ing the gap for which we had been steering, and bearing to the East, through a break in the mountain which follows the course of the Truckies River, and which is a spur of the main California chain. Having crossed this mountain we again came, at five miles, to Truckies River, which we crossed and traveled down on the South side—passed across a barren plain, ten miles in width, and at fifteen miles, came to the Burnt Mountains. These are a succession of several high, perfectly barren, and very rocky ridges. The distance across is about thirty-five miles, and the way was very tedious and toilsome.
We found the Indians on Truckies River, generally, very wild, entirely naked, and miserably poor. They live in floating houses, constructed of long, coarse grass, on rafts of dry willow brush. They are armed with bows and arrows, and subsist almost entirely on lizzards, crickets, and muscles [sic].
Having crossed the Burnt Mountains, we found that it would be necessary for us to leave Truckies River, as it now bore too much to the North: and accordingly, we remained one day encamped in order to rest our animals, for a hard travel, across a sandy, unproductive plain, thirty-five miles, to the sink of Marie's River; which distance was without drinkable water. We passed three springs in the plain, but the first was salt, and the other two, which were close together, were both hot; the largest one, which was ten feet in diameter, was boiling furiously; and we could see the steam arising from it several miles. These springs rise through volcanic rock, and large fragments of the same are scattered over the ground around them.
At the sink of Marie's River the stream is lost in the sand. This sink is a large sandy marsh about three miles wide and ten miles long, full of bullrushes and very miry; the water which it contains is also warm and has a very
