For three months we labored diligently, day after day, enduring all manner of discomforts in traveling, eating, and sleeping.  As there were no roads or guide-posts, we often lost our way.  In going through canons and fording streams it was often so dark that the Governor was obliged to walk ahead to find the way, taking off his coat so that I could see his white shirt and slowly drive after him.  Though seemingly calm and cool, I had a great dread of these night adventures, as I was in constant fear of being upset on some hill and rolled into the water.  The Governor often complimented me on my courage, when I was fully aware of being tempest-tossed with anxiety.  I am naturally very timid, but, being silent under strong emotions of either pleasure or pain, I am credited with being courageous in the hour of danger.

For days, sometimes, we could find nothing at a public table that we could eat.  Then passing through a little settlement we could buy dried herring, crackers, gum arabic, and slippery elm; the latter, we were told, was very nutritious.  We frequently sat down to a table with bacon floating in grease, coffee without milk, sweetened with sorghum, and bread or hot biscuit, green with soda, while vegetables and fruit were seldom seen.  Our nights were miserable, owing to the general opinion among pioneers that a certain species of insect must necessarily perambulate the beds in a young civilization.  One night, after traveling over prairies all day, eating nothing but what our larder provided, we saw a light in a cottage in the distance which seemed to beckon to us.  Arriving, we asked the usual question,—­if we could get a night’s lodging,—­to which the response was inevitably a hearty, hospitable “Yes.”  One survey of the premises showed me what to look for in the way of midnight companionship, so I said to the Governor, “I will resign in your favor the comforts provided for me to-night, and sleep in the carriage, as you do so often.”  I persisted against all the earnest persuasions of our host, and in due time I was ensconced for the night, and all about the house was silent.

I had just fallen into a gentle slumber, when a chorus of pronounced grunts and a spasmodic shaking of the carriage revealed to me the fact that I was surrounded by those long-nosed black pigs, so celebrated for their courage and pertinacity.  They had discovered that the iron steps of the carriage made most satisfactory scratching posts, and each one was struggling for his turn.  This scratching suggested fleas.  Alas! thought I, before morning I shall be devoured.  I was mortally tired and sleepy, but I reached for the whip and plied it lazily from side to side; but I soon found nothing but a constant and most vigorous application of the whip could hold them at bay one moment.  I had heard that this type of pig was very combative when thwarted in its desires, and they seemed in such sore need of relief that I thought there was danger of their jumping into the carriage and attacking me.  This thought was more terrifying than that of the fleas, so I decided to go to sleep and let them alone to scratch at their pleasure.  I had a sad night of it, and never tried the carriage again, though I had many equally miserable experiences within four walls.