Transcript

Our journey to this place has been long, but not tedious until we came into the mountains, when we found the roads bad, and the weather cold and stormy. Previous to this, it appeared more like a pleasure-party than a moving community. Almost daily would be seen groups gathered in parties, and their tables spread with every luxury that a reasonable person could ask or desire. Myself and husband [Heber C. Kimball] have been highly favored with invitations so frequent, to breakfast or take tea from home, that we were ofttimes obliged to excuse ourselves. Our home has been so pleasant that it was no pleasure for me to leave it. My family wagon, drawn by four large bay horses, like many others, was very convenient, having broad projections, bedstead, with comfortable bed, &c., &c. I had sufficient room in the centre for myself and little ones. My wagon seemed more like a parlor than a traveling vehicle. We often, during our journey, corralled, or formed a ring with more than 600 wagons, which, when lighted by candles and evening fires, had the appearance of a city.

We passed many tribes of Indians during our journey, and were well treated by all excepting the Otoes. Many came to our wagons, neatly dressed in garments made of skins of beasts, and trimmed with wampum, on which great taste and neatness was displayed. They rode excellent horses, seemed happy, and well pleased with the attention they received from us. They offered ten ponies for some of our prettiest girls.

We started from our winter quarters the 1st of June, and passed a distance of 500 miles over a country beautiful beyond description, had it not been for lack of timber. The buffalo, the elk, the antelope, and deer, were constantly on our path, and furnished us with the best of meat. Gooseberries, currants, cherries, and grapes in abundance—large and excellent of the kind. We then passed a country barren in the extreme; days and weeks, not a shrub or spear of grass was seen by us, and our horses and cattle were taken from one to four miles, into the valleys of the mountains, for food and water, which often was poison, and caused the death of many of our best cattle. It would have been difficult for us to have come through with our enormous loads, had not our brethren from the place come with horses, mules, and cattle, to our relief.