Page:Route Across the Rocky Mountains with a Description of Oregon and California.djvu/109



aving spent some months in exploring the country, and obtained a tolerably satisfactory knowledge, of the greater part of Northern or Upper California, either from personal observation, or by careful enquiries, from such persons as had made themselves acquainted with the various portions of the country, we determined on leaving for the United States. After much trouble and exertion in raising a small company of fifteen persons; on the 12th of May, 1845, we left Capt. Sutter's, on our homeward bound trip. We traveled up the Sacramento, on the Eas side, forty miles; and then traveled up Bear Creek—our course being about East. Crossing the east side of the Sacramento Valley, a distance ob about twenty miles, we came to the spurs of the California Mountains. We continued to travel up through these hills, following the general course of the stream, until we came to its source; which is in a large marsh, greatly elevated above the Sacramento Valley. At this marsh we remained one day, in order to find a place where we could cross Juba River, which was a mile and a half distant, a stream of considerable size, very rapid, full of falls and canions, and was at this time quite high, from the melting of the snow on the mountains. It was only in a