EI.DORADO 213 



nine of them are regular men, and the rest picked up 

 lately ; his original men are principally backwoodsmen 

 from the State of Tennessee and the banks of the up- 

 per waters of the Missouri. He has one or two with 

 him who enjoy a high reputation on the prairies. Kit 

 Carson is as well known there as the Duke is in 

 Europe. The dress of these men are principally a 

 long, loose coat of deer skin, tied with thongs in front ; 

 trousers of the same, of their own manufacture, which, 

 when wet through, they take off, scrape well inside 

 with a knife, and put on as soon as dry. The saddles 

 were of various fashions, though these and a large 

 drove of horses and a brass field-gun, were things they 

 had picked up about California. They are allowed no 

 liquor ; tea and sugar only ; this no doubt has much to 

 do with their good conduct; and the discipline too is 

 very strict. They were marched up to an open space on 

 the hills near' the town, under some large trees, and 

 there took up their quarters in messes of six or seven in 

 the open air. The Indians lay beside their leader. One 

 man, a doctor, six feet six inches high, was an odd- 

 looking fellow. May I never come under his hands." 

 Fremont proceeded to Oregon and had reached 

 Klamath Lake, when he was overtaken by Lieutenant 

 Gillispie of the United States army, who had left 

 Washington the previous Xovember, crossing the 

 country from Vera Cruz to Mazatlan. Arriving at 

 Monterey in a U. S. slooj) of war he had started up 

 the country to find the explorers. He had letters for 

 Fremont from the Secretary of State, which, when de- 

 livered to Fremont, led him to retrace his steps to the 



