2i8 Audubon's Western Journal 



five hundred pounds. I believe that teams such as 

 these do get about three miles a day across the 

 boggy flat and post-oak quicksands of these dig- 

 gings. (In many places the body of the luggage 

 wagon is six inches deep in the mud.) This con- 

 dition lasts from December to March inclusive. 



What this country must be in summer I cannot 

 say, but if it cracks as the soil does south of Los 

 Angeles, it must indeed be miserable, and the 

 stories of the Mexicans we met below the Colorado 

 must be true, when they said it was almost impas- 

 sable. 



A few miles on towards Hawkin's Bar on the 

 Tuolomne the country is very fine, and little plains 

 and valleys fill the six miles, all but the last one, 

 which is a steep descent, short and rugged, over 

 clay and rocks. On this ridge the grass is sparse, 

 and "arrow-wood" was plentiful. The day's 

 march over, you set up your tent, and find cool and 

 delicious water from the Tuolomne just as it leaves 

 its mountain gorge; a little creek on the left which 

 has taken its rise below the altitude of snow is 

 twenty degrees warmer, and so more welcome for 

 bathing purposes. 



March 2gth. The Tuolomne here, one mile 

 above Hawkin's Bar, comes out of a gorge in the 

 hills, which is both steep and rocky, and sends 

 forth the troubled stream to be tossed and dashed 

 over rocks and shallow bars, for miles through 



