order in the camp; the alarm, however, was occasioned by a gang of famished wolves, trying to form an acquaintance with our mules. With ordinary foresight in reference to the requisite supply of food, a proper selection of animals, and the time and mode of performing the journey, there need be but few hardships. It

is easy to fit up a carriage with conveniences for sleeping, which some do, but the majority prefer to sleep on the ground, even in stormy weather. An india-rubber cloth spread upon the thick grass makes a dry and soft bed; at any rate, this kind of dormitory, curtained with heaven's canopy, generally proves more friendly to sleep than many a bed of down. The fatigue of traveling wears off in a very short time, and there is usually less weariness at the close of the day than is

felt in traveling the same number of hours by rail-road. In a well-regulated train, the pleasurable excitements of the journey far outbalance all the inconveniences. There is a kind of cutting loose from the business relations and customs of civilized life, which gives new freedom and elasticity to the mind. The traveler feels that he has sufficient elbow-room; he neither jostles nor is jostled by any one; he experiences all the buoyancy of the boy when liberated from the restraints of the school-room. His feelings and ideas expand in view of the boundless plains spread before and around him. There is a grandeur and sublimity in the vast expanse of plains, skirted and intersected by rivers and lofty mountains, which would kindle enthusiasm in the bosom of the merest business drudge of the countinghouse who dreams only of prices and profits.

The evening camp, too, has its peculiar pleasures: the rude preparation for, and exquisite relish of the evening meal-the boisterous good humor of the company, with the usual concomitants of song and anecdote and the almost invariable, and, withal, plaintive serenade from a score or two of prairie wolves, produce a wild and pleasurable excitement, which the voyageur is ever fond of calling to remembrance.

There is an abundance of wild game along nearly the whole route: prairie chickens, ducks, hare, antelope, &c., afford rare sport in the hunting, and furnish food fit for an emperor. But the buffalo is the most noted, useful, and interesting of all the wild game to be found on the plains. We saw none until after we left Fort Kearney, after which we met vast numbers along the Valley of the Platte, and very few after leav

ing that river. At a distance they look like herds of common cattle; near at hand they are awkward, misshapen monsters enough-all head and shoulders, and very little of any thing else. They were very wild, and invariably ran off, as we approached, with a clumsy, lumbering gait. We saw them under a great variety of circumstances. On one occasion, a herd of them were crossing the Platte in single file (the way they usually travel), and appeared in the distance like abutments for a gigantic bridge or aqueduct about being built. At another time we approached nearer than usual to a drove of them before they perceived us, and, as they lumbered off, they produced a stampede of our whole train, and it was with much difficulty we stopped and quieted our mules. At another time a herd of some three thousand were feeding along the banks of the river, and never discovered us until we were passing nearly opposite, when the monsters, in their fright, scampered directly toward us, and actually ran between different portions of our train; two of the teams, less guarded than the rest, stampeded after them. These incidents always furnished subjects for mirth when we found no bones or wagons broken. Of course, the poor brutes are slaughtered without mercy by Indians and emigrants. We had a plentiful supply of buffalo beef during four weeks of our journey. The ravens and wolves that hover over and around every passing train, are the scavengers which clean up all that is left of the slain buffalo after man has helped himself to the choicest portions. The antelope is a very graceful animal, and bounds over the plains with the fleetness of deer, which it very much resembles.

We saw many of them, but they do not collect in such herds as the buffalo.

The emigration over the Plains to Utah, California, and Oregon, for the last few years, has been immense, and, like the march of armies, each train has left sad memorials of its passage. The wayside in very many places is literally strewed with the bones of oxen and mules, the broken fragments of wagons, and the castoff implements of agriculture. Sadder still, the road is lined with graves-some small, showing that there the mother has been compelled to deposit the remains of her infant child, and others of sufficient length to show that the strength of manhood has been brought to the dust. Many of these graves had been rifled by the wolves, and the bones scattered around in confu

sion: these resurrectionists have no fear of penal enactments. Others were protected from these prairie surgeons by logs and rocks (every thing West, from a twenty ton boulder to a pebble, is a rock). In passing these evidences of mortality, one can form some faint conception of the utter feeling of desolation which must overwhelm the poor wife, thus compelled to deposit her husband in a lonely grave, far away from the assistance and sympathy of friends.

"The Plains," so called, commence at the western bounds of Missouri, and extend to the vicinity of the Black Hills, a distance of about seven hundred miles. These Plains consist mostly of rolling prairies, which are crossed by numerous streams. Some of these streams run through comparatively deep valleys, and have rocky and precipitous banks. Again, the Plains are intersected by numerous gulleys, or "pitch holes," as they are familiarly called, varying from ten to fifty feet, which contain small brooks in the spring and early part of summer, but the most of them become dry later in the season. These gulleys are troublesome to cross, in proportion to their depth and the steepness of their banks. On the other hand, many of them contain springs of excellent water, and a scanty growth of timber, furnishing to the traveler wood and water, without which he could not long prosecute his journey. At some points the Plains are almost a perfect level, without a tree or a shrub to relieve the eye an ocean, in which one seems to be out of sight of land.

We reached the River Platte a few miles east of Fort Kearney. This fort is commanded by Captain' Wharton, a gentlemanly and highly intelligent officer.