JOHN C. FREMONT. 195 



fendant was sentenced to be dismissed from the 

 service. 



The following extract from the narrative D a 

 journey of eight hundred miles, performed in eight 

 days by Colonel Fremont, will illustrate the nature 

 of some of his California adventures : 



" It was at daybreak on the morning of the 22d 

 of March that the party set out from La Ciudad de 

 los Angeles, ('the City of the Angels,') in the 

 southern part of Upper California, to proceed, in 

 the shortest time, to Monterey, on the Pacific coast, 

 distant full four hundred miles. The way is over a 

 mountainous country, much of it uninhabited, with 

 no other road than a trace, and many defiles to pass, 

 particularly the maritime defile of El Rincon, or 

 Punto Gordo, fifteen miles in extent, made by the 

 jutting of a precipitous mountain into the sea, and 

 which can only be passed when the tide is out and 

 the sea calm, and then in many places through the 

 waves. The towns of Santa Barbara and San Luis 

 Obispo, and occasional ranches, are the principal 

 inhabited places on the route. Each of the party 

 had three horses, nine in all, to take their turns 

 under the saddle. The six loose horses ran ahead, 

 without bridle or halter, and required some atten- 

 tion to keep to the track. When wanted for a 

 change, say at the distance of twenty miles, they 



