Saturday, June 9.
Leave camp at 8:30, and soon after cross the Big Vermillion River, which is a stream of considerable size, with a very rapid current.
Halt for dinner at noon and camp at night without wood. The water is considerably impregnated with alkali, so very strong that it feels slippery.
There is said to be much of this kind of water on the plains. It is destructive to health and even life, both to man and animals. (Distance, 20 miles.)
Sunday, June 10.
Break camp before breakfast and travel twelve miles, where we find an abundance of wood and good water.
Some returning Californians dined with us today, having traveled about 150 miles beyond this point, when they became discouraged and began to retrace their footsteps.
The prospects of reaching California certainly look somewhat discouraging at the present time.
The great bulk of the immigration, which is very large, is in advance of us. That very much dreaded scourge, the Asiatic cholera, is making such sad havoc among the Californians that almost every camp-ground is converted into a burial-ground, and at many places twelve or fifteen graves may be seen in a row.
Almost every traveler that we meet, who has ever been west of the Rocky Mountains, gives it as his opinion that there is not grass enough in that region of country to sustain one-half of the stock that is now on the California trail; and they are of the opinion that the present immigration cannot reach California this season.