rado, down to the Mojave villages, and westward across the desert to San Gabriel.[1]
The Amajabes on the Colorado treated the party well, furnishing fresh provisions, and horses stolen from the Spaniards, and two wandering neophytes guided the sixteen Americans over the desert to the mission, where they arrived in December. The trappers gave up their arms, and the leader was taken to San Diego, where he explained his object, and submitted to Governor Echeandía his papers, including passports from the U. S. government, and a diary. The coming of the strangers naturally excited suspicion at first; but this was removed by Smith's plea that he had been compelled to enter the territory for want of provisions and water, it being impossible to return by the same route; and his cause was still further strengthened by a certificate of Dana, Cunningham, and other Americans, that the trapper's papers were all en règle, and his motives doubtless pacific and honorable.[2] He was therefore permitted to purchase supplies, and undertake his eastward march by a new route; but not, as
- ↑ The details of the route are worth preservation briefly, though not clear in all respects. Started Aug. 22d from Salt Lake, crossed the little Utá Lake, went up the Ashley, which flows into that lake through the country of the Sumpatch Indians, crossed a range of mountains extending S. E. to N. W., crossed a river which he named Adams for the president, and which flowed S. W. Ten days' march to the Adams again, which had turned S. E. (This is not clear; the text says, 'à dix journées de marche l'Adams River tourne au S. E., il y a là une caverne,' etc. Query — Did Smith pass from the Sevier to the Virgin, and suppose them to be one stream?) Two days down the Adams to its junction with the Seeds-Keeder, a river with many shallows and rapids, and having a sterile country on the south; farther to a fertile wooded valley inhabited by the Ammucheebès (Amajabes, or Mojaves), where he remained 15 days. This was 80 miles above where the Seeds-Keeder, under the name of Rio Colorado, flowed into the gulf of California. Re-crossing the Seeds-Keeder, he went 15 days west into a desert country, and across a salt plain 8 by 20 miles. Here the details cease abruptly, and he next speaks of his arrival in Upper California.
- ↑ Dated at S. Diego Dec. 20, 1826, and signed by Wm G. Dana, Wm H. Cunningham, Wm Henderson, Diego Scott, Thomas M. Robbins, and Thomas Shaw, in Dept. St. Pap., MS., ii. 19-20. An English translation has been published in several works.
Private Papers, MS., 2d series, p. 1, Victor, River of the West, 34, and Hines, Voyage, 110, though these writers speak with reference to later events in Oregon, and derived their information from distinct sources. The Yolo Co. Hist., S. Joaq. Co. Hist., and other like works describe Smith's adventures, in some cases as accurately as was possibly from accessible data, still with various combinations of the errors already noted.
