January 2d, 1850. Leaving Stockton we tramped through mud and water, so like the coast of Louisiana (the Mississippi) that it might have been winter there, instead of in California. We had packed the day before leaving, so left early for our walk of twenty miles after our pack-mules, and went over a partially sandy prairie to the Stanislaus River, and at eight that night reached good wood and water, and encamped about three miles from the river. Next morning, January 3d, we left in the rain for the ferry, but owing to the bad weather, heavy roads and exhaustion of Bachman and McGown, stopped at a good camping ground, with excellent grass, after going only three miles. The rain poured all day and all night, and we lost two days here in consequence, for the river rose so rapidly that we could not cross our mules. The next day the most of us did get over, and Clement and Hudson remained behind to look after the mules.

January 6th. Leaving the middle ferry, known as Islip's, our first day was over a good road with occasional quicksands in the way. The next day, January 7th, 1850, as we had a cold northeast drizzle, we lay by, and the following morning, January 8th, left for our destination, the Chinese Mines. Many of the views before us, as we mounted hill after hill looking towards the mountains, are very beautiful park-like country; the roads are a series of mud-holes and quicksands at this season, and the trees, either swamp, or post-oak, with occasionally a fine ridge of a species of live-oak. At times we had to pack the cargoes of the weaker mules, every few hundred yards, and at one place, had nine mules mired at the same time, the mud being so tenacious that even when the packs were taken off, the poor animals could not get out without our help. Three days of such travelling brought us to our present camp, the soil red clay and sand, mixed thinly with white quartz of various sizes, but generally small, not more than two, or at most, three inches in diameter, and generally even smaller.

[No date.] We went up to the "diggings"[39] on the morning after our arrival, and looked round to see what prospects were ahead of us. We found the little branches bored, and pitted, and washed out in every direction, so much so that we tried to "prospect" for ourselves, and we lost three days. We found the men already there kind and polite, showing the mode of working and washing, of digging and drawing most willingly, and tomorrow open a pit close beside some of the most fortunate.

The uncertainty of digging renders the life of the miner, for profit, that of a gambler, for most of his good luck depends on chance. At times you may see two pits side by side, one man getting two ounces a day, and the other hardly two dollars: we heard of one instance of much greater disparity; two friends working next each other found that at the end of the week, one had an ounce of gold, worth about twenty dollars, the other gold worth six thousand dollars. So it goes, and we shall all have to work hard. Again and again I am overwhelmed by the thought that I am at these dreary mines—I, who started intent on drawing and obtaining new specimens—to have so different a destiny thrust upon me, is bewildering.

The ground here is beautiful rolling valley of sandy clay, so like the post-oak country of Texas that one might almost fancy himself there. A few pines are scattered about, the cones are very large, say six inches long, and three in diameter; the seed is a pleasant nut, about the size and shape of a small, shelled almond; the quantity of resin contained is very great, and at the end of every leaf of the cones, quite a lump is seen.

The ultramarine jay, and Steller's, the red-shafted woodpecker and California quail are abundant, and many finches, some new, and others that I know, are everywhere; but I have no time to skin and preserve specimens. Then too, the black-tailed deer, California hare, and grizzly bear, are common, as well as the small hare. There are some few squirrels and a marmot or two, but I have not been able to procure them; I have also seen the robin of this country and many others. The country is otherwise barren, I wish I was out of it.

January 20th, 1850. Chinese Diggings. It does not seem possible, remembering the difficulties of the road, that we are only seventy miles from Stockton. The men began "rocking" yesterday, one cradle, and get about a dollar an hour, but hope to get more when in the way of it. Those at work around us get an average of fourteen a day, and at times much more; then again a week's work is lost. The quantity of gold, so I am told by those who know more of it than I do, is very great, but so diffused that great labor is required to get it. The lottery of the whole affair is beyond belief. The richest gulches are supposed to be those on the river, the Tuolome [Tuolumne], or the creeks leading to the river. The pit, or piece of ground allotted to each man is sixteen feet square, this having been settled by the diggers, and the law is enforced by an alcalde. Many is the week's work, the men say, when they do not get the price of their board, and again large amounts are found. One individual told me he was getting two ounces a day, and gave his claim up, to join a company in digging out the bed of a river which they had drained off. He worked a month at the river scarcely making two dollars a day, while the man who bought his first place, had accumulated several thousands. I have heard fifty such stories, but as a whole this country will pay the laborer and the mechanic better than the miners, unless the latter have capital. Had we come my route and reached here with a hundred mules, a fortune could soon have been made by packing. But, alas! against my better judgment I allowed myself to be swayed by Col. Webb, who had his own way at the cost of twenty-seven thousand dollars, thirteen lives, and the loss of many months to all the men who came through.

Chinese Diggings. February 1st, 1850. Friday, and a most beautiful day; birds all around are in gay chatter, and the song of the raven, jay-like, but sweet to listen to, from the attempt at softness, as he nods and bows with swelling throat to his mate. It is like March in Louisiana. Alas for the poor fellows who have left the southern states to come to this, and settle here as farmers; to be drowned out in winter, and burnt up in summer! However, when the excitement of the gold fever ceases, as it must, California will find its level with the other states, and many a hastily made fortune will be as rapidly lost.

I am leaving for the North Fork of the Stanislaus, twenty-five miles, to make one more effort to keep the company together and to pay off our indebtedness to the stockholders, but I fear my efforts will be useless.

Murphy's Diggings. Sunday, February 10. Everything seems against us—weather and season, water and rain, interrupt us in all our attempts at work, and ill-luck seems to follow us. After fruitless labor at the Chinese Diggings I came here, where the diggings are said to be very rich, but where we have to wait for the waters to subside, perhaps two months, and I have not the means to keep the men for that length of time, even if the date of their contract did not expire before then.

These diggings are said to be the richest in the southern mining district and here I came to make my last effort for the good of my men; for myself my home is awaiting me, and ample means to pay off all the indebtedness I have personally incurred; many times a day I thank God I never asked one man to join the venture, though I feel strongly that some, notably Clement, Walsh, Boden, poor fellow, my cousin Howard Bakewell, and a few others joined because I did. Knowing this, and knowing too how many have risked their all, I hesitate to leave, as long as I feel I can be of help in any way, and shall go into the matter very carefully with the men, most of whom however I know feel as I do.

February 25th, 1850. Today we all met together and after much serious talk, I told the men that their time was more than up, and that, consequently they were their own masters and the company dissolved. I told them, too, that I was ready to help each and all to the best of my ability, poor enough, but I believed we could do better in other ways than mining. Not a word was said, and silently all went to their tents; we had been a year together, in sickness and trouble, in boisterous mirth and sorrowful anxiety, and like old and tried friends we felt the coming separation keenly; we were all greatly depressed. I shall be with the men for some weeks, and shall then try to make up for part of what I have lost, making drawings and sketches, and collecting such specimens as I can. I am bitterly disappointed for the men who have been so faithful, and who have stood by me so staunchly, but as Tone said to me some hours after our talk: "There's more money to be made here by land speculations, and every kind of work than there is in mining, and those who work will get on." I quite agree with him, and when one hears of the return of men with large fortunes, ask if speculations in land or trade, bar-keeping or Monte dealing has not swollen the first few hundreds, dug and gained with hard labor, privation, or, in rare cases, wonderful luck. Even then for one man who has a thousand, there are hundreds who will not average a tenth of it after expenses are paid.

March 6th. Again on the road from Stockton east, towards the mines. I have been to San Francisco and am now on my way to join Layton to begin my tour of the mining and agricultural districts of this now most fairy-like country, everything so smiling and beautiful, flowers of the smaller varieties by thousands; and the snow melting sends its waters down all the little rills and rivulets clear and pure, giving freshness and luxuriance to the whole country; could it retain so much beauty through the summer, I should pronounce it, at once, the most enchanting land I had ever seen, and yet, as I think of the beautiful shrubs of the east, and where they do exist, of the magnolias, wild roses, and flowering vines and trees we have, I think the countries balanced, for here two species of oak, three pines, the redwood and the laurel, will almost enumerate the whole of the common varieties of trees.

Farther south, back of San Diego, in the valley of Santa Maria, I saw the finest sycamores I have ever come across; they grow where they have room enough to extend their gigantic limbs laterally, instead of forcing their huge trunks in rivalry with the oaks, to get fresh air and sunshine.

The country from Stockton is a clayey flat, so little of an inclination to the land, that the water appears to lie until evaporated, and the "sloughs" in many places are sluggish and seem to be more water-holes than running streams, until they reach the Calaveras, which is a beautiful creek nearly dry four months of the year, but the other eight giving good water. The meadow-like flats about it look just ready for the plough, though by using that, a sward of good grass would be lost. The country from here becomes very gradually more and more undulating, changing the nature of the soil every few miles. In some places the hills are of clay, and valleys of greyish loam, or red sand thickly mixed in with quartz; in many cases water-worn, but all is so beautiful that were the woods more dense, and the water-courses now so inviting, "never-failing," the farmer would here find his Paradise, and by selecting his land so as to avoid the gravelly sub-soil, which is too abundant for richness, and choosing that which has the clay foundation, his plantation might be one of great permanence, for the rains here do not wash off much of the soil.

March 8th. Following up one of the north forks of the Calaveras, we passed through beautiful valleys, green and luxuriant, but very short stretches of grass; the hills, at times, so close together at the base that the valley was almost lost; but the ascent was rapid, and we found ourselves soon on the singular hills of this country within a mile of the Mokolumne [Mokelumme] mines, where we camped for the night.

March 9th, 1850. The ice this morning was half an inch thick, and the cold at day-light, intense. One hour after sunrise, the day began to be summer, and at nine o'clock our coats were off, and we were riding towards the beautiful view made by the interesting lines of Mokolumne hill and its adjacent fellows, all eccentric, and all interesting.

The soil in the ravines here is mostly clay, but from time to time partakes of the sandy red clay so common in this country, resembling very much the gravelly hills of the post-oaks of Texas. The ride up the stream to "Mokolumne rich gulch," is very interesting, passing between two hills, or lines of hills, with occasional ravines leading down to the creek we were following.

We passed an Indian village of six huts; the squaws were pounding acorns to make "payote," in natural mortars, formed by the slight indentations being used constantly; the pounding of the stone (small granite boulders, water-worn smooth), sometimes wear the holes a foot deep; but they are generally deserted before that depth is reached. A smooth, flat stone is usually preferred by the Indians to begin on, and if the country suits their purposes, and the lodges remain any length of time in the neighborhood, the stone is often marked with thirty or forty of these mortar holes.

[No date.] Leaving "Rich gulch," we took a southerly course over the ridge, and wound down the branches of the Calaveras, until the various rivulets united and formed what is called the "north branch of the Calaveras." Where we crossed, it was about eighteen inches deep, and runs over a rough bed of various-sized pebbles, with larger lumps of granite and quartz for the horses to stumble over, making the ford when the stream is muddy from recent rains, very treacherous. The soil is of the same character for a mile or two, occasionally of a reddish loam, containing both clay and sand, mixed with gravel, of angular formation, very small, and with more or less quartz, equally various as to the size and quantity of the pieces.

The pits dug by the miners at the Chinese Diggings, five miles from the Tuolome [Tuolumne] River, and midway between the mountains and plains, among the hills, present ordinarily a superficial loam of from six to eighteen inches, rich, at times, but again of the light bluish clay; the next stratum is of reddish clay and gravel, and very hard, ending in slatey rock, soft and dead to pick at, and having the usual friability of the trap slate that is so plentiful all over the country, sticking up in places like the headstones of a deserted churchyard. At Wood's Diggings the same appearance is seen, but with the slate in more upright strata and hard.

March 18th. At Murphy's New Diggings, the gulch is full of lumps of granite and heavy gravel; in the part called "The Flat" in the lower part of the valley the soil is of great depth, in places eight to ten feet, less in others.

March 20th. From Murphy's New Diggings to Angel's Camp is six miles; the country just undulating, inviting the squatter to put up his log house, made from the few pines that, from time to time, form little clusters, but so far apart as always to arrest the attention, and call forth the admiration of the wanderer through these lonely hills, where the want of woods to me gives more solitude than our densest forest; so much for habit, for I recollect well that "Beaver," my Delaware Indian guide in Texas, always was anxious for the prairie, whenever I took him into the deep swamps of the Brasos or Guadaloupe.

"Angel's Diggings" is one of the many repetitions of the same thing seen every day. A beautiful little brook, with precipitous sides, and gravelly or rocky beds; high hills of red clayey loam, mixed or sprinkled with bits of quartz and slate, forming continual amphitheatres at almost every bend of the creek. Here I met a gentleman who had, for many years, been washing gold in the Carolinas; he had a quicksilver machine of his own invention, price one thousand dollars, which he was working with six men. He told me he was getting a pound a day from the sands he was washing, which had been washed already in the common rocker. He did not feel so sure of its efficacy in the clay diggings, but for sand it certainly was admirable. These diggings like all I have seen that were worth anything were completely riddled; first by the top washing, and "dry" washing of the Mexicans, then by the hurried, superficial "panning out" of the lucky American who came first and reaped his fortune; next better dug out by the gold digger for his three ounces a day, and now toil and hard labor gave the strong determined washer from small amounts to, occasionally, an ounce a day, when the water will permit him to work.

March 23d. Our road to Cayote [Coyote] made a "V" from Murphy's, over a poor soil, with nothing of interest along the six miles but a small elevation of semi-basaltic sand-stone, mixed with granite, with large particles of crystal-like spar.

The approach to Cayote is down a red clay hill, of course, and is on a point made by two little rivers (I should call them streams) which meet at the lower end of the diggings. The larger one is called the Cayote River, a branch of the north fork of the Stanislaus, and the diggings are about ten miles up if you follow the windings of the creek, but by the road only five to the Stanislaus.

The first year these diggings were worked many large amounts of gold were dug here with little labor; the second year required harder labor for poorer results, and it is its early reputation that keeps it up, though some holes are still paying well; I was told four, out of the fifty then being worked. The largest amount taken in the time I have been here, two days, was found by five Englishmen, two pounds and three ounces; others are well content with an ounce a day and do not give up their holes if much less than that is the result of ten hours or more work.

There are a few Indians near this place; poor, miserable devils, dirty and half clothed, for they have given up buckskin for Mexican blankets, their faces begrimed with dirt and their whole appearance one of neglect and filth. They dig a little gold from time to time and leave a good share of it with a French trader, Poillon by name. He makes his trade pay by giving them presents in the morning to secure their good-will, and a little extra change at night, on his provisions. I saw him selling the lowest part of a leg from the forequarter of a very poor beef at an abominable price, and he turned to me with a pitiful expression, and asked if he ought to let it go for so small a price, showing me an ounce of gold. All Indian trading appears to be done in the same way, make them presents, and then charge double the value of the gift, on the first article they buy.

The food of these Indians is chiefly the "payote" made from the acorns into a kind of gruel, rather astringent to the taste of the white man, but to an Indian digestion all seems good that can be swallowed.

I saw a papoose, too small to walk, with a stone in his hand half as big as his head, shelling out the nuts of the pine-cone, cracking and eating them with the judgment of a monkey, and looking very much like one.

Their wigwams faced the south, and formed an irregular cluster of bark and mud cones; the usual number of fox- and wolf-like dogs gave the same effect that I am accustomed to, but the tribe is not as handsome as the Indians of the east, or even the Yumas, Pimos, or the Maricopas on the Gila.

Leaving Cayote diggings, the trail for five miles passes between two moderately high ridges to Carson's Creek, where the soil changes to a much poorer quality; crossing the creek we ascended a fairly high hill, from which I took a sketch across the Stanislaus. The sunset effect was fine, but I had no colors with me.

March 25th. After crossing the Stanislaus we ascended a long hill leading about southwest, towards the "Mormon Gulch" three miles distant. The road wound up ravines for the first two miles, and would have made as beautiful a walk as it did a ride. All nature was still and calm, and the silent scene brought Sunday to both our minds, and we agreed that whether in the wilderness, or at home, the day brought a feeling of tranquillity. We almost changed our minds when we reached the diggings, so different was the scene. The bar-rooms were all doing a "thriving business," and the monte dealers were doing even a better, gloating over the hard-earned piles of gold dust which ought to have served a better purpose.

Passing all this, and going up a beautiful gorge, winding at times so as almost to form a semi-circle, we turned our course, and came upon a most exquisite cascade; the water split upon a bold rock about fifty feet high and tumbled in leaps of from six to ten feet until it reached the rocky bed, where it rushed on boiling and bubbling impetuously until it joined the Stanislaus.

Our walk to Wood's Creek was hot and tiresome, and after cooling off we took a sponge bath, the water being too cold for a plunge, and then sauntered about looking for the best points at which to take views of this most beautiful part of the country. Situated, by comparison, in a basin, and straggling up and down the creek are here situated Wood's diggings, Jamestown and Yorktown. The soil looks poor, and the rock is granite and sandstone with some slate. On the high points and peaks of "Table Mountain" huge masses of conglomerate boulders, two feet and more in diameter, are scattered everywhere, and give a dreary look to all the north side of Wood's diggings. The hill to the west has shot up into beautiful obelisks of quartz, and you only cease to admire it to be in raptures over the views seen by turning east, to look over mountain beyond mountain, snowy peaks bare of trees, and between them the rounded points of hills, looking tiny by comparison. To the south, bold, rounded but high mountains, full of verdure and with most graceful outlines, enchant you, while the verdant stretches at the foot of these mountains have a pastoral air which made us think of home.

March 27th. My day passed in a vain attempt to transfer to canvas the scene before our tent; when I had worked some hours I went into the tent next to ours, where lies a poor man, ill, pale, dejected, unable to move even a few steps. His mud roof leaks, the soil forming the side of his cabin is so porous that it admits such quantities of water that a ditch is necessary to carry it off from the dirt floor. This man came round the Horn, and the long voyage and poor food left him such a victim of scurvy that since he arrived in California, the first of last October, he has worked only six days; the relative with whom he came, and who has toiled for both, has only been able to keep them in provisions, with his best endeavors; he has no money to get home, now his only wish. This man is the brother of Barnum, the museum man; he has written to him, and is awaiting a draft which will enable him to return.

Day and night (these beautiful moonlight nights), flock after flock of wild geese pass almost hourly over our heads to the north. I give up in despair trying to fathom the use of their migration, when hundreds of their fellows are known to breed so far south. Their courtship is kept up as they fly high over the grassy plains where they fed last fall, for if you look closely at the flock, you will see that with the exception of the old gander, a fourth larger than the others, as a rule all the rest are in pairs, and the males follow the females so closely that the line is composed of two very near together, two a little distance from them, and so on to the end.

March 28th. Wood's diggings having given me such sketches as I could take, we took the valley road to Chinese diggings, en route for Hawkin's [Hawkins's] bar, on the Tuolomne. We were assured before we left that "Woods" now only giving five dollars at the most to good workers, once gave as many ounces, and is now kept up on its past reputation by the storekeepers, as all prospectors must pay something; one takes a drink, another some fresh meat, another a pair of boots; all is sold at exorbitant prices, and storekeepers get rich if no one else does. We are now leaving Layton for Sonora Camp, and I, for Hawkin's Bar.

Every turn gives some vista of beauty in this Garden of Eden; the soft southerly breeze is perfumed with the delicate odor of millions of the smaller varieties of prairie flowers, in some places so abundant as to color acres, whole hillsides, so thickly as to hide the ground, and my mule had to eat flowers rather than grass. One without home ties might well feel all his days could be passed in the beauties of these valleys, roseate yellow and blue, so soft that the purest sky cannot surpass the color for delicacy. Tangled masses of vines climb everywhere, hiding the hard surfaces of the quartz rocks, and beyond this exquisite vegetation always some view, wild and impressive, meets the eye.

But to facts: Bob Layton says: "Don't bring your wagons through Chinese Diggings;" and I agree with him, unless you have nine yoke of pretty good oxen to your load of three thousand five hundred pounds. I believe that teams such as these do get about three miles a day across the boggy flat and post-oak quicksands of these diggings. (In many places the body of the luggage wagon is six inches deep in the mud.) This condition lasts from December to March inclusive.

What this country must be in summer I cannot say, but if it cracks as the soil does south of Los Angeles, it must indeed be miserable, and the stories of the Mexicans we met below the Colorado must be true, when they said it was almost impassable.

A few miles on towards Hawkin's Bar on the Tuolomne the country is very fine, and little plains and valleys fill the six miles, all but the last one, which is a steep descent, short and rugged, over clay and rocks. On this ridge the grass is sparse, and "arrow-wood" was plentiful. The day's march over, you set up your tent, and find cool and delicious water from the Tuolomne just as it leaves its mountain gorge; a little creek on the left which has taken its rise below the altitude of snow is twenty degrees warmer, and so more welcome for bathing purposes.

March 29th. The Tuolomne here, one mile above Hawkin's Bar, comes out of a gorge in the hills, which is both steep and rocky, and sends forth the troubled stream to be tossed and dashed over rocks and shallow bars, for miles through hills and chasms until it reaches the plains, when it moves quietly, but still rapidly at this season, as it makes its way to the San Joaquin, ninety or a hundred miles from the mouth of that stream.

The river here rises and falls daily and nightly almost with the regularity of the tide, not ordinarily more than a foot or two, this being due to the effect of the sun on the snows of the mountains; the warmer the day the higher the water. At night many men in parties of from twenty-five to fifty are here engaged in digging canals to drain the bed of the river at low water. I learn however that they are greatly hindered in this by numerous springs in the bottom of the river, and though there is no doubt a great deal of gold, the difficulties of getting it without machinery are more than can be realized by any one who has not been here and tried.

The buzzards in this upper country are just pairing. I have seen three or four couples of the California vulture but have not secured one yet.

The bar which was dug here last year is now under water, but I am told it was very profitable and many made five or six thousand from their summer's work. There are many here waiting for the plains to dry and snows to melt, when Hawkin's celebrated bar may again be worked. While I am here, I may as well try to give an idea of how the work is done. When a spot has been selected the digger opens a pit, ordinarily four to six feet deep, but sometimes only the top soil has to be removed before the digger can commence washing; this depends on whether he comes to soil tenacious enough to hold the gold, and keep it from sinking down through light, sandy, or porous soils, until it meets with a formation which prevents it from going deeper into the earth. Sometimes in such places are found large deposits called "pockets," and doubtless there are still many to be discovered. When suitable soil is found the digger takes a panful for washing, and with doubt and anxiety goes to the nearest water to see if his "hole" will pay. He stirs the earth and sand in his pan around, until all the soluble part floats off over the sides of the pan, which is kept under water; he then begins shaking backwards and forwards with a regular movement what is left in his pan, to settle what gold is in it; the gold sinks and all the lighter gravel is tipped to the sides, and the gold is quite below all except the black sand, so like emery that when the gold is very fine it is a great drawback, and difficult to separate. Should the digger find gold enough to warrant his washing the clay at the bottom of his pit, and thereby gaining half an ounce a day he goes on washing, but grumbles at his hard luck, hoping that as he gets deeper in his hole he will get richer also, and that when he comes to rock, he may find a "pocket." The cradle is set up, the water poured over, and the monotony of the digger's life begins, a sort of voluntary treadmill occupation, until homesick and tired, even if successful, he ties up his wallet which contains his wealth, secretes it about his body, and tramps off. A man who is usually successful, and there are not so many, may have acquired five or six thousand dollars, but he has usually aged ten years.

April 5th. Leaving Hawkin's Bar for Green Springs, we sauntered along the trail under the beautiful post-oaks, just now in their greatest beauty, with leaves half-grown and pendant catkins. Now we shot a partridge or a hare, or stopped to let "Riley," our pack mule, luxuriate in some little patch of rich grass, in which he stood knee deep. Overhead we saw the heavy, sweeping motion of the vulture's wing, or watched his silent circles. Around us are flowers innumerable, brilliant, soft, modest, fragrant, to suit all fancies, till, having finished our eight-mile journey, the sun began to cast its evening light over the landscape, for we had started late. Layton had rejoined me, and we set up our tent and I made a sketch.

April 6th. Four o'clock found us on our way back to Hawkin's, to meet a friend of Layton's, N. Howard, who was to be our companion. It was cloudy but beautiful, and at Wedgewood's tent we found our friend, and shelter, of which we were glad, as rain was beginning to fall and soon came down in torrents, swelling the little brook near the tents to a roaring stream.

April 8th. After being delayed by rain, our trio started for Don Pedro's Bar, eight miles down the Tuolomne. The country to look at is most beautiful, and our short walk was one of pleasure and admiration.

April 9th. This morning we crossed the river and after a trot of about five miles came to the caÑon. I made my way to the lower end called Indian Bluff and my sketch was finished by probably five o'clock; but having no watch I cannot tell. Here I saw the nests of the California vulture, but on the opposite side of the river, now an impassable torrent.

The country on the south side of this river, where we are, is very hilly, the soil tolerable, and the trees still post-oak. We leave for Stockton tomorrow.

April 10th. The road was pleasant on our way back to Green Springs and for a mile further, and when evening came we pitched our "line" tent, and commenced cooking our supper. We had a California hare, a mallard and a plover, all killed out of season, but food we must have. Howard boasted of his coffee, Layton is the baker of the mess, whilst I parboiled my slices of pork to rid it of its coarse flavor, fried out the lard, and have turned and re-turned the loin and hindlegs of our hare. "Riley" safely tethered near us had an equally good supper of the grass and flowers that were to be his bed, and we spread our blankets and went to sleep, or rather the other two have done so, and I, writing by the firelight, shall soon follow their example.

April 11th. Our road today was almost the same that I had travelled with the company going from Stockton to Chinese Camp or diggings, but how changed the scene. The road then was soft mud and mire for miles; now it is as hard as brick, and the hills then scarcely tinged with green by the early sprouting vegetation are now fresh and beautiful with every shade of green and brilliant flowers of all colors. At every rise of ground we paused and turned to look back at the range of the Sierra Nevada softening and mellowing in the hazy light of the sun, the brilliancy enhanced by the deepening blue of the distant hills which form the last outline on the eastern horizon.

Here I tried my hand again at oil painting for landscape, but can only blot in what will answer hereafter to give me local color. After painting about three hours we packed up and started again, as there was no water near us, and took our direction westerly. We found the beds of the streams that in January were beautiful little rivulets, now bright sand bleaching in the sun, their waters dried up or only a tiny trickle. As we descended from one table land to another the rich vegetation became broken by spots of barrenness, and at times whole plains of weeds, not strong and rank showing fertile land, but coarse, noxious, ungainly with disgusting smell, extended for three or four miles and we followed the dusty road almost feeling that we were again on our terrible journey through Mexico last summer.

All these valleys along the river look more fertile in winter than at this season, as the wet and moisture gives the appearance of richness, which is now completely dissipated by the already parched-up effect of the land.

To give you some little idea of the changes occurring in this country: the ferry we crossed last winter (and could only be taken over after great bargaining for a dollar each), we crossed today, all three of us, and our mule for the same sum of one dollar. So at the mines, the same change has taken place; last year an ounce was considered the average of the produce of good working men per diem; this year half an ounce is considered the average, by equally good and better skilled workmen. The people at home will not believe that the roads are travelled by a continuous line of miners; some on foot, some with packs, mules, wagons, in search of "better luck."

The snows are melting so fast just now that the river is within two feet of being as high as when I crossed in the winter just after two nights of rain; then it was muddy, and anyone could see was not in a natural state, now though almost as rapid and deep its clear waters do not give the angry look it had then—so much for summer and its softening effects.

The road from Stanislaus over broad prairies of poor sandy soil extends for miles until nearing the edge of the line of beautiful old oaks that fringe French Creek and its swamps; then the earth becomes richer and sends up a growth of clover and beautiful grass knee high, until you reach Stockton. Indeed all the best lands of the San Joaquin River are admirably suited for planting with proper drainage and cultivation.

The sea breeze at this season is cold and searching, keeping the thermometer at 60 degrees and 62 degrees for days; when a lull comes the heat is at once oppressive, and the mercury rises to 80 degrees or 85 degrees, and the heat dances before us almost in palpable shapes; the water all stagnant sends its odor of decaying vegetation everywhere, accompanied by myriads of mosquitoes. These conditions exist for miles over the east side, towards the mountains of the San Joaquin.

April 16th. I am still at Stockton making various excursions with Layton and his friend Howard from New Orleans, and sketching constantly and steadily. I am indeed crowding all sail to start for home on the steamer which sails on June 1st, with Capt. Patterson. I have made nearly ninety careful sketches, and many hasty ones, the most interesting I have been able to find in these southern mines, and expect to leave in a few days for Sacramento.

Stockton, April 18th. I am hardly fit to write for I have just had most melancholy news from Simson. Lieut. Browning, my dear and devoted friend; to whom I owe a debt of gratitude which I can never pay, for his friendship and kindness to me last year, from the hour that he took my hand on the accursed Rio Grande River until we parted in San Francisco, has been drowned. With Lieuts. Bache and Blunt he was examining the coast near Trinidad Bay, and on attempting to land, the boat "broached to" in the breakers and capsized. Five were drowned, among them Lieuts. Browning and Bache. Thus is added another victim to our ill-fated expedition. Strange that from first to last we have been so fatally followed. Night after night Browning and I shared the same tent, the same blankets; we knew each [other] well, we were friends.

April 23d. The whole country to the north and east of Stockton through to the Calaveras is most rich and splendid soil, but in many places too low for farming, but the grazing was excellent, quantities of wild oats, rye grass (I think), clover and a species resembling red-top. In many places the grasses were breast high as I waded through them but generally full knee-deep. As we neared the Calaveras we lost our way trying to avoid some bad arroyos, and followed a trail off to the eastward, perhaps three miles, and the country if changed at all, changed for the better. Finding the trend of the trail we were following did not suit our ideas of direction, we turned back at even more than a right angle, and in half an hour entered a wood of open timber, with here and there a lagoon or quagmire of mud and mire; but we worked through and Layton went ahead to reconnoitre, and in about twenty minutes reported the river, which we followed down on a good firm cattle trail, and in half an hour more had come to the upper settlement of the ferry, and were stopped by the fences of newly made farms, and again driven to the swamps to get only a few hundred yards down to the ferry.

We crossed the river after having assisted some Germans with about six hundred sheep, and camped for the night tired enough, having made only about ten miles, but walked nearly twenty of hard travel.

April 24th. As the traveller leaves the north side of the Calaveras and rises higher, the ground becomes cold and has a bluish-looking clay for the road, almost as hard as soft brick, and more tenacious; there are streaks of sandy soil, and in a few places good land; this is scarce however, between the Calaveras and Mokulumne where the Sacramento road crosses the plain. The last three miles of the road is through a pleasant, half-wooded country of live-oak and a few varieties of other shrubs, for the whole of the wood is small.

The sandy road was a great relief to us after the lumpy one of the morning, and we tramped merrily on, until we reached the Mokulumne, and saw a comfortable (for this country), log and jacal built house, and passing about two hundred yards further on, spread our blankets under some half dozen magnificent oaks, and after washing away the dust and heat in the clear, cold little river, very rapid but smooth, ate our lunch of fried pork and bread, and stretched ourselves out to rest for an hour, when we packed up, and being ferried across in a pretty good flat-boat, the only one between Stockton and Sacramento, we continued our walk to Dry Creek over just the same description of country we had had in the morning; but it became more sandy if anything, and towards evening was more of a rolling country. Before we camped for the night we swam "Riley" across a creek about twenty feet wide, and paid one dollar and fifty cents for ourselves and belongings to cross in a sort of canoe, which took us about five minutes.

At the ferry house was a comfortable looking woman with four little children, one an infant; like the Texans she told us they had plenty of cattle, but only one milch cow, so we went on.

April 25th. This morning mounting a slight rise of ground we at once found ourselves on a high dry, too dry, prairie, facing a bracing northwest wind, just strong enough to feel it stirring up our spirits, and we went cheerily on for about eight miles to a bridge, crossed it, and for about two miles had a succession of sloughs to cross, some boggy, some quicksand, others we had to swim. By carefully sounding we kept our packs dry in crossing, and safely reached the back of Murphy's corral, where I skinned a magpie I had shot, and Layton took a nap. We then went to admire Mr. Murphy's fine stock of brood mares, and the young horses he is raising. At three in the afternoon we packed and left for Sacramento City, keeping to the road for eight miles, when we came to a wood where we collected sufficient fuel for our evening cooking, and went on two miles or so to a lagoon of excellent water, and camped. We had no tent poles, so did as we had done often before, spread one side of the tent on the ground and laid our blankets on that, and covered ourselves with the other part; a corner was put over my gun used as a pole, which gave a place to sit, and also protected our solitary candle from the wind, so we ate our supper in comfort, and enjoyed a kill-deer and a couple of snipe we had shot.

We did not hear a sound but the croakings of hundreds of frogs from the pond by our side. Our long campings out had accustomed us to solitudes like this, but on our desolate, half starving march of last year, doubt, anxiety, yes and fear, had always taken from the complete enjoyment of such freedom as this. The country was so flat that the horizon was lost even in the bright moonlight, and the perfect silence, the pure cloudless sky overhead, the quiet little lake, tended to make everything full of solemnity and peace.

April 26th. This morning half a gale was blowing from the northwest and we were glad to wear our blanket coats until the sun warmed up the earth. We reached "Sutter's Fort" at noon, and lay down under the adobe wall to take our lunch. I was disappointed in the view I had hoped to take; here, on a boundless plain, with two or three hospitals around it, stands a sort of rancho, not so good in many respects as those of New Mexico, but all in the same style, the sides being a series of rooms, one corner being better fitted up for the rancher and his family.

Under some grand old oaks three hundred feet to the eastward, is a cemetery containing a number of graves all made, they tell me, last year when miners and emigrants alike succumbed to illness brought on in many cases by exposure, poor food, and, in some cases, doubtless by disappointed hopes.

Sacramento City is a country village built on a flat point, between a lagoon and the river just below the junction of American River, so low as to be eighteen inches under average high water mark. It has been a source of such speculations as '36 never heard of. I was shown a plot of some half-dozen half lots, which cost last fall two hundred and fifty dollars. The gentleman who owned them, Dr. Pierson, told me he had sold two of them, about a quarter of the whole, for three thousand five hundred dollars, after holding them six months. Truly people did come to California to make money, and some made it, but California will for the present lower the moral tone of all who come here.

There are few refining influences and men become coarse and profane in language, while the hard life does not improve the temper; the sight of the gold they see dug, and the fortunes they hear of that have been made in months, some few even in weeks, make them avaricious.

Many lots of land, valued last year at one thousand dollars, are now valued at ten thousand dollars, but sooner or later the fall must come.

Sutter's Fort appears to have been built with great care as to its means of defence, though at first sight a visitor would be puzzled to know why it was called a fort at all; closer examination shows that it once had, from all appearances, four square towers, some twenty-five feet high, one at each corner, each tower mounting four, eighteen, or at most, twenty-four pound carronades, and the effect of these on the Indians was all that was required for protection, for the Indians here are a very low class and poor race, far inferior to the eastern tribes, and like the Mexicans cowardice is their chief trait, or at least their most prominent one; and if Mr. Sutter could have had twenty faithful followers, he must have been "monarch of all he surveyed."

The swampy neighborhood, bad atmosphere, and malarial conditions must render this section of country unhealthy to a great degree for half the year; for as autumn comes on the daily supply of freshly-melted snow-water from the mountains will no longer purify the lagoons and bayous of the vicinity.

Fever and ague is very prevalent now, and dysentery feared by all. Many of the farmers I find here tell me they are only working to get money enough to get back with, and that nothing would induce them to settle here. They have unfortunately not seen the lower part of the valley and what lies about Los Angeles and to the southward—that is the flower of California.

April 29th. Alas, is it for good or for bad luck, that I have just learned that Layton and myself cannot travel with safety across the country here, as below, on account of the ill-will of the Indians, and that a party of less than six will be unsafe up and across the middle fork of the American River. How stories of Indians are told to every traveller. Though often near them, I have never found any who were not greater cowards than myself, and we leave today for Sutter's Mills, Georgetown, etc., in good health and spirits.

May 4th. Coloma. "Sutter's Mills" is about fifty miles [distant], nearly east of Sacramento. The road to it after passing the first four or five miles runs through a sandy soil, covered at present with what we call "sneeze-weed." There is no water, until after leaving the river, American Fork, we crossed a pretty little "spring branch" as it would be called in Louisiana. The grass is sparse and poor along the whole route, and the face of nature looks like August in the eastern states, so completely that as the refreshing cool breezes come to us each morning, I almost fancy it is the first of September. But in the valleys and on the hillsides the heat is most oppressive, though, as in England, if you stand still for only a few moments in the shade, you soon feel chilled through.

The valley here is not as wide as at Stockton by at least twenty miles, and the grand masses of snow covered mountains seem almost within a day of you, whilst south you still have distance to give additional enchantment to the view. The oaks here are small, not more than from eighteen inches to two feet in diameter; if the soil in which they grew had any richness, I should say the whole forest was of forty years growth at most, but for the occasional presence of a grove of magnificent pines, from a hundred to nearly two hundred feet high. I have measured many at the angle on the ground and have proved it with rods so that I know I am very nearly correct in my statement.

May 6th. Crossing the river at Coloma, on a good bridge, we commenced our ascent of the long and in many places very steep hill. We found a start at dawn would have been much better than at ten, which it now was, as our poor mule "Riley" felt the heat greatly; but with occasional pauses up we went, passing wrecked wagons and broken pack-saddles in several of the narrow parts of the caÑons that the road wound through. We were not sorry when we found we had reached the last hill and mounted it, hoping to be repaid by some distant view, but on no side could we see more than a few miles; and we journeyed on, wondering who would be[40] at the mushroom town, Coloma, renowned for being the place where gold was first found by the whites.

We were told that Captain Sutter had made a large fortune by digging gold with many of the Indians he had about him; how true the story is, of course, I cannot say.

[No date.] Starting early we had time enough to reach Georgetown, and after the first few miles, were pleased to see a most favorable change in the forest we passed through. A better class of white oaks appeared, and following up a beautiful little creek we gradually came to a pine growth large and magnificent; both yellow and white pine were there, also the long coned pine, and many superb cedars over a hundred feet high. In many places these trees were felled, and split into laths and joists so straight and fine that but little dressing was requisite to fit them for the buildings here constructed, frame houses one story high. I saw some maples, very like what we call "soft" maple, an elm or two, and many specimens of Nuttall's splendid dogwood in full bloom.

The ultramarine jay is here by dozens, robins, fly catchers, chats, finches by hundreds. I see daily new birds and plants that a year's steady work could not draw, but if our government would send good men, what a work of national pride could be brought out! Geology, botany, entomology, zoÖlogy, etc. The views are frequently superb, and the hemlocks and pines of many species most beautiful.

We reached Georgetown—two rows of poor houses and sheds. The houses all one story, but some with piazzas, and here we took our supper at the "Pine settlement" as it is called.