short time, after witnessing the success of the Mormons, who in less than five years have changed the face of a frightful desert and live there in great abundance. Yet I am free to maintain that if the prince has really formed the plan ascribed to him, which I scarcely credit, I pity from the bottom of my heart those who first embark in the expedition. The enemies whom they would have to meet are still too powerful: Crows, Blackfeet, Sioux, Cheyennes, Arapahos and Snakes, are the most feared and warlike of the desert. A colony established in such a neighborhood. and against the will of the numerous warlike tribes in the vicinity of those mountains, would run great dangers and meet heavy obstacles. The influence of religion alone can prepare these parts for such a transformation. The threats and promises of colonists, their guns and sabres, would never effect what can be accomplished by the peaceful word of the Blackgown and the sight of the humanizing sign of the cross.
From the crossing of the South Fork to the junction of the Great Forks, the distance is reckoned to be seventy-five miles, and thence to Fort Kearney 150 miles. Wood is very rare along the Platte or Nebraska. From the junction of the two forks to the mouth the valley is six or eight miles wide, while the bed of the river is about two miles in width. In the spring, at the melting of the snows, when this river is high, it presents a magnificent sheet of water, with numerous isles and islets covered with verdure, and skirted with cottontrees and willows. In the autumn, on the contrary, it loses all interest and beauty. Its waters then escape into a great number of almost imperceptible passages and channels among the sand-banks which cover the bed through its whole length and extent.
When wood fails, as frequently happens on the banks of the Platte or Nebraska, the meals are cooked at fires of buffalo dung, which, when dried, burns like turf.
The soil of the Nebraska is in general rich and deep, mingled, however, with sand in several localities. There is