treated me kindly. Indeed, he had no cause to do otherwise. Some of my
portion of the flour brought by Stanton from Sutter's Fort I gave
to Reed's children, and thus saved their lives. When he left me, he
promised to return in two weeks and carry me over the mountains. When
this party left, I was not able to stand, much less to walk."

"A heavy storm came on in a few days after the last relief party left.
Mrs. George Donner had remained with her sick husband in their camp, six
or seven miles away. Mrs. Murphy lived about a week after we were left
alone. When my provisions gave out, I remained four days before I could
taste human flesh. There was no other resort--it was that or death.
My wife and child had gone on with the first relief party. I knew not
whether they were living or dead. They were penniless and friendless
in a strange land. For their sakes I must live, if not for my own. Mrs.
Murphy was too weak to revive. The flesh of starved beings contains
little nutriment. It is like feeding straw to horses. I can not describe
the unutterable repugnance with which I tasted the first mouthful of
flesh. There is an instinct in our nature that revolts at the thought of
touching, much less eating, a corpse. It makes my blood curdle to think
of it! It has been told that I boasted of my shame--said that I
enjoyed this horrid food, and that I remarked that human flesh was more
palatable than California beef. This is a falsehood. It is a horrible,
revolting falsehood. This food was never otherwise than loathsome,
insipid, and disgusting. For nearly two months I was alone in that
dismal cabin. No one knows what occurred but myself--no living being
ever before was told of the occurrences. Life was a burden. The horrors
of one day succeeded those of the preceding. Five of my companions had
died in my cabin, and their stark and ghastly bodies lay there day and
night, seemingly gazing at me with their glazed and staring eyes. I was
too weak to move them had I tried. The relief parties had not removed
them. These parties had been too hurried, too horror-stricken at the
sight, too fearful lest an hour's delay might cause them to share
the same fate. I endured a thousand deaths. To have one's suffering
prolonged inch by inch, to be deserted, forsaken, hopeless; to see
that loathsome food ever before my eyes, was almost too much for human
endurance. I am conversant with four different languages. I speak and
write them with equal flue