ible to Bear Valley before storms should gather and
delays defeat the purpose of its coming; that it divided what it could
conscientiously spare among those whom it was obliged to leave, cut
wood for the fires, and endeavored to give encouragement and hope to
the desponding, but did not remain long enough to remove or bury the
dead.

Each succeeding party actuated by like anxieties and precautions,
departed with its charges, leaving pitiable destitution behind; leaving
mournful conditions in camp,--conditions attributable as much to the
work of time and atmospheric agencies as to the deplorable expedients
to which the starving were again and again reduced.

With trembling hand Georgia turned the pages, from the sickening
details of the _Star_[18] to the personal observations of Edwin Bryant,
who in returning to the United States in the Summer of 1847, crossed
the Sierra Nevadas with General Kearney and escort, reached the lake
cabins June 22, and wrote as follows:

A halt was called for the purpose of interring the remains. Near the
principal lake cabin I saw two bodies entire, except the abdomens
had been cut open and entrails extracted. Their flesh had been
either wasted by famine or evaporated by exposure to dry
atmosphere, and presented the appearance of mummies. Strewn around
the cabins were dislocated and broken skulls (in some instances
sawed asunder with care for the purpose of extracting the brains).
Human skeletons, in short, in every variety of mutilation. A more
appalling spectacle I never witnessed. The remains were, by order of
General Kearney, collected and buried under supervision of Major
Sword. They were interred in a pit dug in the centre of one of the
cabins for a cache. These melancholy duties to the dead being
performed, the cabins, by order of Major Sword, were fired and, with
everything surrounding them connected with the horrible and
melancholy tragedy, consumed.

The body of (Captain) George Donner was found in his camp about
eight miles distant. He had been carefully laid out by his wife, and
a sheet was wrapped around the corpse. This sad office was probably
the last act she performed before visiting the camp of Keseberg. He
was buried by a party of men detailed for that purpose.

I knew the Donners well; their means in money and merchandise which
they had brought with them were abundant. Mr. Donner w