Both authors comment on customs. Anza emphasizes the fact that these Indians are not white, in contradistinction to the reports brought back by Crespi. He also says the language is different "from that on the other side of the southern estuary." Font describes the people at the second inhabited village, who
... were very happy to see us and very obliging. They presented us with many cacomites, which is a little bulb or root almost round and rather flat, and the size and shape of a somewhat flattened ball, and likewise with a good string of roasted amole, which is another root like a rather long onion, all well cooked and roasted ... The amole, which is their most usual food, tastes a little like mescal. It is the food which most abounds, and the fields along here are full of it.
Font (F2) adds the following description of the natives seen at the final halt on Rodeo Creek:
As soon as we halted thirty-eight Indians came to us unarmed, peaceful, and very happy to see us. At first they stopped and sat down on a small hill near the camp. Then one came, and behind him another, and so they came in single file like a flock of goats, leaping and talking, until all had arrived. They were very obliging, bringing us firewood, and very talkative, their language having much gobbling, nothing of which we understood. They go naked like all the rest, and they are by no means white, but are like all those whom we saw on the other side near the mouth of the port. After they had been a while with us they bade us goodby and we made signs to them that they should go and get us some fish with two hooks which I gave them. They apparently understood us clearly, but they brought us nothing and showed very little appreciation for the hooks, because their method of fishing is with nets.
On Tuesday, April 2, the Anza expedition continued along the southeast shore of San Pablo Bay, the south bank of Carquinez Strait, and halted on Walnut Creek, near Pacheco (the place called Santa Angela de Fulgino by Crespi). Water was scarce; no mention is made of crossing any creeks during the march until they arrived at Walnut Creek in the evening.
The descriptions of the vegetation along Carquinez Strait are somewhat ambiguous. It will be remembered that the impression given by Crespi for this stretch is one of total absence of trees. Anza says (A):
... for half a league up the river [by which he means Carquinez Strait] we kept very close to the Sierra which we have had on our right and which we skirted until yesterday. And we now again came to have it on the same side, so improved in abundance of firewood, and timber of oak and live oak that all its canyons are well provided with one and the other, the very opposite of what is seen on the other side of the river [i.e., the north shore of the strait], where in four leagues we have not seen a single tree.
In describing the strait Font (F2) says:
In some places its banks are very precipitous, and in others it has a narrow beach on which, near its mouth [i.e. the western end], there are great piles of fresh-water mussels. The hills which form this channel are without trees, but those on this side have plentiful pasturage, while those on the other side appeared bald, with little grass, the earth being reddish in color.