highly floral name of Primrose. At 7 the next morning we reach
Green River Station, and enter Idaho Territory. This is the Bitter
Creek division of the Overland route, of which we had heard so many
unfavorable stories. The division is really well managed by Mr.
Stewart, though the country through which it stretches is the most
wretched I ever saw. The water is liquid alkali, and the roads are
soft sand. The snow is gone now, and the dust is thick and
blinding. So drearily, wearily we drag onward.

We reach the summit of the Rocky Mountains at midnight on the 17th.
The climate changes suddenly, and the cold is intense. We resume
runners, have a breakdown, and are forced to walk four miles.

I remember that one of the numerous reasons urged in favor of
General Fremont's election to the Presidency in 1856 was his
finding the path across the Rocky Mountains. I wrung my
frostbitten hands on that dreadful night, and declared that for me
to deliberately go over that path in mid-winter was a sufficient
reason for my election to any lunatic asylum, by an overwhelming
vote. Dr. Hingston made a similar remark, and wondered if he
should ever clink glasses with his friend Lord Palmerston again.

Another sensation. Not comic this time. One of our passengers, a
fair-haired German boy, whose sweet ways had quite won us all, sank
on the snow, and said--Let me sleep. We knew only too well what
that meant, and tried hard to rouse him. It was in vain. Let me
sleep, he said. And so in the cold starlight he died. We took him
up tenderly from the snow, and bore him to the sleigh that awaited
us by the roadside, some two miles away. The new moon was shining
now, and the smile on the sweet white face told how painlessly the