The journal depicts the hardships of a new country, the poor hotels, the long stage-rides, the inconvenient hours, etc.  At one place, where there was an appalling prospect of spending Sunday in the wretched excuse for a hotel, a lady came and took her to a fine, new home and Miss Anthony was delighted; but when the husband appeared he announced that he “did not keep a tavern,” and so, after her evening lecture, she returned to her former quarters, the wife not daring to remonstrate.  After meeting one woman who had had six husbands, and at least a dozen whose husbands had deserted them and married other women without the formality of a divorce, she writes in her journal, “Marriage seems to be anything but an indissoluble contract out here on the coast.”  Meanwhile she had received urgent invitations from California once more to try her fortune in that State.  After lecturing to crowded houses at Oregon City, Eugene and other points, she continued southward, her rough experience on shipboard deciding her to go by stage.  From Roseburg she wrote her mother, November 24: 

I am now over one hundred miles on my stage-route south, and horrible indeed are the roads—­miles and miles of corduroy and then twenty miles of “Joe Lane black mud,” as they call it, because old Joseph Lane settled right here in the midst of it.  It is heavy clay without a particle of loam and rolls up on the wheels until rim, spokes and hub are one solid circle.  The wheels cease to turn and actually slide over the ground, and then driver and men passengers jump out and with chisels and shingles cut the clay off the wheels.

* * * * *

How my thought does turn homeward, mother.  I wanted always to be at home every recurring birthday of yours so long as you remained this side with us.  I can not this year, but in spirit I shall be with you all that day, as I am so very, very often on every other day.

The courtesy of a seat outside with the driver was usually extended to her and she picked up much information in regard to the people and customs, some of it perhaps not wholly reliable.  On this journey she encountered a drenching rain and heavy snow, and finally was driven inside.  When they stopped for the night she had a little, cold bedroom, sometimes next to the bar-room, where the carousing kept her awake all night.  She wrote home from Yreka, November 28: 

Last evening I lectured in the courthouse to a splendid audience, and speak again this afternoon at 2 o’clock to answer objections.  Several lawyers threaten to be on hand and force me to the wall on legal points, but we shall see.  Then at four I am to drive with Mrs. Jerome Churchill, and at seven board the stage again for Red Bluff, 125 miles, riding steadily all tonight and the next day and night.  It is snowing here and southward, which delays us more and more every day.

I rode three miles yesterday for a full