OREGON BOUND 1853 145
ences of religion upon us, we feel it. We feel that the mind cannot bear chafing all the time. And Monday morning we feel as we used to, refreshed for another week of toil on the road another week of the journey of life another week of the labor of self control, and of effort to make the most of the enjoyment of the social and domestic relations. I wish all who are to go over this road, might hear and believe what I say that it is no more strange that those who travel Sundays and thus neglect their moral necessities, should be prepared to abandon their sick and tumble their dead into holes in the ground, than that they should become indifferent to the neces- sities of their beasts and strew the trail with the carcasses of over-driven and over-beaten cattle.
One great cause of loss on this road, is, feeding on alkaline lands. Cattle should, in no case, be halted where there are alkaline salts on the surface. This is the great curse of the upper Platte, the Sweetwater, and all streams flowing through the great waste from the Summit west to the base of the Bear mountains. The low grounds are every where more or less covered with saleratus, and thousands feed and herd their cattle in it for three to four weeks of time. They have the alkaline principle constantly in their grass, and to some extent in their drink, and even the dust they inhale is impregnated with it. The system resists the poison more effectually than we ought to expect, for comparatively a small per centage die. Where 200,000 cattle have passed this season, there are, for 400 miles, from one to four carcasses to the mile and prob- ably one-half of this 200,000 are fed on the lime grounds and furnish nine-tenths of the dead. Grass can be every where found on the high land. It is in spots dry but nutritious thin and scanty but very hearty. Our oxen labor on a morn- ing's feeding of it, all day as well as on the low ground grass till 2 o'clock. We esteem it the best grass by great odds. It is not so convenient, and so 100,000 cattle, this year, are grazed on alkaline feed to be killed or injured for months to come. Crossing the plains again, I would not feed on the low
