THE PRESIDIO OF JANOS. 333 
Emigrating parties, and all others, are much indebted to 
this gallant officer for opening this road, which otherwise 
would have remained in its ancient condition to the 
present day. But with all the labor that has been or 
may hereafter be bestowed upon it, it can never be- 
come the great thoroughfare for emigrants to California. 
The mountain pass must always remain an impedi- 
ment. The long tract from Ojo de Vaca to the 
Playas without water, is another; and the Guadalupe 
Pass presents the same difficulty in the dry season. A 
fourth objection is the distance, which is fully a hun- 
dred miles greater than a course nearly west from Ojo 
de Vaca, coming out near Tucson. 
The latter route was taken by the Commission 
last year, and the longest stretch without water was 
less than forty miles. Our government should send 
out a party to make explorations within our line of 
boundary; when, I doubt not, a route would be dis- 
covered which would shorten the distance at least one 
hundred and fifty miles, besides furnishing wood, water, 
and grass in abundance. It is desirable, too, that we 
should have a road as far as possible within our own ter- 
ritory, and not pass, as at present, the whole distance 
from Kl Paso to the Colorado through that of Mexico. 
The summit which we had now attained, by a tortu- 
ous ascent of from ten to fifteen hundred feet in fifteen 
miles, is the level of the great central plateau. A broad 
plain here opens to the view eastward and southward, 
extending far and wide, with short detached ridges of 
mountains, running generally from north-west to south- 
east. Our course was south-east, to a range of moun- 
tains whose direction is east and west, fifteen miles dis- 
