[Apostle Wilford Woodruff Journal] 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 food 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 [this] was enough to asstonish man. Thousands upon thousands would Croud to gether 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 earth was alive & moving like the waves of the sea. Br Kimball remarked that He had herd many Buffalo tales told But He never expected 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 meat. There were a great number of Calves & young cattle in the Herds we saw to day. We had great difficulty in keeping our 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 miles.
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 Woodruff & G A Smith. The whole surrounding 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 anything I ever saw. I brought in one root 24 inch long 2 inch in diameter. I pounded A little of it up & it would fill a dish with suds like soap.
[Wilford Woodruff's Journal: 1833-1898 Typescript, Volumes 1-9, Edited by Scott G. Kenney, Signature Books 1993, http://amzn.to/newmormonstudies]
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