experienced during one's first attempt to walk with them. Their shoes
would sink deep into the loose, light snow, and it was with great effort
they made any progress. They had been at Donner Lake from forty-two to
forty-six days, and on this first night of their journey had left it
four miles behind them. After a dreadful day's work they encamped, in
full sight of the lake and of the cabins. This was harder for the aching
hearts of the mothers than even the terrible parting from their little
ones. To see the smoke of the cabins, to awake from their troubled
dreams, thinking they heard the cry of their starving babes, to stifle
the maternal yearnings which prompted them to turn back and perish with
their darlings clasped to their breasts, were trials almost unbearable.
The next day they traveled six miles. They crossed the summit, and the
camps were no longer visible. They were in the solemn fastnesses of the
snow-mantled Sierra. Lonely, desolate, forsaken apparently by God and
man, their situation was painfully, distressingly terrible. The snow
was, wrapped about cliff and forest and gorge. It varied in depth from
twelve to sixty feet.

Mrs. M. A. Clarke (Mary Graves), now of White River, Tulare County,
speaking of this second day, says: "We had a very slavish day's travel,
climbing the divide. Nothing of interest occurred until reaching the
summit. The scenery was too grand for me to pass without notice, the
changes being so great; walking now on loose snow, and now stepping on a
hard, slick rock a number of hundred yards in length. Being a little in
the rear of the party, I had a chance to observe the company ahead,
trudging along with packs on their. backs. It reminded me of some
Norwegian fur company among the icebergs. My shoes were ox-bows, split
in two, and rawhide strings woven in, something in form of the
old-fashioned, split-bottomed chairs. Our clothes were of the bloomer
costume, and generally were made of flannel. Well do I remember a remark