Upwards of fifty died on the new route. The Indians did not disturb us any, except stealing our horses. We have made our claim on the Luckiamute, a western branch of the Willamette, not a day's ride from the ocean and 100 miles south of the Columbia river. It is a beautiful country as far as I have seen. Every person eighteen years old holds a section by making improvements and living on it five years.
Mills are plenty, no trouble about getting grinding.
The water is all soft as it is in Massachusetts. Soda springs are common and fresh water springs without number. We have the most frost in the spring. They don't make garden until the last of April or the lst of May, but it comes good when it does come. There are thousands of strawberries, gooseberries, whortle- berries, currants and other wild fruits but no nuts except for filberts and a few chestnuts.