We dined in the shed, and amused ourselves with feeding the little brown-speckled swamp-blackbirds that hopped about us tame and "peert" as wrens, and when night drew near we sought shelter from the furious southern gale, and heard tales of Mormon suffering which made us think lightly of our little hardships.[1] Dreading the dormitory—if it be true that the sultan of fleas inhabits Jaffa and his vizier Grand Cairo, it is certain that his vermin officials have settled pro tem. on Emigration Road—I cast about for a quieter retreat. Fortune favored me by pointing out the body of a dismantled wagon, an article—like the Tyrian keels which suggested the magalia—often used as a habitation in the Far West, and not unfrequently honored by being converted into a bridal-chamber after the short and sharp courtship of the "Perraries." The host, who was a kind, intelligent, and civil man, lent me a "buffalo" by way of bedding; the water-proof completed my outfit, provided with which I bade adieu for a while to this weary world. The thermometer sank before dawn to 62° (F.). After five nights more or less in the cramping wagon, it might be supposed that we should have enjoyed the unusual rest; on the contrary, we had become inured to the exercise; we could have kept it up for a month, and we now grumbled only at the loss of time.
At 8 A.M., after breaking our fast upon a tough antelope steak, and dawdling while the herdsman was riding wildly about in search of his runaway mules—an operation now to become of daily occurrence—we dashed over the Sandy Creek with an élan calculated to make timid passengers look "skeery," and began to finish the rolling divide between the two forks. We crossed several arroyos and "criks" heading in the line of clay highlands to our left, a dwarf sierra which stretches from the northern to the southern branch of the Platte. The principal are Omaha Creek, more generally known as "Little Punkin,"[2] and Lawrence Fork.[3]
- ↑ The Mormon emigrants usually start from Council Bluffs, on the left bank of the Missouri River, in N. lat. 41° 18' 50", opposite Kanesville, otherwise called Winter Quarters. According to the "Overland Guide," Council Bluffs is the natural crossing of the Missouri River, on the route destined by Nature for the great thoroughfare to the Pacific. This was the road selected by "Nature's civil engineers," the buffalo and the elk, for their western travel. The Indians followed them in the same trail; then the travelers; next the settlers came. After ninety-four miles marching, the Mormons are ferried across Loup Fork, a stream thirteen rods wide, full of bars, with banks and a bottom all quicksand. Another 150 miles takes them to the Platte River, where they find good camping-places, with plenty of water, buffalo-chips, and grass. Eighty-two miles beyond that point (a total of 306), they arrive at "Last Timber," a station so called because, for the next 300 miles on the north side of the Platte, the only sign of vegetation is "Lone Tree." Many emigrants avoid this dreary "spell" by crossing the Platte opposite Ash Hollow. Others pass it at Platte-River Ferry, a short distance below the mouth of Laramie River, while others keep the old road to the north.
- ↑ Punkin (i. e., pumpkin) and corn (i. e., zea maize) are, and were from time immemorial, the great staples of native American agriculture.
- ↑ According to Webster, "forks" (in the plural)—the point where a river divides,
