cams_bawatson_b3153_f013_001_02

Camp on the Sacremento [Sacramento River] at
Lassens [Lassen], California Sept 12 1849

My Dear Wife

at length I have the inexpresible [inexpressible] gratification
of addresing [addressing] you from this long wished for country. from the promised
land from the Eldorado of our hopes. We arrived here on Monday to
at 2 P.M. after enduring almost incredible hardships. We are all well. We got
all off our wagons in all of our mules except one which was bitten by a
snake & died on the Humbolt River [Humboldt River]. Lassens [Lassen] is situated on the Sacremento [Sacramento]
River some where [somewhere] what I suppose is the head of the lower valley. You
will perhaps be surprised to find us coming into the country at this point I
will tell you how it come to pass about seventy miles above the Sink of
[word torn away] river we came up with a man by the name of McGhee who said
[word torn away] was looking for a road or old trail which led off to the North West &
[wh]ich he said was a better route & a shorter one. Many of our men tired
[wi]th the monotonous scenery of the Humbolt River [Humboldt River] & tired of its bad water
[&] bad grass Eagerly caught at the Idea in six miles farther we
found the road. It being Saturday Evening we lay over untill [until] Monday
morning when the company decided upon taking the new road I
[word torn away] it because I did not like to try experiments which might prove
so disastrous. We started on Monday morning & traveled Day & night
for fifty five miles without grass or water over a plain of burning sand
but the road was fortunately good. We reached the Black Rock boiling
spring [Black Rock Boiling Spring] at 3 PM. on Tuesday. The spring is boiling hot, one hundred & fifty
feet in diameter. It nourishes a patch of grass which we found
green & good but this nor the three other hot springs in the
next five miles will furnish a sufficient quantity of grass for
many teams if they should come this road. Next morning we travelled
on to the last of the hot springs where we found very very good grass which
we cut to take along with us, as our next drive was across a Sandy
Salt plain of twenty five miles without grass or water. We started on
Thursday morning at 2 A. M. & reached the Entrance of High Rock Canon [Canyon]
at 5 P.M. after a day of fatigue & toil for men & mules Where we found
good grass & water. That night the Indians shot a mule & a horse in
fifty yards of our guard they belonged to a pack train camped near
us. Our road lay next day over a gradual hill covered with volcanic stone
making very hard travelling. We had to let our wagons down with ropes a very steep
hill two hundred feet high into a canon [canyon], (or as it is pronounced Canion
which is a gorge or narrow valey [valley] in the mountains) of the foot Hills of the Sierra
Nevada we travelled [traveled] two days up this beautiful pass at times the pas [pass] not
being more than 30 yards wide & others reaching 200 with perpendicular
walls of granite reaching several hundred feet high may times on both
sides at once. Our road still continued pretty good, bearing north
"Except some rough stone"