getting the farrier's assistance yesterday, and he came to me in the
evening to inform me that he and the rest were going into camp for the
night. Bradley and myself found an ample supper prepared for us; and,
after doing due justice to the eatables, and dressing Bradley's arm, I
shortened the night a couple of hours by jotting down the events of the
day.

This morning I rose early and walked to the camp, which I found, about
half a mile off, under some oaks in a piece of pasture land on the
Captain's farm. I had some difficulty in finding it out, for there were
at least fifteen or twenty tents of one kind or another in the
"bottom." The party were all roused, and breakfast was preparing under
Don Luis's superintendence. It was the general opinion that we must buy
two extra horses to carry our breadstuffs, etc. Malcolm reported that
there were a variety of articles we were still in want of; namely, tin
drinking-cups, some buckets for water, with forks, and other small
articles. He recommended that a couple more axes and a strong saw be
bought at Brannan's, together with hammers, nails, etc., and some of
the Indian baskets which seem to be so common about here.

On my return to the Fort, I fell in with the Captain, rigged out in a
military undress uniform. I chatted with him for half an hour about his
farm, etc. He told me that he was the first white man who settled in
this part of the country; that some ten years ago, when the Mexican
government was full of colonization schemes, the object of which was to
break up the Missions, and to introduce a population antagonistic to
the Californians, he received a grant of land, sixty miles one way and
twelve another, about sixteen or seventeen hundred acres of which he
had now brought under cultivation. "When I came here," said the
Captain, "I knew the country and the Indians well. Eight years ago