my friends not to put any money in his or any other expedition until they heard from me. I was visited by a number of persons, who, on being informed that I proposed to go with Johnston's expedition, said, in effect, " We will depend upon the report you make as to the climate and the country, for we have families to support, and we do not want to run the risk of going to a foreign land, about which we know absolutely nothing." I promised to make a faithful report, and took care to say nothing to Johnston, or others interested in the manner he was, about what my intentions were, or about my discouraging other people from emigrating.
Preparations for the Voyage.
I commenced making my preparations, and Johnston, who was apparently beginning to consider me a valuable ally, came and invited me to go over to Algiers, across the river from New Orleans, with him, for the purpose of meeting the others who were going. I found a number of proposed emigrants at Algiers, who were waiting for the vessel which was to convey them to their new homes. They all seemed to be in a cheerful mood, and well satisfied at the prospect of speedily getting away from a land where there was so much suffering.
A meeting was called for the purpose of consultation with regard to chartering a vessel and arranging for supplies, and Johnston greatly desired me to deliver an address. This I declined to do; but I took occasion to say, that while it might be well enough for single men to engage in an enterprise of this kind, it was, in my opinion, rather too risky a thing for those who had families dependent upon them.
After my return to the city I reviewed the situation in my mind more clearly than I had hitherto done. I was becoming less and less satisfied with the way things looked, and could not help asking myself, Why should I make any attempt to leave the country I had fought for, and give it up to the carpet-baggers and negroes? or why should I interest myself in such an enterprise as this one of Johnston's, merely for the purpose of gaining information for people whose duty it was to look out for themselves? I called, in my perplexity, on an old gentleman who had been a good deal in California, and asked his opinion of the Pacific slope, and of the advisability of those who wished to emigrate from the South going there.
