Out of this trouble we were once again on the safe road from Salt Lake to Los Angeles, and again made error in taking a cutoff route, and striking across a trackless country because it seemed to promise a shorter distance, and where thirteen of our party lie unburied on the sands of the terribly dry valley.  Those who lived were saved by the little puddles of rain water that had fallen from the small rain clouds that had been forced over the great Sierra Nevada Mountains in one of the wettest winters ever known.  In an ordinary year we should have all died of thirst, so that we were lucky in our misfortune.

When we came out to the fertile coast near Los Angeles, we found good friends in the native Californians who, like good Samaritans, gave us food and took us in, poor, nearly starved creatures that we were, without money or property from which they could expect to be rewarded.  Their deeds stand out whiter in our memories than all the rest, notwithstanding their skins were dark.  It seems to me such people do not live in this age of the world which we are pleased to call advanced.  I was much with these old Californians, and found them honest and truthful, willing to divide the last bit of food with a needy stranger or a friend.  Their good deeds have never been praised enough, and I feel it in my heart to do them ample justice while I live.

The work that was laid out for me to do, to tell when and where I went, is done.  Perhaps in days to come it may be of even more interest than now, and I shall be glad I have turned over the scenes in my memory and recorded them, and on some rolling stone you may inscribe the name of WILLIAM LEWIS MANLEY, born near St. Albans, Vermont, April 20th, 1820, who went to Michigan while yet it was a territory, as an early pioneer; then onward to Wisconsin before it became a state, and for twelve long, weary months traveled across the wild western prairies, the lofty mountains and sunken deserts of Death Valley, to this land which is now so pleasant and so fair, wherein, after over 40 years of earnest toil, I rest in the midst of family and friends, and can truly say I am content.

THE END.

[Transcriber’s Note:  Several variant spellings of, for example, “medecine” and “Mormon”, have been retained from the original.]