Wilford leaves for the Salt Lake Valley with the first company of pioneers.
8th A Plesant morning. not so cold & winday as yesterday
we did not start untill 10 oclok as our teams wanted rest
as they could not get much as the Buffalo had eat all the feed up
Br Wm. Clayton prepared A mile gage on his hind waggon
wheel to know how far we travel. I rode forward to day with
the Twelve & others & of all the sights of Buffalo that our eyes
beheld was enough to asstonish man thousands upon thousands
would crould together as they came from the Bluffs to the
Bottom land to go to the river & slues to drink untill the river
& land upon both sides of it was one dark spectacle of moving
objects it looked as though the face of the [e]arth was alive &
moving like the waves of the sea. Br Kimball remarked
that He had herd many Buffalo tales told But He never expe-
cted to behold what his eyes now saw the half had not been
told him we saw many dead scattered about & many
wolves following the herds, when we stoped at noon many of
them walked along by the side of our waggons so that
we might easily have shot them down, O P Rockwell did
shoot one through the neck & she droped dead it was a
two year old Heifer & good meet there were a great num[ber] [page covered]
of calves & young cattle in the Herds we saw to day we saw
had great difficulty in keeping out cattle & Horses from going
among them for if they once get mixed with a Herd
it is almost impossible to ever get them again. we
travled to day untill we came to the Bluffs that made
down to the river & camped for the night distance 11 1/4 mi
I went onto the top of the Highest Bluffs that were near
us & took A survey of the surrounding country with our
glasses there being present B. Young H. C. Kimball W Woodruf
& G A Smith the whole sourrounding country north east & west
as far as our vision could extend looked as rough as the sea
in a storm of ridges & valleys of mostly sand with scarcely
any green thing upon it except a little scattering grass &
the Spanish soap root such as the mexicans use for washing
with instead of soap the top resembles A pine Apple the
most of any thing I ever saw I brought in one root 24
24 inch long 2 inch in diameter I pounded A little of it up
& it would fill a dish with suds like soap
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