MU. HARTWEG'S JOURNAL OF A MISSION TO CALIFORNIA. 219 



Valley, and who kindly invited me to make his house my head- 

 quarters ; an invitation which 1 gladly accepted, as from his 

 long residence in the country, and the situation of his farm, in 

 the centre of the valley, I anticipated many happy results. Late 

 in the afternoon of the following day we arrived at the Corte de 

 Madera, which, as the name implies, is a wood-cutting establish- 

 ment, where Mr. Cordua had some business to transact. Half- 

 an-hour's ramble in a fine grove of redwood trees furnished me 

 a broAvn, small flowering Martagon, No. 218, Boraginea, 

 No. 2 17, and Equisetum, No. 219. The same night we left 

 again, and passing the following morning through the straits of 

 Carquinez into Suisun Bay, we entered the river Sacramento in 

 the afternoon. The aspect of the country is flat, presenting a 

 boundless field of rushes as far as the eye can reach, bordei'ed on 

 both sides by a distant ridge of mountains, which, from the 

 severity of last winter, presented a line of snow. The lowlands 

 of the Sacramento are subject to inundations during the spring 

 months, and are destitute of trees, with the exception of the 

 banks, which, from the accumulation of soil during the inunda- 

 tions, are higher than the rushlands ; a belt of trees and shrubs, 

 varying from thirty to two hundred yards in depth, extends 

 along the banks, and is chiefly composed of Oaks, Platanus, 

 Willows, Poplars, Ash, Negundo californicum, Pavia californica, 

 Cornus, a dwarf Birch, and a Grape-vine. 



After a tedious process of warping up the launch against a 

 strong current, we arrived at the landing-place of Fort Sacra- 

 mento, on the 31st of March. An ineffectual attempt at doubling 

 a point against a strong head wind, during which we narrowly 

 escaped being capsized, determined Mr. Cordua to leave the 

 launch and proceed by land ; we accordingly disembarked at 

 the mouth of the American Fork, and following that stream about 

 six miles, we arrived at Mr. S.'s. Having procured horses the 

 following morning, after a day and a half's ride we reached Mr. 

 Cordua's farm, situate on the left bank of the Sacramento, at 

 the junction of the Chuba with the Feather river, which twenty 

 miles below falls into the Sacramento. 



The vegetation in the Upper Sacramento valley is much 

 earlier than about the bay of San Francisco ; there the trees 

 were still apparently dead, whilst here the Oaks were sending 

 forth their young leaves, and the prairies were teeming with 

 flowers, among which I recognised many old acquaintances. 

 It was delightful to behold the variety of colours over the ex- 

 tensive prairie, produced by patches of Leptosiphon, No. 205, 

 L. No. 228, Gilia tricolor, G. capitata, Oxyura chrysanthemoides, 

 Platystemon californicum, Nemophila insignis, N. No. 222, 

 Coraposita, Nos. 208, 209, Viola, No. 212, Eschscholtzia crocea, 



q2 



