In this present age of rapid and easy transition from place to place, it is difficult to form a just conception of the tediousness, hardships, and duration of those early emigrations to the West. The difference in conveyance is that between a train of cars drawn by a forty-ton locomotive and a two-horse wagon, without springs, and of the most lumbering and primitive construction. This latter was the best conveyance that the emigrant could command. A few were so fortunately situated on the banks of rivers that they could float down with the current in flat-boats, while their cattle were being driven along the shore; or, if it was necessary to ascend toward the head-waters of a river, they could work their way up-stream with setting-poles. But most of the emigrants traveled with teams. Some of those who went part of the way in boats had to begin or end their journey in wagons. The vehicles which they provided on such occasions for land carriage were curiosities of wheel-craft--I speak of the Jersey wagons. The old-fashioned Jersey wagon has, years ago, given place to more showy and flexible vehicles; but long before such were invented the Jersey wagon was an established institution, and was handed down, with the family name, from father to son. It was the great original of the modern emigrant wagon of the West; but as I have elsewhere pictured its appearance upon the arrival of a band of pioneers at their final destination, it is unnecessary to enter here upon any further description. The spring of the year was the season usually selected for moving, and during many weeks previous to the appointed time, the emigrants had been actively providing against the accidents and discomforts of the road. When all was ready, the wagon was loaded, the oxen yoked and hooked to the neap; the women and children took their places on the summit of the huge load, the baby in its mother's lap, the youngest boy at his grandmother's feet, and off they started. The largest boy walked beside and drove the team, the other boys drove the cows, the men trudged behind or ahead, and the whole cavalcade passed out of the great gate, the grandmother peering through her spectacles, and the mother smiling through her tears and looking back more than once at the home which she had made but was now to leave for ever. In this manner the earlier emigrants went forward, driving their heavily laden wagon by day and sleeping at night by the camp. After they had passed the region of roads and bridges they had to literally hew their way; cutting down bushes, prying their wagon out of bog-holes, building bridges or poling themselves across streams on rafts. But, in defiance of every obstacle, they pressed forward.