. The argonauts of 'forty-nine, some recollections of the plains and the diggings. onone other occasion was I touched with homesicknessduring my five years absence on that ad\enture. Thatwas on receipt of my flrst letter from home, after anabsence of two and a half years. We fared decidedlybetter after we had left all traces of civilization the roads were easier; we carried our own food;and our animals subsisted on the native pastures. But the irksomeness of this part of the journey wassomewhat relieved by the naturally buo3ant proclivi-ties of most of the party. A little beyond Jo
. The argonauts of 'forty-nine, some recollections of the plains and the diggings. onone other occasion was I touched with homesicknessduring my five years absence on that ad\enture. Thatwas on receipt of my flrst letter from home, after anabsence of two and a half years. We fared decidedlybetter after we had left all traces of civilization the roads were easier; we carried our own food;and our animals subsisted on the native pastures. But the irksomeness of this part of the journey wassomewhat relieved by the naturally buo3ant proclivi-ties of most of the party. A little beyond Joliet, Illi- DRIVING DULI> CARE EWAY. nois, our numbers were ;ui<;-mentcd by ;i part} of SouthBenders about the size of ours. Thus reeruited, we were able to muster sev- eral musical instruments—\ iolin, banjo, tambour-ine and castanets. Wewere all vocal virtuososfrom the backwoods con-servatories, and our re-pertoire was ampl} equip-ped with the popularplantation melodies of theday. If our music wasnot exactly such as eenlistening angels wouldlean to hear, we werenevertheless enabled in this manner to while awaymany an evening by our camp-fires, which otherwisewould have draggedheavil} on our hands. Infact, our musical prepos-sessions were so pro-nounced that our famespread far and near alongour route, and won us thereputation of being thewildest and joUiest lot ofHoosiers ever let looseoutside the hoop-pole andpumpkin state. Out on 4-U .^1 ,?„ i- 4.\ UAVID R. LEEPEK. the plains, too, there was (,,^,,, ^ photogkaph. i89t.) THOMAS ROCKHILL.(from a photograph, 1881.)
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectbusines, bookyear1894
