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Show 10 THE SHORTEST ROUTE TO CALIFORNIA. When we consider the bold undertakings of the first Spanish conquerors in Mexico, Peru, and on the Ama-zons River, we are astonished to find that for two cen-turies the same nation could not find a road by land in New Spain from Taos to tlie port of Monterey"* Humboldt here was undoubtedly in error. The map of Father Font, before referred to, shows that as early as 1777 Father Garces traveled from the mis-sion of San Gabriel, near the Pacific coast, to Oraybe, one of the villages of the Moquis, in New Mexico. And the Spanish inscriptions found by Lieutenant J. H. Simpson, Corps of Topographical Engineers, U. S. Army, on the rock ( El Moro) near Zimi in New Mexico, an account and fac- similes of which he gives in his " Journal of a Military Reconnoissance from Santa Fe to the Navajo Country in 1849,"- j- show that there was as early as 1716 a communication opened with the Moquis from Santa Fe. The inscription, translated, is as follows: " In the year 1716, upon the 26th day of August, passed by this place Don Felix Martinez, Governor and Captain- General of this kingdom, for the purpose of reducing and uniting Moqui" ( a couple of words here not deciphered). The manuscript of Father Escalante's journal, before referred to, also shows that there was a well- known road from Oraybe, via Zuni, to Santa Fe, and ' which his party followed. These facts show that at least vice rendered to science has added new claims on the gratitude of the savans of all nations." ( Xote by Humboldt.) * Humboldt's " New Spain," vol. ii. pp. 289, 290. f See Sen. Doc. 64, 31st Cong., 1st Sess., p. 123; or same pub-lished by J. B. Lippincott & Co., Philadelphia, p. 104. |