The hill we had just come down is called the Guy Hill. At Central City, where I was staying the next day, I asked the landlord of the hotel if anyone had been killed lately on the Guy Hill. ‘No,’ he replied, ‘no one had been killed, he was glad to say, for two or three years, but every year several persons had died of accidents on the hill.’ These accidents happen when snow is on the ground, and the horses cannot see their way, or when it is covered with ice, and they cannot get a foothold. I afterwards walked up this road, and a closer acquaintance with it only increased the respect the way in which I had been brought down it had made me feel for American horses, drivers, and coaches. I also went over the old road that had preceded it, and which was nothing but a gully of smooth rock down the side of the hill. I was unable to conceive how any vehicle could ever have been got up it or down it. [Sidenote: _Climate in the Mountains._] The fame of these American whips is not confined to their own country; for I am told by an Australian friend, that in that part of the world it is the custom to engage the services of one of them where the roads are unusually difficult. Though it was February when I was in the mountains, the climate was so bright and warm, that it did not appear strange to see the gold-washers at work in slush and water. And yet there had been so severe a frost in the previous month, that the gulch was still thickly frozen over, and these hardy men had to break through the ice to get water for washing the dirt in which the gold is found. But though there is here a great deal of open fine weather in winter, yet at this season very severe frost, though generally of short duration, may be expected, and also extremely violent storms of wind, often accompanied with snow. A storm of this kind drove me out of the mountains, as I was afraid, which actually did happen, that it would bring enough snow to block the roads for some days. I made a run for the plains, and when I reached them, I found the storm still raging, and saw the dust it raised looking like a dark haze several yards high. As the wind blew from the mountains, I did not suffer much inconvenience in running before it for twelve miles, till I reached shelter. But the next day, when it was over, I saw teamsters who told me that they had found it impossible to move on across it, and that they had been obliged to anchor their waggons to moorings driven firmly into the ground, sheltering their cattle and themselves on the lee-side. These wind storms on the plains are not so bad for man as for beast, for the nostrils, mouths, and eyes of the horses and bullocks suffer much from the sharp sand.