Transcriber’s Note:

The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

Burt, sc.

THE LAND OF GOLD;
OR,
Three Years in California.

BY

REV. WALTER COLTON, U. S. N.,

AUTHOR OF “SHIP AND SHORE,” &c.

New York:

D. W. EVANS & CO., 677 BROADWAY.

1860.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year Eighteen Hundred and fifty,

By S. A. ROLLO & COMPANY,

In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York.

TO

GEN. MARIANO GUADALUPE VALLEJO,

ONE OF CALIFORNIA’S DISTINGUISHED SONS,

IN WHOM

THE INTERESTS OF FREEDOM, HUMANITY, AND EDUCATION

HAVE FOUND AN ABLE ADVOCATE AND MUNIFICENT BENEFACTOR

This Volume

IS MOST RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED

BY HIS FRIEND

THE AUTHOR.

PREFACE.

Many events of moment occurred in California during my residence of three years in that country, and which were sketched in a journal kept by me at the time. They are interspersed with anecdotes and incidents of a less general concern, but which may not be without some interest with the reader, as affording a clue to the leading features of society, and traits of individual character. The circle of engaging objects in a community, just emerging into the refinements of civilization, is never broad; but every phase in the great change going on possesses an intense individuality, and leaves its ineffaceable impression, like a ship sweeping a solitary sea, or a bird scaling a sunset cloud. California will be no more what she has been: the events of a few years have carried her through the progressive changes of a century. She has sprung at once from the shackles of colonial servitude to all the advantages and dignities of a sovereign state.

Her emigrants are rushing from every continent and isle; they crest every mountain, they cover every sea; they sweep in like a cloud from the Pacific, they roll down like a torrent from the slopes of the Sierra Nevada. They crowd to her bosom to gather gold; their hammers and drills, their mattocks and spades divert the deep stream, and are echoed from a thousand caverned hills; the level plain, the soaring cliff and wombed mountain, give up their glowing treasures. But the gifts of nature here are not confined to her sparkling sands and veined rocks, they extend to the productive forces of her soil; they lie along her water-courses, through her verdant valleys, and wave in her golden grain; they reel in her vintage, they blush in her fruits, while her soft zephyrs, as they float the landscape, scatter perfume from their odorous wings.

But with all these gifts disease is here with its pale victims, and sorrow with its willow-wove shrine. There is no land less relieved by the smiles and soothing cares of woman. If Eden with its ambrosial fruits and guiltless joys was still sad till the voice of woman mingled with its melodies, California, with all her treasured hills and streams, must be cheerless till she feels the presence of the same enchantress. It is woman alone that can make a home for the human heart, and evoke from the recesses of nature the bright and beautiful: where her footsteps light, the freshest flowers spring; where her voice swells, the softest echoes wake: her smiles garland the domestic hearth; her sympathy melts through the deepest folds of grief; her love clothes the earth with light. When night invests the heaven, when the soft pleiads in their storm-rocked cradle sleep, and the sentinel stars on their watch-towers wane dim, her vigil flame still pours its faithful beam, still struggles with the encroaching darkness till the day-spring and the shadows flee away. Of all these sources of solace and hope multitudes in California are now bereft; but the ties of kindred, the quick-winged ship, and the steed of flame, on his iron-paved track, will soon secure them these priceless gifts. The miner, returning from his toil, will yet half forget the labors of the day in the greetings of his home:

“At length his lonely cot appears in view,

Beneath the shelter of an aged tree;

Th’ expectant wee things, toddlin’, stacher thro’

To meet their dad, wi’ flichterin noise an’ glee.

His wee bit ingle, blinkin’ bonnily,

His clean hearth-stane, his thriftie wifie’s smile,

The lisping infant prattling on his knee,

Does a’ his weary carking cares beguile,

An’ makes him quite forget his labor an’ his toil.”

Philadelphia, July, 1850.

W. C.

CONTENTS.

LIST OF PORTRAITS.

[Captain John A. Sutter.]

[Thomas O. Larkin, Esq.]

[Hon. J. C. Fremont.]

Hon. Wm. M. Gwin.

[Hon. G. W. Wright.]

Jacob R. Snyder.

A LIST
OF THE DELEGATES IN CONVENTION
ASSEMBLED AT MONTEREY, UPPER CALIFORNIA, SEPTEMBER AND OCTOBER, A. D. 1849.

THREE YEARS IN CALIFORNIA.

CHAPTER I.

THE FLAG.—MEETING OF CITIZENS.—DISPOSITION OF FORCES.—COL. FREMONT’S BAND.—ALCALDE OF MONTEREY.—INDIAN MOTHER.—MILITARY LEADERS.—A CALIFORNIA FARM.

A few words will place within the clear comprehension of the reader, the posture of public affairs in California at the time my journal opens. The U. S. flag was raised at Monterey and San Francisco on the 10th of July, 1846. This event was wholly unexpected by the Californians, and struck the public heart with the deepest surprise; other causes of alarm and apprehension faded into shadow in the presence of this decisive measure; they were the admonitory vibrations, but here was the earthquake itself. The people were more astounded than indignant, and quite as intent over problems of preservation as measures of resistance.

At a public meeting held at Monterey, in which the patriotism, talents, and sagacity of the country were largely represented, the question of throwing the territory under the protection of England, through the naval forces commanded by Admiral Seymour, who was on the coast at the time, was excitingly discussed. But this proposition received its quietus under the successful railery of Don Raphael, of Monterey. “Our object,” said this witty counsellor, “is to preserve our country; but she is gone,—California is lost to us: and this proposal to invoke the protection of England, is only to seek another owner. The redress is worthy of the market-woman: a dog had robbed her hamper of a leg of mutton, and she sent another dog more powerful after him to get it away; when asked what good that would do her, she replied, it would be some satisfaction to see the first dog deprived of the stolen leg. And so it is with us; the mutton is gone, and a choice of the dog only remains: others may prefer the bull-dog, but I prefer the regular hound; he has outstripped the other in the chase, and so let him have the game.” The convention broke up without adopting any decisive measures; leaving each one to act as his impulses or convictions of duty suggested.

The military forces of the country were at this time under the command of Gen. José Castro, an officer of high pretensions, but utterly deficient in strength and steadiness of purpose, and that capacity which can work out important results with slender and inapposite means. His followers had gathered to him with as little discipline, sobriety, and order, as would characterize a bear-hunt. Their prime impulse lay in the excitement which the camp presented. It was the same thing to them whether their weapon was a rifle or a guitar,—whether they were going to a skirmish or a fandango. With six or eight hundred of these waltzing warriors Gen. Castro was now on his march into the southern department, with the evident purpose of taking up his position near the Pueblo de los Angeles.

Such was the posture of affairs when Com. Stockton resolved to rest in no half-way measures. The wave had been set in motion and must roll on, or its returning force might sweep him and his temporary garrisons into the Pacific. And yet aggressive measures in the present condition of the squadron seemed to border on rashness. The Portsmouth, under Commander Montgomery, must be left at San Francisco to garrison the posts occupied by the flag; the Savannah, commanded by Capt. Mervin, must remain here to hold Monterey; the Warren, under Commander Hull, was at Mazatlan; only the Congress, Lieut. Livingston commanding, and the Cyane, under Commander Du Pont, remained. With the crews of these, and a hundred and sixty men under Col. Fremont, California was to be conquered and held, and this too in the presence or defeat of a military force that had the entire resources of the country at their command. But a gallant purpose will often achieve what a questioning prudence would relinquish. The mountain torrent, with its impetuosity, sweeps away the barrier which effectually obstructs the level stream.

Monday, July 27. The bustle of preparation is active in the squadron. Commander Du Pont received orders last evening to have the Cyane ready for sea in twenty-four hours. She has tripped this afternoon, and is off for San Diego, though it has been given out on shore that she is bound elsewhere, but this is a war-stratagem. She has on board Col. Fremont and a hundred and fifty of his riflemen. The wind is fresh, and they are by this time cleverly sea-sick, and lying about the deck in a spirit of resignation that would satisfy the non-resistant principles of a Quaker. Two or three resolute old women might tumble the whole of them into the sea. But they will rally before they reach their port, and see that their rifles spring true to their trust.

The colonel is a man of small stature, of slender but wiry formation, and with a countenance indicative of decision and firmness. This is the fifth time he has crossed the continent in connection with his scientific purposes. His enterprises are full of hardship, peril, and the wildest romance. To sleep under the open heaven, and depend on one’s rifle for food, is coming about as near the primitive state of the hunter as a civilized man can well get; and yet this life, in his case, is adorned with the triumphs of science. The colonel and his band are to land at San Diego, secure horses, and advance upon the position of Gen. Castro, at los Angeles.

“War’s great events lie so in Fortune’s scale,

That oft a feather’s weight may kick the beam.”

Tuesday, July 28. Com. Stockton informed me to-day that I had been appointed Alcalde of Monterey and its jurisdiction. I had dreamed in the course of my life, as most people have, of the thousand things I might become, but it never entered my visions that I should succeed to the dignity of a Spanish alcalde. I much preferred my berth on board the Congress, and that the judicial functions in question should continue to be discharged by the two intelligent gentlemen, Purser R. M. Price and Dr. Edward Gilchrist, upon whom they had been devolved. But the services of these officers were deemed indispensable to the efficiency of the ships to which they were attached. This left me no alternative; my trunks were packed, my books boxed, and in an hour I was on shore, a guest in the house of our consul, T. O. Larkin, Esq., whose munificent hospitalities reach every officer of the squadron, and every functionary in the interest of the flag. This is the more appreciated from the fact that there is not a public table or hotel in all California. High and low, rich and poor, are thrown together on the private liberality of the citizens. Though a quasi war exists, all the amenities and courtesies of life are preserved; your person, life, and liberty, are as sacred at the hearth of the Californian as they would be at your own fireside. He will never betray you; the rights of hospitality, in his generous judgment, require him to peril his own life in defence of yours. He may fight you on the field, but in his family, you may dance with his daughters, and he will himself wake the waltzing string.

Wednesday, July 29. The sloop-of-war Levant, under Commander Page, sailed to-day, with Com. Sloat on board, for the United States. We gave the commodore a parting salute. He has rendered the squadron under his command efficient, and preserved harmony among the officers. The expediency of his measures in California will be canvassed elsewhere. He acted on the light and intelligence within his reach. If war has been declared, the laurel awaits him.

The Levant takes home in her my friend, Lieut. T——: he has resigned his commission in the navy, and takes orders in the church. He is a pretty good classical scholar, and has made himself familiar with the principles of biblical exegesis. All this has been accomplished during those few leisure hours which the duties of a watch-officer leave one at sea. It is seemingly reversing the order of things for the navy to supply the church with spiritual teachers. But few, however, have left the deck for the pulpit; a much larger number have reached it from the diagrams and drills of West Point. Among them are some of our most eloquent and impressive preachers. Of this class is the present Bishop of Ohio.

We have all been busy in writing letters home, and shall make up a pretty large mail, filled with tender recollections, and overflowing with the California news. How the intelligence of our proceedings here will strike our friends and the country at large, is mere matter of conjecture. We are acting, however, not only in view of the alleged collision between the American and Mexican forces on the Rio Grande, but in reference to the anarchy and confusion into which this country has been thrown by a revolution which did not originate with us.

Thursday, July 30. To-day I entered on the duties of my office as alcalde of Monterey: my jurisdiction extends over an immense extent of territory, and over a most heterogeneous population. Almost every nation has, in some emigrant, a representative here—a representative of its peculiar habits, virtues, and vices. Here is the reckless Californian, the half-wild Indian, the roving trapper of the West, the lawless Mexican, the licentious Spaniard, the scolding Englishman, the absconding Frenchman, the luckless Irishman, the plodding German, the adventurous Russian, and the discontented Mormon. All have come here with the expectation of finding but little work and less law. Through this discordant mass I am to maintain order, punish crime, and redress injuries.

Friday, July 31. Nearly all the houses in Monterey are of one story, with a corridor. The walls are built of adobes, or sun-baked brick, with tiled roofs. The centre is occupied by a large hall, to which the dining-room and sleeping apartments seem mere appurtenances. Every thing is in subordination to the hall, and this is designed and used for dancing. It has a wood floor, and springs nightly to the step of those who are often greeted in the whirl of their amusements, by the risen sun. The dance and a dashing horse are the two objects which overpower all others in interest with the Californians. The fiddle has been silent since our flag went up, from the fact that many of the gentlemen have left to join Gen. Castro. But if they return, though covered with disaster, the fiddle will be called upon to resume its fantastic functions. You might as well attempt to extinguish a love of air in a life-preserver as the dancing propensity in this people.

Saturday, Aug. 1. The Congress has sailed to-day, with all her marines and full complement of men, for San Pedro. Com. Stockton intends to land there with a force of some three hundred, march to the Pueblo de los Angeles, capture that important place, and fall upon Gen. Castro, who, it is now understood, has posted himself, with some eight hundred soldiers, in a pass a few miles below. The general will find his southern retreat cut off by Col. Fremont’s riflemen and the sailors of the Cyane, his western route obstructed by the Colorado, while the forces of the Congress will bear down upon him from the north. He has seemingly no escape, and must fight or capitulate. But his sagacity, his thorough knowledge of the country, and his fleet horses, may extricate him. We shall know in a few days; the interest felt here in the result is most intense. Many mothers have sons and many wives husbands involved in the issue.

Sunday, Aug. 2. I officiated to-day on board the Savannah. It is much to the credit of the officers of this ship that though without a chaplain, they have had, during a three years’ cruise, their religious services regularly on the Sabbath. Four of their number, two lieutenants, the surgeon, and master, are professors of religion, and exert a deep influence through their consistent piety. Their Sabbath exercise has consisted in reading prayers, selections from the Scriptures, and a brief, pertinent sermon. They have had, also, their Sabbath-school. Such facts as these will win for the navy a larger share of public confidence than the capture of forty barbaric fortresses. The American people love valor, but they love religion also. They will confer their highest honors only on him who combines them both.

Monday, Aug. 3. An Indian woman of good appearance came to our office to-day, stating that she had been for two years past a domestic in a Mexican family near Monterey; that she had, during this time, lost her husband, and now wished to marry again; but wished, before she did this, to recover her child, which was forcibly detained in the family in which she had served. It appeared that the father of this family had baptized her child, and claimed, according to custom here, a sort of guardianship over it, as well as a right to a portion of its services.

I asked her if her child would be kindly treated where it now was: she said she thought so; but added, she was a mother, and wanted it with her. We told her as she was going to marry again, she had better perhaps leave the child for the present; and if she found her husband to be a good, industrious man, and disposed to furnish her with a comfortable home, she might call again at our office, and we would get her child. She went away with that mild look of contentment which is as near a smile as any expression which lights an Indian’s face.

Tuesday, Aug. 4. The military chieftains, who have successively usurped the government of California, have arbitrarily imposed such duties on foreign imports as their avarice or exigency suggested. A few examples will be sufficient to show the spirit and character of these imposts. Unbleached cottons, which cost in the United States six cents the yard, cost here fifty, and shirtings cost seventy-five. Plain knives and forks cost ten dollars the dozen; coarse cowhide shoes three dollars the pair; the cheapest tea three dollars the pound; and a pair of common truck-wheels seventy-five dollars. The duty alone on the coarsest hat, even if made of straw, is three dollars.

The revenues derived from these enormous imposts have passed into the pockets of a few individuals, who have placed themselves, by violence or fraud, at the head of the government, and have never reached the public in any beneficial form. These exactions, enforced by an irresponsible tyranny, have kept California poor, have crushed all enterprise, and have rolled back the tide of emigration from her soil as the resisting rock the rushing stream. But the barriers are now broken, and broken forever. California is free,—free of Mexican rule and all domestic usurpers.

Wednesday, Aug. 5. We have in one apartment of our prison two Californians, confined for having robbed a United States courier, on his way from Monterey to San Francisco, with public dispatches. They have not yet been tried. Yesterday they applied to me for permission to have their guitars. They stated that their situation was very lonely, and they wanted something to cheer it. Their request was complied with; and last evening, when the streets were still, and the soft moonlight melted through the grates of their prison, their music streamed out upon the quiet air with wonderful sweetness and power. Their voices were in rich harmony with their instruments, and their melodies had a wild and melancholy tone. They were singing, for aught they knew, their own requiem.

Thursday, Aug. 6. It sounds strange to an American, and much more so to an Englishman, to hear Californians talk of farms. They never speak of acres, or even miles; they deal only in leagues. A farm of four or five leagues is considered quite small. It is not so large, in the conception of this people, as was the one-acre farm of Horace in the estimation of the Romans. Capt. Sutter’s farm, in the valley of the Sacramento, is sixty miles long. The Californians speak in the same way of the stock on their farms. Two thousand horses, fifteen thousand head of cattle, and twenty thousand sheep, are only what a thrifty farmer should have before he thinks of killing or selling. They are to be his productive stock, on which he should not encroach, except in an emergency. Only fancy a farm covering sixty miles in length! Why, a man would want a railroad through it for his own private use. Get out of the way, ye landlords of England and patroons of Amsterdam, with your boroughs and dykes, and give place to the Californian with his sixty mile sweep!

Friday, Aug. 7. The Mormon ship Brooklyn, which we left at Honolulu, has arrived at San Francisco, and her passengers have debarked on the shores of that magnificent bay. They have not yet selected their lands. The natives hold them in great horror. They seem to think cannibalism among the least of their enormities. They consider the term Mormon the most branding epithet that can be applied to a man. A mother complained to me, a few days since, that a gentleman in Monterey had struck her son and called him a Mormon. She dwelt with great earnestness on the opprobrious character of the epithet, and appeared to consider its application to her son a higher crime than that of his fist. I told her what sort of people these Mormons were; but it was to her as if I had represented Satan as an angel of light. I lectured the wrong-doer.

Saturday, Aug. 8. Capt. Fauntleroy, of the Savannah, and Maj. Snyder, with fifty mounted men under their command, occupy San Juan, which lies inland about thirty miles from Monterey. A report reached them a few days since, that a hundred wild Indians had descended upon the town of San José and driven off over two hundred horses. They started immediately with twenty men, well mounted, got upon their trail, and came up with them at a distance of sixty miles. The Indians finding themselves hotly pressed, left their horses and took to the bush, throwing back upon their pursuers the most wild and frantic imprecations. Three or four of their number only were killed. The denseness of the forest and the approach of night rendered further pursuit impracticable.

The horses were all recaptured and brought back to their owners, who received them with acclamations of surprise and gratitude. This was the first time, they said, that their property had been rescued from savages by the government, and they run up the American flag. This prompt interference of Capt. Fauntleroy and Maj. Snyder will do more to win the confidence of the Californians than forty orations delivered in the most liquid Spanish that ever rolled from a Castilian tongue. There is something in action which the most simple can appreciate, and which the most crafty cannot gainsay.

Sunday, Aug. 9. I officiated to-day on board the Savannah. The weather was pleasant, and several gentlemen from the shore attended. There was no service in the Roman Catholic Church, owing to the absence of one of the priests and the infirmities of the other. But when there is service, only a few of the people attend. It is sometimes, however, forced upon them in the shape of penance. When a friend of mine here was married, it was necessary that he should confess. The penance imposed on him for his previous negligences and transgressions was, that he should attend church seven Sabbaths.

CHAPTER II.

FECUNDITY OF THE CALIFORNIANS.—FIRST INTELLIGENCE OF THE WAR.—WILD INDIANS ON BOARD SHIP.—THE CHIEF.—FIRST NEWSPAPER PUBLISHED IN CALIFORNIA.—RAISING THE MATERIALS.—THE RIVAL SUITORS.—FLIGHT OF GEN. CASTRO.—A CALIFORNIAN ON HORSEBACK.

Monday, Aug. 10. The fecundity of the Californians is remarkable, and must be attributed in no small degree to the effects of the climate. It is no uncommon sight to find from fourteen to eighteen children at the same table, with their mother at their head. There is a lady of some note in Monterey, who is the mother of twenty-two living children. The youngest is at the breast, and must soon, it is said, relinquish his place to a new-comer, who will, in all probability, be allowed only the same brevity of bliss.

There is a lady in the department below who has twenty-eight children, all living, in fine health, and who may share the “envied kiss” with others yet to come. What a family—what a wife—what a mother! I have more respect for the shadow of that woman than for the living presence of the mincing being who raises a whole village if she has one child, and then puts it to death with sugar-plums. A woman with one child is like a hen with one chicken; there is an eternal scratch about nothing.

Tuesday, Aug. 11. A deserter from Gen. Castro’s camp presented himself at my office to-day and gave himself up to the American authorities. He represents the general as in rather a forlorn condition. His troops, it appears, are daily deserting him. His present force is estimated at less than six hundred. He is anxious to fly into Mexico, but is unable to raise a sufficient number of volunteers. The expectation here is, that he will surrender to Com. Stockton.

The British brig-of-war Spy anchored in the harbor of Monterey this evening. She is from San Blas, with dispatches for Admiral Seymour. Her officers are perfectly silent as to news from the United States and Mexico. She leaves in a few hours for the Collingwood at the Sandwich Islands. She has, undoubtedly, news of moment, but will not reveal it.

Wednesday, Aug. 12. The U. S. ship Warren, under Commander Hull, arrived this afternoon in thirty days from Mazatlan, bringing the eventful intelligence that war had been declared between the United States and Mexico. The mysterious silence of the officers of the Spy is now explained. But their secrecy has availed them for only twenty-four hours.

The war news produced a profound sensation here. The whole population were instantly thrown into groups in the corridors and at the corners of the streets. The hum of voices continued late into the night. It was an extinguisher on the hopes of those who had looked to Mexico for aid, or who had clung to the expectation that the American government would repudiate our possession of California, and order the squadron withdrawn. They now relinquish all idea of a return to their old political connection, and appear resigned to their fate, which seems inevitable. These disappointed families compose but a part of the population; another portion has become thoroughly wearied with revolutions, and are prepared to countenance almost any government that promises stability.

Thursday, Aug. 13. The Warren sailed this morning for San Pedro, to convey the war intelligence to Com. Stockton. It will throw a new aspect upon his operations in California. Expediency gives place to moral necessity. We have now a double motive for exertion—national honor, which looks at home, and an enlarged philanthropy, which looks here. It is of but little moment what the ultimate action of our government may be in reference to California. It cannot change her destiny. She is severed forever from Mexico. Should our government attempt to throw her back on that country, she will not stay thrown back. The rebound will carry her further off than ever. She is on a wave which will not ebb till this generation have mouldered in their graves.

Friday, Aug. 14. Sixty of a tribe of wild Indians, who live in the mountains, about two hundred miles distant, made a descent a few days since upon a farm within thirty miles of Monterey, and carried off a hundred horses. Twenty of the tribe, with the chief, remained behind to secure further booty. Intelligence of this having reached Capt. Mervin, he dispatched a mounted force, apprehended them in their ambush, and brought them to Monterey, and delivered them over to our court for trial.

They were as wild a looking set of fellows as ever entered a civil tribunal. The chief was over seven feet high, with an enormous blanket wrapped round him and thrown over the shoulder like a Spanish cloak, which set forth his towering form to the best advantage. His long black hair streamed in darkness down to his waist. His features strikingly resembled those of Gen. Jackson. His forehead was high, his eye full of fire, and his mouth betrayed great decision. His step was firm; his age must have been about fifty. He entered the court with a civil but undaunted air. When asked why he permitted the men of his tribe to steal horses, he replied that the men who took the horses were not properly members of his tribe, that they had recently attached themselves to him, and now, that he had found them horse-thieves, he should cut them. I could get at no satisfactory evidence that he, or the twenty with him, had actively assisted those who took off the horses. I delivered them over to Capt. Mervin, who commanded the military occupation of the town.

The United States troops were formed into a hollow square, and they were marched into the centre where they expected to be shot, and still not a muscle shook, and the features of each were as set as if chiselled from marble. What must have been their unbetrayed surprise, when Capt. Mervin told them they were acquitted by the tribunal! He then told the chief he should recognize him as king of the tribe—that he must not permit any of his men to commit the slightest depredations on the citizens, that he should hold him responsible for the conduct of his tribe, and that he must come and report himself and the condition of his tribe every two moons. To all this the chief fully assented.

They were then taken on board the frigate, where the crew had been mustered for the occasion. Here they were told how many ships, men, and guns we had at our command; so much to inspire them with awe: and now for their good will. The whole party were rigged out with fresh blankets, and red handkerchiefs for each, which they use as a turban. The chief was attired in a uniform of one of our tallest and stoutest officers: navy buttons, epaulets, sword, cap with a gold band, boots, and spurs; and a silver chain was put about his neck, to which a medal was attached, recognizing him as the high chief of the tribe. He looked every inch a chief. The band struck up Hail Columbia, and they departed, vowing eternal allegiance to the Americans. The sailors were delighted with these savages, and half envied them their wild life.

Saturday, Aug. 15. To-day the first newspaper ever published in California made its appearance. The honor, if such it be, of writing its Prospectus, fell to me. It is to be issued on every Saturday, and is published by Semple and Colton. Little did I think when relinquishing the editorship of the North American in Philadelphia, that my next feat in this line would be off here in California. My partner is an emigrant from Kentucky, who stands six feet eight in his stockings. He is in a buckskin dress, a fox-skin cap; is true with his rifle, ready with his pen, and quick at the type-case.

He created the materials of our office out of the chaos of a small concern, which had been used by a Roman Catholic monk in printing a few sectarian tracts. The press was old enough to be preserved as a curiosity; the mice had burrowed in the balls; there were no rules, no leads, and the types were rusty and all in pi. It was only by scouring that the letters could be made to show their faces. A sheet or two of tin were procured, and these, with a jack-knife, were cut into rules and leads. Luckily we found, with the press, the greater part of a keg of ink; and now came the main scratch for paper. None could be found, except what is used to envelop the tobacco of the cigar smoked here by the natives. A coaster had a small supply of this on board, which we procured. It is in sheets a little larger than the common-sized foolscap. And this is the size of our first paper, which we have christened the Californian.

Though small in dimensions, our first number is as full of news as a black-walnut is of meat. We have received by couriers, during the week, intelligence from all the important military posts through the territory. Very little of this has transpired; it reaches the public for the first time through our sheet. We have, also, the declaration of war between the United States and Mexico, with an abstract of the debate in the senate. A crowd was waiting when the first sheet was thrown from the press. It produced quite a little sensation. Never was a bank run upon harder; not, however, by people with paper to get specie, but exactly the reverse. One-half of the paper is in English, the other in Spanish. The subscription for a year is five dollars; the price of a single sheet is twelve and a half cents; and is considered cheap at that.

Sunday, Aug. 16. A brilliant day, and no sounds to disturb its tranquillity save the moan of the pine-grove as the wind sighs through it, and the thunder of the breaking waves on the beach. We had divine service on board the Savannah,—a much more grateful occupation to me than the investigation of crimes in the Alcaldean court.

Till the Americans took possession of Monterey, the Sabbath was devoted to amusement. The Indians gave themselves up to liquor, the Mexicans and Californians to dancing. Whether the bottle or the fiddle had the most votaries it would be difficult to say. But both had so many, that very few were left for the church. Some, however, attended mass before they dressed for the ball-room. But their worship and their waltz came so close together, that a serious thought had only time to dodge out of the way.

Monday, Aug. 17. A complaint was lodged in my court this morning, involving the perplexities of a love-matter. The complainant is a Californian mother, who has a daughter rather remarkable for her personal attractions. She has two rival suitors, both anxious to marry her, and each, of course, extremely jealous of the attentions of the other, and anxious to outdo him in the fervency and force of his own assiduities. The family are consequently annoyed, and desire the court to interfere in some way for their repose. I issued an order that neither of the rival suitors should enter the house of the complainant, unless invited by her, till the girl had made up her mind which she would marry; for it appeared she was very much perplexed, being equally pleased with both: and now, I suppose, roses and all the other silent tokens of affection will pass plenty as protestations before.

“The course of true love never did run smooth.”

Tuesday, Aug. 18. The ado made to reach the hand of the undecided girl shows how very rare such specimens of beauty are in these parts. She has nothing to recommend her as a sober, industrious, frugal housekeeper. She knows how to dance, to play on the guitar and sing, and that is all. She would be as much lost in the kitchen as a dolphin on dry land. She would do to dress flowers in the balcony of a millionaire, but as the wife of a Californian, her children would go without a stocking, and her husband without a shirt. Her two suitors own, probably, the apparel which they have on and the gay horses which they ride, but neither of them has a real in his pocket. Yet they are quite ready to be married: just as if the honey-moon had a horn of plenty instead of a little urn of soft light, which gushes for a few brief nights, and then leaves its devotee like one of the foolish virgins, whose lamp had gone out!

Wednesday, Aug. 19. Several of Gen. Castro’s officers have just arrived in town, delivered themselves up, and been put upon parole. They state that the general’s camp, near the Pueblo de los Angeles, broke up a few days since in the night; that the general and Gov. Pico had started for Sonora with fifty men and two hundred horses; that their flight was hastened by the approach of Com. Stockton, with the forces of the Congress, on the north, and Maj. Fremont, with his riflemen, on the south. The commodore had reached, it appears, within a few hours’ march of his camp. The general had taken the precaution to send forward in advance a portion of his horses, to serve as fresh relays on his arrival. He expects to leave Col. Fremont on the right, and will be obliged to cross an immense sandy plain, lying between the Pueblo and Red River, where his horses will be for two days without water or food. He is to cross Red River, a broad and rapid stream, on a raft, the construction of which will detain him a day; his horses will swim, for California horses are trained to rush over mountain-torrents. The only hope of his capture lies in his detention at the river, unless Col. Fremont, anticipating his flight, has thrown a force south to intercept him. Once across the river he is safe; nothing but a tornado, or a far-striking thunder-bolt, can overtake a Californian on horseback.

Thursday, Aug. 20. An Indian was brought before me to-day, charged with having stolen a horse. He was on his way, it appears, to Monterey, and when within thirty miles, his own horse having given out, he turned him adrift, and lassoed one belonging to another man, which he rode in, and then set him at liberty as he had his own. The owner arrived soon after, recovered his horse, and had the Indian arrested, who confessed the whole affair, and only plead in excuse that his own horse had become too tired to go further. I sentenced the Indian to three months’ labor on the public works. He seemed at first very much surprised at what he considered the severity of the sentence; but said he should work his time out faithfully, and give me no further trouble. As he was half naked, I ordered him comfortable apparel, and then delivered him over to Capt. Mervin, to be employed in excavating a trench around the newly-erected fort.

Friday, Aug. 21. A Californian is most at home in his saddle; there he has some claims to originality, if not in character then in costume. His hat, with its conical crown and broad rim, throws back the sun’s rays from its dark, glazed surface. It is fastened on by a band which passes under his chin, and rests on a red handkerchief, which turbans his head, from beneath which his black locks flow out upon the wind.

The collar of his linen rolls over that of his blue spencer, which is open under the chin, is fitted closely to his waist, and often ornamented with double rows of buttons and silk braid. His trowsers, which are fastened around his loins by a red sash, are open to the knee, to which his buckskin leggins ascend over his white cotton drawers. His buckskin shoes are armed with heavy spurs, which have a shaft some ten inches long, at the end of which is a roller, which bristles out into six points, three inches long, against which steel plates rattle with a quick, sharp sound.

His feet rest in stirrups of wood, carved from the solid oak, and which are extremely strong and heavy. His saddle rises high fore and aft, and is broadly skirted with leather, which is stamped into figures, through the interstices of which red and green silk flash out with gay effect. The reins of his bridle are thick and narrow, and the head-stall is profusely ornamented with silver plate. His horse, with his long flowing mane, arching neck, broad chest, full flanks, and slender legs, is full of fire. He seldom trots, and will gallop all day without seeming to be weary. On his back is the Californian’s home. Leave him this home, and you may have the rest of the world.

Saturday, Aug. 22. Our little paper, the Californian, made its appearance again to-day. Many subscribers have sent in their names since our last, and all have paid in advance. It is not larger than a sheet of foolscap; but this foolscap parallel stops, I hope, with the shape. Be this as it may, its appearance is looked for with as much interest as was the arrival of the mail by the New Yorkers and Bostonians in those days when a moon waxed and waned over its transit.

Sunday, Aug. 23. Officiated to-day on board the Savannah. There is no Protestant church here. Emigrants have generally become Roman Catholics. Policy, rather than persuasion or conviction, suggested it. Men who make no pretensions to religion, have nothing to give up in the shape of creeds or conscientious scruples. They are like driftwood, which runs into the eddy which is the strongest; or like migratory birds, which light where they can find the best picking and the softest repose. The woodpecker never taps an undecayed tree; and a worldling seldom embraces a thoroughly sound faith.

CHAPTER III.

A THIEF OBEYING ORDERS.—GAME.—NO PENITENTIARY SYSTEM.—THE CALIFORNIA CART ON A GALA DAY.—THE RUNAWAY DAUGHTER.—FAITH OF THE INDIANS.—RETURN FROM THE WAR.—FIRST TRIAL BY JURY.—INDIAN AND HIS SQUAW ON THE HUNT.—WHALES IN THE BAY.—THE TWO GAMBLERS.—LADIES ON HORSEBACK.—MERRIMENT IN DEATH.—THE ENGLISHMAN AND HIS MISTRESS.

Monday, Aug. 24. One of our officers, bound with dispatches to San Juan, fell in with an Indian to-day, on a horse, without saddle or bridle, save a lasso; and knowing from this circumstance that he had stolen the animal, ordered him to come to Monterey and deliver himself up to the alcalde, and then passed on. So on the Indian came with the horse, and presented himself at our office.

I asked him what he wanted; he told me the order he had received; but I could not at first comprehend its import, and inquired of him if he knew why the order had been given him. He replied, that it was in consequence of his having taken the horse of another man. I asked him if he had stolen the animal; he said yes, he had taken him, but had brought him in here and given himself up as ordered; that he could not escape, as the Americans were all over California. I told him stealing a horse was a crime, and sentenced him to three months’ labor on the public works. He was half naked. I ordered him comfortable clothes, and gave him a plug of tobacco, and in an hour he was at his task, chewing and cheerful. He is not wanting in intelligence; and if he only had as much respect for the rights of property as he has for military orders, he might be a useful member of the community.

Oats in California grow wild. The last crop plants the next, without the aid of man. The yield is sufficient to repay the labors of the husbandman, but is gratuitously thrown at his feet. But the fecundity of nature here is not confined to the vegetable kingdom, it is characteristic of the animals that sport in wild life over these hills and valleys. A sheep has two lambs a year; and if twins, four: and one litter of pigs follows another so fast that the squealers and grunters are often confounded.

Wednesday, Aug. 26. The Californians breakfast at eight, dine at twelve, take tea at four, supper at eight, and then go to bed—unless there is a fandango. The supper is the most substantial meal of the three, and would visit anybody but a Californian with the nightmare. But their constant exercise in the open air and on horseback gives them the digestion of the ostrich.

The only meat consumed here to any extent is beef. It is beef for breakfast, beef for dinner, and beef for supper. A pig is quite a rarity; and as for chickens, they are reserved for the sick. The woods are full of partridges and hare; the streams and lagoons are covered with ducks and wild geese; and the harbor abounds with the most delicious fish. But no Californian will angle or hunt, while he has a horse or saddle left. And as for the Indians, but very few of them have any hunting gear beyond the bow and arrow; with these they can kill the deer and elk, but a partridge and hare are too shy and too quick. They spear a large salmon which frequents Carmel river, three miles distant, and bring it in to market. This fish is often three feet long, extremely fat, and of a flavor that takes from Lent half the merit of its abstinence. Spearing them is high sport for the Indian, and is another feature in California life.

Thursday, Aug. 27. Nothing puzzles me so much as the absence of a penitentiary system. There are no work-houses here; no buildings adapted to the purpose; no tools, and no trades. The custom has been to fine Spaniards, and whip Indians. The discrimination is unjust, and the punishments ill suited to the ends proposed. I have substituted labor; and have now eight Indians, three Californians, and one Englishman at work making adobes. They have all been sentenced for stealing horses or bullocks. I have given them their task: each is to make fifty adobes a day, and for all over this they are paid. They make seventy-five, and for the additional twenty-five each gets as many cents. This is paid to them every Saturday night, and they are allowed to get with it any thing but rum. They are comfortably lodged and fed by the government. I have appointed one of their number captain. They work in the field; require no other guard; not one of them has attempted to run away.

Friday, Aug. 28. The ox-cart of the Californian is quite unique and primitive. The wheels are cut transversely from the butt-end of a tree, and have holes through the centre for a huge wood axle. The tongue is a long, heavy beam, and the yoke resting on the necks of the oxen, is lashed to their horns, close down to the root; from these they draw, instead of the chest, as with us; and they draw enormous loads, but the animals are large and powerful.

But to return to the cart. On gala days it is swept out, and covered with mats; a deep body is put on, which is arched with hoop-poles, and over these a pair of sheets are extended for a covering. Into this the ladies are tumbled, when three or four yoke of oxen, with as many Indian drivers, and ten times as many dogs, start ahead. The hallooing of the drivers, the barking of the dogs, and the loud laughter of the girls make a common chorus. The quail takes to the covert as the roaring establishment comes on, and even the owl suspends his melancholy note. What has his sad tone to do amid such noise and mirth? It is like the piping cry of an infant amid the revelry and tumult of the carnival.

Saturday, Aug. 29. Four Californians—a girl, her father, mother, and lover, all well clad and good-looking—presented themselves before me to-day. The old man said he had come to reclaim his daughter, who had run away with the young Mexican,—that he had no objection to his marrying her, but this running away with her didn’t look decent. The rash lover stated in his defence that he was ready to marry her, had run away with her for that purpose, had placed her immediately with his sister, and that she was still as chaste and pure as the driven snow. To all this the father and mother assented.

I now expected we should have a wedding at once, and that I might be called upon to officiate. But to my utter surprise, on asking the girl if she insisted on marrying her lover, she declined. She said her escape with him was a wild freak; she had now got over it, and wished to return with her father. This fell like a death-knell on the ears of her lover, who again protested his affection and her purity. Having been once myself a disappointed suitor, I had a fellow feeling for him, and advised the girl to marry him; but she said no, that she had changed her mind: so I delivered her to her father, and told my brother in misfortune he must wait; that a woman who had changed her mind once on such a subject, would change it again.

Sunday, Aug. 30. Several gentlemen and ladies of Monterey were present to-day at our service on board the Savannah. I have it in contemplation to establish a service on shore. There are plenty of halls, which are now used for dancing, and I should have as little scruple in converting one of them into a church, as Father Whitfield had in appropriating to his use the popular airs of the day, when he said he had no notion of letting the devil run away with all the fine tunes. Blessings on the memory of that devoted missionary! He has embalmed in his church melodies that will live when the profane lyres from which they flowed have long since been silent.

The wild Indians here have a vague belief in the soul’s immortality. They say, “as the moon dieth and cometh to life again, so man, though he die, will again live.” But their future state is material; the wicked are to be bitten by serpents, scorched by lightning, and plunged down cataracts; while the good are to hunt their game with bows that never lose their vigor, with arrows that never miss their aim, and in forests where the crystal streams roll over golden sands. Immortal youth is to be the portion of each; and age, and pain, and death, are to be known no more.

Monday, Aug. 31. I am at last forced into a systematic arrangement of my time; without it, I could never get through with my duties. I rise with the sun, read till eight o’clock, and then breakfast, at nine, enter on my duties as alcalde, which confine me till three, P. M., then dine; and at four take my gun and plunge into the woods for exercise and partridges; return at sunset, take tea, and in the evening write up my journal, and an editorial for the Californian.

When the Sabbath comes, I preach; my sermons are composed in the woods, in the court-room, or in bed, just where I can snatch a half hour. I often plan them while some plaintiff is spinning a long yarn about things and matters in general, or some defendant is losing himself in a labyrinth of apologetic circumstances. By this forbearance both are greatly relieved; one disburdens himself of his grievances, the other lightens his guilt, and, in the mean time, my sermon develops itself into a more tangible arrangement. My text might often be—“And he fell among thieves.”

Tuesday, Sept. 1. It is singular how the Californians reckon distances. They will speak of a place as only a short gallop off, when it is fifty or a hundred miles distant. They think nothing of riding a hundred and forty miles in a day, and breaking down three or four horses in doing it, and following this up by the week. They subsist almost exclusively on meat, and when travelling, sleep under the open sky. They drive their ox-carts, loaded with lumber or provisions, two hundred miles to market. Their conceptions seem to annihilate space.

Wednesday, Sept. 2. The officers of Gen. Castro have been permitted to return to their homes, after having taken an oath that they will not, on pain of death, be found in arms against the United States during the existence of the present war. A few, perhaps from national pride, refused at first the oath, but were compelled to take it, or be treated as prisoners of war. They of course preferred the former. The ladies don’t seem to care much about these nice points in military etiquette: they want their husbands at home; and their return, though on parole, is the signal for getting up a ball. A Californian would hardly pause in a dance for an earthquake, and would be pretty sure to renew it, even before its vibrations had ceased. At a wedding they dance for three days and nights, during which time the new-married couple are kept on their feet. No compassion is shown them, as they have so much bliss in reserve.

Thursday, Sept. 3. Dispatches were received this morning, by courier, from Com. Stockton, dated at the Pueblo de los Angeles. They contain his second address to the people of California, which defines the new attitude in which the country is placed by the declaration of war between the United States and Mexico. The address is humane in its tone, expansive and vigorous in its spirit. It has had the salutary effect to set the community at rest, by establishing in the minds of the wavering the full conviction that California is henceforth a part of the United States. Ex-Gov. Pio Pico, it seems, did not escape with Gen. Castro, but has surrendered to the commodore. He is one of the few who commanded the confidence and respect of the public.

Friday, Sept. 4. I empannelled to-day the first jury ever summoned in California. The plaintiff and defendant are among the principal citizens of the country. The case was one involving property on the one side, and integrity of character on the other. Its merits had been pretty widely discussed, and had called forth an unusual interest. One-third of the jury were Mexicans, one-third Californians, and the other third Americans. This mixture may have the better answered the ends of justice, but I was apprehensive at one time it would embarrass the proceedings; for the plaintiff spoke in English, the defendant in French, the jury, save the Americans, Spanish, and the witnesses all the languages known to California. But through the silent attention which prevailed, the tact of Mr. Hartnell, who acted as interpreter, and the absence of young lawyers, we got along very well.

The examination of the witnesses lasted five or six hours; I then gave the case to the jury, stating the questions of fact upon which they were to render their verdict. They retired for an hour, and then returned, when the foreman handed in their verdict, which was clear and explicit, though the case itself was rather complicated. To this verdict, both parties bowed without a word of dissent. The inhabitants who witnessed the trial, said it was what they liked—that there could be no bribery in it—that the opinion of twelve honest men should set the case forever at rest. And so it did, though neither party completely triumphed in the issue. One recovered his property, which had been taken from him by mistake, the other his character, which had been slandered by design. If there is any thing on earth besides religion for which I would die, it is the right of trial by jury.

Saturday, Sept. 5. I encountered on my hunting excursion to-day a wild Indian, with a squaw and papoose. They were on horses, he carrying his bow, with a large quiver of arrows hung at his side, and she with the child in the bunt of her blanket, at the back. They were dashing ahead in the wake of their dogs, which were in hot chase of a deer. The squaw stuck to her fleet animal as firmly as the saddle in which she sat, and took but little heed of the bogs and gullies over which she bounded. His glance was directed to a ridge of rocks, over which he seemed to expect the deer to fly from the field of wild oats through which the chase lay. I watched them till they disappeared in their whirlwind speed over the ridge. Whether the deer fell into their hands or escaped, I know not; but certainly I would not hazard my neck as they did theirs for all the game even in the California forests. But this, to them, is life; they seek no repose between the cradle and the grave.

Sunday, Sept. 6. The bell of the Roman Catholic church, which has been silent some weeks, rung out loud and clear this morning. I directed the prisoners, sentenced to the public works, to be taken to the service. I had given them soap, and sufficient time to clean their clothes, on Saturday; though having but one suit, they had only their blankets for covering while these were washing and drying. With a marine at their head, armed and equipped, they made quite a respectable appearance. Their conduct, during service, was reported to me as very becoming. They may yet reform, and shape their lives after the precepts of morality and religion. My own service was on board the Savannah, where we had the officers of the Erie.

Monday, Sept. 7. We have been looking for a whale-ship, or spouter, as she is called by our sailors, to come in here, and take care of the whales which are blowing around us. One belonging to the genuine old Nantucket line, came to anchor last evening. She had been on the northwest coast in pursuit of the black whale; but found them so wild, owing to the havoc that has been made among them, that she captured but very few.

This morning her boats were lowered, and their crews put off in pursuit of one of these monsters. The fellow plunged as they approached, and was out of sight for some minutes, when he hove up at a distance. “There she blows!” was the cry, and off they darted again; but by the time they had gained the spot another plunge was heard, and only a deep foaming eddy remained. The next time she lifted they were more successful, and lodged one of their harpoons. The reel was soon out, and away the boat flew, like a little car attached to a locomotive. But the harpoon at last slipped its hold, and the whale escaped. The loss seemed proportionate to the bulk of the monster.

Tuesday, Sept. 8. We have had for the last five days hardly an hour of sunshine, owing to the dense fogs which prevail here at this season. These murky vapors fill the whole atmosphere; you seem to walk in them alone, like one threading a mighty forest. A transcendentalist might easily conceive himself a ghost, wandering among the cypresses of a dead world. But, being no ghost or transcendentalist, I had a fire kindled, and found refuge from the fog in its cheerful light and warmth.

Wednesday, Sept. 9. A Californian came into my court in great haste last evening, and complained that another Californian was running away with his oxen. Suspecting the affair had some connection with a gambling transaction, I immediately handed him a warrant for the arrest of the fugitive, when off he started at the top of his speed to execute it. In less than an hour he returned with his prisoner.

I then asked the plaintiff if the oxen were his; he said they were. I asked him of whom he obtained them; he said of the man who attempted to run away with them. I asked him what he gave for them; this was a puzzler, but after hemming and hawing for a minute, he said he had played for them, and won them. I asked him what else he had won of the man; he replied, the poncho, and a thin jacket, both of which he had on. I then ordered them both into the calaboose for the night. The winner, who had apprehended the other, and who, no doubt, expected to get the oxen at once, looked quite confounded.

This morning I had the two gamblers before me: neither of them looked as if he had relished much his prison-couch. I made the winner return all his ill-gotten gains, oxen, poncho, and jacket, and then fined them each five dollars. The one who had served the warrant shrugged his shoulders, as if he had made a great mistake. There was no escape from the judgment, so they paid their fine and departed. The next time they gamble, they will probably settle matters between themselves, without a resort to the alcalde.

Thursday, Sept. 10. My alcalde duties required me to-day to preside at the executive sale of two dwelling-houses and a store. I was about as au fait at the business as Dr. Johnson at the auction of widow Thrales’ brewery, when he informed the bidders, in his towering language, that he offered them, not a few idle vats and worms, but the “potentiality of becoming rich.” The property sold well, forty per cent. higher than it would under the Mexican flag. All real estate has risen since our occupation of the territory. This tells what the community expects in terms which none can mistake. A Californian told me to-day that he considered his lands worth forty thousand dollars more than they were before our flag was hoisted. The old office-holders may, perhaps, grumble at the change, but they whose interest lies in the soil silently exult. They desire no ebb in the present tide of political affairs.

Friday, Sept. 11. An express came in to-day, bringing the intelligence that a thousand Wallawalla Indians had reached the Sacramento from Oregon. They have come, as the express states, to avenge the death of a young chief, who was wantonly and wickedly killed about a year since, by an American emigrant. They belong to a tribe remarkable for their intelligence, hardihood, and valor. Their occupation is that of trappers, and they are thoroughly used to fire-arms. Capt. Mervin has sent a force from the Savannah, and Capt. Montgomery another from the Portsmouth, to arrest their progress. Capt. Ford, with his company of California rangers, who understand the bush-fight, will also be on the spot.

Saturday, Sept. 12. My partner in the “Californian” has been absent several weeks. All the work of the office has devolved upon a sailor, who has set the type for the whole paper, with fingers stiff as the ropes around which they have coiled themselves into seeming fixtures. Yet the “Californian” is out, and makes a good appearance. Who would think, except in these uttermost ends of the earth, of issuing a weekly journal, with only an old tar to set the type, and without a solitary exchange paper! By good fortune, a hunter brought along a copy of the “Oregon Spectator;” it was quite a windfall, though the only intelligence it contained from the United States, was that brought its editor by some overland emigrant. The “Spectator” speaks of the institutions of the “City of Oregon” with as much reverence as if they had the antiquity of the Egyptian Pyramids; when there is scarce a crow’s nest which does not date further back. But age is no certain evidence of merit, since folly runs to seed as fast as wisdom.

CHAPTER IV.

FUNERAL CEREMONIES.—ELECTED ALCALDE.—FLIGHT OF GEN. CASTRO.—LOS ANGELES TAKEN.—OVEN-BATH.—GROG IN A CHIMNEY.—THE FLEA.—FIRST RAIN.—RISING OF THE CALIFORNIANS.—MEASURES OF COM. STOCKTON.—MORMONS.

Sunday, Sept. 13. Officiated to-day on board the Savannah, and called on my way to see a sick child, whose mother seems at a loss whether to grieve or rejoice in prospect of its death. If it dies, she says it will at once become a little angel: if it lives, it will be subject to sorrow and sin. She desires, for her sake, that it may live; but, for its own, that it may die. This balancing between life and death, is common here among mothers. Their full persuasion of an infant’s future bliss, forbids that they should mourn its loss. They therefore put on no weeds, and utter no lamentations. The child, when its pure spirit has fled, is dressed in white, and stainless roses are strewn upon its little shroud. It is borne to the grave as if it were to be laid at the open portal of heaven, and few are the tears which fall on that threshold of immortal bliss.

Monday, Sept. 14. A letter from the Sacramento, received to-day, informs me of the arrival of two thousand emigrants from the United States. They are under the guidance of experienced men, and have been but a little over four months on the way. The Mormons are selecting the site of their city, which they intend shall be the paradise of the west.

Tuesday, Sept. 15. The citizens of Monterey elected me to-day alcalde, or chief magistrate of this jurisdiction—a situation which I have been filling for two months past, under a military commission. It has now been restored to its civil character and functions. Their election is undoubtedly the highest compliment which they can confer; but this token of confidence brings with it a great deal of labor and responsibility. It devolves upon me duties similar to those of mayor of one of our cities, without any of those judicial aids which he enjoys. It involves every breach of the peace, every case of crime, every business obligation, and every disputed land-title within a space of three hundred miles. From every other alcalde’s court in this jurisdiction there is an appeal to this, and none from this to any higher tribunal. Such an absolute disposal of questions affecting property and personal liberty, never ought to be confided to one man. There is not a judge on any bench in England or the United States, whose power is so absolute as that of the alcalde of Monterey.

Wednesday, Sept. 16. The Congress, bearing the broad pennant of Com. Stockton, returned last evening from her trip to the south. She has captured, during her absence, Santa Barbara, San Pedro, and the Pueblo de los Angeles. Over these the American flag is now flying.

Gen. Castro had taken up his position just outside the Pueblo, on an elevation which commands the town and adjacent country. He was well supplied with field-pieces, and had a force of seven hundred men. Com. Stockton landed at San Pedro with three hundred seamen and marines from the Congress, and marched against him. His route, which extended some thirty miles, lay through several narrow passes, which Gen. Castro might easily have defended against a much superior force. But the general kept in his entrenched camp; and informed the commodore by a courier, that if he marched upon the town he would find it the grave of his men. “Then,” said the commodore, “tell the general to have the bells ready to toll in the morning at eight o’clock, as I shall be there at that time.” He was there; but Castro, in the mean time, had broken up his camp, mounted with an armed band, and fled towards Sonora, in Mexico. The town was taken, the American flag hoisted and cheered.

Thursday, Sept. 17. The U. S. ship Cyane, under Commander Du Pont, proceeded from this port to San Diego, took that important place, and landed Col. Fremont, with his riflemen, who hastened to cut off the retreat of Castro. He would have done it could he have anticipated his route; but to overtake him was impossible, as the general had taken the precaution to send on in advance relays of fresh horses, sufficient to take him and his band beyond the reach of any pursuit.

Friday, Sept. 18. A bearer of dispatches from Commodore Stockton to our government is to leave to-morrow morning in the Erie, and we are all busy in writing letters home by him. The Erie is to take the dispatch-bearer to Panama, and then proceed to the Sandwich Islands. We have not received any letters from home since we sailed from Callao; the year has rolled from the buds of spring into the sear leaf of autumn since any intelligence has reached us from those we love. Death may have stricken them into the grave, but the sad tidings is yet a melancholy secret. We ought to have a regular mail between the United States and California. We seem remarkably eager to possess ourselves of foreign territory, and then leave the wild geese to convey all intelligence. If the land is only ours, and those at home can hear from it once in fifty or a hundred years, that will do; a more frequent communication would be quite superfluous. Had we possessed Egypt in the days of Cheops, all information would still be considered seasonable which should come when his pyramid had crumbled.

Saturday, Sept. 19. I encountered to-day a company of Californians on horseback, bound to a pic-nic, each with his lady love on the saddle before him. He, as in duty bound, rides behind, throws his feet forward into the stirrups, his left hand holds the reins, his right encircles and sustains her, and there she rides safe as a robin in its nest; sprigs of evergreen, with wild-flowers, wave in her little hat, and larger clusters in his; both are gayly attired, and smiles of light and love kindle in their dark expressive eyes. Away they gallop over hill and valley, waking the wild echoes of the wood. One of my hunting dogs glanced at them for a while, and seemed so tickled, he had to plunge into the bushes to get rid of his mirth.

Sunday, Sept. 20. At the invitation of Captain Richardson, I preached this afternoon on board the Brooklyn. The crew assembled in the cabin, which the captain had converted for the occasion into a chapel. None attended by compulsion, but all were present of their free will. The good order and respectful attention which prevailed showed the spirit which pervaded the ship, and conveyed a testimony of the wise and Christian conduct of the captain which none could mistake. I have never met with a ship where a greater degree of harmony and alacrity in duty were observable; all this, too, without any resort to physical force; such is the result of moral influence when brought into full play. Give us more of this in the navy.

Monday, Sept. 21. A Californian mother came to me to-day to plead her son out of prison. He had driven off a herd of cattle which had another owner, and sold them, and I had sentenced him to the public works for a year. She felt as a good mother must feel for her son, and plead for his liberation with a pathos that half shook my resolution. Nothing but an iron sense of duty kept me firm. There is something in a mother’s tears which is almost irresistible; she wept and trembled, and would have kneeled, but I would not let her. I lifted her to her feet, and told her I once had a mother, and knew what her sorrows were. I told her I would liberate her son if I could, but it was impossible; law and justice were against it. But if he behaved well, I would take off a few months from the close of the year; and in the mean time she might see him as often as she desired. She thanked me, lingered as if she would plead again, and departed. What depths there are in a mother’s soul!

Tuesday, Sept. 22. The frigate Savannah sailed this morning for San Francisco. She left her berth, where she has lain since our flag was raised here, and with her royals set, glided gracefully out of the bay. The Congress gave her three cheers as she passed,—still she goes with a heavy heart. The time of her crew is out; they are almost half the circuit of the globe from their home, and have now, seemingly, as little prospect of reaching it as they had a year since. Com. Stockton went on board a few days since and addressed them, but even with his happy tact in inspiring enthusiasm, it was difficult to arouse their despondency, and make them cheerful in a resignation to their lot. The war being against a power unarmed at sea, is with them a mere bubble. To chase or capture a privateer is a game not worth the candle. Were an English or French squadron in this ocean, in declared hostility, they would not murmur while a tattered sail could be set, or a shot be found in the locker.

Wednesday, Sept. 23. I was waked this morning by sounds of merriment in the street. Day had only begun to glimmer, and its beam was contending with the glare of rockets, flashing over the lingering shadows of night. The child which I had visited a few evenings since had died, and this was its attendant ceremony to the grave. It had become, in the apprehension of those who formed the procession, a little angel—and they were expressing their joy over the transformation. The disruption of ties which bound it here—its untimely blight—and the darkness of the grave—were all forgotten. Its little coffin was draped in white, and garlanded with flowers; and voices of gladness, ringing out from childhood and youth, heralded its flight to a better world.

Thursday, Sept. 24. An Englishman called at the court to-day, and desired me to issue a warrant for the apprehension of his mistress, who he said had run away and carried off a rich shawl and diamond breastpin which did not belong to her. I told him, when he entered into a criminal compact of that kind with a person, he might expect just such results as he had experienced,—and as for a warrant, I should issue none, and would not if she had carried off every thing in his house, and him too; for I should consider the community quit of two persons who could in no way benefit its morals. He looked not a little surprised at this decision, shrugged his shoulders, and departed. The first thing a foreigner does here is to provide himself with a horse; the second, with a mistress; the third, with a pack of cards. These, with a bottle of aguardiente, are his capital for this world and the next. This is true of many, but not all; there are some high and honorable exceptions.

Friday, Sept. 25. The Congress left her moorings last evening, and held her course majestically out of the bay for San Francisco. Com. Stockton proposes, while there, to construct batteries which can command the entrance to the harbor, and afford protection to our merchantmen in the absence of our squadron. The new city will probably be located before his return. It is the point towards which all eyes are now turned. The tide of emigration is setting there with as much steadiness and strength as the rivers which roll into its capacious bosom. The day is coming when the spires of a great city will be mirrored in its waters.

Saturday, Sept. 26. The Indians here are practical Thomsonians or Hydropathists; they sweat for every kind of disease. Their bath is a large ground-oven, to which you descend by a flight of narrow steps, and which has a small aperture at the top for the escape of the smoke. In the centre of this they build a fire, close the entrance, and shut themselves in till the temperature reaches an elevation which throws them into a profuse perspiration. They then rush out and plunge themselves into a stream of cold water. This is repeated every day till the disease leaves or death comes.

But many, without any ailment, resort to this bath as a luxury. They will stay in the oven till they are hardly able to crawl out and reach the stream. It is great fun for the more sturdy ones to lift out the exhausted and dash them in the flood. You hardly expect to see them rise again, but up they come, and regain the earth full of life and vigor. The reaction is instantaneous, and the effect, I have no doubt, in many cases beneficial. It, at least, gives them a good washing, which they would hardly get without, and which they too often need. The Indian also takes to the water to quench the flames of rum. His poor mortal tenement is often wrapped in such a conflagration. It would be a good thing if all the rum-drinkers could be marched once a week under the falls of Niagara.

Sunday, Sept. 27. There is no day in the week in which my feelings run homeward so strongly as on the Sabbath. That day makes me feel indeed as an exile. A vast moral desolation spreads around me: only here and there a speck of verdure sprinkles the mighty waste. All else is bleak and barren. You turn your eyes to the hills where you were born, the church where you were baptized, and would rush back to them on the steep wave of time.

Monday, Sept. 28. When Monterey was taken by our squadron, an order was issued by the commander-in-chief that all the grog-shops should be closed. The object of this was to prevent disorder among the populace and among the sailors, whose duties as a patrol confined them to the shore. It was with great difficulty that this order could be enforced. All moderate fines failed to secure its observance. The price of aguardiente rose to four and five dollars the bottle, more than ten times its original cost: for such a premium the shopkeeper would run the hazard of the penalty.

We searched for it as for hid treasures, but only in one instance found its hiding-place. This was in a chimney, hanging about midway from the top. When discovered, the shopkeeper laughed as loudly as they who made the search. He was fined, not for having grog in his chimney, for that is a very good place for it, but for retailing it at his counter. An offer of four or five dollars from a customer never failed to bring down a bottle. He paid his fine of twenty-five dollars, but begged hard for the liquor. I took it into my custody, and told him to call for it when the last American man-of-war had left port.

Tuesday, Sept. 29. A brother and sister of a Mexican family applied to me to-day for permission to leave their mother. On inquiring the cause of this singular request, they stated that their father was dead, and that their mother by her immoralities had brought sore discredit on their house. I ascertained from other sources the truth of their statement, and then gave them permission to rent another dwelling. They were both modest and genteel in their appearance, but jealousy of a sister’s fair reputation had prevailed with the brother over filial affection. And yet when he spoke of his mother his eyes filled with tears.

Wednesday, Sept. 30. An express arrived last night from the Pueblo below, bringing the startling intelligence that the populace had risen upon the small American force left there under command of Capt. Gillespie—that the insurgents had entire possession of the town—that the Americans were closely besieged in their quarters, and it was doubtful if they would be able to hold out much longer. The express stated that he left the town under a volley of musketry, which he narrowly escaped, but which took such deadly effect on his horse, that he dropped under him about two leagues out.

He had a permit from the American alcalde to press horses wherever found. He rode the whole distance—four hundred and sixty miles—in fifty-two hours, during which time he had not slept. His intelligence was for Com. Stockton, and in the nature of the case was not committed to paper, except a few words over the signature of the alcalde, rolled in a cigar, which was fastened in his hair. But the commodore had sailed for San Francisco, and it was necessary he should go on a hundred and forty miles further. He was quite exhausted; I ordered him a bowl of strong coffee, which revived him, and a hearty supper, which he eagerly devoured. He was allowed to sleep three hours: in the mean time I procured fresh horses, and penned a permit for him to press others when these should begin to flag. Before the day glimmered he was up and away.

Thursday, Oct. 1. Com. Stockton, before the departure of the Congress, appointed T. H. Green, Esq., collector of customs at this port. Mr. G. is a native of Pennsylvania, has resided in this country several years, and enjoys a wide reputation for business habits, and sterling integrity of character. Mr. Hartwell, an Englishman by birth, has been appointed inspector and translator. He is familiar with all the languages spoken in California, and filled the same office under the Mexican government to which he has been appointed under this. But we are gratified with his appointment for another reason. He has some twenty children of his own, and in addition to these, five adopted orphans.

Friday, Oct. 2. A Spaniard of some note and noise here, and consul of her Christian Majesty, attempted in court to-day to flourish down the claim of an humble Californian to whom he was indebted some eight hundred dollars. He said this creditor was once his servant, that he could neither read nor write, and that he felt quite indignant that he should have the assurance to bring him into court. I told him the first question was, whether he really owed the man the amount claimed: this being settled, we could very easily dispose of the belles-lettres part of the matter. He at first recollected nothing, except that the man had once been his servant; but on being shown the account, reluctantly admitted that it might be correct. I told him, if correct, and he had the means, he must pay it, though the creditor were fresh from Congo. Finding that we had in our court only a horizontal justice, holding its level line alike over kings and slaves, he signed an obligation for the payment in six months, and gave the security required. So much for attempting to liquidate a debt by an hidalgo flourish. Law which fails to protect the humble, disgraces the name which it bears.

Saturday, Oct. 3. A heavy mist hung over the landscape this morning till the sun was high in the heavens, and many began to predict rain, a phenomenon which I have not yet witnessed in California. But towards noon the mist departed like a shadow dissolved in light. The scorched hills lifted their naked summits, and the deep ravines revealed their irregular lines of lingering verdure. In these the cattle still graze, though the streams which once poured their waters through them exist now only in little motionless pools, hardly sufficient to drift a duck. A stranger looking at these hills might be excused if he inquired the distance to Sodom. It would never enter his most vagrant dreams that he had reached that land towards which the tide of emigration was rolling over the cliffs of the Rocky Mountains.

Sunday, Oct. 4. The presiding priest of this jurisdiction applied to me a few days since to protect the property of the San Antonio Mission. A Spaniard, it seems, who owns a neighboring rancho, had, under color of some authority of the late administration, extended his claims over the grounds and buildings, and was appropriating the whole to his private purposes. I summoned the Spaniard before me, and asked for the evidence of his right and title to the establishment. He had no document to exhibit. His sole claim evidently rested in some vague permission, in which the lines of moral justice were wholly omitted, or too faintly drawn to be seen.

I therefore ordered that the mission buildings and grounds should be delivered back to the presiding priest, and that the fixtures, which had been removed, should at once be restored. The order was forthwith carried into effect. This decision is of some moment, as it will serve as a precedent in reference to other missions. These sacred domains are the patrimonial inheritance of the Indian, and they once embraced the wealth of California. But they have fallen a prey to state exigencies and private rapacity. They ought at once to be restored to their primitive objects, or converted into a school-fund.

Monday, Oct. 5. A courier arrived to-day from San Francisco, bringing the intelligence that the Savannah had sailed for San Pedro. They will there land a large force, which will march at once to the Pueblo de los Angeles, and, if possible, bring the insurgents to an engagement. But the probability is, that they will instantly disband and fly to the forests. If they declined battle, with Gen. Castro and his regular troops at their head, they will undoubtedly do it when left to themselves, unless frantic passion has entirely overcome inherent fickleness.

Tuesday, Oct. 6. The usual rate of interest for money loaned here on good security, is twenty-four per cent. This is sufficient evidence of its scarcity, and yet it is almost valueless when you come to the question of labor. A foreigner may be induced to work for money, but not a Californian, so long as he has a pound of beef or a pint of beans left. Nor is it much better with the Indian: take from him the inducements to labor which rum and gambling present, and he will refuse to work for you. The blanket, which he wore last year, will answer for this; his shirt and pants can easily be repaired; his food is in every field and forest, and he seems to have as little scruple in taking it from the one as the other.

Hunger is unknown here; the man who has not a foot of land seems about as independent as he who has his ten-league farm, and has vastly less trouble and vexation. It is true he will now and then kill a bullock that is not his, but the fact that there are vast herds roaming about which never had an owner, seems, in his estimation, greatly to diminish the private trespass which he commits. It is with him only as if he had taken a pickerel from a pond instead of the ocean.

Wednesday, Oct. 7. The great Mormon company, who came out in the Brooklyn, have had a split. The volcano, it seems, has been rumbling for some time, and has at last broke forth in flame. The explosion will undoubtedly throw them into different parts of California, and defeat any attempts at a distinct political community. The difficulty lay in the assumptions of the leader. He has all the ambition of their lost prophet, without any of his affected meekness. He attempted the iron rod, without first having persuaded those who were to feel its force that it had been put in his hands by a higher power.

Thursday, Oct. 8. One of the rooms in the house which I have rented, has been occupied by some of the goods and chattels of the previous tenant. To-day they were called for, and I observed among them a large basket filled with egg-shells. They had been perforated at both ends, and their contents blown out. But to what use could any one put these empty shells? They had been prepared, it seems, for the festivities of the carnival. On this occasion they are to be filled with scented water or tinsel, the apertures closed with wax, and then broken, in merriment, over the heads of guests. This liberty with caps and wigs is warranted only where some intimacy exists between the parties. Where this is found, the eggs fall thick as hail. The young and old float in lavender and cologne. This expensive frolic is often indulged in by those who, perhaps, have hardly money enough left to purchase one of the forty hens that laid the eggs.

Friday, Oct. 9. The trouble of young and old here is the flea. The native who is thoroughly inured to his habits may little heed him, but he keeps the stranger in a constant nettle. One would suppose, from his indiscriminate and unmitigated hostility, he considered himself the proprietor of all California. Indeed, he does seem to be the genuine owner of the soil, instead of a tenant at will. It is true he may construct no dwellings, but he will plant himself in every nook and corner of the one which you may construct. He jumps into your cradle, jumps with you all along through life, and well would it be for those who remain if he jumped with you out of it. But no, he remains still; and grief for your loss will half forget its bereavement in parrying his assaults.

Saturday, Oct. 10. We are waiting with some anxiety for news from the Pueblo de los Angeles. A rumor reached here yesterday, that the small American force there would not be able to hold out much longer against the overwhelming odds of the insurgents. But the Savannah must by this time have reached San Pedro, and her crew be on their march to the scene of action. They are a body of brave, unflinching men, and are commanded by officers of great firmness and force. A sailor on land never thinks of running more than he would at sea. He is trained to stand to his post, and will do so on the field as well as the deck. The last man who left the ground in that disreputable retreat from Bladensburg was a sailor. When the rest were far out of sight he remained at his gun, and was wadding home to give the enemy another shot. In the fight of the Essex many threw themselves out of the ports, determined to drown sooner than surrender.

Sunday, Oct. 11. Another bright and beautiful Sabbath has dawned; but there is little here to remind one of its sacredness. A few of the larger stores are closed, but the smaller shops are all open. More liquors are retailed on this day than any other three. I have the power to close these shops, and shall do it.

CHAPTER V.

FIRE ON THE MOUNTAINS.—EMIGRANTS.—PISTOLS AND PILLOWS.—LEADERS OF THE INSURRECTION.—CALIFORNIA PLOUGH.—DEFEAT AT SAN PEDRO.—COL. FREMONT’S BAND.—THE MALEK ADHEL.—MONTEREY THREATENED.—SOLDIER OUTWITTED.—RAISING MEN.—BRIDEGROOM.—CULPRITS.

Monday, Oct. 12. A wide conflagration is sweeping over the hills which encircle the bay of Monterey. The forests, and the grass with which they are feathered, are as dry as tinder, and the flame rolls on with its line of fire clearly and fearfully defined. This has become still more grand and awful since the night set in. The clouds seem to float in an atmosphere of fire; and the billows, as they roll to the rock-bound shore, are crested with flame. The birds are flying from their crackling covert, and the wolves go howling over the hills. It is a type of that final conflagration in which the great frame of nature will at last sink.

Tuesday, Oct. 13. Emigrants from the United States are still pouring into the rich valley of the Sacramento. A letter from one of them says:—“It may not be uninteresting to you to know that the emigrants by land the present season far exceed the expectation of the most sanguine. No less than two thousand are now in the interior, and within a hundred miles of the settlements. They bring with them a large amount of intelligence, wealth, and industry, all of which are greatly needed in their new home. The Mormons alone have a train of more than three hundred wagons.”

These emigrants will change the face of California. We shall soon have not only the fruits of nature, but of human industry. We shall soon be able to get a ball of butter without churning it on the back of a wild colt; and a potatoe without weighing it as if it were a doubloon. Were it possible for a man to live without the trouble of drawing his breath, I should look for this pleasing phenomenon in California.

Wednesday, Oct. 14. The success of the insurgents at the south has emboldened the reckless here. Bands have been gathering in the vicinity to make a night assault on Monterey. Their plan is to capture or drive out the small American force here, and plunder the town. Those engaged in it are men of desperate fortunes. The streets to-day have been barricaded, and the true and trusty among the citizens have been formed into a night patrol. I sleep with my rifle at my bedside, and with two pistols under my pillow. My servant, who is a brave little fellow, is also armed to the teeth. He ought to be brave, for he was born in St. Helena, close to the tomb of Napoleon, and must have caught some fire from the hero’s ashes. My house has grated windows, and an entrance that is easily defended against odds, so that we shall probably make a pretty good fight of it. One thing is certain, neither of us go out alive. I will not be taken, tortured, and hacked to pieces, as two of our countrymen were a few months since.

Thursday, Oct. 15. No assault yet; but a company of horsemen have been seen to-day crossing the southern plain, and winding off behind the hills at the west. They have, as a messenger informs us, joined another party much larger than their own, and are now encamped in the woods. The citizens here who have been true to our flag, feel deeply alarmed; and in truth they have some occasion, for if the town is sacked they will be among the first sufferers. I have sent an express to Com. Stockton, who is at San Francisco, where he has been engaged in raising and dispatching a heavy force for San Pedro. He will be here with the Congress as fast as the winds and waves can bring him.

Friday, Oct. 16. Our relief has come. The Congress arrived to-day, and the commodore immediately landed, under Capt. Maddox, U. S. marine corps, a sufficient force to repel any attack that may be made. Our friends now breathe more freely. They may go outside the town without the fear of having their retreat cut off by a flying horseman, and sleep at night without the apprehension of awaking under a flaming roof. The noble tars of the Congress, when they saw our flag still flying on the fort, hailed it with three stout cheers, which were heard over all Monterey. They feared, and not without reason, that it had been captured; and when they saw it still streaming on the wind, their enthusiasm and joy broke forth.

Saturday, Oct. 17. As soon as the intelligence of the insurrection below reached Com. Stockton, he dispatched the Savannah to San Pedro; and sent fast in her wake a quick coaster, with Col. Fremont and two hundred riflemen on board, who are to land in the night at Santa Barbara, and take the place by surprise. This was managed with so much celerity and secrecy, that the disaffected here are still ignorant of the fact.

What will be the surprise of the insurgents at los Angeles, if defeated by the forces of the Savannah, to find their retreat cut off by the riflemen of Col. Fremont! Between these two fires there will be little chance of escape. Not a few of them have given their parol of honor that they will not, on pain of death, take up arms against the United States. They are now in the field, and their treachery may cost them their lives. It is painful, but may be necessary to make examples of them. California will never have any repose while they are in it. They have headed every revolution that has taken place for years, and they have now headed their last.

Sunday, Oct. 18. I issued, a few days since, an ordinance against gambling—a vice which shows itself here more on the Sabbath than any other day of the week. The effect of it has been to drive the gamblers from the town into the bushes. I have been informed this evening, that in a ravine, at a short distance, some thirty individuals have been engaged through the day in this desperate play. They selected a spot deeply embowered in shade, and escaped the eye of my constables. But there is an eye from the glance of which the gloom of the forest and even the recesses of night afford no refuge.

Monday, Oct. 19. Some twenty men left the precincts of Monterey, last night, to join the insurgents at the south. They are all men of desperate fortunes, and may find that they have started too late. They who have been duped may perhaps be spared, but the ringleaders are doomed. There is only one resting-place for them in California. He who breaks his solemnly plighted faith, can claim no mercy for the past and no confidence for the future.

Were this frantic insurrection sustained by the slightest probability of success, it would relieve, perhaps, its madness and atrocity. But they who instigated it knew it must end in disaster and blood. They knew its only trophies must be a little plunder, cursed by the crimes through which it had been procured. They threw themselves down this cataract, and will never again reascend its steep wave.

Tuesday, Oct. 20. The mode of cultivating land in California is eminently primitive. In December or January they take a piece of wood in the shape of a ship’s knee, dress it down a little with a dull axe, and spike a piece of iron to the lower point. A pole, by which the oxen draw, runs from the inner bend of the knee to the yoke. This pole has a mortise, about eight inches long, made slanting, and about a foot from the after end; a piece of wood, about two inches by six, runs up through the plough and pole, and is so wedged into the mortise of the pole, as to make the plough run shallow or deep as required. But if the ground happens to be hard the plough will not enter an inch, and if there are roots in the ground it must be lifted over, or it will be invariably broken. Such is a California plough; such a fair specimen of the arts here.

Wednesday, Oct. 21. If late in the season, the Californian rarely prepares the ground by any furrowing attempts. He scatters the seed about the field, and then scratches it in with the thing which he calls a plough. Should this scratching fail of yielding him sixty bushels to the acre, he grumbles. In reaping he cuts so high, to save a little trouble in threshing, which is done here by horses, that he loses one-eighth of his crop; but this eighth serves for seed the next season; and what to him is better still, saves the trouble of sowing. So that his second crop plants itself from the first, and is often nearly as large as its predecessor. Even the third self-planted crop is quite respectable, and would satisfy a New England farmer for his laborious toil; but here it generally goes to the blackbirds.

Thursday, Oct. 22. A mother came to me, to-day, with a request that I would summon before me another woman, who had slandered her daughter. I tried to dissuade her from it—told her that persevering virtue would outlive all scandal. But she said she was a poor widow, and the reputation of her family was all she had to depend on. So I summoned the woman, who confessed her injurious words, but said they had been uttered in passion, and that she now deeply regretted them. On her assurance that she would repair as far as in her power any injury she had done, I dismissed the parties.

Friday, Oct. 23. The merchant ship Vandalia is just in from San Pedro, with intelligence from the seat of war. Capt. Gillespie, it seems, had been obliged to capitulate; but the terms were that he should leave the Pueblo with all the honors of war. He marched out of the town with his flag flying; and, on arriving at San Pedro, embarked on board the Vandalia.

The frigate Savannah soon hove in sight. Her forces under Capt. Mervin, and those from the Vandalia under Capt. Gillespie, started at once for the Pueblo. After a march of fifteen miles, they encamped for the night. But their slumbers were soon disturbed by a shot, which thundered its way into their midst. They seized their arms, but in the darkness of the night nothing could be seen, and nothing heard save the distant tramp of horses. At break of day they renewed their march, but had not proceeded far before they were attacked by a Californian force on horseback, drawing a four-pounder. Their enemy kept out of the range of their muskets, fled as fast as they charged, and, having gained a safe distance, wheeled and played upon them with their four-pounder, charged with grape. Capt. Mervin, finding himself unable to bring the enemy to a general engagement, and having five of his men killed, and a greater number wounded, ordered a retreat, and returned without further molestation on board the Savannah. His defeat lay in the fact that his men were all on foot, and without any artillery to protect them against the longer range of the piece which the enemy had brought into the field.

Saturday, Oct. 24. Col. Fremont having fallen in with the Vandalia, and ascertained from her that no horses could be procured for his men at Santa Barbara, decided on returning in the Sterling to this port. His arrival has been delayed by a succession of light head winds, and dead calms. When within fifty miles of the port, a boat was dispatched, which is just in. Several of his men came in her, who are to start in advance in quest of horses. They will probably have to go as far as the Sacramento, for all the horses in this immediate vicinity have been driven south by the insurgents. I have lost both of mine; but what are two to the hundred and fifty which were driven from the farm of one man. If misery loves company, I have a plenty of that sort of consolation. But the extent of a misfortune depends not so much on what is taken, as what is left. The last surviving child in a family is invested with the affections which encircled the whole.

Sunday, Oct. 25. With us the sound of the church-going bell has been exchanged for the roll of the drum. One of the moral miseries of war is the profanation of the Sabbath which it involves. There is something in military movements which seems to cut the conscience adrift from its moorings on this subject.

Monday, Oct. 26. We shall soon see what the genius of Com. Stockton is equal to in a great emergency. He will arrive at San Pedro without horses, or any means of procuring them. They are all driven off, or under men who seem as if born on the saddle. He will encounter on his march to los Angeles the same flying-artillery which foiled the forces under Capt. Mervin. But he will have several well-mounted pieces; they must be drawn, however, by oxen over a deep sandy road. If the enemy comes within range, he will open and give them a volley of grape. In this way he will reach, recapture the place, and unfurl the stars and stripes. But how he will maintain himself—how he will procure provisions with the country around in the hands of a mounted enemy, remains to be seen. Military genius, however, asserts its fullest force in the greatest emergency. It is like the eagle exulting in peril, and throwing its strong pinions on the mountain storm.

Tuesday, Oct. 27. The prize brig Malek Adhel, commanded by Lieut. W. B. Renshaw, arrived in port this afternoon in thirty days from Mazatlan. She brings the first intelligence of her own capture. The U. S. ship Warren, under Commander Hull, anchored off Mazatlan on the sixth ult., and found there the Malek Adhel, moored within a hundred and fifty yards of the mole, with sails unbent, and running rigging unrove. The next day her rudder was to have been unshipped, and she was to have been hauled up the creek for safe keeping. Commander Hull determined immediately to cut her out; hauled his ship in close to the bar, and sent sixty men in the launch and the three cutters, under charge of Lieuts. Radford and Renshaw, with orders to bring her out, or finding that impracticable, to burn her. On their approach, the officer in charge escaped to the shore: they boarded her without opposition, unmoored and warped her outside the bar. While doing this, about two hundred and fifty Mexican soldiers mustered on the mole; another party dragged a field-piece up the hill abreast of the brig, commanding her and the channel to the bar; but upon a second thought the governor determined to offer no resistance, alleging that the Warren’s guns would do more damage to the town than the brig was worth. The Malek Adhel, however, is a valuable prize, being a fine sailer and a good seaboat; she was gallantly captured.

Wednesday, Oct. 28. The Sterling is just in with Col. Fremont and his riflemen. They are in a half-starved condition, having been for several days on the very shortest commons. I never met with a more famished crew. The call for meat and bread roused up all the butchers and bakers in Monterey. What an energy there is in downright hunger!

Thursday, Oct. 29. Our Indian scouts, who came in yesterday, reported the discovery of a large band of Californians in the cover of the hills within the vicinity of Monterey. They probably purposed an attack on the town last night, as the garrison had been weakened by the absence of thirty men, who had left, under the command of Capt. Maddox, for San Juan. But the unexpected arrival of Col. Fremont frustrated their plans. We might have a battle with them were there horses here; but to attempt it on foot, would be like a man with a wooden leg chasing a hare.

Monterey has at present much the aspect of a military garrison. The streets are barricaded; a patrol is kept up night and day; no one is permitted to leave without a written passport, and no one allowed to enter without reporting himself to the police. No one can be in the streets after nine without the countersign. Every thing, of course, in the shape of amusement is at an end; even ordinary business is in a great measure suspended. You hear only the roll of the drum at muster, and the toll of the bell over some one going to his last rest.

Friday, Oct. 30. One of the guard in charge of Col. Fremont’s horses, in the vicinity of the town, was approached, this afternoon, by two Californians on horseback, who inquired if he had seen a buck break from the woods near by. Having by this natural question laid suspicion, they entered into conversation on other topics, watched their opportunity, seized his rifle, shot him, and dashed off at full speed. The nefarious act produced a profound sensation in the camp. The shot, however, proves not mortal, so that the wounded man may yet have an opportunity of facing his foe in the field.

Saturday, Oct. 31. Enlistments are going on actively among the emigrants recently arrived on the banks of the Sacramento. The women and children are placed in the missions; the men take the rifle and start for the battle-field: such is their welcome to California. The Israelites entered the land of promise by arms, and established themselves by the force of their military prowess. But this is not quite the land of promise, nor are these Israelites who stream over the Rocky Mountains. But they are a sturdy band, whose enterprise will cover these fertile hills with golden harvests. They have pitched their tents by the water-courses, and those tents they will never strike.

They are enlisted into the service mainly through the activity of Capt. Montgomery, who commands the Portsmouth, and is military commandant of the northern department of California. His measures have been judicious, his action prompt, and he has rendered substantial service in supplying from the emigrations the sinews of war. Every American in California shows his entire stature; no one is lost in the crowd; no voice is drowned by a general clamor; every action tells. It is a blow which thunders by itself on the great anvil of time. It is another rock rolled into the foundations of a mighty empire.

Sunday, Nov. 1. An Indian was taken up by one of our scouts yesterday, who confessed that he was the bearer of a message from a Roman Catholic priest to a party that were arming themselves to join the insurrection. The message conveyed intelligence of the approach of our forces. The Indian was sent back to his master with the intelligence that if he attempted any further correspondence with the enemy, it would be at the peril of his life.

Monday, Nov. 2d. Our bay is full of the finest fish, and yet it is rare to meet one on the table. There is not a boat here in which one can safely trust himself a cable’s length from land. And if there were, there would be no Californian to row it. Could they go to sea on their horses, and fish from their saddles, they would often be seen dashing through the surf; but to sit quietly in a boat and bob a line, is entirely too tame a business. Put a fish on land, and give him the speed of the buck, and he would have a dozen Californians and forty hounds on his trail.

Tuesday, Nov. 3. A Californian in my employ asked me to-day to pay him a small sum in advance of his services, stating that he was on the eve of being married, and wanted this advance to enable him to put silver mountings on his saddle and bridle. Had he asked me for money with which to pay the priest, I should have understood the propriety of the request; but the connection between a silver star on the head-stall of his bridle and a marriage celebration, surpassed my dim comprehension. However, as there was a lady in the case, I let him have the money. But it seems it is the custom here, for the bridegroom to appear on his wedding-day upon a splendid horse, elegantly caparisoned. It is then the silver star shines out. The noble steed and glittering trappings divide with the bride the admiration of the crowd.

Wednesday, Nov. 4. The Californians now in arms number twelve or fourteen hundred. They are from every section of the country. Their rallying point is los Angeles. They have made a clean sweep of all the horses along the coast. Natives as well as foreigners are left to get along on foot. This is not an easy task in a country where furlongs stretch into leagues.

Of these twelve hundred in arms, probably not a hundred have a foot of land. They drift about like Arabs, stealing the horses on which they ride, and the cattle on which they subsist. They are ready to join any revolution, be its leaders whom they may. If the tide of fortune turns against them, they disband and scatter to the four winds. They never become martyrs in any cause. They are too numerous to be brought to punishment. No government has been strong enough to set them at defiance, or dispense with their venal aid. They have now, however, to deal with a power too sagacious to be cajoled, and too strong to be overawed. They will not be permitted to spring a revolution, and leave its consequences to others. The results will follow them into every forest and fastness. They have but one escape, and that leads into Mexico. Men of substance will regret their loss about as much as the Egyptians the disappearance of the locusts.

Thursday, Nov. 5. The second rain of the season fell last night. It came down copiously for several hours: multitudes forgot their dreams in listening to its grateful patter on the roof. The effects of the first shower, which fell a few days since, are visible in the landscape.

From the moist meadow to the withered hill,

Led by the breeze, the vivid verdure runs,

And swells and deepens to the cherished eye.

Friday, Nov. 6. Two Californians were arrested to-day by one of my constables, charged with having broken open a shop and robbed it of many valuable articles. The burglary was committed several nights since, but no clue to the perpetrators could be obtained. By keeping silent on the subject, one of them had at last the imprudence to offer for sale one of the stolen articles, which was immediately identified, and led to the detection of both. Most of the property was found in their possession, and restored to its owners. The evidence of their guilt being conclusive, and there being no young lawyer here to pick a flaw in the indictment, or help them to an alibi, they were sentenced each to the public works for one year. The way of transgressors is hard.

Saturday, Nov. 7. In Monterey, as in all other towns that I have ever seen, crimes are perpetrated mostly at night. The Indian, however, steals when the temptation presents itself, and trusts luck for the consequences. And in truth if any being has a right to steal, it is the civilized Indian of California. All the mission lands, with their delicious orchards, waving grain, flocks and herds, were once his, and were stolen from him by the white man. He has only one mode of retaliating these wrongs. But Californians and foreigners, more wary, steal at night. It is as true here as elsewhere—

“That when the searching eye of heaven is hid

Behind the globe, and lights the lower world,

Then thieves and robbers range abroad unseen,

In murders, and in outrage, bloody here;

But when, from under this terrestrial ball,

He fires the proud tops of the eastern pines,

And darts his light through every guilty hole,

Then murders, treasons, and detested sins,

The cloak of night being plucked from off their backs,

Stand bare and naked, trembling at themselves.”

Sunday, Nov. 8. There is not, except myself, a Protestant clergyman in California. If the tide of emigration continues, there will be thousands here without a spiritual teacher. Years must elapse before any can be trained here for the sacred office. The supply must come from abroad. The American churches must wake up to their duty on this subject. These emigrants are their children, and they should extend to them their most jealous care.

Burt, sc.

CHAPTER VI.

SANTA BARBARA TAKEN.—LIEUT. TALBOT AND HIS TEN.—GAMBLING IN PRISON.—RECRUITS.—A FUNNY CULPRIT.—MOVEMENTS OF COM. STOCKTON.—BEAUTY AND THE GRAVE.—BATTLE ON THE SALINAS.—THE CAPTAIN’S DAUGHTER.—STOLEN PISTOLS.—INDIAN BEHIND A TREE.—NUPTIALS IN CALIFORNIA.

Monday, Nov. 9. The guard of ten, commanded by Lieut. T. Talbot, and posted at Santa Barbara to maintain the American flag, arrived here last evening. When the insurrection broke out at the south, they were summoned by some two hundred Californians to surrender. They contrived, however, under cover of night, to effect their escape. Their first halt was in a thicket, to which they were pursued by some fifty of the enemy on horseback. They waited, like lions in their lair, till the foe was within good rifle shot, and then discharged their pieces with terrific effect. The surviving assailants left their dead, and rushed back for reinforcements: but in the mean time, the hardy ten had pushed their way several leagues to the east, and gained a new ambush. An Indian might perhaps have trailed them; but their pursuers had not this wild sagacity. They rode here and there, penetrating every thicket, but the right one, and to prevent their escape at night, set fire to the woods. But one ravine, overhung with green pines, covered them with its mantling shadows; through this they made their noiseless escape.

To avoid the Californians, who were coming down in great numbers from the north to join their comrades in the south, the party of ten held their course to the east. They spent several days in attempting to find the pass which leads through the first range of the Californian mountains to the valley of the San Joaquin; but being unacquainted with the topography of the country, their utmost efforts were baffled. During this time they suffered greatly from hunger and thirst: the rugged steeps, among which they were straying, yielded neither streams nor game. At last, they fell in with a Cholo, the Arab of California, who kindly offered to conduct them to the mountain pass, and surrendered the use of his horse to carry their knapsacks and blankets. The pass was gained; but their hospitable guide still continued with them till they reached a tribe of Indians on the opposite side. Here he took leave of them, declining all compensation for his pains, and started back for his wild mountain home.

The Indians received them kindly, gave them their best acorns to eat, and their purest water to drink. These are the Indians who were brought before me a few months since, charged with an attempt to steal a drove of horses from Carmel. There being no positive proof of guilt, they were kindly treated, and instead of being threatened with dungeons and death, were dismissed with many beautiful presents. These presents they still preserved, and exhibited them with evident gratification and pride to their new guests.

Lieut. Talbot and party, guided by these faithful Indians, now held their course through the valley of the San Joaquin. Their progress was delayed by the sickness of one of their companions, whom they were obliged to carry on a litter. They subsisted entirely on the wild game which they killed. They were all on foot; and after travelling nearly five hundred miles in this manner, reached Monterey, where they were welcomed to the camp of Col. Fremont with three hearty cheers.

Tuesday, Nov. 10. The merchant ship Euphemia arrived to-day from the Sandwich Islands, bringing the intelligence that the Columbus, bearing the broad pennant of Com. Biddle, had sailed from Honolulu for Valparaiso. We shall not then see that noble ship on this coast; she is bound homeward round the Cape. Her eight hundred men, with Com. Biddle at their head, would have been a great accession to our strength. It is not, however, a naval force of which we stand in greatest need. The war in California can never be decided from the deck. We want some five hundred horsemen, thoroughly accustomed to the saddle and the rifle, and a few pieces of flying-artillery. Without these we shall have constant attempts at revolution. They will invariably end in the defeat of those who get them up, but will involve private property and the public tranquility.

Wednesday, Nov. 11. I found one of our prisoners at work to-day without a shirt, and supposed at first that he was indulging in some whim; but ascertained, upon further inquiry, that he had gambled it away to a fellow-prisoner. They had no cards or dice, but had managed to substitute a bone, which they whirled into the air, and which decided the game by falling with this or that end into the ground. I made the winner give back the shirt, which he did with evident reluctance, as he had played his own against it, and would have been, had he lost, as naked as his neighbor. An Indian, and Californian too, will gamble to the skin of their teeth, and even part with their grinders were they articles of value to others. But a tooth is much like the principle of life, which avails no one save its owner.

Thursday, Nov. 12. Capt. Grigsby arrived to-day from Sonoma with thirty mounted riflemen and sixty horses, and joined Col. Fremont’s encampment. Capt. Hastings is expected in every day from San José with sixty men, well mounted, and twice that number of horses. Every rider here, destined on an arduous expedition, must have one or two spare horses, especially at this season of the year, when no feed can be procured except the slender grass which has sprung up in the recent showers, and which contains very little sustenance. It is easier to procure provender for a thousand horses on a march in the United States than ten here. And yet the table-lands here are covered through the summer with wild oats. But where are the reapers? On horseback, galloping about and carousing at this rancho and that. Their sickles are the rein, their sheaves a pack of cards, their flails a guitar.

“No cocks do them to rustic labor call,

From village on to village sounding clear;

To tardy swain no shrill-voiced matron’s squall,

Nor hammer’s thump disturbs the vacant ear.”

Friday, Nov. 13. Two fellows of Mexican origin were brought before me to-day, charged with breaking open the money-chest of the eating-house where they had transiently stopped, and taking from it about five hundred dollars. The owner having immediate occasion to go to his chest, discovered his loss, and suspected at once the persons concerned in it. They were apprehended, and soon after the money was found in the back yard, where it had been hastily buried after having been tied up in a handkerchief, which was identified as the neck-cloth of one of the accused. One discovery led to another, till the evidences of guilt, involving both, were fully established.

One of them then said there was no use in trying to get rid of the business any longer, and he would now tell the whole story straight as an arrow. He said that he and Antonio had talked over the matter the night before, and that he then attempted to reach the chest, but that the person in whose room it lay, and who had been asleep, suddenly stopped snoring, and getting alarmed he ran down stairs. But this morning, while Antonio was entertaining the rest, and treating them to cocktails, he slipped up to the chamber, broke the lock, and filled his pockets with the coin. He had no time, he said, to pick out the gold, which would have been a great convenience, but scraped up silver and gold as they came, leaving in the chest about as much as he took. It was very vexatious, he said, to leave so much, but his pockets would hold no more: he was really afraid they would fetch away with what they had got. But he buoyed them up with his hands, reached the back yard, where he delivered the money over to Antonio, who received it in his handkerchief and buried it; but buried it in exactly the wrong spot, for he went off into a corner instead of sinking it where everybody must step over it.

He told this story with a countenance which played between a tragic and comic expression. Antonio, who had been both diverted and alarmed by the narrative of his accomplice, when it came his turn to speak, said his companion was the funniest fellow alive; he believed he would joke on the scaffold, if he could shake a kink out of the rope, and get breathing time for it. They were both a strange compound of wit and villany. They were sentenced to the public works for three years.

Saturday, Nov. 14. The Savannah arrived here to-day from the leeward, and reports the Congress on her way to San Diego, where she had gone to reinforce the garrison. This important post had been recaptured by the Americans, under the command of Capt. Merrit, an emigrant officer of undaunted courage. He had been obliged to evacuate it a few weeks before, and was fortunate in being able to get his men on board a whale ship lying in the offing at the time. But a portion of the force opposed to him having been withdrawn to support the Mexican flag at los Angeles, he landed again in the night, and took the garrison by surprise. This being the most southern post in California, Com. Stockton deemed it of the first importance to make its possession secure. To effect this object, he was obliged to postpone his purpose of recapturing at once the capital of the province. The best way to fight the Californians is to hem them in. They never turn upon you as lions at bay. The possibility of an escape is an element in their courage. They never borrow resolution from despair. They are so accustomed to range at freedom, to make their homes wherever adventure or caprice may carry them, that the idea of being cooped up to one place has almost as much privation and misery in it as the slave-ship inflicts upon its captives.

They still might deem their scope too pent,

Though each had leave to pitch his tent

Where’er his wildest wish might urge,

Within creation’s utmost verge.

Sunday, Nov. 15. One of the most beautiful ladies in Monterey has this day been consigned to the silent grave. She was in the bloom of life, and visions of happiness threw their enchantments along the vista of her future years. She had all that wealth and beauty can bestow. Her personal charms were rivalled only by those of her mind. Her heart trembled through every fibre of her frame.

“Whene’er with soft serenity she smiled,

Or caught the orient blush of quick surprise,

How sweetly mutable, how brightly wild,

The liquid lustre darted from her eyes!

Each look, each motion, waked a new-born grace,

That o’er her form a transient glory cast:

Some lovelier wonder soon usurped the place,

Chased by a charm still lovelier than the last.”

But she is gone! she has left us like the bird which carolled in the morn, and departed upon its slanting ray. But her virtues survive in a brighter sphere; her beauty is stamped with immortality; her hand strikes a harp that will pour its melodies when the groves and streams of earth are silent.

Monday, Nov. 16. A Delaware Indian, quite out of breath, entered Col. Fremont’s camp this morning with the intelligence that an irregular engagement took place last evening between a party of forty Americans, and a hundred and fifty Californians, on the Salinas river, about fifteen miles from Monterey. The Americans were coming down from San Juan, and had with them three hundred fresh horses which they had brought from the Sacramento. The intelligence of their approach had reached the Californians, who had mustered all their force in this quarter, more for the purpose of capturing the horses than their riders. But the Americans, who were sixty strong, anticipating the possibility of an attack in crossing the river, left their horses, except those they rode, in the rear with twenty of their number, while forty came ahead to engage the Californians. They were surprised at their numbers, but rushed at once into the encounter. Capt. Foster was killed in the first charge, and Capt. Burrows, who was wounded in the first, fell in leading the second. Two American privates were killed, and a number of Californians. The encounter took place near sunset, and the Americans remained in possession of the ground.

The Delaware Indian, when the firing had slackened, left the field to bring the intelligence to Col. Fremont; but having to turn the enemy’s line, he was attacked by three Californians—one of whom he shot with his rifle, another he killed with his tomahawk, and the third fled. His horse broke down before he got in, and he ran the rest of the way on foot. He reports that Thomas O. Larkin, Esq., the American consul, had been captured the night before, while at a rancho between this and San Juan. He had left Monterey to visit a sick child at San Francisco, and stopped for the night, when he was suddenly pounced upon: nor wife nor child will in any probability see him soon again. He will be closely guarded; his life will be considered good for that of several prominent Californian officers who have broken their parol; and not unlikely some half-dozen may, in the event of disaster, be redeemed through his liberation.

Tuesday, Nov. 17. Col. Fremont, with his three hundred riflemen, took his departure from Monterey this morning. They presented a very formidable line as they wound around the bay and disappeared in the shadows of the hills.

Spur on my men; the bugle peals

Its last and stern command,—

A charge! a charge!—an ocean burst

Upon a stormy strand.

The artillery is under the command of Capt. McLain, an officer of much private worth and professional merit. He has at present two beautiful brass-pieces, well mounted, and will have two more of the same description on leaving San Juan. With these he will be able to do good execution. Nothing alarms the Californians so much as a piece of flying-artillery. They had rather see the very Evil One come scraggling over the hills.

Wednesday, Nov. 18. The horses which the Californians were endeavoring to reach in their rencounter on the river, were all preserved. Their loss would have been irretrievable in this campaign. The twenty men with whom they were left, declared they would perish to a man sooner than give them up. Rash as this resolution may seem, it would, had the emergency occurred, have been terribly realized. The American engaged in this war puts his life on the die. He must prevail or perish. If there shall be a general engagement between the forces now in the field, it will be one of the most frightful on record. The Americans are outnumbered three to one,—still they are determined to hazard the issue; and would, probably, were the odds much greater. As horsemen, the Californians excel them; but they are greatly their superiors in the use of the rifle and in maneuvering artillery. And these, after all, are the weapons and engines that must decide a hot engagement. Neither party has any veteran cuirassiers to hew their way to triumph through the cloven crests of the foe. The most terrific encounters on the field of Waterloo were between those who wielded the glaive. With them, at least,

“An earthquake might have passed unheededly away.”

Thursday, Nov. 19. How strangely the lights and shadows of life are blended! As I passed this evening the house of Capt. de la T——, a light strain of music came floating out from the corridor upon the silent air. It was the daughter of the captain whose hand swept the guitar which accompanied the modulations of her melodious voice. Her father and her uncle are both in the ranks of the Californians, leading a forlorn hope, after having broken their parol of honor, and forfeited their lives. And yet she is gay as if her father were only out hunting the gazelle. Just list the numbers as they break from her thoughtless heart:—

Fly not yet, ’tis just the hour

When pleasure, like the midnight flower,

That scorns the eye of vulgar light,

Begins to bloom for sons of night,

And maids who love the moon!

And yet that moon before it wanes may gleam upon her father’s grave. But she knows it not. She thinks this war will end as other Californian wars—in smoke. But it is a tempest-cloud charged with bolted thunder.

Friday, Nov. 20. A German complained to me this morning that one of the volunteers, a countryman of his, under Col. Fremont, had stolen from him a pair of valuable pistols. He strongly suspected the person who had taken them. I sent for him; he confessed the act, delivered up the pistols, and begged me, as this was his first offence, not to expose him. He was a youth of eighteen or so, slightly built, and with a fair and remarkably ingenuous countenance. I told him he must take heed, as one offence often paves the way to another; but as he was in the campaign, and might soon be on the field of peril and death, his error should rest in silence with his own conscience. The tears stood in his eyes.

Saturday, Nov. 21. Capt. Foster, it appears, was not shot in the heat of the engagement on the river. He had rushed forward in advance to reconnoiter, and was suddenly surrounded from an ambush, and fell, bravely fighting to the last. A Delaware Indian, who was hastening to his rescue, finding himself hotpressed, jumped from his horse behind a tree, from which he shot three of his antagonists, and then effected his escape. His living breastwork now shows in its scathed rind, how well it served him. It looks as if the auger-worm had bored there for an age.

There is something about a tree, with an Indian behind it, armed with a rifle, pointing this way and that, which awkwardly tests a man’s nerves. You seem to be shooting at the muzzle of his rifle instead of him; and that is not the worst of it, he is all the while shooting at you. If partial concealment lends a charm to beauty, it also lends terror to an Indian. We think of the brake as much as the serpent coiled in its shadows. Were lightning to fall without thunder, people would put conductors on their bean-poles; and yet the blazing bolt strikes and shivers while the lagging thunder is yet unheard.

Sunday, Nov. 22. As soon as it will be prudent to withdraw our men from their posts on the Sabbath, I intend to propose a religious service. We shall soon be able to gather fifty or more. Every house here has a ball-room where the gay may dance, and a Madonna to whom the afflicted may kneel; but none have a chapel; and if they had, the forms of Protestant worship would be held a profanation. There is only one way to get to heaven here, and that is through the absolving power of the Papal See. Every other path leads to purgatorial pangs and penal fire.

Monday, Nov. 23. It is said the Californians are born on horseback; it may also be said they are married on horseback. The day the marriage contract is agreed on between the parties, the bridegroom’s first care is to buy or borrow the best horse to be found in his vicinity. At the same time he has to get, by one of these means, a silver-mounted bridle, and a saddle with embroidered housings. This saddle must have, also, at its stern, a bridal pillion, with broad aprons flowing down the flanks of the horse. These aprons are also embroidered with silk of different colors, and with gold and silver thread. Around the margin runs a string of little steel plates, alternated with slight pendants of the same metal. These, as the horse moves, jingle like a thousand mimic bells.

The bride, also, comes in for her share in these nuptial preparations. The bridegroom must present her with at least six entire changes of raiment, nor forget, through any sentiment of delicacy, even the chemise. Such an oversight might frustrate all his hopes; as it would be construed into a personal indifference,—the last kind of indifference which a California lady will forgive. He therefore hunts this article with as much solicitude as the Peri the gift that was to unlock Paradise. Having found six which are neither too full nor too slender, he packs them in rose-leaves which seem to flutter like his own heart, and sends them to the lady as his last bridal present. She might naturally expect him to come next.

The wedding-day having arrived, the two fine horses, procured for the occasion, are led to the door, saddled, bridled, and pillioned. The bridegroom takes up before him the godmother, and the godfather the bride, and thus they gallop away to church. The priest, in his richest robes, receives them at the altar, where they kneel, partake of the sacrament, and are married. This over, they start on their return,—but now the gentlemen change partners. The bridegroom, still on the pillion, takes up before him his bride. With his right arm he steadies her on the saddle, and in his left hand holds the reins. They return to the house of the parents of the bride, where they are generally received with a discharge of musketry. Two persons, stationed at some convenient place, now rush out and seize him by his legs, and, before he has time to dismount, deprive him of his spurs, which he is obliged to redeem with a bottle of brandy.

The married couple then enter the house, where the near relatives are all waiting in tears to receive them. They kneel down before the parents of the lady, and crave a blessing, which is bestowed with patriarchal solemnity. On rising, the bridegroom makes a signal for the guests to come in, and another for the guitar and harp to strike up. Then commences the dancing, which continues often for three days, with only brief intervals for refreshment, but none for slumber: the wedded pair must be on their feet; their dilemma furnishes food for good-humored gibes and merriment. Thus commences married life in California. This stream, it is to be hoped, is much smoother than its fount.

Tuesday, Nov. 24. Monterey has been for the last two days remarkably quiet. The excitement occasioned by the battle on the Salinas has sunk into a dead calm. They who fell have received Christian burial; and they who survived have departed, some to find graves elsewhere. The great tragedy of life here is so filled with incident that it requires no stage effect. It is the visionary sword which eluded the grasp of Macbeth, turned into flashing steel.

Wednesday, Nov. 25. A Californian in trouble, often disregards the suggestions of national pride and personal resentment, and seeks succor where it can best be had. One of them who had been dangerously wounded in the late engagement, came into Monterey this morning, and applied to our surgeon to have the ball extracted from his hip. He seemed to think that as he had been disabled by one American, it was only right and proper he should be restored by another. He will then probably be off to fight us again. Nor does this in him argue a want of gratitude. He seeks the field to encounter his foes, much on the same principle that you do the wood to hunt wild game. You level your rifle at the hawk, not because he has injured you, but partly to exercise your skill, and partly because he is a saucy fellow, screeching about and frightening the other birds. I never yet saw the little king-bird chase a hawk, or the sword-fish pursue a whale, without a sentiment of delight. Neither have harmed me; but I hate all tyrants, whether they are on wings, fins, or legs.

Thursday, Nov. 26. Some of the shopkeepers here have been so long in the habit of smuggling under the former high rate of duties, that now they hardly know how to give up the trick, though there is very little motive for pursuing it. I caught a Frenchman to-day endeavoring to evade the municipal duty on rum. He had a hundred subterfuges, and flew from one to another, like a frightened catbird in the bush. His words fell so thick and fast that they quite covered up his falsehoods; the leaves of a wind-shaken tree in autumn conceal the nuts which fall with them to the ground. It is idle to expect honesty in a man who resorts to it only in the failure of his craft and cunning. His integrity is like the religion of some sailors—breaking out in shipwreck.

CHAPTER VII.

SAN JOSÉ GARRISONED.—A CALIFORNIA RAIN.—ESCAPE OF CONVICTS.—SHOOTING EDWARDS.—TWO WASHERWOMEN.—DEATH OF MR. SARGENT.—INDIAN HENS.—HUNTING CURLEW.—THE CALIFORNIA HORSE.—AN OLD EMIGRANT.—THE GRIZZLY BEAR.

Friday, Nov. 27. The prize brig Julia, Lieut. Selden commanding, arrived here to-day from San Francisco. She left there the Savannah and Warren. Fifty of the Savannah’s men had been sent by Capt. Mervin to San José, under command of Lieut. Pinkney, where they will form a military post, of sufficient strength, it is believed, to repel any hostile attacks, and maintain the flag. The northern half of California is now pretty safe; the ranchos may suffer from marauding parties of the enemy, and some acts of violence be committed, but no important post can be wrenched from our possession. In the south we hold San Diego, and have an enemy in the field at los Angeles. They will probably break covert at two or three different points; some will fly for Mexico, and some for the sheltered coves of the San Joaquin. Let those catch them who can; I would as soon track a chamois among the clefts and pinnacles of the Alps.

Saturday, Nov. 28. It is now near the close of that month which in other climes is often one of the most unpleasant in the year; but here it has been one of unrivalled brilliancy. The sky has been almost without a cloud, the winds have slept, and the soft air has lain on the landscape like a golden slumber. Such is the tranquil beauty in which the vernal year here sinks to repose.

“Ah! ’twere a lot too bless’d,

Forever in thy color’d shades to stray;

Amid the kisses of the soft southwest

To rove and dream for aye;

And leave the vain low strife

That makes men mad; the tug for wealth and power,