We Leave Salt Lake--Reach the Sierra Nevada Slopes--Tunnels, Gorges, etc.--Reach California--Sacramento--San Francisco--Hotel Runners--Fruits--Palace Hotel--Chinese--Dennis Kearney and Party--De Young-Kalloch Tragedy--Chinese Bakers--California Climate--Ships--Golden Gate--Woodward Garden--Portland, Oregon--Washington Territory--Sail for Santa Barbara and Los Angeles--Prescott, Arizona--Meet General Fremont--Big Trees--Return to Ohio. We camped in Salt Lake valley nearly three weeks, and our stay had been so agreeable that it appeared to us but a day. We now concluded to sell our outfit and take passage on the train for California, the land of gold. The property was soon sold and tickets were purchased, and we stepped aboard. Our new team snorted and its breath curled gracefully upward, and we moved smoothly up the valley near the beach of the great salt sea. We had been toiling up the rocky sides and rolling down the barren slopes so long that we had become somewhat used to slow, plodding travel, and were delighted with the ease and speed with which we were now winding our way toward the Pacific shores. We soon passed out from between the towering, snow-capped walls, and crawling along the hill-sides we soon came upon a dry, sandy desert where ofttimes a spire of grass could not be seen for several miles. The little lakes and streamlets lay miles apart, and their brinks were all powdered with alkali while their waters were as bitter as the essence of gall. The whole face of the plain was covered with thick, spraddling sage-brush, which stood in the sands like saplings in a new forest; but not even the smallest animal or insect nestled or sung among the limbs. A strong puff of wind roars over the desert, and the sand rises in the air and looks like a great column of light colored smoke. Where the brush stand in thick clumps the sand lodges; and the brush sprouting out every year, the drift grows to a large mound. As we passed along they glistened in the bright sunlight on either side of the way. There are section-houses built at the end of every division of the road, and large, powerful wind-pumps roll the water into the tanks from far below the burning sand. The section-hands stay in these houses; and their necessaries are brought them by the company. These hands are usually Chinamen; and passing them at noon they will be found seated in the sand around a pot of rice, greedily eating their _only_ food. Near many of these tanks small parties of Indian squaws, girls, papooses, and some old men, of the Shoshone and Winnemucca tribes, were wallowing in the sand, with nothing but a few skins stretched over the tops of the brush to shelter them from the blazing orb; and when the engine stopped to take water these filthy creatures would run along each side of the train and ask for biscuits. Many travelers have their lunch along; and the beggars seldom fail to get their arms filled from the open windows.