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 CHAPTER VI.

OVERLAND SMITH AND PATTIE FOREIGNERS

1826-1830.

FOR forty years California had been visited with increasing frequency by foreigners, that is, by men whose blood was neither Indian nor Spanish. Eng land, the United States, Russia, and France were the nations chiefly represented among the visitors, some of whom came to stay, and to all of whom in the order of their coming I have devoted some atten tion in the annals of the respective" years. All had come from the south, or west, or north by the broad highway of the Pacific Ocean bounding the territory on the west and leading to within a few miles of the most inland Spanish establishments. The inland boun dary an arc whose extremities touch the coast at San Diego and at 4U, an arc for the most part of sierras nevadas so far as could be seen, with a zone of desert beyond as yet unknown had never yet been crossed by man of foreign race, nor trod, if we except the