60 A CALIFORNIA TRAMP. 



our wagons, we commenced descending. It was near midnight 

 before the train was all corralled at the foot of the hill, the 

 descent of which was full of danger to both men and animals, 

 for, had a lock-chain broken, the whole team would have 

 tumbled head over heels down a steep whose inclination was 

 some forty-five degrees. Several narrow escapes occurred dur- 

 ing the descent, and we were heartily rejoiced when it was ac- 

 complished. The oxen had had nothing to eat nor drink since 

 morning, and we were obliged to remain all night in a region 

 destitute of water and grass. We left the famished cattle 

 chained to the wagons, and were under way early the next 

 morning, all hands hungry and thirsty. 



Nothing could be more dreary than the region through which 

 we passed. The bottom of the valley down which we were 

 journeying, and which was a bed of sand and gravel, was about 

 one hundred 3^ards in width, almost entirely destitute of vegeta- 

 tion and bounded on either side by gloomy, barren hills, which 

 arose to the height of six or eight hundred feet, terminating in 

 rugged cliffs. It seemed as if some mighty volcano ^had once 

 been at work here, blasting and desolating everything around 

 in its upheavings. Slowly our weak, hollow oxen drew the 

 cumbrous wagons through the yielding sands, which arose and 

 enveloped us in clouds, as we trudged on our way unrejoicing. 

 At last we emerged from this valley of desolation, and moving 

 about a mile up the river, we encamped near its shore. A rush 

 was soon made for the river by both man and beast, and its 

 warm, yellow waters soon quenched the thirst of all. Near 

 the mouth of Ash Hollow we passed a mail station, near which 

 was encamped a village of Cheyennes. The little naked chil- 

 dren crowded around us as we passed by the lodges, whilst the 

 old squaws, squatted around their domiciles, gazed quietly at 

 us through their black, snaky eyes, looking quite as attractive 

 as the fabled dames who guard the portals of the infernal 

 regions. Near this spot a battle was fought a year before 



