The daily exchange. [volume] (Baltimore, Md.) 1858-1861, 1859-08-18
CALIFORNIA EMANCIPATION.
Horace Greeley draws the following picture

Horace Greeley draws the following picture OF
the journey over the central plains:
Across weary hundreds of miles of such country,
where serility is aggravated by constant peril, the
long column of the California Immigration is now
slowly toiling, and must be for anxious months yet
to come. Their eyes often bandaged or goggled as
they best may be to shield them from the eternal
glare OF these hot Summer day on this shadeless
gistening plain, the teamsters move as lisessy as
their patient, hollow, dropping oxen, in whose
eyes meekness and misery alike find expression
AS the mail wagon, drawn by six mules with one
by their side ridden by a Whipper-up whirls bv
them in cloud of dust, founders over the Sage
brush where the track is narrow, or darts from
this to that side of the long train in order to wind
its way as rapidly may be from the rear to the
front, | catch glimpse of sunbrowned wives and
haxeuhaired children nesting in some of the great
wagons or wearily plodding along in front fall
the women on this great highway have the good
sense to prefer the Boomer dress, and the courage
to brave the fools laugh, in obedience to the die
tates of convenience and comfOrt), see them in
their evening camps, with the little sheet iron
stove taken down from behind the wagon and
filled with sticks, or, at the worst, with Sage
brush, and the preparation of the evening
meal going busily and tidily forward | re-
Jolce to note that the emigrantS generally
fare better than we rapid travellers can, carry
ing with them a hundred little contributions to
comfort which cannot reasonably be looked for in
rude mail stations in vast and desert wilderness
| see that, in everything but the duration of the
household goods around them, have the advantage of
US jerked and joted stagers, who are often toling
by their white tents and smoldering fires long after
they are buried in deep, refreshing sumber; and
yet, as glance at their worn, anxious faces (for
nothing but the Raven is really jolly throughout
this land Of silence and DEATH and he is so gOrred
and stupefed that he can scarcely rise from his
putrid feast when mules seem about to run over
hlm) am soreIy tempted to cry out, "Why, o
countrymen and women, this long march through
a region so destructive and inhospitable? Was
there no room, no chance, to die in your far East
ern homes Grant that you should all at length
reach safely the Italy of our continent, what can
1t protter to compensate YOU for the sacrifices
the anxieties, the privations, the sufferings of
this long journey? Do you not realize that
there, as everywhere else, care, and toll, and
disappointment, and struggle, and bereavement
make up the wisely appointed earthly lot of man
DO you not know that thousands in California
are discontented and restless as YOU ever were L?
Nay, you must know it; for some of you are
every day meeting them on their way to the At
lantc States, and must note that they are, in the
average palpably poorer and less amply provided
than yourselves. Do you not realize that the
States you have last left embOdy the most fertile
and inviting portion of our planet-that to which
many times your numberare fondly looking or eager
~ pressing from every part of the civilized world
Why, then, do you desert it so recklessv Can?
you really imagine that bad harvests, and low
prices, and pecuniary embarrassments, and all
that make up what called Hard Times are pc
cuIar to your late homes? Do youno know that
You will lind these or their equivalents, in Califor-
MIA or Oregon as well? Pause, | pray you, and
con-der!'
Vain the entreaty-idle the expostulation-idle,
or, at all events, too late. The mighty human tide
now rolling westward will not pause at my bidding
will be stayed only by the fiat of the Almighty
In its paths mountain-chans are but hillocks lone
ly rivers but rls and deserts rather stimulants to
its courage than serious impediments to its pro-
gress. RemoDstrances is but waste of breath-it
hB lpF tad ylN. = H. d..
there. Let me, therefore, see the hand of benig-
nant though inscrutable Providence in this mighty
movement, and rest in faith and hope. Press on
then, countrymen firmly, sternly, even though
and may the blessing Of God wait upon your Jour
ney and its end q