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.)
_26th day._ We set out at seven o'clock in the morning. The river
spreads out considerably and in two places the boats ran aground because
the tide was very low. However there is a [deeper] channel along the
banks. After we had gone about a league and a half we reached the stream
entrance which was mentioned yesterday and the water was doubled in
quantity and the river now was about 7 varas deep and 400 wide. From
here downward [the river] seems like an arm of the ocean, for the land
becomes lower and at the meeting point of the sea and the other river
the current is brought to a standstill. The two streams are from the
Río de San Francisco and, with the stream which we left yesterday,
constitute in all three channels and consequently form islands.[54]
Farther above, where all the water is united in a single stream, the
river must be as large as it is down here, but nevertheless it will not
be as large as the San Juan Capistrano.
Down here, where the two channels unite, there is a village of the
Ompines. Some of the people have already been baptized at San José,
because they [are accustomed to] pass over to the opposite shore. We
traveled in the entire day some twelve leagues and stopped where the
hills end which are opposite the high hill of the Bolbones and which are
very bare, completely devoid of trees and shrubs. However, the deer
run in herds, for there are some great plains with an occasional low
hill.[55] Those persons should come to this point who wish to sail up
the Río de San Francisco, as we have heard it was formerly called, for
it was here that the schooners turned around.[56] We went on to the
place where we slept on the 17th of this month and it seems to me that
they [the former explorers] came this far and must have returned from
here, that is, without ascending higher up the river, because there is
not enough water for schooners.
The first six leagues which we covered today are populated, as I said
before, with various kinds of trees, but the last six are very bare.
This Río de San Francisco, which we are now leaving, is good for any
kind of settlement and contains many people, but one cannot get to it
except by boat. The narrowest passages are at the Port of San Francisco
or at the Strait of Carquinez.
_27th day._ Holy Mass was celebrated at the hill of the Ompines. We set
out at about eleven o'clock in the morning and went some twelve leagues,
six of them to the north and the rest winding through a slough of fresh
water close to the land of the opposite shore. We slept on a height
about a league before arriving at the plain of the Suisunes. All that
we have passed today is low, but very bare hills; in all this country
there is no running stream. Going from here to the Suisunes there must
be at least a half-tide so that the boats will not run aground.[57]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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