14 FROM FORT LEAVENWORTH TO FORT KEARNY. 



of the post for outfits and transportation furnished to several 

 heavy trains for Oregon, New Mexico, and California, as well as 

 by a panic occasioned by exaggerated reports of the existence of 

 the cholera at the post; which caused the desertion of forty 

 teamsters and mechanics in one night. Not a hand was to be 

 hired, nor could the quartermaster furnish me with a single team- 

 ster. I was consequently obliged to send an express to Kansas 

 for the necessary additional force. 



Before leaving Fort Leavenworth, we were joined by a small 

 party of emigrants for California, who desired to travel in our 

 company for the sake of protection, and who continued with us 

 as far as Salt Lake City. This proved a fortunate arrangement, 

 since we thereby secured the society of an excellent and intelli- 

 gent lady, who not only, by her cheerfulness and vivacity, beguiled . 

 the tedium of many a monotonous and wearisome hour, but, by 

 her fortitude and patient endurance of exposure and fatigue, set 

 an example worthy the imitation of many of the ruder sex. 



The cholera had for a considerable time been raging on the Mis- 

 souri; and as we passed up, fearful rumours of its prevalence and 

 fatality among the emigrants on the route daily reached us from 

 the plains. On the day we left Fort Leavenworth, one member 

 of our little party was carried to the hospital in a state of col- 

 lapse, where he died in twenty-four hours. The only officer 

 attached to my command had been ill for several weeks, with 

 severe attacks of intermittent fever, which now merged into chronic 

 dysentery, and he was, in consequence, unable to sit on his horse, 

 or to do duty of any kind. These were rather discouraging cir- 

 cumstances for an outset; but, at length, on the 31st day of May, 

 our preparations being completed, we commenced our journey, my 

 own party consisting in all of eighteen men, five wagons, and 

 forty-six horses and mules ; while that of Mr. Sackett, our fellow- 

 traveller, contained six persons, one wagon, one travelling carriage, 

 and fifteen animals. Lieutenant Gunnison, being too ill to travel 

 in any other manner, was carried on his bed, in a large spring 

 wagon, which had been procured for the transportation of the 

 instruments. The weather, in the morning, had been dark and 

 lowering, with occasional showers, but it cleared off about noon; 

 the camp broke up ; the wagons were packed, and we prepared to 

 exchange, for a season, the comforts and refinements of civilized 

 life, for the somewhat wild and roving habits of the hunter and 

 the savage. My party consisted principally of experienced voy- 



