tes to a party of emigrants,
whose shocking inhuman cannibalisms and sufferings exceeded all belief.
The news first reached us in Monterey, and also that a party had been
despatched to succor them. From an officer of the navy in charge of the
expedition, and from one of the survivors, a Spanish boy, named
Baptiste, I learned the following particulars: The number of emigrants
were originally eighty; through a culpable combination of ignorance and
folly, they loitered many weeks on the route, when, upon gaining the
sierra, the snows set in, the trails became blocked up and impassable,
and they were obliged to encamp for the winter; their provisions were
shortly exhausted, their cattle were devoured to the last horse's hide,
hunger came upon them, gaunt and terrible, starvation at last--men,
women and children starved to death, and were eaten by their
fellows--insanity followed. When relief arrived, the survivors were
found rolling in filth, parents eating their own offspring, denizens of
different cabins exchanging limbs and meat--little children tearing and
devouring the livers and hearts of the dead, and a general apathy and
mania pervaded all alike, so as to make them scout the idea of leaving
their property in the mountains before the spring, even to save their
miserable lives; and on separating those who were able to bear the
fatigue of travelling, the cursings and ravings of the remainder were
monstrous. One Dutchman actually ate a full-grown body in thirty-six
hours! another boiled and devoured a girl nine years old, in a single
night. The women held on to life with greater tenacity than the men--in
fact, the first intelligence was brought to Sutter's fort, on the
Sacramento, by two young girls. One of them feasted on her good papa,
but on making soup of her lover's head, she confessed to some inward
qualms of conscience. The young Spaniard, Baptiste, was hero of the
party, performing all labor and drudgery in getting fuel and water,
until his strength became exhausted; he told me that he ate Jake Donner
and the baby, "eat baby raw, stewed some of Jake, and roasted his head,
not good meat, taste like sheep with the rot; but, sir, very hungry, eat
anything,"--these were his very words. There were thirty survivors, and
a number of them without feet, either frozen or burnt off, who were
placed under the care of our surgeons on shore. Although nothing has
ever happened more truly dreadful, and in many respects ludicrousl