and exposure, they scaled the Sierras and reached the
Donner Lake. On arriving at the camp they opened the rude door, and
there, sitting before the fire, they found the German, holding a
roasted human arm and hand, which he was greedily eating. The rescue
party overpowered him, and with difficulty tore the arm from him. A
short search discovered the body of the lady, minus the arm, frozen in
the snow, round, plump, and fair, showing that she was in perfect
health when she met her fate. The rescuers returned to California,
taking the German with them, whose story was that Mr. Donner died in
the fall, and that the cattle escaped, leaving them but little food,
and that when this was exhausted Mrs. Donner died. The story never
gained any credence, and the truth oozed out that the German had
murdered the husband, then brutally murdered the wife, and had seized
upon Donner's money. There were, however, no witnesses, and the
murderer escaped with the enforced surrender of the money to the Donner
orphans.

[5] Visitors can now be accommodated at a tolerable mountain hotel.

This tragic story filled my mind as I rode towards the head of the
lake, which became every moment grander and more unutterably lovely.
The sun was setting fast, and against his golden light green
promontories, wooded with stately pines, stood out one beyond another
in a medium of dark rich blue, while grey bleached summits, peaked,
turreted, and snow slashed, were piled above them, gleaming with amber
light. Darker grew the blue gloom, the dew fell heavily, aromatic
odors floated on the air, and still the lofty peaks glowed with living
light, till in one second it died off from them, leaving them with the
ashy paleness of a dead face. It was dark and cold under the mountain
shadows, the frosty chill of the high altitude wrapped me round, the
solitude was overwhelming, and I reluctantly turned my horse's head
towards Truckee, often looking back to the ashy summits in their
unearthly fascination. Eastwards the look of the scenery was changing
every moment, while the lake for long remained "one burnished sheet of
living gold," and Truckee lay utterly out of sight in a hollow filled
with lake and cobalt. Before long a carnival of color began which I
can only describe as delirious, intoxicating, a hardly bearable joy, a
tender anguish, an indescribable yearning, an unearthly music, rich in
love and worship. It lasted considerably more than an hour