Only familiarity with one of like character, by actually seeing it, can
give a just idea of the country through which they were traveling.
Livingston's descriptions of localities in Central Africa might be
transferred to our pages _verbatim_, to give a word-painting of the
desiccated deserts of what is now New Mexico and Arizona. Carson's
curiosity, as well as care to preserve the knowledge for future use, led
him to note in memory, every feature of the wild landscape, its mountain
chains, its desert prairies, with only clumps of the poor artemisia for
vegetation, its rivers, and the oases upon their banks, where there were
bottom-lands--nor were beaver found elsewhere--with its river beds whose
streams had found a passage beneath the surface of the earth, and each
other general feature that would attract the eye of the natural, rather
than the scientific observer.
In our day, the note book of the pioneer furnishing the data, the
traveler carries a guide-book to direct his course from point to point,
upon a well trodden road, to those places where grass and water will
furnish refreshment for his animals, while he regales himself, not upon
the spare-rib of a starved mule, killed because it could go no longer,
but upon a variety of good things from the well stocked larder of the
pouches of the saddle-bags his pack mule carries, or the provision box
of his wagon. Or, instead of the meat-diet of the trapper, when he has
been in luck in a fertile locality, the traveler--not trapper--of
to-day, perhaps has shot a prairie chicken, and prepares his dinner by
making a stew of it, which he consumes with hard bread he has purchased
at a station not ten miles away.
Familiarity with the features of the country does not restore the
experience of the pioneer of these wilds. The Indian, now, is advised by
authority he seldom dares defy, to keep off the roads of the emigrants;
and seldom does a party leave the road for any great distance; nor are
these roads infrequent, but the country is intersected with them, and
the guide-books protect against mistake in taking the wrong direction.
The test of character, however, with the trappers, was their ability to
endure hardships when they had to be encountered; and to guard against
them, when they could be avoided, by a wise foresight in taking
advantage of every favor of fortune, and turning each freak or whim of
the wily dame to best account.
Carson was delighted with California from the first, and realizing
intense satisfaction in his position, yet a youth, on terms of easy
familiarity with the other seventeen old trappers, especially selected
for this expedition, circumstances conspired to call into play all the
activities of his nature, and nothing intruded to prevent his resigning
himself to the impulses of the time, and making the most of every
occasion that offered.
He had the confidence of Capt. Young and of all his men, who permitted
him to do precisely as he chose, for they found him not only intending
always to do what was best, but possessed of foresight to know always
"just the things that ought to be done," almost without effort, as it
seemed to them.
After leaving the Mission of San Fernando, Young's party trapped upon
the San Joaquim, but they found that another party of trappers had been
there before them, employed by the Hudson Bay Company, in Oregon. There
was however, room for them both, and they trapped near each other for
weeks. The friendly intercourse kept up between the two parties, was not
only one of pleasant interchange of social kindness, but in one sense
was essentially useful to Kit, who lost no opportunity of improving
himself in the profession (for in those days trapping was a profession)
which he had embraced, and he had the benefit of the experience by way
of example, not only of his own companions, but of those who were
connected with the greatest and most influential company then in
existence on this Continent. It is hardly necessary to say that he lost
no opportunity of acquiring information, and it is quite probable that
he would, if called on, allow that the experience acquired on this
expedition was among the most valuable of any which he had previously
gained.
When Mr. Young went to the Sacramento, he separated from the Hudson Bay
party. The beautiful Sacramento, as its waters glided toward the chain
of bays that take it to the ocean through the Bay of San Francisco out
at the Golden gate, had not the aspect of the eastern river's immediate
tributaries of the Missouri. Its waters then were clear as crystal, and
the salmon floated beneath, glistening in the sunlight, as the canoe
glided through them.
The very air of this valley is luxurious; and in speaking of it, we will
include the valley of the San Joaquim, for both these streams run
parallel with the coast, the Sacramento from the north, the San Joaquim
from the south, and both unite at the head of the chain of bays which
pour their waters into the Pacific.
The Sacramento drains nearly three hundred miles of latitude, and the
San Joaquim an hundred and fifty miles of the country bounded by the
Sierra Nevada (snow mountains) on the east, and the coast range on the
west, the whole forming a great basin, with the mountains depressed on
the north and south, but with no outlet except through the Golden gate.