Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - Reminiscences of a trip to Pike’s Peak and down the Rio Grande in the year 1859, at the time of the Pikes Peak gold craze (Peter Westerlund)
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bundle of wood hung on each side of the animals.
The driver wore but a shirt made of some coarse
stuff reaching to bis knees and a broad-brimmed hat.
In town they went from house to house offering
their wood for sale. We wondered at the great
weight these small burros can carry, and they came
quite a distance too, perhaps twenty to thirty miles,
from the hills where there was timber. To give you
an idea what these animals really can do, I will
mention the way these people carry the grist to the
mill. I saw animals packed with four sacks of
wheat and it looked to be two-bushel sacks, too.
In addition the man sat straddling back of the sacks
and holding them in place. The weight of the burden
was much greater than that of the beast, yet he was
capable of carrying it.
We concluded not to stop here over winter as we
had planned to do, although this was the best
place of all we had seen on our way. We decided
to continue our journey southward on towards Texas
and in so doing we would escape the cold weather
of the coming winter. Tt was quite risky to travel
with our ox-teams at this time of the year, owing to
the lack of feed for cattle. We then planned to sell
our teams and wagons and, if we succeeded in so
doing, to build three skiffs and float down the Rio
Grande River to the Gulf of Mexico. We posted
sale notices written in Spanish. When we made our
plans known to the Americans and the businessmen
of Albuquerque, they shook their heads and said it
was impossible for us to go down the river in boats,
because the river was not navigable. They said the
government had tried to explore the river, but had
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