FORT KEARNY. 31 



.■unaccustomed to the operation of packing, their mules, as was to be 

 expected, were in a most horrible condition, with galled backs and 

 sides that made one shudder to behold. The proper mode of 

 arranging the load of these suffering animals is an art taught only 

 by experience. These people, though belonging to a race famous 

 for foresight and calculation, had, like others from less thrifty and 

 managing portions of the Union, been selling and giving away all 

 they could dispense with. While encamped here we have had 

 several severe thunder storms, accompanied with heavy rains and 

 violent winds. 



CHAPTER II. 



FROM FORT KEARNY TO FORT LARAMIE. 



Thursday^ June 21. — Having taken leave of our kind and 

 hospitable friends at the fort, we overtook our own train, which 

 had been sent ahead in the morning, and found them encamped on 

 the bank of the Platte, after a drive of twenty-five miles. Lieu- 

 tenant Gunnison, who had gone before in his little wagon, by 

 some means missed the camp in the darkness, and did not arrive, 

 which gave me no little uneasiness, lest the exposure should prove 

 detrimental in his very delicate state of health. We discovered, 

 however, in the morning, that he had found good quarters at an 

 emigrant encampment on the road. 



The character of the Platte valley for the last forty miles is 

 that of a flat prairie, composed of sand and clay, in which, when 

 the latter predominates, water is found standing in small pools, 

 but when the sand is most abundant, the water passes through it 

 like a sieve and is quite drained away. Hence we have passed 

 innumerable little wells, dug to a depth of from two to four feet. 

 The water is generally clear and cool, but much of the sickness on 

 this route has been attributed to its use. The soil thrown out is 

 sandy, though not unfrequently having a mixture of clay. The 

 water thus obtained is evidently the result of infiltration from 

 the higher levels or bluffs, which, in this hidden manner, discharge 

 their surplus moisture into the river. The bluffs on the opposite 

 side of the river, near Fort Kearny, are apparently formed of 



