TRAVELS IN OREGON, NO. 2. 407 
vessels was setting sail for England. Dr. McLaughlin 
extended to them his ever ready hospitality, and fur¬ 
nished them with necessaries for the prosecution of their 
proposed journey up the Fall river and over the moun¬ 
tain country to California. This was a serious enter- 
arise at the beginning of winter, with a party of twenty- 
five persons, comprising Americans, French, Germans, 
Canadians, Indians and negroes, but all confided in their 
leader, and the journey was commenced in a spirit of 
bravery, obedience and cheerfulness, which all the hard¬ 
ship they suffered failed to derogate from. Circum¬ 
stances forced them to deviate somewhat from fulfilling 
the whole plan they had laid out, and they passed far to 
the south and near to the Pacific Ocean, and along the 
western base of the Sierra Nerada. Their route brought 
them to traverse a number of the salt lakes of California. 
From one of these, near the great Sierra, a remarkable 
rock rose six hundred feet above the water, presenting 
from the view the expedition had of it a pretty exact 
outline of the great pyramid of Cheops. Like other 
rocks along the shore, it seemed to be encrusted with 
calcareous cement. The resemblance suggested a name, 
and it was called Pyramid Lake. 
Nearly the whole of this journey was made over 
ground covered with snow, without forage for the cattle, 
who when they starved to death were eaten by their 
famished owners. The Indian guides would pilot them 
for short distances, then point with their hands the direc¬ 
tion they should take, and desert them. They perse¬ 
vered, however, against every obstacle. With too good 
an American for a leader, to go in any other direction 
than that pointed out by duty, too brave men to be dis¬ 
couraged by hundreds of miles of untrodden snow, too 
familiar with death to quail at his embrace, they perse¬ 
vered. But famine was their worst opponent. To form 
an idea of their condition, to learn how much is due to 
