Wisconsin herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1846-1849, 1849-02-24
THE WISCONSIN HERALD.
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LANCASTER. WISCONSIN,
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY "a, Is4o.
CALIFORNIA.

We should like dollar for each utterance
Of this word in our country, any day vt tie
week. 1t is heard in all companies and at
all times and on all occasions. Even the
preachers in their pulpits have to talk about
California. But, now, really when we come
to think seriously of going there-think of
of men breaking up their establishments,
sacrificing their property, and above all,
hazarding the health and the very lives of
their families by starting upon this difficult
journey, upon doubtful enterprize, with
all that is dearest to them, their sanity seems
doubtful. What recompense would all the
gold in the world be, for the burial of one of
your dear children, whose smilinginnocence
extends its arms to you for protection, in the
sands of the Great DESERT But, above all,
the idea of joining that immense crowd at
the head Of fhe Missouri ryor, who are pre-
pairing to go out in the Spring across this
wide, barren continent together, upon a
route which scarcely affords a miserable
subsistence, even to the struggling few, who
have gone that way before, fills one with as
constituent. Such suffering will be expert
enced on the overland route to California as
has never yet been known since the wretch
ed retreat Of BoNAPARTE from Moscow
The letter of the correspondent Of the 81.
Louis Republican, spoken of in the follow
ing, we publish in the Herald to-day:
The route overland, across the plains
and Rocky Mountains, is fancied by some
romantic and adventurous spirits; bur we
suspect they would have all the romance
taken out of them before they reached the
| Sacramento, even it they were fortunate
enough to attain 10 the banks Of the modern
! Pactolus. A correspondent of the st. Louis
! Republican, who has seen the elephant AID
felt his tusks, gives a delectable description
of the jaunt over tho plains. Creeks, he
says, are so plentiful that before you are
dry after wading one you are ur to the neck
in another. The cold night blasts chill the
very marrow Of your bones. For food you
have raw prairie dog, or buffalo bull so
tough that il is necessary to file the teeth
before attackingit. Ii you want warm food,
You have 10 burn your wagons TO cook it.
The wolves howl IN your ears and OCCASION
ally take mouthtul ont of yourle leg at pight,
aud if you give the alarm all your cattle
stampede. Ii sick, your companions leave
you, and mayhap party ct Indians conro
along and take your scalp 10y way of SOU
yenir Should you die among your COM
panlons in camp or on the m,rch, you are
bundled into a hole two feet deep; and by
the time your comrades are cut of sight, n
pack of green-eyed monsters assemble round
your grave and proceed to amtomize your
carcass. Ii the correspondent of the Re-
publican De To be believed, thesurvivors who
reach the 'diggins" by this route are little
better than locomotive skeletons draped in
rags, and are cniied and licked by the
healthier and stronger eaigmnts, who rob
| them without mercy rs soon as they have
accumulated anything worth stealing. The
sketch is humorous, 1t is true and may be
Exaggerated, bnt there is bitterness, born
of disappointment, in every line.
"To those who have made up their minds
to run the gauntlet for gold, we say, brave
the buiietings OF the waves mther than the
terrors of the land journey, aud above all
do not 20 without complete equipment and
a years provisions"