But the wagon still stands at the door. We ought to start at 8 30 A.M.; we are detained an hour while last words are said, and adieu—a long adieu—is bidden to joke and julep, to ice and idleness. Our “plunder” is clapped on with little ceremony; a hat-case falls open—it was not mine, gentle reader—collars and other small gear cumber the ground, and the owner addresses to the clumsy-handed driver the universal G— d—, which in these lands changes from its expletive or chrysalis form to an adjectival development.

Landing in Bleeding Kansas—she still bleeds [1] —we fell at once into “Emigration Road,” a great thoroughfare, broad and well worn as a European turnpike or a Roman military route, and undoubtedly the best and the longest natural highway in the world. For five miles the line bisected a bottom formed by a bend in the river, with about a mile’s diameter at the neck. The scene was of a luxuriant vegetation.

8th August, to Rock Creek.

The Valley of the Little Blue, 9th August.

The Platte River and Fort Kearney, August 10.

To the Forks of the Platte. 11th August.

Precisely at 1 35 in the morning we awoke, as we came to a halt at Cotton-wood Station. Cramped with a four days’ and four nights’ ride in the narrow van, we entered the foul tenement, threw ourselves upon the mattresses, averaging three to each, and ten in a small room, every door, window, and cranny being shut—after the fashion of these Western folks, who make up for a day in the open air by perspiring through the night in unventilated log huts—and, despite musquetoes, slept.

12th August. We cross the Platte.

Past the Court-house and Scott’s Bluffs. August 13th.

To Fort Laramie. 14th August.

Along the Black. Hills to Box-Elder. 15th August.

I AROSE “between two days,” a little before 4 A.M., and watched the dawn, and found in its beauties a soothing influence, which acted upon stiff limbs and discontented spirit as if it had been a spell.

To Platte Bridge. August 16th.

17th August. To the Valley of the Sweetwater.

Up the Sweetwater. 19th August.

To the Foot of South Pass. 19th August.

To the South Pass. August 20th.

To Green River. August 21st.

22d August. To Ham’s Fork and Millersville.

We were not under way before 8 A.M. Macarthy was again to take the lines, and a Giovinetto returning after a temporary absence to a young wife is not usually rejoiced to run his course. Indeed, he felt the inconveniences of a semi-bachelor life so severely, ‘that he often threatened in my private ear, chemin faisant, to throw up the whole concern.

23d August. Fort Bridger.

Echo Kanyon, August 24th,

The End—Hurrah! August 25th.

To-day we are to pass over the Wasach,[1] the last and highest chain of the mountain mass between Fort Bridger and the Great Salt Lake Valley, and—by the aid of St. James of Compostella, who is, I believe, bound over to be the patron of pilgrims in general—to arrive at our destination, New Hierosolyma, or Jerusalem, alias Zion on the tops of the mountains, the future city of Christ, where the Lord is to reign over the Saints, as a temporal king, in power and great glory.