Colonial Expeditions to the Interior of California Central Valley, 1800-1820Cook, Sherburne Friend
History
Colonial Expeditions to the Interior of California Central Valley, 1800-1820
Cook, Sherburne Friend
California -- Discovery and exploration; California -- History -- To 1846 -- Sources; Central Valley (Calif.)
At six-thirty in the morning of the 17th we started up the river and at
three miles we found an opening which separated from the river we were
following and ran to the northwest. Suddenly we came upon a village on
the west bank of the river. We thought it might contain some people
and with great care we went ashore. However, we found it empty of its
inhabitants, for all without doubt had fled as soon as they saw us. This
village consists of thirty-six houses or huts of tule matting. After
making some inquiries as to whether we might be able to catch and talk
to any of the heathen, and being unsuccessful, we set sail. We followed
a bend of the river to the northeast, passing by the mouth of the other
channel, which separates here and runs to the northwest; the latter
seems to me to be the one which we left behind us yesterday and which
turns so as again to unite with the main stream of the river. We stopped
at seven o'clock in the evening at a ruined village, at the end of the
northeasterly bend of the river which from this point trends toward the
east. We will have traveled during the whole day no more than seven
miles. The current flows very rapidly because of the quantity of water
carried by the river, which is at a very high level.
At ten-thirty in the morning of the 18th, after having heard Mass
celebrated by the Reverend Father Fray Narciso Duran, we set out,
following the bend of the river to the east, and at two miles we
observed that the river on which we are traveling is a branch of the
main Sacramento River, which here separates and takes a northwesterly
direction. It gives off the opening, or slough, which we left behind
yesterday and continues northwest, as I have said. The channel which we
pursued makes a turn to the south and thus goes on to unite with the
other channel and flow into the Bay of the Ompines.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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