Journal of a Trip to California by the Overland Route Across the Plains in 1850-51

In offering this journal to the public, the writer makes no pretensions to authorship, but believes that, although it be written in plain, off-hand style, nevertheless, some portions of it may be interesting to the public, and that if any who may chance to read it are about to start for "Eldorado", they may derive some benefit from it, whether they go over the Plains, or by water. The writer will only attempt to describe objects and incidents as he saw them.