influence of a cup of brandy, was able to proceed home with his
comrades. It was many weeks, however, before he was fit for service, and
he will retain till his dying day the dental marks received from the
leopard, by way of token what it would like to have done with him had
there been none but themselves two on the desert wide.

The soldiers returned, some time after, and skinned the animal, carrying
home its spotted covering for a trophy; and now, here it is, with the
marks of the musket-balls upon it, remembrances of the strange story we
have now recounted.



LIFE IN CALIFORNIA.

Every man, both honest and dishonest, in California, has his own
horse--as a very good-looking, active one can be purchased, tamed to
carry the saddle and rider, from the Indians, for four or five dollars;
so that every one, I may add, of both sexes, ride in California. No one
walks far but the hunter, and he is carried in canoe a long way up the
river before he strikes into the forest after the animals he is in
pursuit of. This last class of men are the most wild, daring, yet
friendly and honest, of the lower class of the white population of
California. Well: as the robber as well as the honest man are equally
mounted, sometimes a very interesting steeple chase ensues,--ground
rough, not being previously chosen, occasionally leaping over pools of
water, large stones, and fallen trees. The Indians who use the lasso,
generally keep the lead, to strive to throw the noose over either the
man or horse they are pursuing. It is made of thongs of bullock-hide
twisted into a small rope about thirty or forty feet long, with a noose