in the Lake Tulare; nor does it at any part of its course approach nearer than probably fifty miles of the lake. My engineer fellow traveller informed me that a late State survey, made to ascertain if the lake and its morass could be drained by a canal into the San Joaquin, resulted in the discovery that the reverse would occur if the canal were dug, the lake occupying a lower level than the river, as far as the confluence of the Merced River with the latter. King's River, which rises but a few miles from the source of the San Joaquin in the Sierra Nevada, actually flows southwestwardly into the lake.

In crossing the dividing ridge west of Chowchilla Creek, we observed, as in some other parts of California where oaks and pines are found in the same localities, the singular results of the industry and providence of El Carpintero-so called by the Spanish settlers-the carpenter of the feathered family: the trunks of pine trees having their soft bark bored over the whole surface except near the ground, as if with brace and bit, by this California wood-pecker, which is seen in autumn with its red, white, and black plumage, gleaming in the sunshine, the busiest of the busy, foraging about and depositing in every hole an acorn. It has been denied by some that this cache-ing is to be regarded as an instinctive storage of food for future use. But such objectors attempt no explanation of this invariable habit of that bird; while the argument that the acorns often remain unconsumed is without force, for if the crop has been very abundant, and the ground uncovered by snow, there is no need of the provision stored away. But even in that case, the worms formed in the acorns in the spring, are used as food especially for the young bird. The Mariposa hermit, a close observer of nature, is my authority for this statement.

Mariposa Creek succeeded the "divide" on the line of our route, along which were seen unsightly heaps of boulders and gravel, scarred hill-sides, and trenches, destructive of the beautiful face of nature, while they mark the untiring search for gold wherever water could be made tributary to its disengagement from earth and stone. How widespread the surface from which the soil is being removed, and where quartz is being pulverized in countless tons, to pollute the crystal streams, fill

up the channels of rivers, and form flats and bars in the straits and bays of this State! A mile and a half further brought us to the town of Mariposa-distance from Clark's Camp twentyfive miles-with a population of four hundred persons, chiefly engaged in mining and furnishing supplies to miners.

We found a good hotel at Mariposa, at which we rested for the night. Next morning we started for Coulterville, twelve miles and a half westwardly to Bear Valley, and thence the same distance in a generally northwest direction to our destination. Nothing worthy of mention was seen on the now welltravelled road to the village of Bear Valley. A short distance beyond it we began the long and steep descent to the Merced River, passing through the Mariposa gold quartz mining property, the title to which, bought of a Mexican by Gen. Fremont, as a cattle ranche on the fine bottom lands, the latter, prompted by "prudential considerations," is said to have “engineered so as to embrace a gold quartz vein, subsequently discovered in the adjacent hills. A very precipitous and dangerous looking railroad track of several miles, conveys the rock from its quarries to mills for crushing and the other necessary processes of separation of the metal. There are seven mills on the estate, two run by water and five by steam-power, making a total of one hundred and sixty-eight stampers. The gold product of this estate has been represented to be large, though there are many persons in California who believe that to promote political aspirations it has been greatly overstated, while the almost universal opinion is, that whatever may be the product, it all passes into the hands of mortgagees, the property being so heavily encumbered by debt as to be profitless to the nominal proprietor, who thus is seen in more ways than one to have "held a barren sceptre in his gripe." The estate was designated by the old Spanish settlers, and is still known as Las Mariposasthe Butterflies. It has certainly proved a butterfly to Gen. Fremont, with gilded wings, too, which bear it off to beautify the gardens of other persons.

An occasional opportunity has been afforded on this road to see the primitive Spanish-American method of quartz crushing by the rastra, which consists of a circular trough paved with

flat stones, in the centre of which is an upright revolving shaft, through which a horizontal pole passes, a short end being chained to a heavy granite block within the trough, while the longer end serves as a lever by which a mule on the outside drags the heavy stone around the circular trough, and reduces to powder the gold-bearing quartz, broken as for the stamping mill and thrown within. Quicksilver thrown in amalgamates the gold particles, while the pasty pulverized quartz flows off with the water turned in for the purpose. The more expeditious iron stamping-mill has nearly entirely superseded el rastra.

Descending the south bank of Merced River from the Mariposa mills, the method of turning the course of large rivers to explore the bottom for gold was seen. Dams are built, the river of course not being in freshet, and the entire stream is thus diverted into canals along the river bank, or into strong flumes built above the middle of the bed of the stream. Undershot waterwheels, placed over these, are turned by the flow of the artificial currents, and by means of horizontal shafts work pumps to keep the river-bed free of water. Thus every pocket and crevice may be searched for the golden deposits washed down from the hills, or worn from their bases, and from the outcropping quartz rock which sometimes traverses the river-bed. Sluices and amalgamation, as already described, finish the work.

Four miles down the Merced was crossed by a ferry-boat. Thence by the north bank of the river a great part of the way, the road with slight improvement might be travelled in a buggy to Coulterville, where we arrived at 5 P. M., and left at one next morning by stage for Stockton, which we reached at 3 P. M., with an hour to spare before the starting of the steamboat for San Francisco. We descended the San Joaquin, which, with the other principal river of California, the Sacramento, and their numerous eastern tributaries, drain the auriferous region, and run through the great interior basin of the State, which has a length of three hundred and fifty miles, and a breadth varying from fifty to seventy; and finally after flowing, the San Joaquin north, the Sacramento south, they meet midway, to mingle their ever muddy streams, and make their way westward through a gap of the Contra Costa and Mount Diablo Coast Mountains,

and then between them and the San Francisco or Coast Range proper by the Bays of San Pablo and San Francisco, and finally by the Golden Gate to the Ocean.

San Francisco was reached early next morning, the trip to the Yo-Semite and the Mariposa Big Trees being not hurriedly made in thirteen days.

CHAPTER XXXI.

VOYAGE TO THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS

REGULAR Liners profess to run between San Francisco and Honolulu ; but the fulfilment does not always correspond with the profession, hence passengers often avail of chance traders for that voyage to avoid detention, and the extortion of monopolists. The clipper ship "Rapid" sailing under the Danish flag, was up for Hong Kong, via the Hawaiian Islands; and being bound myself

"From the orient to the drooping west Making the wind my post horse, to unfold The acts commenced,"

I took passage on board of her for Honolulu, the capital of the islands. The Hawaiian Kingdom, a constitutional monarchy, and acknowledged independent government, conducts its functions and maintains its international relations, under that name, derived from its great island of Hawaii, which forms two-thirds of its territory; and thus designating the group-Hawaiian Islands—it is, to say the least of it, an impertinence in foreigners to insist on calling them Sandwich Islands, a ñame having no fitness beyond that too common among Anglo-Saxons, coming of self conceit, national vanity, or the motive of personal interest prompting a servile flattery. Because Captain Cook, the discoverer, desired to manifest his gratitude to his patron, the Earl of Sandwich, is no sufficient reason to the rest of mankind for the unwarrantable presumption. And as to the incorrect orthography Owhyhee for Hawaii, if pardoned in view of misapprehension at the time of the discovery, it certainly should not be perpetuated in any of the geographical publications of the present day.