It was already mid May, and we had
everything to get - wagons, horses, men, mules, and
provisions.
So that we were anxious not to waste a day, but
hurry on to St. Louis as fast as we could. Durham was too
ill to go with us. Phoca had never intended to do so. Fred,
Samson, and I, took leave of our companions, and travelling
via the Hudson to Albany, Buffalo, down Lake Erie, and across
to Chicago, we reached St. Louis in about eight days. As a
single illustration of what this meant before railroads,
Samson and I, having to stop a day at Chicago, hired a buggy
and drove into the neighbouring woods, or wilderness, to hunt
for wild turkeys.
Our outfit, the whole of which we got at St. Louis, consisted
of two heavy wagons, nine mules, and eight horses. We hired
eight men, on the nominal understanding that they were to go
with us as far as the Rocky Mountains on a hunting
expedition. In reality all seven of them, before joining us,
had separately decided to go to California.
Having published in 1852 an account of our journey, entitled
'A Ride over the Rocky Mountains,' I shall not repeat the
story, but merely give a summary of the undertaking, with a
few of the more striking incidents to show what travelling
across unknown America entailed fifty or sixty years ago.
A steamer took us up the Missouri to Omaha. Here we
disembarked on the confines of occupied territory.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 154 of 404
Words from 40396 to 40652
of 106633
