Had we traveled as rapidly as we expected and intended to have done when we started on the journey, we could not have driven our cattle very long until they would have died.
Each man should have owned three or four trained mules in good condition. I am of the opinion that under good conditions and properly managed, the journey may be made, fairly easily, in 70 days, with a good pack train consisting of 10 or 12 active, energetic and courageous men. We were about 144 days on the road, or about twice the time that should have been needed under proper conditions and management.
The last cutoff, or the “Greenhorn’s Cutoff,” as it became to be generally known, that we were induced to adopt proved to be more than 300 miles farther than it was represented to be in distance, and probably more than 200 miles longer than the old California trail that we left.
It was currently reported and probably with truth, that some time early in August, after the immigrants had begun to pass down the trail on the Humboldt River, a man with a party was sent out over the mountains and deserts by Lassen, whose ranch was located on the Sacramento River, to induce so much of the immigration as possible to take that route and which he called the “Cherokee Cutoff,” and represented the distance to be but 180 miles to the Feather River mines, with a good road to travel over with many superior advantages over the old trail.
This new route entered the Sacramento valley near the Lassen ranch, and as Lassen owned many cattle and horses, he was able to profit largely by his trade with the tired and famished immigrants.
He probably succeeded in profiting several thousand dollars by his trade with the poor immigrants, and it is currently reported that the immigrants have threatened his life, and that they have killed many of his cattle for food, without any remuneration to him.
A large number of immigrants are still behind, many of them with little or no subsistence, and had not the Californians sent out mules, horses, cattle and provisions, probably many of them would have perished with starvation.
The journey “across the plains” is a very hard experience, the hardships and privations of which cannot be realized by any one who has not undertaken it.
On the other hand, it presents much interesting scenery—the grand, the beautiful and the sublime. Lofty mountains and green, verdant valleys, majestic rivers and sandy, barren plains—all contribute, with much more, to make it a very interesting, and in a way, an enjoyable experience.
Nature may be seen in its wildest grandeur where civilization and art have neither added to its usefulness nor retrenched its beauty.