TRAVELS IN OREGON, NO.l. 
439 
ing their performances, that he would as leave be shot 
at with a musket at one hundred yards, as with one of 
those Indians with his bow and arrow. 
Travelling along Destruction river, the party reached 
the valley of the Sacramento. At Bear’s camp they 
killed on one afternoon five grisly bears and three deer, 
all in excellent condition. The party prosecuted their 
journey as far as Captain Sutter’s settlement, at New 
Helvetia, on the Sacramento. Captain Sutter is a Swiss 
by birth. He served as a lieutenant in the Swiss guards 
in the time of Charles X. Soon after the revolution of 
July he came to the United States, and resided in Mis¬ 
souri for some years. He removed to California in 1839, 
and formed the first settlement in the valley on a large 
grant of land which he obtained from the Mexican gov¬ 
ernment. He had at first some trouble with the Indians, 
but. by the occasional exercise of well-timed authority, 
he has succeeded in converting them into a peaceable and 
industrious people, and has taught them many useful arts. 
He pays for labor in goods. Thirty white men are 
employed by him, and a great number of Indians. The 
latter have been engaged in constructing a sort of aque¬ 
duct to irrigate his lands with the waters of the Rio de 
los Americanos. The Russians had an establishment in 
his vicinity, which was found to be a losing concern, and 
they therefore sold it out to Captain Sutter, who makes 
a yearly payment in grain. This put him into the direc¬ 
tion of a large party of hunters and trappers, mostly 
Americans, who thus enter into competition with the 
Hudson’s Bay Company. Other settlers are locating 
themselves in the valley, and it will ere long be of much 
importance. The officers of the Exploring Expedition, 
however, thought but little of the soil. Thev entered it 
with a high idea of its fruitfulness, and with the expecta¬ 
tion of finding the soil abounding with every thing that 
could render it desirable for agriculturists, and sus- 
67 
