176 JOHN C. FREMONT. 



great unknown region by following a southeast line 

 from the Lower Columbia to the Upper Colorado 

 of the Gulf of California. He started forth in the 

 commencement of winter, and soon deep snows 

 impeded the progress of the expedition. He tra- 

 velled over vast and unknown wastes, through 

 rugged mountains and inhospitable deserts. For 

 hundreds of miles the daring adventurers climbed 

 amid dangerous precipices and slippery crags. 

 Daring eleven months they were never out of sight 

 of the snow. Hostile Indians frequently hovered 

 around their path. The members of the expedition 

 were often overcome by the perils and sufferings of 

 the way. Sometimes a heavily-laden mule slipped 

 from the verge of some dizzy cliff, and, after tum- 

 bling down for hundreds of feet between unfathom- 

 able gorges, was dashed to pieces at the bottom. 

 The slow and mournful procession of feeble and 

 starving skeletons, both of men and beasts, crawled 

 like a disabled serpent along the dangerous heights 

 and bridle-paths of their mountain way, surrounded 

 by the deep snows of the Sierra Nevada, and by all 

 the awful incidents of a wintry march amid the 

 rudest fastnesses and solitudes of nature. After a 

 perilous journey of many months, the expedition 

 arrived at Sutter's Settlement, in the Valley of the 

 Sacramento. Thence they proceeded to San Joa- 



