Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 22.djvu/142



132 S. H. TAYLOR

Laramie, to which the emigrant looks with more earnest desire, nor, where he finds such a real heart-satisfying pleasure. By this time men's natural wants have become strong, and what- ever their habit may have been, the appetite for strong drink is overwhelmed by the desire for "good cold water." As the clear liquor comes up silvery and sparkling, rolling up the white, beautiful sand, and flowing off, to revive and refresh all the thousands that come, even the drinker forgets his whisky, and pays some passionate tribute to the "blessed good water." I sat down and sipped the water on the low bank, where Waldron and Stimpson sat and sipped it four years ago, and I presume thought about what they thought about. There are three graves here, and the inscriptions say the dead of them died in consequence of immoderate drinking of the water. When we reached the springs the mercury was at 112 in the shade, and the warning may have saved some of us.

The weather has been cool and comfortable until yesterday, and then it was about as hot as "the nature of things would admit of."

Since leaving Wood creek, we have passed over a great deal of alkaline land. The earth is wet and miry where the alkali is found in the water, and where the surface has been dried there is an incrustation of what appears to be saleratus. It is everywhere found in connection with salt.

We have passed over much beautiful bottom land during the week especially that lying along Wood, Buffalo and Elm creeks little streams tha thave almost their whole course in the flats. The timber of the Platte is now fast diminishing, and we traveled by the stream on Friday all day where it was almost naked of wood. It was only now and then that a tree or bush could be seen, indicating the course of the river. There is more just here, but it is all on the south side, and we can- not reach it. Buffalo chips are abundant, and for fuel we find them quite a passable substitute for wood. The timber that is here and for 40 miles back, is not worth counting in con- nection with the settlement of the country. Below that the