inside the wall with a written notice to
"Read and leave them for others."

Many trains, well equipped, well formed, well led, went through without
trouble--indeed, with real pleasure. Nevertheless the overwhelming
testimony is on the other side. Probably this was due in large part to
the irritability that always seizes the mind of the tenderfoot when he
is confronted by wilderness conditions. A man who is a perfectly normal
and agreeable citizen in his own environment becomes a suspicious
half-lunatic when placed in circumstances uncomfortable and
unaccustomed. It often happened that people were obliged to throw things
away in order to lighten their loads. When this necessity occurred, they
generally seemed to take an extraordinary delight in destroying their
property rather than in leaving it for anybody else who might come
along. Hittell tells us that sugar was often ruined by having turpentine
poured over it, and flour was mixed with salt and dirt; wagons were
burned; clothes were torn into shreds and tatters. All of this
destruction was senseless and useless, and was probably only a blind and
instinctive reaction against hardships.

Those hardships were considerable. It is estimated that during the
height of the overland migration in the spring of 1849 no less than
fifty thousand people started out. The wagon trains followed almost on
one another's heels, so hot was the pace. Not only did the travelers
wish to get to the Sierras before the snows blocked the passes, not only
were they eager to enter the gold mines, but they were pursued by the
specter of cholera in the concentration camps along the Mississippi
Valley. This scourge devastated these gatherings. It followed the men
across the plains like some deadly wild beast, and was shaken off only
when the high clear climate of desert altitude was eventually reached.

But the terrible part of the journey began with the entrance into the
great deserts, like that of the Humboldt Sink. There the conditions were
almost beyond belief. Thousands were left behind, fighting starvation,
disease, and the loss of cattle. Women who had lost their husbands from
the deadly cholera went staggering on without food or water, leading
their children. The trail was literally lined with dead animals. Often
in the middle of the desert could be seen the camps of death, the wagons
drawn in a circle, the dead animals tainting the air, every living human
being crippled from scurvy and oth