Page:History of the War between the United States and Mexico.djvu/169

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COUNTER REVOLUTION.

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self. Following the valley of the Rio Grande for the distance of two hundred and thirty miles below Santa Fé, he there left the river, and marched westward, by the way of the Copper Mines, to the Rio Gila, where he arrived on the 20th instant. He then proceeded down this stream to its junction with the Colorado of the West, a distance of five hundred miles; halting but two days on the road, at the village of the Peños Indians, to obtain provisions and recruit his horses. His course now lay down the Colorado for forty miles, and thence sixty miles across the southern extremity of the great desert of California.^[1] His long and toilsome march terminated on the 2nd of December, when he entered one of the frontier settlements of the territory. Hearing that a counter-revolution had taken place in the Californias, he dispatched a messenger to Commodore Stockton, with a letter requesting that a party might be sent out to Open a communication with him. Without waiting for a reply, he moved forward cautiously, and was met on the 5th instant, about forty

↑ "This immense plain, the existence of which was until very recently wholly unknown, is situated in the central part of Upper or New California. It is limited on the north by a mass of rocks, which separate it from the head waters of the Lewis river, on the west by an irregular chain of mountains, extending in parallel ridges along the shores of the Pacific ocean, on the east by the western branches of the Colorado, and on the south by the valley of the Colorado. Its area is equal to that of Virginia, and consists of an elevated plateau or table land, flanked on all sides by descents more or less inclined, according to their geological structure.***It presents little less than an arid surface, broken at intervals by a few detached mountains, of limited extent, but rising in some instances above the region of perpetual snow. From these mountains small streams ﬂow during the rainy seasons. On reaching the plains, these torrents instantly disappear in the sand, leaving no other trace of their existence than the fragments of rocks and other debris, which are borne down by the currents, and deposited at the bases of the hills." — Re-issue, American Family Magazine, Part 14.

[1] "This immense plain, the existence of which was until very recently wholly unknown, is situated in the central part of Upper or New California. It is limited on the north by a mass of rocks, which separate it from the head waters of the Lewis river, on the west by an irregular chain of mountains, extending in parallel ridges along the shores of the Pacific ocean, on the east by the western branches of the Colorado, and on the south by the valley of the Colorado. Its area is equal to that of Virginia, and consists of an elevated plateau or table land, flanked on all sides by descents more or less inclined, according to their geological structure.***It presents little less than an arid surface, broken at intervals by a few detached mountains, of limited extent, but rising in some instances above the region of perpetual snow. From these mountains small streams ﬂow during the rainy seasons. On reaching the plains, these torrents instantly disappear in the sand, leaving no other trace of their existence than the fragments of rocks and other debris, which are borne down by the currents, and deposited at the bases of the hills." — Re-issue, American Family Magazine, Part 14.

[1]