| OCR Text |
Show ' . I GUIDE TO CALIFORNIA, BY THE TO TilE EMIGRANT. YOU are about to undertake a long, tedious, and somewhat dangerous journey; and it is highly necessary that you should be acquainted with the minutim of the route, and the outfit required, ir. order to take you safely and expeditiouoly to the land of your destination. Without these it would be an adventure attended with insuperable difficulties. Endeavor to make an early start-do not wait for grass, but ·carry along grain &jufficient to supply your stock until "grass comes." Start from the Missouri river as early as the first of April, and you will get through soon enough, be detained less by streams, and have better grass In the latter part of the route. In reference to the starting point, St. Joseph is probably as good as any you may select. You can procure nearly every article necessary for the outfit; the road is good, and the distance to the Platte river less, than from Weston, Kansas or IodepPn· dence. A mess of 6 persons should provide themselves with 5 wagons, and 12 mules or horses. Mules not less than 6 or 8 years old are preferable. Two of said wagons should be light I horse ones. In these Joad your provisions, clothing, (just enough to take you through) and other necessary baggage. The other may be a common two horse wagon-on which load forty or fifty bushels of corn, oats or bar!ey. If you can, put a few extra hushe)s on your light wagons. See that these are well made ; have the wheels high, and the beds water tight. Thus equipped you need not wait for grass. Be sareful that you do not start with any unnecessary baggage ; if you do you will throw it overboard before you get half way through. The road at present is strewed with nearly every thing from a steam engine to a child's cradle, that has thus been disposed of. |
