THE PASSES 75 



period long emigrant-trains with foot-sore cattle 

 wearily toiled. After the toil-worn adventurers 

 had escaped a thousand dangers and had crawled 

 thousands of miles across the plains the snowy 

 Sierra at last loomed in sight, the eastern wall of 

 the land of gold. And as with shaded eyes they 

 gazed through the tremulous haze of the desert, 

 with what joy must they have descried the pass 

 through which they were to enter the better land 

 of their hopes and dreams ! 



Between the Sonora Pass and the southern ex 

 tremity of the High Sierra, a distance of nearly 160 

 miles, there are only five passes through which 

 trails conduct from one side of the range to the 

 other. These are barely practicable for animals ; a 

 pass in these regions meaning simply any notch or 

 canon through which one may, by the exercise of 

 unlimited patience, make out to lead a mule, or a 

 sure-footed mustang; animals that can slide or 

 jump as well as walk. Only three of the five passes 

 may be said to be in use, viz. : the Kearsarge, Mono, 

 and Virginia Creek; the tracks leading through the 

 others being only obscure Indian trails, not graded 

 in the least, and scarcely traceable by white men ; 

 for much of the way is over solid rock and earth 

 quake avalanche taluses, where the unshod ponies 

 of the Indians leave no appreciable sign. Only 

 skilled mountaineers are able to detect the marks 

 that serve to guide the Indians, such as slight 

 abrasions of the looser rocks, the displacement of 

 stones here and there, and bent bushes and weeds. 

 A general knowledge of the topography is, then, 

 the main guide, enabling one to determine where 



