a big fire of cottonwood, which gave a cosy look to the camp.” They had a stew of wild ducks and got “a mess of quail for Christmas dinner on the morrow.”
On the 29th they “moved on towards the summit of the Sierras. Warm and pleasant. Green grass in places two inches high. Snow clad mountains on our right.”
On Friday the 30th they crossed the mountains through Cajon Pass, and on New Years Day, the scribe to whom we are indebted for the detailed account of this long, long journey was the guest of the Hollisters at San Bernardino for dinner. Father told me they celebrated by having doughnuts. It is evident that the two trains came in together, sometimes one ahead, sometimes the other. I make note of the fact of their traveling in company because I have seen it stated in print that Col. Hollister was the first to bring American sheep to California. I am pleased to be able to offer this contemporary witness to the fact that there are others to share the honor. Mention is made of the sheep of Frazer, White and Viles, and McClanahan as well as of Col. Hollister and Flint, Bixby & Co., all of whom shared the hardships of the trail those last days of 1853.
The San Bernardino into which they came after their long trip across the desert was a Mormon colony which had been founded three years earlier.
After spending the New Year at San Bernardino the herds that we have followed across the plains moved on to the “Coco Mongo” ranch and vineyard.
This was apparently a current spelling as it occurs
