Went seventeen miles to Pleasant Valley, in the vicinity of Ringgold and
Weaver. Here the country begins to look like California--canvas houses,
hot weather, dry, reddish soil. This day's travel I consider the
conclusion of a journey, a longer or more tedious than which is not
often performed on this earth.
"The heart rebounds with long forgotten fleetness" at the thought of
having performed it. The interminable wastes are passed over, the
wilderness of wild sage and ashes is behind me, and climbing a hundred
mountains will no longer tire my feet. This act is ended, and now for a
struggle for gold and then
"Oh! for a falcon's wing to bear,
To bear me to my home."