purposes on the San Joaquin River, above the rancho of Dr. Marsh. Two
of the women and one of the men are now here, waiting for the return of
the main party, which has gone up the river to explore and select a
suitable site for the settlement. The women are young, neatly dressed,
and one of them may be called good-looking. Captain Gant, formerly of
the U.S. Army, in very bad health, is also residing here. He has
crossed the Rocky Mountains eight times, and, in various trapping
excursions, has explored nearly every river between the settlements of
the United States and the Pacific Ocean.

The house of Dr. Marsh being fully occupied, we made our beds in a
shed, a short distance from it. Suspended from one of the poles forming
the frame of this shed was a portion of the carcass of a recently
slaughtered beef. The meat was very fat, the muscular portions of it
presenting that marbled appearance, produced by a mixture of the fat
and lean, so agreeable to the sight and palate of the epicure. The
horned cattle of California, which I have thus far seen, are the
largest and the handsomest in shape which I ever saw. There is
certainly no breed in the United States equalling them in size. They,
as well as the horses, subsist entirely on the indigenous grasses, at
all seasons of the year; and such are the nutritious qualities of the
herbage, that the former are always in condition for slaughtering, and
the latter have as much flesh upon them as is desirable, unless (which
is often the case) they are kept up at hard work and denied the
privilege of eating, or are broken down by hard riding. The varieties
of grass are very numerous, and nearly all of them are heavily seeded
when ripe, and are equal, if not superior, as food for animals, to corn
and oats. The horses are not as large as the breeds of the United
States, but in point of symmetrical proportions and in capacity for
endurance they are fully equal to our best breeds. The distance we have