industry.

A large part of Utah is of volcanic origin. It is supposed, from certain traditions and remains, to have been, many hundred years ago, the residence of the Aztec nation-that they were driven south by the volcanic eruptions which changed the face of the whole country. Eventually, they became the possessor of Mexico, where, after attaining great proficiency in the arts of life, they were finally overthrown by the Spaniards at the time of the conquest.

Utah was not probably visited by civilized man until within the present century. These were Catholic missionaries who may have just touched its California border, and the trappers and hun. ters employed by the fur companies. The first establishment in Utah was made by William H. Ashley, a Missouri fur-trader. In 1824, he organized an expedition which passed up the Valley of the Platte River, and through the cleft of the Rocky Mountains, since called "The South Pass;" and then advancing further west, he reached the Great Salt Lake, which lies embosomed among lofty mountains. About a hundred miles southeast of this, he discovered a smaller one, since known as "Ashley's Lake." He there built a fort or trading-post, in which he left about a hundred men. Two years afterward, a six-pound piece of artillery was drawn from Missouri to this fort, a distance of more than twelve hundred miles, and in 1828, many wagons, heavily laden, performed the same journey.

During the three years between 1824 and 1827, Ashley's men collected and sent to St. Louis, furs from that region of country to an amount, in value of over $180,000. This enterprising man then sold out all his interests to Messrs. Smith, Jackson, and Sublette. These energetic and determined men carried on for many years an extensive and profitable business, in the course of which they traversed a large part of Southern Oregon, Utah, California, and New Mexico west of the mountains. Smith was murdered in the summer of 1829, by the Indians northwest of Utah Lake. Ashley's Fort was long since abandoned.

Unfortunately, these adventurous men knew nothing of science, and but little information was derived from them save vague reports which greatly excited curiosity; this was only increased by the partial explorations of Fremont.

In his second expedition, made in 1843, he visited The Great Salt Lake, which appears upon old Spanish maps as Lake Timpanogos and Lake Tegaya.

It was on the 21st of August, that the party first came into the fertile and picturesque Valley of the Great Bear River, its tributary.