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Show ON THE DESEET. 235 I hardly think we shall get over it without leaving some of our animals. At 3 o'clock we started ; our course was south west, over a new country. Reese's train was the first who had ventured; none of our party had ever been over, and I never want to traverse it again. In travelling over the vast prairies and mountains it is well that the range of our vision has certain limits. If we could take within scope of our sight, the whole extent of the distance to be travelled, we should most probably give up the original intention as one of the impo-sibilities; a wise Providence has ordained otherwise. The distance is bounded frequently by high ranges of mountains, which cut off the perspective, or the atmosphere between the eye and the'o'bject produces an aerial effect, which obscures like a Curtain, the far spread waste, inspiring the wearied traveller with fresh and renewed energy. " So doth the untrod distance still delude us." This was decidedly the worst ground I had ever travelled. After 20 miles ride, I saw in the distance, what I took to be a lake, and none of the party knew better. It was an extensive bed of pure white sand, probably fifteen miles in diameter, and may have been once the bed of a lake. Our road lay directly over it, and we proceeded slowly, and with much difficulty; at midnight we rested our animals. 3rd. At 4 o'clock we were on the road again. Carcasses of dead horses and oxen, strewed the way. Some were left to die, and others still warm, although dead. In the space of one mile I counted 40 dead oxen and cows; the air was foully impregnated with the effluvia arising |