The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-10-20

be careful in this day OF sharp pencils lest
they invoke derision.
In 1S4S Fremont organized his fourth
great expedition, this time entirely at his
own expense, and set out to find south
ern route from the Atlantic side of the
continent to the Pacific Ocean. His equip
ment consisted of 80 men, 120 mules, and
all the ordinary munitions of war or of
peace that might be required in subduing
either the savage or the soil. He secured
good men, but, relying too entirely on his
knowledge of the vast and trackless re-
gions washed by the waters of the Upper
Rio Grande the gallant explorer lost his
way, and nearly one-half his men, to-
gether with all the animals and munitions,
When men reflected that Fremont had
already thrice crossed the formidable
Sierras in midwlnter, had literally lived
for years on the burning sands of the des-
erts and yet had not lost single man ex-
cept in battle, this fearful loss of life and
property seemed inexplicable.
But after time some Of the survivors.
Mountain 10 at their head, who had made
their way back 10 Santa Fe, where they re-
organized and from which point they
finally reached California in 1919, began to
tell, in strange and mysterious manner,
of great river and wonderful city which
they had seen in the heart of the desert.
There were those among them who be-
lieved that this city was one of the cities
OF gold for which the Spanish cavaliers
had searched and searched so long and
vainly centuries before. Surely they be-
lieved they saw spire and dome, mosque
and minaret, tower and battlement, all
tumbled together in opulent and most
glorious confusion; but of course most
men shook their heads and believed the
men had been half crazed by their suffer
ings, and did not quite know what they
had seen.
The great explorer had chosen Mountain
10 as his second in command. This
expedition was made up mainly by
! Southerners, men fresh from the war
with Mexico. Fremont was a Southerner
and the flower of the South was his fol-
lowing. His famous father-in-law was
still standing up in the Senate, pointing to
California with his prophetic finger and
crying out to the dull and doubling world
the words that now emblazon his statue:
'Yonder in the West lies the East! Yon-
der lies the path to Indial''
had held a command in the Nauvoo or
Mormon Legion. This Mormon Legion
had been disbanded in Mexico in order,
say the Mormons, to keep them out of the
country and break up their church. But
it is on record that they asked to be so dis
! banded. Salt Lake was then in Mexico.
and not so far away, they thought. Some
of these Mormons of the Nauvoo Legion
while making their way to Salt Lake had
stopped at Fort Suffer, found work with
Suffer, and while employed under John
Marshall, his foreman, on the millrace
had found the first gold known to white
men in Alta California. These men had
communicated with Mountain 10, hence
his position, his confidence.
Santa Fe was reached soon. safely; but
not passed so. There was delay on delay.
Some would linger would live here al
ways in this poppy land of eternal after
noon and of pleasant loves. Some would
turn back. Terrible was the way before
them, said some. Too many had gone al
ready, said others, enough to carry away
all California.
But at last the expedition led straight
for the seas of fire and the setting sun.
/ Two black and bitter hearted Mexicans
agreed to set out as guides through the
great unknown, but they would not con-
sent to go further than the top of a great
mountain range which they said was the
end of all perils, and from which they said
they could point out river and a valley
of surprising beauty and verdure in the
world below them. The hatful of silver
which they were to receive would be
enough to open monte game in Santa Fe,
they said, and they wanted no more, and
so would not 90 on to California.
The Santa Fe of old was not the Santa
Fe of to-day. TWAS staid, rich, religious.
respectable capital, with no rival, save the
City of Mexico, west of the Mississippi
It had been standing there for centuries
The Governors palace was, and long had
been, the finest public building on the
continent. 1t is even to-day imposing.
and is the oldest public edifice in use on
American soil. This city is ages older
than Quebec, Boston, New York or New
Orleans. 1t is third in date of foundation
on the continent, San Antonio being sec
ond, Saint Augustine first. Yet so little was
known of Santa Fe at the time when she
was ceded to us that the Government at
Washington sent an expedition to see on
| what river the city StOou ana III navigation
could be opened to her gates. And yet the
ink was scarcely dry on the treaty when
Fremonts great expedition set forward to
pierce the burning wastes. Marvel not
then, that men ran here and men ran
there, still half believing the old Spanish
stories about cities of gold, of castles on
mountain tops and of enchanted valleys
below.
Pleasant enough was the journey foI
some weeks after leaving the ancient city
of the Holy Faith; then grass ana water
began to fail on every hand.
At last there was no grass, then no
water The brown, rock-buit mountain
was bare as lava, save here and there a
dwarfed juniper tree, here and there a
brown tuft of grass in the cracks of the
hot and glaring lava beds. Some horses
died, some men were ready to die, but
Fremont still kept at the head, on foot,
leading his horse.
That last day, as the huge red sun fell
down YEARLY before them, the top was
reached and the two guides came up.
They threw out their hands, they cried,
| "Oue hermosa!n chow beautifully Then