I will now give you the experience of some of the best mule packers in the country, in order to show that what has been written in regard to the mule's strength is calculated to mislead the reader. In 1856, William Anderson, a man whom I know well, packed from the City of Del Norte to Chihuahua and Durango, in Mexico, a distance of five hundred miles or thereabout. Anderson and a man of the name of Frank Roberts had charge of the pack train. They had seventy-five mules, and used to pack boxes of dry goods, bales, and even barrels. They had two Mexican drivers, and travelled about fifteen miles a day, at most, though they took the very best of care of their animals. Now, the very most it was possible for any mule in this train to get along with was two hundred and seventy-five pounds. More than this, they did not have over twenty-five mules out of the whole number that could pack two hundred and fifty pounds, the average weight to the whole train being a little less than two hundred pounds. To make this fifteen miles a day, they had to make two drives, letting the animals stop to feed whenever they had made seven or eight miles. In 1858, this same Anderson packed for the expedition sent after the Snake Indians. His train consisted of some two hundred and fifty or three hundred mules. They packed from Cordelaine Mission to Walla Walla, in Oregon. The animals were of a very superior kind, selected for the purpose of packing out of a very large lot. Some of the very best of these mules were packed with three hundred pounds, but at the end of two weeks gave out completely. In 1859, this same Anderson packed for a gentleman of the name of David Reese, living at the Dalles, in Portland, Oregon. His train consisted of fifty mules, in good average condition, many of them weighing nine hundred and fifty pounds, and from thirteen to fourteen hands high. His average packing was two hundred and fifty pounds. The distance was three hundred miles, and it occupied forty days in going and returning. Such was the severity of the labor that nearly two-thirds of the animals became poor, and their backs so sore as to be unfit for work. This trip was made from the Dalles, in Oregon, to Salmon Falls, on the Columbia River. Anderson asserts it, as the result of his experience, that, in packing fifty mules a distance of three hundred miles with two hundred and fifty pounds, the animals will be so reduced at the end of the journey as to require at least four weeks to bring them into condition again. This also conforms with my own experience.