been one of the inferior alcaldes during the Spanish regime at
Monterey; John Dowling, first male, and Samuel Bradshaw, the carpenter,
of an American whaling ship which they had left at San Francisco. The
lawyer was an intelligent person, conversant with the language of
several of the tribes--the mate seemed to have his wits about him, and
the carpenter would obviously be a great acquisition, particularly as
we were now about to plunge even beyond the furthest outposts of
civilization, where, in all probability, we may have to secure
ourselves against attacks from the Indians without the possibility of
any help beyond that which we could render to each other. We were
rather pleased with their offer, and received them as an addition to
our party. All three had horses, although, as usual with seamen, the
mate and carpenter were terribly awkward equestrians.

_Wednesday, July 26th_.--This day we struck our camp before sunrise,
and had the horses securely packed and all in motion in the early cool
of the morning. The march was a fatiguing one; the country appearing to
be a succession of woody bottoms, or valleys and steep rocky ridges,
which tried the metal of our loaded horses severely. From the summit of
one of the hills more elevated than the rest we obtained a distant view
of the valley of the Sacramento. Our general course was north
north-west. The trapper, who proved an able guide, varied the direction
from time to time so as to lead us through the easiest paths, taking
care to steer clear of the deep canones that split up the hills in
every direction. We dined at noon as usual, and that very well, on some
hare soup made from a couple of hares which we had shot during the
morning, and some dried beef. The signs of deer were very frequent.
After mounting and descending a very precipitous and rocky ridge, we
encamped near some waterfalls in a wide open valley. The night was
somewhat cold, and we enjoyed a blazing fire of pine sticks, which we