ackless, ragged waste of snow, varying from ten
to forty feet in depth,[24] and approached the camp-site near the lake
at sunset. They halloed, and up the snow steps came those able to drag
themselves to the surface. When they descended into those cabins, they
found no cheering lights. Through the smoky atmosphere, they saw
smouldering fires, and faced conditions so appalling that words forsook
them; their very souls were racked with agonizing sympathy. There were
the famine-stricken and the perishing, almost as wasted and helpless as
those whose sufferings had ceased. Too weak to show rejoicing, they
could only beg with quivering lips and trembling hands, "Oh, give us
something to eat! Give us something to drink! We are starving!"

True, their hands were grimy, their clothing tattered, and the floors
were bestrewn with hair from hides and bits of broken bullock bones;
but of connubial, parental, or filial inhumanity, there were no signs.

With what deep emotion those seven heroic men contemplated the
conditions in camp may be gathered from Mr. Aguilla Glover's own notes,
published in Thornton's work:

Feb. 19, 1847. The unhappy survivors were, in short, in a condition
most deplorable, and beyond power of language to describe, or
imagination to conceive.

The emigrants had not yet commenced eating the dead. Many of the
sufferers had been living on bullock hides for weeks and even that
sort of food was so nearly exhausted that they were about to dig up
from the snow the bodies of their companions for the purpose of
prolonging their wretched lives.

Thornton's work contains the following statement by a member of one of
the relief corps:

On the morning of February 20,[25] Racine Tucker, John Rhodes, and
Riley Moutrey went to the camp of George Donner eight miles distant,
taking a little jerked beef. These sufferers (eighteen) had but one
hide remaining. They had determined that upon consuming this they
would dig from the snow the bodies of those who had died from
starvation. Mr. Donner was helpless, Mrs. Donner was weak but in
good health, and might have come to the settlement with this party;
yet she solemnly but calmly determined to remain with her husband
and perform for him the last sad offices of affection and humanity.
And this she did in full view that she must necessarily perish by
remaining behind. The three men returned the same da