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CHAPTER IV.

LOS ANGELES AND THE COAST OF CALIFORNIA.

FINANCIAL EMBARRASSMENTS.--HOSPITALITY OF AN UNCLE AND HIS NEPHEW.--AN OBLIGING AND ACCOMMODATING RESTAURATEUR:-- A LOAN AT SIXTY PER CENT.--ASPECT OF LOS ANGELES.--PRODUCTIONS OF THE COUNTRY.--BITUMINOUS SPRINGS.--MORAL CONDITION.--A CATHOLIC MISSIONARY AND HIS CHURCH. --FRENCH POPULATION.--THE PLEASURE OF BEING CONSUL.--CELEBRATION OF THE TAKING OF SEBASTOPOL.--A TRAGIC SCENE.--CERTIFICATE FROM A SERVANT TO HIS MASTERS.--DEPARTURE FROM LOS ANGELES FOR SAN PEDRO.--EMBARCATION.--REFLECTIONS ON PASSPORTS.--THE EQUALITY OF ETIQUETTE. --SANTA BARBARA.--MONTEREY.-- ARRIVAL AT SAN FRANCISCO.

            FORTUNATE the traveller who, disembarking on a remote and unknown land, meets on its shores a friend to receive him, or at all events who, by good letters of credit, has the means of attracting sympathy ! But, alas ! on our arrival at Los Angeles we had neither of these advantages ; we knew no one, and our purse was entirely empty. Worse than all, we learnt that our bills drawn at the Salt Lake

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had not been honoured at San Francisco, which would naturally excite great suspicion about our solvency. This untoward circumstance being known to the local bankers, we felt it would be quite useless to try to get money from them. However, before securing rooms in the hotel of the Bella Union, opposite which we had drawn up, we were anxious, in order to know what we might afford to spend, to attempt to negotiate a loan. The thing seemed to us, in our simplicity, to be all the more feasible from our having a considerable equipment, that had a real value, and of which we were the undisputed owners. We were directed to a Swiss merchant, who had acquired a certain fortune in the country, as the capitalist most likely to meet our wants. We therefore called upon him ; but the security we offered was not at all to his taste; he declined our request, saying, very charitably, that if a few piastres in the way of kindness could be of use to us, he was quite ready to give them, but it did not suit him to lend us money on the property we wished to pledge.

            Humiliated at this failure, we gave up all idea of a loan, and our only care now was to find how we could contrive to live at the least possible expense during our forced stay at Los Angeles. I knew by name and reputation the venerable M. Vigne, one of the oldest French settlers. I called upon him to obtain information, and found the old man seated at table with his family. He received me kindly, spoke to me of our common friends, whose names I had

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made use of as a means of introduction to him, and for a moment, by his conversation, made me forget the difficulties which surrounded us. As soon as he rose from table, M. Vigne left his house with me, and came to see our travelling appointments ; he had our horses taken into the stables of the hotel, and made us promise that we would go and take up our quarters with him, at the same time ordering our servant to remove our baggage and collections to his house. We hesitated to accept the hospitality of my countryman, without knowing how far it might be agreeable to his family ; but he decided us by his entreaties and kindness of manner, suggesting that we should be more comfortable there than at the hotel, and assuring us that far from inconveniencing him in any way, we should delight him by talking to him of France and the Sandwich Islands, where he had been to seek his fortune some twenty years since.

            These hospitable arrangements were of good augury to us, and we could for a moment indulge ourselves in the idea that we had got out of our difficulty. When it was evening, and we had taken the necessary precautions for the care of our cattle, we bent our steps toward M. Vigne's house, in order to take possession of the rooms he had promised us. The old man had gone to bed. We were received by his nephew and heir, M. Sainsevain, who seemed completely ignorant of the invitation his uncle had given us. Our surprise was all the greater inasmuch as, supposing we were expected guests, we presented ourselves

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with confidence, and instead of the doors being eagerly thrown open to us, we were received in the court, without any invitation to enter. M. Sainsevain told us that his uncle, wearied by his walk during the day, had gone to bed early ; and he asked permission to leave us to go and get his supper.  It may be easily conceived that we were completely mystified. We determined, however, for our own satisfaction, to push the adventure to the end. After a half-hour's waiting and meditation on the stone pavement of the court, we requested a servant to show us the apartment which the old man had selected for us. M. Sainsevain, who was no doubt unprepared for our showing so much persistence after the reception he had given us, now came, and told us that there was not a vacant spot in the house ; that his uncle was in his second childhood, and no longer knew what he was doing, but that he himself wished to be of service to us and to give us hospitality for the night. We begged that he would not feel himself at all bound by anything his uncle had said, whose invitation we had not accepted until in a manner compelled to do so ; and we added that our servants being lodged at the hotel, there was no reason whatever why we should not also find beds there. To this the nephew replied that he had it at heart to discharge the promise the old man had made us, and insisted upon our taking possession of a shed situated on the street outside his house. We suffered him to lead us there ; We showed us into a dark warehouse without

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windows, which was filled with piles of flour-sacks ; and then invited us to lie down either on the damp earth or on the sacks as we preferred. This proposal was quite sincere on his part, and entirely free from any intentional offence; he took us undoubtedly for emigrants who were searching for hospitality for want of means. Preferring a thousand times to sleep in the open air, we declined the bed which M. Sainsevain recommended to us with so much simplicity, real or apparent, and we requested him to suffer us to go to the inn. But he absolutely determined that we should pass the night at his uncle's expense. " Since it does not suit you," he said, " to sleep here, I will show you a room in which you will find a bed." He then took us to the loft of a French mechanic, where we found a cot with a mattress upon it, and with cobwebs for curtains. Sensible of the trouble which M. Sainsevain had taken, and not wishing that his good intentions should be entirely frustrated, we accepted the lodging, though very little according with the idea which the old man had given us when he talked of better accommodation than at the inn. For two men to sleep in such a narrow space was an utter impossibility. We preferred passing the night in smoking, laughing, and chatting. " The nephew is more prudent than the uncle," we said to each other. " His object has been, without breaking faith with us, to deprive us of the opportunity of robbing him during the night, for he has evidently taken us for ill-disposed people." When we were tired of

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laughing at this idea, we began seriously to consider our position, not certainly a very disquieting one, but which had this annoyance about it, that it placed us at the mercy of speculators ready to take advantage of our distress in order to strip us of our effects by getting them for almost nothing. This idea so thoroughly disgusted us that we determined to have recourse to labour, and to submit to all sorts of fatigue and privations, rather than see these human vultures fattening at our expense. " No," we said, " they shall not turn us to account in this way. Let us live by toil while we are waiting for remittances ; this will be much less humiliating than to sacrifice our property for less than it is worth."

            It was with this fixed intention that we left our attic as soon as day broke. The sky was clear and gay as in the heart of summer, which tended not a little to keep us merry in spite of our annoyances. As our apartment was not provided with even the rudest means of making our toilette, we without ceremony went down into the street and washed our faces in the brook, glad to avail ourselves of even so scanty a purification.

            After performing our ablutions we went to the restaurant La Fayette, kept by a Frenchman of the name of Faure, as good a cook as he was an amiable and obliging man. I acquainted my fellow-countryman with our dilemma. He did not hesitate to offer to supply us on credit, and even chose that we should become entirely his guests,

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placing at our disposal a small double-bedded room, the only one not occupied in his modest tenement. We were thus relieved from a part of our anxiety, and could, with a degree of comfort that was quite ravishing after the miserable fare of the desert, wait until purchasers less disgusting than the thievish horse-jockeys who had already swarmed about us in the hopes of turning us to account, should present themselves with fairer offers.

            If it be true that ill-luck never comes alone, the same thing may be said of good luck. So it turned out, at all events, for us at this conjuncture. We called upon a Mr. Sandford, the merchant who held our bills drawn at the Salt Lake, for the purpose of ascertaining why it was they had not been honoured. He at once cheered us by saying that he was not at all uneasy about it, that the bills had not been protested, and that the only cause of their not being paid was the want of advice to pay them. He then presented us to Mr. H. R. Myles, agent of the bank of Wells and Fargo, who without the slightest hesitation lent us five hundred dollars, charging an interest of five per cent. a month. This service, a little costly perhaps even for California, was of great assistance to us, inasmuch as it permitted us to discharge our servants after paying them their wages.*

            All our anxiety being now removed, we made prepara-

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* These wages were at the rate of about ten pounds a month per man, exclusive of keep. This was moderate for the time and the country.

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tions for keeping Mr. Brenchley's birthday, which fell on that very day. While waiting for the festive hour, we paid a visit to M. Vigne, to thank him for the kindness he had shown us the day before. Of course we took good care not to let him know how his offers of hospitality had been understood by his nephew. We fancied we could make out that the good old man had been snubbed by his family on account of the rash offers he had made us, for he no longer resembled the zealous fellow-countryman of the previous day, and was manifestly ill at ease in our presence. Nevertheless he would not miss the opportunity of giving us a sight of his vineyard, which contains, it is said, thirty thousand feet of vines ; he also pointed out to us his fine orange-trees, as well as an immense sycamore, which he said was several centuries old. We then took our leave of M. Vigne, and removed to our inn with our baggage.

            We had invited our servants and Mr. Phillips to the banquet which we had ordered to be got ready. Victor alone was missing ; he had already obtained work at a French carpenter's, and could not be found anywhere. In his place, Huguenot took it in his head to bring us uninvited young Walker, who was trying in every way to get into close relations with us, and enter into our service. The festival was far from being as gay as we had anticipated. Henry, out of humour at being discharged sooner than he wished, conducted himself with great want of propriety towards us, and thus drew down upon himself

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remarks from his comrades which soon degenerated into foul language, and finally brought about a complete row. The unfortunate fellows having freely indulged in numerous libations during the day, were unable to patch up a peace, but had sense enough left to go their ways, and so avoid coming to blows.

            We spent some ten days at Los Angeles, waiting for the departure of the steamboat for San Francisco. Our sojourn here was far from an agreeable one. The country itself had nothing in it very attractive, and though we had recovered our independence, for a moment in jeopardy, it was not difficult for us to perceive that we were objects of suspicion to numbers of people. There were even not wanting those who did the French police the honour of taking us for its agents or spies, sent, as they said, by the Emperor to ascertain what the gold-diggers thought of his government. Under similar circumstances, whatever contempt we may feel for public opinion, it will easily be conceived that one's life is full of annoyances, not to say humiliations. These injurious suspicions very little occupied our thoughts, and did not prevent our examining the country with all the calmness derived from the consciousness of our own superiority over our vulgar libellers.

            The city the Spaniards have christened, I know not why, The Angels, has nothing angelic about it,—far from it ; and really I do not see how any person, with the best desire in the world, can find anything remarkable in it. Irre-

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gular and ill built, it has a poor and dirty aspect. The greater part of the houses, of Mexican construction, are built with adobes, only one story high, with flat roofs, covered, instead of tiles, with a coat of bitumen obtained from a spring near the city. By the side of these filthy and miserable dwellings, the foreigners drawn to California by the discovery of gold, have built houses much more comfortable, elegant, and better built. The situation of Los Angeles is better than its buildings. The plain on which it is placed, at the foot of a rising ground, extends to the south and west as far as the sea ; and to the east, in the direction of the mountains, may be seen hills, the greater part of which have a parched-up look. It is watered by a brook fringed with willows, on which there are several mills and a tanyard. All the soil which surrounds the city and is irrigated by the river, is fertile and well cultivated. Hedges of willows and alders divide the land into various portions. The surrounding county is ravaged by a real plague, the marmot of the prairies (prairie-dog*), a small rodent which disturbs the soil over a considerable extent by its burrowing. These animals, which we had met with elsewhere, but in small numbers, cause incredible mischief, and carry, as it were, sterility into the land they overrun. We examined them attentively. They as much resemble monkeys as squirrels, especially when they are seen squatting on their hind legs by the side of their holes,

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* Observe what we have said about this animal, page 353.

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from which they never go far. Their vivacity is a thing wonderful to see, and the little sharp metallic cries, which they frequently utter, are as curious to hear. An owl (Strix hypogaea), of which we have already spoken, takes possession of the burrows that are abandoned, and lives there. Some persons pretend that these birds lie in wait for the marmots at the entrance into their holes, and kill them by striking them on the skull with their bills. Everything we saw warrants us in doubting this assertion, for it has always appeared to us that these animals live in a sort of brotherly concord, in spite of the difference between feather and hair which so strikingly distinguishes them. There are also to be seen in the environs, but in much fewer numbers, crows, blackbirds, owls, and a kind of curlew, etc.

            The elevation of the city above the level of the sea is about two hundred and sixty-three feet. The climate is temperate and very healthy, the land easily irrigated. The only thing wanting in the county of which Los Angeles is the capital, is a denser agricultural population. There is excellent wood for carpentry, principally consisting of pine and oak. The crops are various, consisting of wheat, maize, barley, oats, beans, peas, chick-peas (garbanzos), lentils, cotton, tobacco, sugar-cane, hemp, flax, mulberries, sweet potatoes, potatoes, water-melons, musk-melons, all sorts of vegetables, various fruit-trees, such as pears, apples, cherries, apricots, peaches, almonds, walnuts, oranges,

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citrons, olives, figs, lemons, vines, etc. It is calculated that in 1855 there were in the county of Los Angeles 105,000 head of cattle, 20,000 horses (of which 4000 only were in work), and 30,000 sheep, yielding 50,000 pounds of wool. 23,000 acres under cultivation returned about 500 tons of wheat, 1300 tons of maize, 25 tons of oats, 400 tons of beans, 350 of potatoes, 22 1/2 of patates or sweet potatoes, 2050 of grapes, 13,000 tons of hay, etc.

            The most important culture of the county is decidedly that of the vine, introduced, many years before the discovery of the gold-mines, by the French, from which a white wine is chiefly made, that has some resemblance to Sauterne, but very much stronger, more heady, and of a less delicate bouquet. The best quality sells at a dollar a gallon ; an acre of vines in full bearing is worth a little under two hundred dollars. The wines of the country are chiefly consumed on the spot, but a small quantity finds its way to San Francisco, whence it begins to be known, and to come into competition with the wines of Europe.

            The season was too far advanced to permit us to form any opinion about the natural vegetation of the country ; all that we could infer was that there was no great variety in it. We saw scarcely anything but a large plantain, nettles, a mallow, an Alkekengi with large yellow flowers, a large climbing Solanum, some Polygonum, common amaranths, some Poa, a blue Labiate with a pungent odour, a small

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Euphorbia with white petals, a Wormwood, and some dying Composites with yellow flowers.

            The mineral resources of the country are various, but of no great value ; they consist of salt, gold, bitumen, etc. In 1855 a million pounds of salt were obtained, from a lagune, near Rancho San-Pedro. The old gold-mines of San Francisquito, slightly and ill worked, yield from one to three dollars a day to each miner. They are attending to the irrigation of their arable lands by taking advantage of the watercourses ; and not content with this, they are beginning to sink artesian wells. We saw one where the boring-rod had already sunk to a depth of five hundred and seventy-five feet, and which up to that time had caused an outlay of three thousand dollars.* The bituminous springs are one of the curiosities of the country. Merely alluding to that of Santa Barbara, which runs upon the shore, finding its way into the Pacific, and which we did not see, I will say a word or two about the one which is nearly five miles to the north-west of Los Angeles, and which we visited. The road leading to it passes over a slightly undulating country, intersected occasionally by small gullies. In its neighbourhood creepers are found in abundance, six

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* At Santa Clara, on the Bay of San Francisco, we were shown numerous artesian wells, all very remarkable for the volume of water they supplied. One of these wells, reaching a depth of two hundred and nine feet, cost only six hundred dollars. The column of water it throws up, to a height of five feet above the tube, is not less than six inches in diameter, and gives a thousand gallons a minute.

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feet in height, numerous stalks of which were still standing, though some time dead. The soil through which the bitumen (brea of the inhabitants) wells up, is blackish, and gently inclines towards the west or north-west. Different kinds of grasses are to be met with. Two pits, of different sizes, chiefly supplied the mineral. The bottom is filled with a greenish water, to the surface of which rise air-bubbles of considerable volume, which make a noise as they burst. Around and at the bottom of these pits the soil is entirely bituminous. A trench has been dug to carry off the water, which is by no means so unfit to drink as its colour would lead one to suppose, for I saw numbers of horses in the act of drinking it. The smell which proceeds from these pits is precisely like that of tar: Independently of the two great pits, are to be seen on the flat grounds in the neighbourhood circular runs of coagulated metal, resembling the black lavas of certain volcanoes which have been rippled in the act of cooling. In the centre of these runs, which produced upon us the impression of so many little craters in a state of eruption, is found a bitumen still liquid, which appears to ooze from the earth, like grease through a porous skin. When this black and gluey substance was stirred up with a stick drops of water fell from it. Does this liquefied bitumen proceed directly from the earth by a small vertical canal, or has it been melted by the sun's action ? The first hypothesis is the more probable ; however, we had not time to verify the fact, and the inhabitants of the country were

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not able to enlighten us. From the centre of one of these runs we drew out the body of a marmot, in a perfect state of preservation, but entirely stripped of its hair. As we mentioned, the greater part of the old houses of Los Angeles are covered with this bitumen, a kind of tiling as light as it is economical ; it has, however, the defect of requiring frequent repairs, especially when it is on an incline, as the bitumen easily softens under the summer heat. Consequently Americans and foreigners justly prefer the use of tiles or shingles.

            The moral state of the country leaves more to be desired than its material prosperity. Though there are two newspapers, one in English, the other in Spanish, education is not pushed far, nor much diffused, especially among the old residents. By the side of respectable people, to be met with at Los Angeles as everywhere else, is still to be found but too much of that scum of all nations which formerly caused the county to be considered the most dangerous haunt in all California. If we must give implicit credit to the stories told us by our host and his friends, we ought to return thanks to Heaven for having a score of times escaped assassination in our walks round the city. We prefer supposing that when advising us to take a thousand precautions during our excursions, our countrymen suffered themselves to be led away by a little spirit of exaggeration, Nevertheless the local press has teemed with offences and crimes enough to prove that the state of the country has

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hitherto been anything but an edifying one. In the year of our visit there was known to have occurred as many as twenty-two assassinations, and even more, in the short space of a month. The Americans have the reputation of killing the Mexicans and the natives, just as a sportsman kills birds, without being made legally answerable for blood so shockingly spilt. Neither have the old settlers in general a much more enviable reputation. Even the judges are far from being accounted respectable ; they are represented for the most part as consummate drunkards. A mayor was mentioned to us as a man of abandoned life ; and it was publicly stated that some months before his election he had been tried for rape, and had escaped conviction by forcing a verdict of acquittal from the magistrate by threatening to shoot him from the dock with a pistol, which he pointed at his head, in the event of his giving an adverse decision. We were also told of a judge who being called upon to punish fourteen persons convicted of having committed great damage upon private property, sentenced the culprits to a fine intended to indemnify the proprietor, and which he put into his own pocket. We will not multiply these sad and disgraceful instances ; enough has been said to make it quite comprehensible why, with such magistrates as these, the county of Los Angeles should have, in a moral point of view, remained so much in the rear of other parts of California.

            The morals of the whites, or at least of a certain number

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of whites, being so little commendable, we have no right to expect that those of the Indians and Mexicans should be better. They are indeed addicted to drunkenness and other vices; their wives and daughters live in a state of illicit connection with foreigners ; some of the prettiest women are married to respectable merchants, but neither the one nor the other are spoken of. The infidelities and jealousies which are the consequences or preludes of these amours, often cause quarrels which do not at all times need the supplement of drunkenness to make them sanguinary.

            All this mischief takes place in spite of the presence and preaching of a missionary belonging to the Society of Picpus, Père Lestrade, who since 1850 has officiated as curé there.* We paid a visit to this good priest, of whom some spoke very ill and others very well. The sum of the ill amounted merely to the vulgar accusation of Jesuitism. The good was more positive ; he was spoken of as an excellent man, willing to be serviceable, and charitable to such an extent that there were very few, even among his detractors, who were not under obligations to him. Père Lestrade received us in the kindest manner. He was not a man devoid of intellectual resources. He had travelled much and learnt much. Before being sent to California, he had accompanied the Archbishop of Chalcedon, M. Bonamy, in the missions of the Levant ; and he chatted agreeably about

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* Père Lestrade left California some time after our passing through it. We had the pleasure of meeting him in Chili, where he now resides.

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Palestine and Turkey. He complained to us of the fruitlessness of his labours in the midst of his new flock ; he was determined to take no more trouble with the Spanish-Indian population, which he represented as corrupt to a degree beyond all power of description, rotten with syphilis,* and utterly incapable of being ever brought under the influence of civilization. So thoroughly did he despair of them, that he even refused to baptize their children, unless respectable godfathers and godmothers would undertake that they should receive religious instruction. At the beginning of his mission he was bountiful to the poor settlers who came to see him, and even deprived himself for their sakes with pleasure and promptness ; but when he perceived that whatever he gave them was exchanged, the moment they left him, for drink, he stopped his donations in money, and confined himself to bestowing on the most necessitous some articles of clothing. He told us that all the old settlers of the country professed the Catholic faith, and that in general these people summoned the priests to their death-beds ; but that as long as they believed they had life in them, they conducted themselves like pagans of the most abandoned kind. To draw those who were careless about religion to church, and to have an opportunity of making them listen to a little moral instruction, it had occurred to him to prevail upon some musicians to attend

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* A physician of the country estimates that nine-tenths of the indigenous population (Indians and Spanish half-breeds) are infected with this disease.

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there from time to time, himself accompanying them on the violin, an instrument which he played with taste and feeling. But this mode of attraction had no sensible result.

            We paid two visits to Père Lestrade. At the last, we met at his house, with as much surprise as pleasure, a missionary whom we had left, a few months before, among the Polynesian savages, and whom we were very far from expecting to fall in with again on the coast of California. This was the Père Modeste Favens, the future bishop of the Sandwich Islands, a true priest of God, modest in deed as in name, a man, indeed, against whom the only reproach that can be made, either by friends or foes, is his zeal. As he had but just landed, he brought us the latest news, among which the most interesting particular for us was the great eruption of the volcanoes of Hawaii. On our side, we were able to enlighten him on the subject of the Mormons, whose proselytizing efforts he had frequently come into collision with, in the mission of which he was the head.

            The Catholic church of Los Angeles is a wretched old building, low, narrow, dirty, damp, and unpaved. There are four little bells niched into the walls of the façade, and these are the most brilliant ornaments of the church. We entered it one day during service ; there were scarcely more than two or three whites, the congregation being almost entirely composed of Indians, Mexicans, or half-breeds, and of

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these by far the greater proportion were women. These women, in general ugly and poorly dressed, were sitting on the floor, their head and shoulders covered with a thin shawl in the fashion of a veil. The worshippers appeared absorbed in a particular kind of devotion, which consisted of their every moment passing the thumb rapidly before their chin, nose, mouth, and forehead, making with it a quick succession of crosses. I was afterwards informed that this mode of adoring God is what the Spaniards call sanctifying oneself. Little children were chanting the Roman Catholic mass in a gallery over the door. The missionary preached a sermon, which the congregation listened to with attention. It appeared to us that this assemblage of believers was composed of all that was respectable among the poorer classes of the country.

            I cannot speak, even approximatively, as to the total population of Los Angeles. I do not think it exceeds 6000 persons, and in this number I include all foreigners, Americans, and Europeans. Of the latter the French are probably the most numerous : they reckon themselves at three hundred, and are equally divided into farmers, traders, and artisans. It gave me pleasure to find that they are considered as belonging to the respectable, industrious, and orderly class of the country ; and this diminished the regret I felt at not meeting with one who had received a really good education ; but this, however, does not prove that there may not have been some who had. A waiter indeed

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at our tavern had gone through his course of classics at the college of Carcassonne, in France, but though he had got as far as the sixth form, he was not, as he said himself, " a hit the more advanced for all that ;" and I must add, without meaning to be satirical, that he proved what he said. Chance brought me several times to a place where I met some men who had served in the French army at Algiers, more fools than knaves, who were dealing about all sorts of disparaging and even calumnious stories to the prejudice of Marshal Bugeaud. I felt, I must confess, ashamed at hearing fellow-countrymen of mine, fortunately people of low stamp, take such an unworthy and unjust estimate of their illustrious chief, one of our great celebrities. Could anything in my eyes have compensated for all this impertinence and vulgarity, it would have been the respectful way in which these same persons spoke of their consul, the noble and high-spirited M. Dillon.* The great and well-merited esteem which they professed for the worthy man was all the more surprising to me, after their having given so mean a specimen of their judgment, and from the fact of the French in California having rarely manifested so much goodwill towards their country's representative. It is a thing well worthy of remark, and the remark I will insert here, that consuls stationed in remote countries are too often the objects of unfounded attacks

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* The lamented M. Dillon died in Paris, in October, 1857, shortly after having been appointed Consul-general at Port-au-Prince.

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and censures from the very persons who ought to be the first to defend and support them. The complaints of those who belong to their flag are usually the most ridiculous and the most puerile. Such persons fancy they have the right of requiring these officials to take into their own hands, and to treat as affairs of state, the most trivial disputes they may have with the constituted authorities of the place, who, they flatter themselves, may be brought to regard their nationality as something which gives them a right to do what they please. I sometimes met people in California, who were quite convinced they were privileged to consider the consul as their natural and legally appointed banker, and were ill disposed towards him because he refused to advance them money which they were persuaded the French Government had placed in his hands, to be at their disposal whenever they required it. Others, again, accused him of enriching himself at their expense, by appropriating certain imaginary sums of money which the Emperor had specially remitted to him for their benefit. Yet Heaven only knows how many sufferers the kind and generous M. Dillon relieved out of his own pocket At Sacramento I heard a woman, well known as the " Queen of Flowers," threaten to have the poor consul hanged, because he had refused to send for a frigate to revenge an insult that some drunkards had offered to the French flag, which she had hoisted over her pot-house ! Unfortunate consuls, how much patriotism and zeal for your

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calling do you require to endure the affronts which prejudice and ignorance heap upon you! The Gauls of Los Angeles, whatever other whims they may have had, never, and I gladly note it to their honour, spoke ill of their consul. Neither were their hearts so much in the wrong place as to forget their country, and remain indifferent to what concerned it. We saw them on the 1st of December celebrating with enthusiasm the capture of Sebastopol and the triumph of our arms. They sang La Marseillais, Les Girondins, Toute l' Europe est sous les armes, etc., and it was a pleasure to me to hear them, as they sang with enthusiasm the well-known songs that reminded me of the country that I love. It was certainly a touching spectacle was this joy inspired by the triumph of their native land, this sympathy of expatriated men with the heroes who had remained on their native soil to guard it, or to spread its renown. Why must it happen that on these occasions, where all should be grave and solemn, we should so often have to regret excesses degrading to humanity ?

            During our stay at Los Angeles we witnessed, in our own apartment, too, a tragi-comic scene. Young Walker, the friend of our servants, had a grudge against Henry. One day when they happened to be together in our room, Walker suddenly provoked his fellow-countryman, pretending that he had received several insults from him. Both were slightly the worse for brandy, a liquor but too much

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in favour with the Americans. Walker, unsheathing his hunting-knife, threw himself upon his adversary with the intention of stabbing him. The young man was immediately disarmed, and put out of the room. We then tried to prevail upon Henry to go and settle his quarrel elsewhere ; but fear being stronger than our entreaties, he remained nailed to the spot. Walker soon returned, and made a new attack upon him, again obliging us to turn him out. Nevertheless Henry, in spite of all we could do, was determined not to decamp, and release us by withdrawing from so disgraceful a scene. The aggressor, impatient to gratify his vengeance, but disguising his purpose under language of reconciliation, returned a third time, seated himself with apparent calmness in the midst of us, then all at once threw himself upon Henry with his fists. Henry, snatching his revolver, prepared to fire at him point-blank. I at once tried to get his pistol, then at full cock, from him, and succeeded with difficulty, after interposing my hand between the hammer and the cap to prevent its going off in the struggle. Deprived of deadly weapons, the champions now fought upon the floor, tearing each other with their nails, biting and kicking one another wherever they could. The blood which flowed from their wounds seemed only to give them new relish for the fight. We had great difficulty in separating them, so close was their grapple, and so fiercely were they biting each other under the bed, where they had ensconced themselves in their fury, in order to avoid

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our interposing. Mangled and bleeding as he was, Walker was perfectly unmanageable, and absolutely determined upon fighting to the death. We forced him out into the street, and, to put an end to this scene of outrage, to which it seemed likely there would be no end, we called in the police. An officer came, who, finding Henry only, arrested and took him to prison. A few days afterwards the affair came before a magistrate, and ended in Walker being sentenced to pay a fine, which was fixed at not more than twenty dollars, because, so said the magistrate, it was necessary to take into consideration that both parties were intoxicated. The burly and placid Huguenot assisted as a partial and immovable spectator at this lamentable scene. He was even of opinion that it was no affair of ours to hinder the quarrel, but he had no difficulty in acknowledging that the champions had no business to choose their battle-field where they did, nor did he hesitate to tell them their conduct was disgraceful. But for all this it was a kindly nature, was that of Huguenot, strongly animal beyond question, but really gentle and inoffensive ; and though we may be permitted to doubt there being a soul in his body, he was not destitute of heart. He made it a great point that we should carry away with us something of his as a souvenir, and here is the singular certificate which he took it into his head to have drawn up by a schoolmaster, and have copied by a good penman, in order to present a copy to each of us on the eve of our departure :—

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" El Monte, December 7th, 1865.

"Sir,

            " Having crossed the Plains from Great Salt Lake City, Utah Territory, with you, acting in the capacity of guide and servant, allow me to express to you my thanks for your kindness to me, and also to express my admiration for your bold and fearless conduct while passing through hostile bands of Indians, which were made friendly by your kind and daring manner; indeed, you are the same in the mountains as if you had been bred a mountaineer; and oft, while you are roaming in sunny climes, or in your native home, will my kind wishes follow you, my brave and noble friend.

            " Yours, with love and respect,

" HUGUENOT."

            We put away this certificate among our papers with as much care as if it were a valuable diploma. We sold all our travelling equipments at auction, and on Saturday, the 8th of December, at three o'clock in the afternoon, we took leave of Los Angeles. As we passed through the city, the cannon were firing in honour of a Church festival, the bells of the churches were in full chime, and the statue of the Virgin, dressed in crinoline and lace, was parading through the city, drawn in a car by some Mexicans. We set off with our four horses at full gallop into an extensive plain burrowed by marmots, and where we also saw larks and snipes. At half past five we reached San Pedro, the place of embarcation, which does duty as port to the city of Los

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Angeles, and contains only three houses. The coast is steep and the landing bad.

            At nine at night we went on board the ' Senator,' a large steam-ship, which was to carry us to San Francisco. We had again an opportunity of appreciating one of the advantages enjoyed by travellers in free countries : we had no forms to submit to in order to secure a passage, nor was any passport required of us,—that costly, humiliating, vexatious, and utterly useless annoyance, in all respects unworthy of our times and civilization. Passports, the octroi, and custom-houses, are three serious pests to the traveller, and are positive humiliations to a man, to say nothing of the time they make him lose. When will civilized nations cashier such superannuated, contemptible, and troublesome institutions ? Is it not better to let one thief go free than to worry a thousand honest men ? Is it not better to let a pair of gloves or a flask of brandy come in without duty, than to search the pockets and turn the trunks of travellers upside-down ? If states and municipalities require revenues, and cannot get them otherwise, would it not be far simpler to tax every individual on coming into a country or town, than to degrade him by compelling him to undergo an inquisitive examination, which would appear odious and revolting to us were we not familiarized to it by long usage ? These annoyances were spared us in California, and it is our pleasurable recollection of the fact which suggests these reflections.

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            The ' Senator ' got under weigh at two o'clock in the morning. The sea was smooth, and we went fast ahead, constantly keeping the coast in sight. At ten o'clock we stopped a moment at Santa Barbara to land and take in passengers. Though on board a republican ship, equality, that chimera of modern societies, did not reign there in all its sovereignty. Nor are we, indeed, the people to complain of it. They refused to let us sit down at the first class table under the plausible pretext that we were not properly dressed. When, however, it was ascertained that we had upon our backs all the wardrobe we possessed, our presence was tolerated among those who were fortunate enough to be able to dress themselves according to etiquette.

            On the 10th of December, about eleven in the morning, we made a short stop at Monterey, in a large bay where gigantic Algae spread their garlands over the surface of the water. The coast was picturesque ; and hills covered with pines formed a pretty girdle to the village.

            The same day, at nine o'clock, we cast anchor in the port of San Francisco, that queen, so young and yet already so considerable, of the Pacific coast ; marvellous city, which in the rapidity of its growth has exceeded everything of the kind that history records ; future capital of a new republic, if it be true that the great American republic is not in a condition to satisfy the desires of everybody, in spite of its splendour and its unparalleled prosperity.

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            Our journey was now accomplished, our end attained, our curiosity satisfied. The difficulties of all kinds we had been obliged to surmount, losing somewhat of their reality, remained in our memories like the impressions of a crowded dream. Our toils, sufferings, and privations were forgotten the moment we set foot in a great centre of civilization, in a fairy city, where progress speeds onward with the rapidity of steam, and whence, ere long, railways will in a few hours transport our contemporaries to places which we were unable to reach, save at the cost of so much time and so many sacrifices.

END OF BOOK IV.

Jules Remy and Julius Brenchley, A Trip Across Southern Nevada in 1855 [from A Journey to Great-Salt-Lake City vol. 2 (1861)] Chapter 1 (From Salt Lake City to Fillmore);   Chapter 2 (From Fillmore to Las  Vegas);  Chapter 3 (From Las Vegas to Los Angeles);  Chapter 4 (Los Angeles and the Coast of California)