California, one of the most magnificent regions of the earth, with
its amazing mineral wealth, its rich soil and "glorious climate,"
has its belts of sterility and desolation, where the bones of many
a traveller and animal lie bleaching in the sun, just as they fell
years ago, when the wretched victim sank down and perished for want
of food and water.

The hunting party to which Carson was attached numbered eighteen, and
they entered one of those forbidding wastes, where they suffered
intensely. All their skill in the use of the rifle was of no
avail, when there was no game to shoot and it was not long before
they were forced to live on horse flesh to escape starvation. This,
however, was not so trying as might be supposed, provided it did
not last until the entire party were dismounted.

Fortunately, in their straits, they encountered a party of Mohave
Indians, who sold them enough food to remove all danger. These
Indians form a part of the Yuma nation of the Pima family, and now
make their home on the Mohave and Colorado rivers in Arizona. They
are tall, well formed, warlike and industrious cultivators of the
soil. Had they chosen to attack the hunters, it would have gone ill
with the whites, but the latter showed commendable prudence which
might have served as a model to the hundreds who came after them,
when they gained the good will of the red men.

Extricating themselves from the dangerous stretch of country, the
trappers turned westward until they reached the mission of San
Gabriel, one of those extensive establishments formed by the Roman
Catholic clergy a hundred years ago. There were over a score, San