OREGON BOUND 1853 149
expected, when you get there. No water should be used for drinking or cooking, nor allowed to cattle, unless in a running stream or containing insects ; otherwise it is probably alkaline. Every one ought to have too much sense to use water from the stinking holes dug by some foolish persons in the margins of "slews" and alkaline marshes. No poison water is found east of here, that I am aware of, except as the alkaline is called poison. We have seen one alkaline spring, on the upper Platte, but the alkali is too apparent to the taste to be danger- ous. To this point it is safe to use all running water, or that which contains the young of mosquitoes and frogs. The guide books are full and reliable in their information on this subject. A man wants a guide, of course, and the latest to be got. The "Mormon Guide" is the best as far as it goes. This, as every- thing the emigrant wants, is to be got at Kanesville.
I shall probably have no more opportunities to forward let- ters until I reach Rock City, 3 two months hence at least ; and I may not have one to send this though I hope for it, for we expect to be, until we leave the Humboldt, on a trail taken by some of the return travel from California and southern Oregon. If I have time, I will fill up. There are many things I wish to write, but must defer till I get through. I expect, if I live, to hail from Rock City, Oregon.
Yours, &c.,
S. H. TAYLOR.
[Watertown Chronicle, March 29, 1854]
Jacksonville, Oregon, Dec. 17, '53
Mr. Editor We arrived here in ithe Rogue River Valley Oct. 26th, just five, instead of four months out from Kanesville, in company with a train of 87 persons, 23 wagons, 334 head of cattle, 1700 sheep and 29 horses and mules all right save the "ordinary wear and tear" of wagons and teams, and some wear and tear of heart, especially for going hungry now and then, and eating poor dry beef for a fortnight on the road. We were so foolish as to join company with this great multitude at
3 Rock City was probably to be located at Table Rock, the ite of the Indian fight.
