Transcript
Transcript for Kimball, Vilate M., The Mormons "Salt Lake Valley," Littell's Living Age, Apr., May, June 1849, 165
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.