cabins in lieu of shingles. These were
now taken down and eaten. All the survivors describe the method of
preparing this miserable substitute for food. The narration by Mrs. J.
M. Murphy (Virginia E. Reed), of San Jose, is among the most vivid. She
says the green rawhides were cut into strips and laid upon the coals, or
held in the flames until the hair was completely singed off. Either side
of the piece of hide was then scraped with a knife until comparatively
clean, and was placed in a kettle and boiled until soft and pulpy. There
was no salt, and only a little pepper, and yet this substance was all
that was between them and starvation. When cold, the boiled hides
and the water in which they were cooked, became jellied and exactly
resembled glue. The tender stomachs of many of the little children
revolted at this disagreeable diet, and the loathing they acquired for
the sight of this substance still exists in the minds of some of the
survivors. To this day, Thomas K. Reed, of San Jose, who was then a tiny
three-year-old, can not endure the sight of calf's-foot jelly, or of
similar dishes, because of its resemblance to the loathed food which was
all his mother could give him in the cabins at Donner Lake.

William G. Murphy describes how they gathered up the old, castaway
bones of the cattle-bones from which all the flesh had been previously
picked-and boiled, and boiled, and boiled them until they actually would
crumble between the teeth, and were eaten. The little children, playing
upon the fire-rug in his mother's cabin, used to cut off little pieces
of the rug, toast them crisp upon the coals, and then eat them. In this
manner, before any one was fairly aware of the fact, the fire-rug was
entirely consumed.

The Donner families, at Prosser Creek, were, if possible, in even a
sadder condition. In order to give a glimpse of the suffering endured in
these two tents, the following is quoted from a letter written by Mrs.
W. A. Babcock (Georgia A. Donner, now residing at Mountain View, Santa
Clara County): "The families shared with one another as long as they had
anything to share. Each one's portion was very small. The hides were
boiled, and the bones were burned brown and eaten. We tried to eat a
decayed buffalo robe, but it was too tough, and there was no nourishment
in it. Some of the few mice that came into camp were caught and eaten.
Some days we could not keep a fire, and many times, during both days and
nights, s