473° URES TO 
January 2d. “Left Hermosillo at two, p.m., with 
Sefior Don José de Aguilar and his brother, in a com- 
fortable covered carriage, affording a good protection 
from the heat of the sun, which was very great. Pack 
mules and arrieros, with our baggage, and extra mules 
for the carriage, accompanied us. Soon after leaving, 
we met a party of one hundred and fifty Frenchmen, 
who were emigrating from California, and destined, as 
I afterwards learned, for Cocospera, with the design 
of establishing a colony there, as well as of working 
some mines. They were a rather hard-looking and 
determined set of men, with long beards and sunburnt 
faces. Each one carried a musket or rifle, besides 
which many had pistols.* 
The country, after leaving the immediate vicinity 
of the river, is miserably poor. The road, however, is 
excellent; and though it has been travelled for two 
centuries without a day’s labor being expended on it, 
it is still smooth, level, and hard, the soil being a fine 
gravel. No continuous range of mountains intervenes 
between here and the coast. Detached and short 
ranges of moderate elevation rise here and there, all 
of which are avoided. It may with more propriety 
be termed a desert plain than a mountainous region. No 
streams exist in the thirty-six or thirty-seven leagues 
between Hermosillo and Guaymas, and the only water to 
be found is procured from wells; hence there is no 
village or settlement on the route, and but few 
* This is the same party which subsequently had a difficulty with the 
government, set the laws at defiance, and closed by taking possession for 
a while of Hermosillo. Their leader afterwards committed suicide. 
