be embroidered. It matters not how poor the parties may be, the articles above mentioned are indispensable to the wedding.

The saddle the woman rides has a kind of leathern apron which hangs over the horse's rump, and completely covers his hinder parts as far as half way down the legs; this likewise, to be complete, must be embroidered with silks of different colors and gold and silver thread; from the lower part, upwards, it opens in six or eight parts, and each of these parts is furnished with a number of small pieces of iron or copper, so as to make a jingling noise like so many small cracked bells. I have seen one of these aprons with three hundred and sixty of these small jingles hanging to it.

The bridegroom must also furnish the bride with at least six articles of each kind of woman's clothing, and also buy up every thing necessary to feast his friends for one, two or three days, as the inclinations of the attendants invited or uninvited, may dictate.

The day being named, for the celebration of the wedding the two fine horses are saddled, and the bridegroom takes up before him on the same horse he rides, the godmother that is to be-and the future godfather takes before him on his horse the bride, and away they gallop to church.

As soon as the ceremony is over, the new married couple mount one horse, and the godfather and godmother the other horse, and they return to the house of the parents of the bride, where they are received with squibs, musketry, etc., and two persons station themselves at some convenient place near the house,and before the bridegroom has time to dismount these two persons seize him and take off his spurs, which they hold possession of until the owner redeems them with a bottle of brandy or a dollar.

The married couple then enter the house, where the near relations are all waiting in tears to receive them; they kneel down before the parents and ask a blessing, which is by the parents immediately bestowed: all persons at this moment are excluded from the presence

of the parties, and the moment the blessing is bestowed, the bridegroom makes a sign or speaks to some person near him, and the guitar and violins are struck up, and dancing and drinking is the order of the day.

The moment a child is born on a farm in California and the midwife has had time to clothe it, it is given to a man on horseback, who rides post haste to some Mission with the new born infant in his arms, and in company with the future godfather and godmother, who present it to a priest for baptism; this sacrament having been administered, the party return and the child may rest sometimes a whole month without taking an excursion on horseback, but after the lapse of this time it hardly escapes one day without being on horseback until the day of sickness or death.

Thus by the time a boy is ten or twelve years of age he becomes a good horseman, and it is difficult to get him to do any kind of work on foot, and almost any Californian would think less hard of riding one hundred miles than he would of working four hours on foot; add to this that most of the labor in California has necessarily been effected by means of men on horseback. The taking care of cattle and horses, lasting them,and going such long journeys as they are constantly obliged to travel, has made them expert horsemen to an extraordinary degree.

The horses themselves are of a hardy nature, as may be seen by the inhuman manner in which they are generally treated by the natives. If a man wants to travel from thirty to forty miles from his place of residence, he saddles his horse and mounts him; on his arrival at the town or place of destination, he ties him to a post; he may in some cases give him a drink of water, and should he remain away from home four or five days his horse gets nothing but water, without food all that time, and if he is a horse of the middling class of Californian horses, he will travel those thirty or forty miles back again with the same free gait at which he started on a full belly and good condition; of course this is only in the summer season when the grass has good substance and the horse is in good order.

I suppose this will hardly be credited by some of the farmers and horse jockeys in the United States, but is nothing beyond the truth, and besides, a horse when completely equipped for a journey in this country generally carries besides his rider a weight of from fifty-five to sixty pounds of saddle gear, and should the weather be rainy and the saddle get wet, the weight is doubled. It requires two large tanned ox hides to fit out a Californian saddle, add to this the wooden stirrups three inches thick, the saddle tree, stout iron rings and buckles, with a pair of spurs weighing from four to six pounds, a pair of goat skins laid across the pummel of the saddle, with large pockets in them, and which reach below the stirrup, and a pair of heavy holsters with the largest kind of horse pistols, and I think it will be found I have rather fell short than exaggerated in my statement of the weight which a horse in this country has to carry on a journey, notwithstanding they travel very freely and are active in their motions.

November 9, 1846.-The Californians here, to distinguish themselves from the Indians, style themselves people of reason (gente de razon) but a strict and impartial observer would place both parties in many respects on an equality. I will state one or two instances that have happened,and of which I have been an eye witness in some of the circumstances.

Some few years ago an Indian blacksmith belonging to the Mission of San Carlos, in company with about twenty more Indians, went to a farm which then belonged to the mission, and which farm I have since purchased, to gather acorns for a winter stock; the blacksmith, as he has since told me himself, was gathering acorns in a deep ravine, and in strolling from tree to tree he observed something rising out of the earth; he tried to gather some of it in his hand, but could not on account of its adhesion in all parts, and its being very hard. He then took an axe which he had with him, and by chopping and pounding got a piece of the substance separated from the mass. As it pleased

his eye on account of its brightness, he carried it into the Mission to shew it to the Priest; who on seeing it, asked the Indian where he had found it. The Indian pointed to the mountains that formed one side of the ravine, and the Priest told him he must never go there again, much less tell any person where the spot was,at the same time ordering him as he was a blacksmith, to make up the piece which he had procured into crosses, saying that as soon as they were made he would bless them and distribute them among the Christians. The Indian did as he was ordered and the priest as he had promised.

This circumstance was told to me after I had bought the farm, and as soon as I had an opportunity, I sent for the Indian and inquired of him strictly where the spot was, but he never would tell, saying that the priest had told him that if he ever shewed the spot to any person his death would immediately follow. He held to this about a year. At last by means of threats and promises, and gifts, he agreed to go with me and shew me the spot, having previously pointed it out to me at a distance. We accordingly went, but when we arrived within about two leagues of the spot he had pointed out, I took notice that he was all of a tremble. Judging from previous conversation with him the reason for this, I did all I could to inspire him with confidence, but in vain; he told me if he showed me the spot he was sure of going to hell without ever reaching home again, that the priest had told him so, and he believed it; and neither threats, entreaties, or payment, had any effect on him. Consequently I and those who accompanied me, had a thirty mile ride for nothing. There is another Indian living in Monterey who knows of a lead mine, and has twice brought me some ore, but nothing can make him tell where he gets it from.

The people of reason are about as ignorant as the Indian above mentioned. Yesterday they went to church and had a raffle to find out what man's soul should be prayed out of purgatory, of course the fortune fell to a near relation of the man who wrote the ballots and held the ballot box.

November 15, 1846.-Mr. George Hastings arrived here at four o'clock this afternoon from the Pueblo of San José, with a company of seventy-three men, to join Colonel Fremont in his expedition to the South; he likewise brought about two hundred horses, in pretty good condition.

The U. S. frigate Savannah landed thirty men this morning, to remain here as a reinforcement to the commandant of this town. Col. Fremont has now about three hundred and forty or fifty men, and about eight hundred horses-but these are in a sorry condition, some of them die daily, being literally starved to death. The whole territory is now in a most pitiable state, both Americans and Californians having gathered into their possession all the horses they could find in the country. There is not a farm in the whole country at this present moment, that can boast of a horse or a saddle, unless they have secreted them in some place which has escaped the strictest searches of both parties.

The losses which the owners of some of these farms will suffer, is incalculable, for the want of horses to drive the cattle together, which ought to be done at least once in each week; otherwise the cattle being left unattended, will, in the course of three or four weeks, take to the mountains; and if left by themselves five or six months will become wild, and cost a great deal of money and labor for each owner to separate his cattle and induce it to remain on its respective land. Still these people are so ignorant or headstrong that they cannot or will not see this; it appears they do not take into consideration that it is not an enemy's country and property that they are ruining, but it is their own and themselves are the only persons who suffer the injuries which they inflict. It is impossible not to pity many of the natives of California who are now suffering in their property from the evil dispositions of their countrymen. They are not well informed enough to know that in peculiar circumstances, such as the present, the property found in the enemy's country is liable to be seized to supply the necessities of the opposite party. When anything is taken from them after a fair price has been offered for it, and they