area clothed with thin coarse grass; an opening vallon next greets the eye in the generous growth of its herbage and the fertility of its soil; a beautiful grove of stately pines, cedars, and pinions, rises in the back ground; a still larger, more expansive, and thrice lovely valley, skirts the banks of some bounding stream, and delights the fancy with its smiling flowers and luxuriant verdure.
Here, a huge mountain rears itself in majesty—now, piling heaps upon heaps of naked granite, limestone, sandstone, and basalt, variegated and parti-colored, —now, thickly studded with lateral pines, cedars, pinions, and hemlocks, —then, again denuded, till at last its sharpened peaks pierce the clouds while storms and tempests in their wild orgies haste to do it reverence: There, a lesser, coniform elevation of the continuous chain, is mantled in living green; while perhaps by its side, another pains the eye with the well defined lineaments of desolation.
A country of this description occupies nearly the whole interval from the two main branches of the Colorado to the dividing ridge of mountains.
The valleys of the Uintah, and several other affluents within its limits, however, are broad, fertile and tolerably well timbered. Grass continues green nearly the entire winter, and game of all kinds common to the mountains, excepting buffalo, is abundant. The valley soils are well adapted to cultivation, and might sustain a large population.
We come now to the southeastern extremity of the province, bordering upon the Rio Gila which separates it from Sonora, and lying between the Colorado and the Sierra de los Mimbros range.
This stretch, though less fertile as a general thing, partakes of much the same characteristics as that upon the opposite side of the Colorado, and upon Rio Virgen, south of the Digger country, which was so fully described upon a former page. The soil, however, is not generally so sandy, and the landscape is far more rough and broken. The bottoms of the Colorado and Gila, with their tributaries, are broad, rich, and well timbered. Everything in the shape of vegetation attains a lusty size, amply evincing the exuberant fecundity of the soil producing it.
There are many sweet spots in the vicinity of both these streams, well deserving the name of earthly Edens. Man here might fare sumptuously, with one continued feast spread before him by the spontaneous products of the earth, and revel in perennial spring or luxuriate amid unfading summer.
Yet, notwithstanding the other attractions held out, game is much less plentiful in this than in other parts, —probably owing to the warmth of the climate.
Winter is unknown, and the only thing that marks its presence from that of other seasons, is a continuation of rainy and damp weather for some two or three months. All the wild fruits and grains indigenous to the country are found here in profuse abundance.
The entire Eastern Division of Upper California possesses a uniformly salubrious and healthful atmosphere. Sickness, so far as my knowledge extends, is rarely known.
The natives, for the most part, may be considered friendly, or at least, not dangerous. Some of them, in the neighborhood of the Gila and the Gulf of California are partially advanced in civilization, and cultivate the ground, raising corn, melons, pumpkins, beans, potatoes, &c.
