TRAVELS IN THE CALIFORNIA S. 
321 
hundred and fifty miles from its mouth. The valleys on its 
upper waters have been described in my friend Doctor Ly¬ 
man’s account of his journey across them given on preceding 
pages. And it only remains for me here to say that the val¬ 
leys of this stream below those portions seen by the Doctor 
are mostly barren—broken by mountains and deep ravines; 
in a word, generally resembling the lower portion of the vale 
of the Colorado, in hideous desolation. There are indeed 
some fruitful tracts of land near the banks and along the 
brows of the neighboring highlands, which produce a mode¬ 
rate share of vegetation. In the rainy season, large tracts of 
country also bordering on the middle part of its course are 
pretty well clothed with grass. But when the dry season sets 
in, the country is parched to a heap of red dust; every plant, 
except trees, the different species of the cactus or prickly 
pear, and a few shrubs, is withered, and a brown, dying as¬ 
pect, is presented by the valley of the San Juan. This will 
ever be a desert, till those vast subterranean fires which 
scorched it, and those dry winds which scorch it still, shall 
cease to act, and the dews of night deign to fall, and the 
clouds distil upon it their rains at proper seasons. 
The River Jila forms the southeastern boundary of the Cali- 
fornias. It rises among the mountains, west of Santa Fe, in 
Latitude 36° north, and running westwardly a distance of about 
five hundred miles, falls into the Colorado about sixty miles 
from the Californian Gulf. It is a rapid rushing stream of 
excellent water. Its banks, like those of the Colorado, in a 
great degree, are composed of basalt and trap-rock rising per¬ 
pendicularly much in the manner of the Palisades on the 
Hudson. The valleys of the upper branches of this stream 
are comparatively rich and beautiful. The lofty mountains 
among which it rises, the higher peaks of which are covered 
with snow throughout the year, the bold cliffs which at irre¬ 
gular intervals burst up from the plains, the conical hills of 
rich earth clad with forests, the grass fields covered with wild 
animals and Indian lodges, present a panoramic view of the 
