In the year 1807 I went to the Buena Vista Lake[46] as we called it, as a soldier in a company of Cavalry of twenty-five men under Alferez Gabriel Moraga. Each of us had eight horses and they made a big _caballada_. Miguel Espinosa was our serjeant and we had to keep constant watch that the Indians did not steal our horses; they were everywhere.... We went from Monterey to San Miguel Mission, and from there to the Laguna we called Buena Vista in one day and a half, and we went after the runaway _neophytas_ [and] tried to bring in others for the Padres to make Christians; but did not get any. We went away into the Snowy Mountains, or near where the snow was, and the Indians stole one-half of our horses and killed two of our men. Where we went into the mountains there was a _Portosuello_ [_portezuelo_, an opening or gap], called by our Captain "_Salinas de Cortez_" which had great quantities of _nitre_, _quisas tequesquite_.[47] We crossed the San Joaquin River several times and everywhere there was Indians, and the Captain made up his mind to go back by the way of San José Mission where we arrived in good order. I went several times to the Tulares and to the Sacramento, both on horseback and once in boats. In all the rivers we saw many beavers; bears were everywhere and very dangerous. Elk and antelope and deer used to run before us in _bandados_ [bands] and we found plenty of mustangs, wild horses,[48] in 1807 and afterwards many others with the mission brands, and lots and lots of the mission cattle, _muy cimarones_. IV. JOSÉ PALOMARES' EXPEDITION TO THE TULARES, 1808 In 1808 there are two accounts of significance, Moraga's trip to the Sacramento Valley (Cutter, 1957) and José Palomares' expedition through the southern tip of the San Joaquin Valley, probably in the same year. _Report on the Expedition to the Tulares_ (Cal. Arch., Prov. St. Pap., Mis. and Col., I: 229-239)