Adelong Diggings 
July 11th 58

My Dear Mother
I received your letter a week or two back but have been too unsettled to reply till this present time. I am pleased at your writing I value it highly. I am now at Adelong Quartz reef Murrumbidgee 300 miles from Sydney and about 200 from where I wrote you last it took me a month to get here. I am doing nothing very grand, many doing better many worse, but I am still in hopes