n the desert and brought
thus far by some gentlemen from Davenport, Iowa. He was left there by
his messmates sick, without food or water, and when found, his hands
and face were so blistered by the scorching sun that the skin all
peeled from them, leaving them as raw as a piece of beef. Poor
fellow!--When found he was crying in the most excruciating agony for a
drop of water to quench his burning thirst. Burning at the stake would
be too merciful to the hardened wretches who left him sick and helpless
on those burning sands. The gentlemen who picked him up had been lying
bye two or three days at this place expressly on his account. One of
them was a physician; although the poor fellow was a stranger to them,
they tended him with all the assiduity of brothers.

12th. Started again this morning, but our road led across a sand plain
12 miles wide, when we struck the river again, following a packing
trail, thus avoiding the desert back from the river.

22 miles.

13th. Our road followed the river until noon, when we had another
stretch of desert for 13 miles. The valley begins to narrow somewhat.

23 miles.

14th. Passed through a canon seven miles, continually crossing brooks
of cold clear water from the mountains--beautiful meadows and rich land
on the bottoms. Desert plains back, and still back lofty Sierra
Nevadas, their sides covered with the evergreen pine, their summits
with snow.--Passed some hot springs, and trading stations. The latter
have little to sell but whiskey; some few of them beef.

27 miles.

15. Passed the Mormon station, saw a party of Californians and Mexicans
prospecting. There is gold this side of the mountains. Entered the
seven mile Kanyon, which begins the real pass of the Sierra Nevada. A
branch of the Carson River runs through it, which stream we follow to
its head. The Kanyon is a wild, picturesque place, with perpendicular
wall of gray granite hundreds of feet high, with lofty pines in the
bottoms, and a perfect chaos of granite blocks rent from the walls
above. We were compelled to camp in it with nothing for our horses to
eat, which somewhat destroyed the romance of the thing; as for eating
ourselves, it is so long since we have had anything to eat that we
don't trouble ourselves about it.

23 miles.

16th. Got out of the Kanyan into the valley, and stopped to bait. Drove
about six miles and camped for the night; grass abundant in this
valley. J. Ingalls killed a Califor