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Show 12 NATIONAL WAGON ROAD GUIDE. less than one month. By the plains, you arrive in California in the very midst of the mining region; arriving by water, you are landed in San Francisco, 'vith from one hundred to three hundred miles still further to go, at a very considerable expense, before· reaching the mines ; so that the difference in time between thf3 two rnutes is more than counterbalanced by the saving of expense, in taking the overland route. · DANGERS OF THE OVERLAND ROUTE. Very many, without doubt, are deterred from making the passage of the plains on account of the dangers ~hat are believed to beset the emigrant by this route ; but from experience it is our positive belief that the dangers are, to a very great extent, imaginary rather than real. The only real dangers incident to the plains, that humanity is not exposed to everywhere, are those -vvhich it is supposed may possibly arise from hostile Indians and Mormons, for we believe the danger to be no greater from the one than the other, and but little fron1 either. 'Tis true, the world has been shocked by a terrible 1 massacre of men, women, and children, upon the plains, it is said; but where, upon the plains? Not within four hundred miles of the great national wagon road trail, as described in this guide ; but~ a\vay to the south of the Salt Lake settlements, upon the extreme southern verge of the great Salt Lake basin. The victims were proceeding by a route which, though constantly traveled by NATIONAL WAGON ROAD GUIDE. 13 Mormons, from Salt Lake City to Southern California, is not the route proper to be pursued by the emigrant, who desires to reach any part of the mininO' redion or 0 5 ' the northern or middle portions of California, or any part of Oregon. We are no apologist for the late terrible massacre in Mormon Utah, to which we have alluded, nor do we hesitate to declare our belief that, but for the Mormons, it never would have occurred; that they were the sole instigators, if not to a considerable extent, the real perpetrators of the horrible butchery, and ought to be held responsible for it. At the same time, though without offering it, even as a pretext for so inhuman a barbarity, it must be admitted, because we believe susceptive of positive proof, that the Inassacre was the direct result of the arrogance, the taunting tone of defiance, and even unj ustiflable insolence of the victin1s themselves, tovvards a religiously fanatic people, with 'vhom they had been for a tin1e sojourning, and whose country-by occupation and possession-they were then traveling through. In addition to this, there is too much reason to believe that they ·~eJ:>e the perpetrators of a cruel wrong upon the Indian's tr the country. "' But because an event so lamentable has occurred, it does not follow that there ever will be a repetition, even in Utah, much less upon any part of the plains, adjacent to the national wagon road. It would be just as reason~ ble to suppose that there mnst necessarily be a repetition of the Panama massacre, on the arrival of every |