The swampy neighborhood, bad atmosphere, and malarial conditions must render this section of country unhealthy to a great degree for half the year; for as autumn comes on the daily supply of freshly-melted snow-water from the mountains will no longer purify the lagoons and bayous of the vicinity.
"A Dry Gulch" at Coloma, Sutter's Mills
May 2, 1850
Fever and ague is very prevalent now, and dysentery feared by all. Many of the farmers I find here tell me they are only working to get money enough to get back with, and that nothing would induce them to settle here. They have unfortunately not seen the lower part of the valley and what lies about Los Angeles and to the southward—that is the flower of California.
April 29th. Alas, is it for good or for bad luck, that I have just learned that Layton and myself cannot travel with safety across the country here, as below, on account of the ill-will of the Indians, and that a party of less than six will be unsafe up and across the middle fork of the American River. How stories of Indians are told to every traveller. Though often near them, I have never found any who were not greater cowards than myself, and we leave today for Sutter's Mills, Georgetown, etc., in good health and spirits.
May 4th. Coloma. "Sutter's Mills" is about fifty miles [distant], nearly east of Sacramento. The road to it after passing the first four or five miles runs through a sandy soil, covered at present with what we call "sneeze-weed." There is no water, until after leaving the river, American Fork, we crossed a pretty little "spring branch" as it would be called in Louisiana. The grass is sparse and poor along the whole route, and the face of nature looks like August in the eastern states, so completely that as the refreshing cool breezes come to us each morning, I almost fancy it is the first of September. But in the valleys and on the hillsides the heat is most oppressive, though, as in England, if you stand still for only a few moments in the shade, you soon feel chilled through.
The valley here is not as wide as at Stockton by at least twenty miles, and the grand masses of snow covered mountains seem almost within a day of you, whilst south you still have distance to give additional enchantment to the view. The oaks here are small, not more than from eighteen inches to two feet in diameter; if the soil in which they grew had any richness, I should say the whole forest was of forty years growth at most, but for the occasional presence of a grove of magnificent pines, from a hundred to nearly two hundred feet high. I have measured many at the angle on the ground and have proved it with rods so that I know I am very nearly correct in my statement.
May 6th. Crossing the river at Coloma, on a good bridge, we commenced our ascent of the long and in many places very steep hill. We found a start at dawn would have been much better than at ten, which it now was, as our poor mule "Riley" felt the heat greatly; but with occasional pauses up we went, passing wrecked wagons and broken pack-saddles in several of the narrow parts of the cañons that the road wound through. We were not sorry when we found we had reached the last hill and mounted it, hoping to be repaid by some distant view, but on no side could we see more than a few miles; and we journeyed on, wondering who would be[40] at the mushroom town, Coloma, renowned for being the place where gold was first found by the whites.
We were told that Captain Sutter had made a large fortune by digging gold with many of the Indians he had about him; how true the story is, of course, I cannot say.