Rumours of gold being found on the Sacramento
Characteristics of Monterey
Don Luis Palo and his sisters
What all Californian dinners consist of
The party return to San Francisco.


Monterey.--_May 4th_.--Started off early on the morning of the 2nd on
our journey to Monterey. We found our horses in readiness in the hotel
yard, in charge of a servant (here called a vaquero) of Mr. Bradley's.
The latter, having business to transact at Monterey, accompanied
us. My horse was equipped after the Spanish fashion, with the usual
high-pommelled cumbrous saddle, with a great show of useless trappings,
and clumsy wooden stirrups, and for a long time I found the riding
sufficiently disagreeable, though, doubtless, far more pleasant than
a coast journey would have been, with a repetition of the deadly
sea-sickness from which I had already suffered so much. I soon found
out, too, the advantages of the Spanish saddle, as enabling one to
keep one's seat when travelling over thorough broken country through
which our road ran. Bradley had told us to have our rifles in
readiness, as no one travels any distance here without that very
necessary protection, the mountains near the coast being infested with
lawless gangs of ruffians, who lie in wait for solitary travellers.

The first part of our ride lay through a dense thicket of underwood,
and afterwards across parched up valleys, and over low sandy hills;
then past large grazing grounds--where cattle might be counted by the
thousand--and numerous ranchos or farms, the white farm buildings,
surrounded by little garden patches, scattered over the hill sides.
We at length came to an extensive plain, with groups of oaks spread