iT) a pe 
sounded, and the colonel, with Sumner’s command, marched 20 _ 
miles, and halted in’a beautiful valley of fine grass and pools of 
cool water, where the wild: liquorice (glycyrrhiza lepidota) grew 
lentifully. The stream, where flowing, is a tributary of the | 
; 
oro. . | 
From the drift wood, &c., found in its wide, well-grassed bed, I | 
infer it is subject to great freshets. In‘crossing from the Ocatéto — 
the valley of the Moro, the mountains become more rolling; and 
as we approached the Moro, the valley opened out, and the whole 
‘country became more tame in its appearance.. 
Ten miles up the Moro is the Moro town, containing, we were 
informed, 200 houses. 
It is off the lower road; but a tolerable wagon road leads to the 
village from our.camp of last night. | 
The plains were strewed with fragments of brick-dust colored 
lava, scorie and slag; the hills, to the left, capped with white — 
granular quartz. The plains are almost destituté of vegetation; 
the hills bear a stunted growth of pifion and red cedar. Rains have 
fallen here recently, and the grass in the bottoms is good. The ~ 
grama is now found constantly. #Ve saw to-day some ground ~ 
squirrels, with stripes on their sides: in their habits, resembling the 
common prairiedog. A flight of birds was seen to the south, but. too 
distant to distinguish. - We were attracted to the left by an object 
which was supposed to be an Indian, but, on céming up to it, it was _ 
discovered to be a sand-stone block standing on end and topped by — 
another shorter block. A mountain man, versed in these signs, — 
said it was in commemoration of a talk and friendly smoke between — 
some two or three tribes of Indians. 
‘The latitude of the place, from 7 observations on-polaris, is 35° 
54’ 21'', and the longitude, deduced from the local time by 7 alti- 
tudes of alpha lyre in the west, and 11 of © in the east, was 6h. 
59m. 49s. . i 
The height above the sea 6,670 feet. = * E 
: August 13.—At 12 o’clock, as the rear column came in sight, the ~— 
~ call of “‘boots and saddles” was sounded, and in 20 minutes we 
were off. e had not advanced more than one mile when Bent, | 
of the spy-guard, came up with four prisoners. They represented 
themselves to be an ensign and three privates of the Mexican 
army, sent forward to reconnoitre and ascertain our force. They 
said 600 men were at the Vegas to give us battle. They told — 
many different stories; and finally delivered up a paper, being an — 
order from a Captain Gonzales to the ensign, to go forward on the 
Bent’s Fort road to ascertain our position and numbers. They 
were corss-examined by the colonel, and detained... 
As soon as we commenced the descent into the valley of the 
Moro creek, some one reported a company of Mexicans at the 
crossing; Colonel Kearny ordered me to go forward with twelve of 
the Lacléde rangers, and reconnoitre the party, and if they attempt- 
ed to run, to pursue-and capture as many as we could. As Lieu- 
tenant Elliot and myself approached this company, they appeared 
to be motionless, and on coming up, we found them to consist of 
