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Page: of 436
GREAT DESERT
man to dig and get an ounce a day, and on an average they do not get
that. Although now and then a man makes his jack in a month or two,
but such instances are rare. . advise all men to stay at home and not
come here..
Wages are high here for mechanics and hard laboring men. Chopping
wood $6 per cord, but out of the tops of great oaks with long heavy
crooked limbs, and many cannot chop over one or one and a half cords
per day. Mowing and curing hay and putting it in cock $16 per ton. Carpenters from $10 to $14 per day. Labor of all kinds when wanted 8s per
hour; but a person wants steady employment. Clerks in stores, more
applicants than any other kind, and but few wanted, every man doing his
own business.
Doctors plenty, say every tenth man a doctor. Lawyers enough. But
above all trades here give me the bakers’—they coin money. A pie they
sell for 75 cents, a loaf of bread 50, and one small card of ginger-bread
for 75 cents. Liquors high, and much drank at 2s a drink. Gambling of all
kinds—high and low. But I have not heard of a theft yet in this place.
Should a man be caught stealing he surely would be hanged, and all
know it. Property is more exposed about their canvass houses and tents
and lying in the streets day and night, than ever I saw it in any other
place, and still nothing taken.
Niles wrote to Cornelia a week after McCollum penned those words.
His letter was eight pages long and told in detail the story of the trek
from Lassen’s Meadow to Sacramento City, including his bout with
scurvy. Said Niles:
.. the scurvy had taken advantage of my defenceless state to pounce
upon me. . looked upon it as a scurvy trick, but submitted with the best
grace possible. . was able to hop about and drive the carriage till we
reached the first ridge of the Sierra Nevadas, in ascending which .
worked too hard and used myself up completely.
A precious road we had over the mountains, I can assure you. Driving
a wagon from G. Conkling’s woolen factory to the top of the “Falls” over
the bed of the stream would be easy compared with the road by which
we ascended the mountains.
When within about thirty or forty miles of the settlements two of our
party came forward and brought back a few onions, two of which I succeeded in purchasing at the rate of one dollar each. On our arrival here
we found that vegetable food in any quantities could not be had at
Hotels and boarding houses, even at the most exorbitant rates, so we
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