The emigration of the forty-niners was attended by worse sufferings than the trail had yet known. Cholera broke out among the trains at the start. It stayed by them, lining the road with nearly five thousand graves, until they reached the hills beyond Fort Laramie. The price of inexperience, too, had to be paid. Wagons broke down and stock died. The wreckage along the trail bore witness to this. On July 27, Stansbury observed: "To-day we find additional and melancholy evidence of the difficulties encountered by those who are ahead of us. Before halting at noon, we passed eleven wagons that had been broken up, the spokes of the wheels taken to make pack-saddles, and the rest burned or otherwise destroyed. The road has been literally strewn with articles that have been thrown away. Bar-iron and steel, large blacksmiths' anvils and bellows, crowbars, drills, augers, gold-washers, chisels, axes, lead, trunks, spades, ploughs, large grindstones, baking-ovens, cooking-stoves without number, kegs, barrels, harness, clothing, bacon, and beans, were found along the road in pretty much the order in which they have been here enumerated. The carcasses of eight oxen, lying in one heap by the roadside, this morning, explained a part of the trouble." In twenty-four miles he passed seventeen abandoned wagons and twenty-seven dead oxen. Beyond Fort Hall, with the journey half done, came the worst perils. In the dust and heat of the Humboldt Valley, stock literally faded away, so that thousands had to turn back to refuge at Salt Lake, or were forced on foot to struggle with thirst and starvation. The number of the overland emigrants can never be told with accuracy. Perhaps the truest estimate is that of the great California historian who counts it that, in 1849, 42,000 crossed the continent and reached the gold fields. It was a mixed multitude that found itself in California after July, 1849, when the overland folk began to arrive. All countries and all stations in society had contributed to fill the ranks of the 100,000 or more whites who were there in the end of the year. The farmer, the amateur prospector, and the professional gambler mingled in the crowd. Loose women plied their trade without rebuke. Those who had come by sea contained an over-share of the undesirable element that proposed to live upon the recklessness and vices of the miners. The overland emigrants were largely of farmer stock; whether they had possessed frontier experience or not before the start, the 3000-mile journey toughened and seasoned all who reached California. Nearly all possessed the essential virtues of strength, boldness, and initiative.