house of death beneath the snow." There were chil-
dren wallowing in their filth, and moaning for food,
that had so lain, undisturbed, for fourteen days.
Jacob Donner was dead. Baptiste had just left the camp of the widow with the leg and thigh of the dead man, " for which he had been sent by George Donner, the brother of the deceased. That was given, but the boy was informed that no more could be given, Jacob Donner's body being the last they had. They had consumed four bodies, and the children were sitting upon a log, with their faces stained with blood, de- vouring the half-roasted liver and heart of the father, unconscious of the approach of the men, of whom they took not the slightest notice even after they had come up. Mrs Jacob Donner was in a helpless condition, without anything whatever to eat except the body of her husband, and she declared she would die before she would eat of this. Around the fire were hair, bones, skulls, and the fragments of half-consumed limbs."
The relief party under Foster and Eddy was the next to enter. Eddy found his wife and children all dead. '^Patrick Breen and his wife seemed not in any degree to realize the extent of their peril, or that they were in peril at all. They were found lying down, sunning themselves, and evincing no concern for the future. They had consumed the two children of Jacob Donner." The wickedest man of all was Kiesburg, the same who so cruelly thrust the old man from his wagon. While there were yet hides enough to sustain life, and a dead • bullock uncovered by the melting snow on which the others lived, he took to bed with him one night Foster's little four-year-old boy, and devoured him before morning. "What adds, if possible, to the horrors of this horrible meal is the fact that the child was alive when it was taken to bed, leading to the suspicion that he strangled it, al- though he denies this charge. This man also devoured Mr Eddy's child before noon the next day,
