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Show [ 174 J 248 While we remained at this place, Derosier, one of our best men whos steady ~ood condu~t had. won my regard,. wandered olf from the car~p, an~ never returned to It agalll; nor has he stncc been hC'ard of. Man·h !:!4.-\V c re .. umed. our journr.y ~itb an ample stock of provisions and a larp;e cavalcade of antmal , cons•.st rng of 1 3~ horses and mules, and about thirty head of cattle, five of wlueh were mrlch cows. Mr. Sutter furni shed us :-~lso with ~n India~ boy, w~o had Leen trained as a vaquero, and who would be scrvr.ceablc In rnan::tgmg our cavalc.adc, great part ol which were nearly as wild as buffalo ; and who was, hcsJdcs, very anxious to go <dong "vith u . Our direct course ho?'lc was cast; .but the Sierra would force us south, abo~c fi~e hun~r~e~ mrles of travcllmg, to a pass at the head of the San JoaCJum nver. 1 hts pa~s, reported to be good, was discovered by .Mr. Joseph Walker, of\\ hom I have already spoken, and whose name it might therefore appropriately bear. To reach it, our course lay along the valley of the San Joaquin-the river on our right, anu the lofty ·wall of tile impassable Sierra on the left. From th:at pass we were to move southeastwardly,havingthe Sierra th en on the ri~ht, and reach the "Spanish t~rail," deviously traced from one watering place to another, which constituted the route of the caravans from Puebla de los A11geles, ncar the coast of tbe Pacific, to Santa Fe of New ..M exico. From the pass to this trail was 150 miles. Following that trail through a desert, relieved by some fertile plains indica ted by the recurrence of the term vegas, until it turned to the right to cross the Colorado, our course would be northeast unti l we regained the latirude we lwd lost in arriving at the Eutah lake , and thence to the Rocky mou11tains at the head of the Arkansas. This conrse of travcllinO' forced upon lit~ hy the structure of the country, would occupy a computed td''i stance of I wo thousand miles before we renchcd the head of the Arkansas· not a selilc!ncnt to l1e se~n ~pon it; and_ the names of pl~ccs along it, all ' being Spamsh 01 lndwn, 111d1cated tl1at It had been but little trod by American feet. Though long, and not li-ce from hardships, this route presented some po in' ts of attrac. tion. , in . tracingI the Siena N evada-turninrr the Great Basin b , p ·r •Jnps eros Jng 1ts run on t 1c south-compiC'tely solving the problem of atJ.} nvcr, ex('ept the Colorad@, from the Rocky mountains on that part of our c?nlincnt-and seein(J' the southern e xtreu~ity of the Great Salt lake, of ,".. ht~b tiH northern part had been examined the year before. fakrn~ leave of 1\rlr. Sutter, who, with seve ral <rent lernen accompanied us r 'J b ' a 1ewm1 es on our way, we travelled about ei(Thtcen miles and encamped on t~1c ~U~ de los Cosuntnes, a stream receivingits name fro;n the Indians who live m. ots _valley. Our road was through a level <·ounto·y, admiraUiy soiled to cultiVC~tron, a.nd covered with groves of oak trees, principally the ever· gre.en oak, an? a large oak already mentioned, in form like those of the wiHte oak. 1 he weather, which here, at lhis season, can easily be changed frorn the summeo· ~eat of the valley to the frosty mornings and bri!!;ht day! nearer the mountaws, continued delia htful for travellers but unfavorable ftoro mth ew aagnrti coufl truarinis.t s, whose crops of ~vheat began to we~r a yellow tinge March 25.-We travelled for 28 miles over the same delightful country as yesterday, and l1alted in a beautiful bottom at the ford of the Rio de loa Mukelemne8, receiving its name from another lncli;on tribe living on ohe nver. Tllc bottoms on the stream arc broad, rich, and extremely ferti 'c; and the uplands are shaded with oak grov~s. A sho"y lu.pinu3 of e>lra· ordmary beauty, growing foul" to live feet in height, and covered woth 249 [ 174 J spt• t{ es I•n bloom. ' ador·ncd the banl{s of the ri\'er, and filled the air with a r ht and ~rateful perfume. ogOn the 26th we halt d al the Arroyo de las Cala!!eras, (Skull creek, ) a 'b t· 'Y to the San Joaquin-the previous hvo streams entcnng the bay ~~~:~~n the San Joaquin and acramento rivers. This place is beautiful, ~ith open groves of oak, and .• grassy sward bcneallo, with many plants on bl . some varieties of whtch seem to love the shade of the trees, and oom ' . N h . ,1 l . I row there in close small l•elds. ear t c nver, anu rep acr~g t 1e grass, ~rc great quantities o~ ammole, (soap l_'lan!, ) the leave~ of whoch arc used in California for malong, among other th~n~s, mats for saddle cloths. A · e with a small white flower, ( melotltrta?) called here la yerba buena, VJn l • • I d d . th ' v)1ich from its abundance, gtves name to an ~~an an town 111 e bamay , was t'o -.day. very frequent on our roa.uI -sometu. nes runnm. g on tl1 e ground or chmbmg the trees. . . ~!arch 27.-To-day we travelled s!cadiiy ?nd raJ~ully up tbe va~ley; for, with our wild animals, any other g8~t was Imposstble, and n:aktng about .five miles an hour. During the earlrer part.of the day, our nclc had b.e~n over a very level prairie, or rather a suc.cessron of lor.lg stretches of pra1~ te, separat~d by lines. and grov?s of oak tlmbe!·, growrng along dry ~u~ltes, which are ftlled with water m seasons of ram; and, perhaps, also, by the melting snows. Over much o~ this extent, the yege.tation was sparse; the surface showing plainly the actwn of water, whtch, rn the season of lloo?, the Joaquin spreads over the valley ~bout 1 o'clock we came ag~m among innumerable flow rs; and a few mrles furt.hor, fields of the bcat~tif~l blue.flowering lupine, which seems to love the ne1ghborhood of \:ater, u~dicatcd that we were approaching a stream. We .here found t.h1 bPauttful shrub in thickets, some of them being 12 feet .in he1ght. OccasiOnally three or four plants were clustered togethe.r, forming a grnnd bo~que t, about .no feet in circumference and 10 feet h1gh ; the whole summtt covered wtth spikes of flowers, the perfume of which is very sweet and grateful. A lover of natural beauty can imagine with wh.at p lc?snre we ro?c among these flowering groves, which filled the air: wu.h a .l1ght and delicate fragrance. We continued our road for about half a mde, Interspersed through an OJ? en grove of live oaks, which, in form, were the most symmetrical and bcautrful we hau yet seen in this country. The ends of tbctr branches re ted on the ground, forming somewhat more than a half sphere of very fu ll and regular figure, with leaves apparently smaller than usual. The Californian poppy, of a rich orange ~olor, was numerous to -day· Elk and several bands of antelope made theu· appearance. . . Our road was now one continued enjoyment; and it was pleasant, ndmg among this assembluge of green pastures with varied flower~ and scattered groves, and out of the warm green spring, to loo~< at t~e rocky :t nd ~nowy peaks where latt-ly we had sulfered so much. Emergtng from the timber, we came suddenly upon the Stanislaus river, where we hoped to find a fo~·d, but the stream was flowing by, dark and deep, swollen by the moun· tam snows; its general breadth was about 50 yards. . . We travelled about five miles up the river, and encamped wtthout bemg able to find a fon]. II ere we made a larg:e coral, in order to be ~ble to pcaatcckhe da. sufficient number of our wild animals to relieve those prevwusly . Under the shade of the oaks alon~ the r ivcl', I noticerl erodi.ttm cicuta~ num in bloom, eight or ten in~hes high. This is the plant whtch we had |