| Show FROM TI THE JE PLAINS we c find the following letter arm fro m late editor 4 torand and publisher of the oquawka spectator in the placer times of the tile uit dear sir presuming that your interesting sheet is one of the principal mediums of communicating tin intelligence to your eastern temporaries contemporaries co concerning immigrants to the modern ophir I 1 take the liberty of addressing a linebe tailing a few incidents of crossing the tho plains I 1 started with a large company from oquawka illinois fitted out with four horse teams we left tile tiie missouri river on the of april from council bluffs up til the platte a country destitute of timber wo we made a quick trip to fort laramie although we had no grass whatever the dead grass having been burned by the immigrants ahead of us who these men these friends of their fellows were I 1 could not learn from fort laramie we c found an excel lent road across the black hills up the sweetwater a beautiful istre stream arn we had no difficulty whatever across the rocky mountains we found good grass all the way and ana had a rain storm every day this will seem almost incredible to last years immigrants on arriving at fremonte Fr emonts place of mountains we struck cutoff cut off a delightful road traversing tile the most romantic regions I 1 ever traveled from raft river to the far famed humbolt we met with no serious obstruction but the trip from stony point to el dorado I 1 venture to say will not soon be for forgotten gotton here I 1 witnessed more of suffering than I 1 wish to look upon again men who had never before known want having lost their horses from orom the debilitating effects of the alkaline waters of the humboldt were forced to buy provisions at enormous rates to walk night and day over dusty roads and parched plains some again duain were entirely destitute of both provisions and money and were forced to beg and even steal enough to keep alive the vital spark I 1 will enumerate but a few individual cases I 1 saw raw a party of young men who had subsisted for six days on a few pounds of coffee one man from wisconsin having lost his provisions in crossing green river lived for two weeks on four pounds of pilot bread but enough of this suffice it to say when on tile the sierra nevada even some of those who had been heretofore well slip supplied plied piled having lost by theft were compelled to dispose of horses for flour at the rate of a horse for ten pounds I 1 saw several horses which had the steaks taken from them some men who possessed too much honesty to steal being forced to this our company all came through safely ing only reduced to short allowance on the nevada the inquiry will very naturally be made what was the cause of all this suffering my answer is that the immigrants generally this year started with not enough provisions mostly expecting to make the trip in a much shorter time than it was accomplished in again many persons took the lawson or greenhorn cutoff cut off and in returning again to the old route lost much time my note is hastily written and I 1 have omitted many incidents which might be deemed interesting by those who have never taken the trip I 1 have said nothing of the immense destruction of property swimming rivers and wading in arkili sloughs for grass the natural music of the plains the serenading sere of the mosquitoes the lonely waste with no trace of any green thing except perhaps a few gold smitten immigrants let these things be buried in the waters of lethe with respect yours |
