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 Explaining to the Indians that he was endeavoring to find a passage through the mountains into the country of the whites, which he was going to see, Fremont begged them to find him a guide, to whom presents of scarlet cloth and other articles should be given. The redskins looked at the rewards offered, consulted together, and then, first pointing to the snow on the mountains, drew their hands across their necks to show how deep it was. It was impossible, they implied by their gestures, to go through this barrier of solid water; the white men must turn southward to begin with, and not westward, until after a long tramp in that direction.

SAN FRANCISCO IN 1840.

To this compromise Fremont was obliged to consent, and, escorted by a young Indian guide, he led his weary followers ten miles in a south-easterly direction, reaching, on the 31st January, a gap in the Sierra Nevada, through which he hoped to penetrate to the fertile plains beyond. Again he was disappointed; the pass scaled, he still had before him a great continuous range, which he felt satisfied was the central ridge of the Sierra Nevada, the great Californian Mountain. He now knew, however, that the Bay of San Francisco, or Yerba Buena, as it was still called, lay on the other side of this great mass, and resolved, at whatever cost, to traverse it without delay.

The camp was pitched in the eastern side, and the fires had scarcely been lighted, when crowds of almost naked Indians rushed in, bringing with them long nets and bows greatly resembling those in use on the Sacramento