down to those not larger than the
head of a pin.

Much of the immigration from across the plains, on its way to the
cities below, stops here for a while to recruit. I always had a strange
fancy for that nomadic way of coming to California. To lie down under
starry skies, hundreds of miles from any human habitation, and to rise
up on dewy mornings to pursue our way through a strange country, so
wildly beautiful, seeing each day something new and wonderful, seemed
to me truly enchanting. But cruel reality strips _everything_ of its
rose tints. The poor women arrive looking as haggard as so many
Endorian witches, burnt to the color of a hazelnut, with their hair cut
short, and its gloss entirely destroyed by the alkali, whole plains of
which they are compelled to cross on the way. You will hardly find a
family that has not left some beloved one buried upon the plains. And
they are fearful funerals, those. A person dies, and they stop just
long enough to dig his grave and lay him in it as decently as
circumstances will permit, and the long train hurries onward, leaving
its healthy companion of yesterday, perhaps, in this boundless city of
the dead. On this hazardous journey they dare not linger.

I was acquainted with a young widow of twenty, whose husband died of
cholera when they were but five weeks on their journey. He was a judge
in one of the Western States, and a man of some eminence in his
profession. She is a pretty little creature, and all the aspirants to
matrimony are candidates for her hand.

One day a party of immigrant women came into my room, which was also
the parlor of the establishment. Some observation was made, which led
me to inquire of one of them if her husband was with her.

"She hain't got no husband," fairly _chuckled_ one of her companions.
"She came with _me_, and her feller died of cholera on the plains."

At this startling and brutal announcement the poor girl herself gave a
hysteric giggle, which I at first thought proceeded from heartlessness,
but I was told afterwards, by the person under whose immediate
protection she came out, and who was a sister of her betrothed, that
the tender woman's heart received such a fearful shock at the sudden
death of her lover, that for several weeks her life was despaired of.

I spent a great deal of time calling at the different encampments, for
nothing enchanted me half so much as to hear about this strange exodus
from the States. I never weary of lis