from most of the springs is good to use, though not very pleasant. While traveling up the Platte, we had frequent showers some of them light and some rather hard. One I wish to notice, though we were not in the hardest of it. It came on us just as we were about camping on the 17th of June. The wind blew, and the rain and hail fell very fast but we knew nothing of the worst [of] it until the next noon. The next day was very warm and pleasant, and while we were bating at noon, two men came up to me, (that had traveled along under the bluffs, instead of the road) and handed me some hail stones about the size of small hickery nuts. They said they picked them up about a mile back, and were at the time they picked them up about the size of a hens egg. They fell the night before and lay in the hot sun all the fore part of the day, so you can judge of their size when they fell. But we were not troubled with any kind of showers after we crossed the mountains betwene Bear River & Snake River, untill we reached the Blue mountains, here we had a plenty of rain and snow. When we leave these mountains we go into the Umatilla vally, instead of the Wallawalla, as they used to. Here the Indians are very welthy. They rais Cattle, Horses, Corn, Pottatos, etc. which they will furnish to emegrants at enormes prices. I sa[w] two droves of Horses of some 3 or 4 hundred each, of the handsomest that I ever see in my life, that belonged to one man. But they will steal all the Cattle & Horses they can get hold of. After leaving the Blue Mountains for two or three days we came in sight of some of the high peaks of the Cascade range. these were Mount Renier Mount Hood & Mount St. Hellen, all covered with snow, being some 16 or 1800 feet high. Mount Hood looks exactly like the picture of the Egyptian Pyramids.
But we are now in what is called Oregon, in the Willamet vally and on the bank of the river of that name, the country that I have so long wanted to see. It is now the 26th being one month today since we landed in Portland. We staid there just two weeks, and moved up here, without money, and depending on others for help. The girls did 3 or 4 dollars worth of washing while we were there and Irving speculated a little in
