Grand River times. [volume] (Grand Haven, Mich.) 1851-18??, 1853-01-05

From our Correspondent.
SAN Francisco. Nov & 1850


MEssRs In your last letter which was re-
ceived long, long ago." and long distance
from this, you were kind enough to intimate
that you would be glad to receive some of my
"Scribblngs by the Way | have not been
unmndful of that hint, although have hitherto
sent you nothing. But my note book has trav-
eled with me, and now send you the first in
stalment, proposing as time and opportunity al
low, to continue my letters. | shall give you
my first impressions of things new or notewor-
thy as they come under my observation.
mean of course new to myself, though they may
be old to you or your readers, as shall write
as much for my own amusement as theirs. For
my own convenience shOll give my scribblings
the epstoary form, noting Incidents as they oc-
cur My first date is
New YORK, -
Contrary to what | designed few weeks
since, am about sailing for California. have
not yet fully determined whether to go by the
Ishmus or as the sailors phrase it "by the Horn"
The Isthmus is undoubtedly the pleasanter route
of the two, and much quicker, but am rather
disposed to try it by sea altogether. | am fully
advised that rough passage around Cape Horn
is accounted the worst of all things here below,
and yet having never been on the ocean, am
strongly inclined to take that route. My choice,
if do choose it, may be like the realization of
the old proverb, Marry in haste, and repent at
leisure" Yet there is something so romantic
in the idea of sea voyage in being, so to speak,
alone on the wide ocean with nothing but the
treacherous wave and the frail keel, and nothing
around and above but the Unseeu, that NAV
try it. have no serious idea that the romance
will survive days sea sickness, and yet sus-
pect that my manifest Destiny if | live long
enough, is to double the "Cape of Storms"
At any rate it is settled that l am to go and
by whatever route, l shall bear you in mind.
You have my best wishes that the success of
the I" Times may make it easy times with you
at all times And if my "tch of writing" will
avail anything to that end, or interest your
readers at all am content
Your clever letter, not before acknowledged,
was forwarded from Cincinnati to st. Louis.
Dccu Tue IdLteT place longer
than l anticipated, by pressing business. This
being dispatched went with party of friends
to visit the great Iron Mountain. Were you
ever there? If not you have failed to see one
of the grandest things in the whole land. There
is nothing particularly striking in the external
appearance of the Mountain, and yet somehow
it affected me as few things of that kind ever
did before. 1t seemed to me that God had piled
up that unique and almost unlimited storehouse
of the raw material, that in these after times it
might be drawn into rails to span the continent,
and bind the Union, and send the iron horse
snorting from sea to sea. almost imagined
could see the smoke Of thousand smelt-
ing furnaces and the steam Of thousand
engines, and hear the heavy laundering tramp of
million trip-hammers all engaged in using up
that mountain to make highways over the face
of the whole earth. l am sure if enough of it
was now manufactured and laid to reach to Cal
ifornia, would not go by sea.
Yours Truly, II. II. E.