protector. During our journey J. B. had not been inactive, having already disposed, conditionally, of sundry bags of sugar to the miners, and a box or two of German cigars to the bear hunter; samples of these articles having been extracted from his capacious pocket. Crossing the river Stanislaus at a fordable spot, we pulled up at a large wooden house, and alighted to dine and wash off the dust with which we were covered.

The immense traffic carried on on the roads that lead to the mining regions affords an extensive field for the profitable management of houses of entertainment. These may be encountered at almost every mile throughout the whole country, and they vary in size from a wooden two-story house to the very smallest kind of canvass shanty.

There seems to be a certain hour of the day for every traveller in California to breakfast, dine, or sup; and should he not arrive at a roadside house at one of these specified hours, he will get no meal; and could the traveller by any possibility be present at each and every hostel at the same moment, he would find a stereotyped bill of fare, consisting, with little variation, of a tough beefsteak, boiled potatoes, stewed beans, a nasty compound of dried apples, and a jug of molasses. He would then sit down at the summons

of a bell in company with all the tagrag and bobtail of the road who might have congregated for the repast in question and, if inclined to follow the custom of the country, he would, with the point of his knife, (made blunt for this purpose) taste of the various condiments, butter included, that were ranged before him, and, selecting as many of these as were suited to his taste, he would pile them on his plate, demolish them with relish, and depart on his way in peace. Travel where you will in California, you may rest assured that of the foregoing will your meal be composed, and in nearly such a manner must you eat it.

Dinner over, we mounted a strong spring waggon in exchange for our covered coach, which had too much top hamper for the mountain trail we had before us. We had now six horses, all American, good sound cattle, that had come to California across the plains, and were well broken in to crossing gulches and mud-holes. We were soon in a different style of country. Hitherto we had been crossing a level track across the Stockton plain, interrupted by an occasional dive into a dry gulch; now we commenced at once to ascend the hilly country which first indicates the approach to the mining regions. The road to Sonora, as indeed to most places in this country,

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has never been laid out by Government, but is, in fact, a natural trail or path marked out by the first pioneer waggons that passed that way, deviated from, from time to time, as experience indicated a shorter cut; receiving no assistance from the hand of man, and encountering a vast number of obstacles from the hand of nature.

For instance, we arrive at a part, that, skirting the base of a hill, presents a rapid declination to the left, which is a very hard and rocky-looking ravine. Colonel Reed exclaims, as he places his foot on the break, which works from the box, "Hard up to the right! upon which the insiders loll their heads and bodies out on that side of the vehicle to preserve its equilibrium. We had to "hard up hard up" a great many times either to one side or the other, during which time J. Bellow always considered it necessary to assist the fair Canadian; whereupon the Irishman looked fierce and talked large, but finally one of the miners told him, in a quiet but unmistakeable manner, that "if he didn't dry up' he'd chuck him out of the stage." Whereupon the Irishman did dry up for the rest of the journey; and shortly after arriving at Sonora we heard of his being detected attempting to pass off bogus, or imitation gold dust, and he narrowly escaped being lynched by the mob. In the course of

the afternoon I obtained the box seat, and engaging the colonel at once on the subject of horseflesh, I soon obtained from him a great amount of useful knowledge on the subject of American stock, of which I am a great admirer. As we neared Sonora, the colonel's attention was almost entirely occupied by his team, for in many places the trail led through deep gulches, into which previous volcanic eruptions had showered an infinity of small cindery rocks, which, close enough together to prevent wheels getting through them, were just sufficiently high to capsize the cart if the wheels went over them. We arrived at the summit of a "used up used up" crater, and, having a long descent of this description before us, the inside passengers were ordered out; the break was put on, worked by the colonel's leg on the box. I held on according to orders. We slided down in famous style, first over on one side then the other, the colonel occasionally addressing his team with "D-you, don't touch one of them!" meaning the rocks, through which we were picking our way. But, near the bottom of the hill, we got our off-wheels into a mudhole and declined gently on that side, a fine specimen of volcanic formation preventing the waggon from going over altogether. The colonel, without hesitation, made all his passengers hang their weights to

the near side of the waggon, and, sitting on my lap, with a crack of the whip he started the whole concern, and sent it flying and swaying from side to side to the bottom of the hill. Here we pulled up, and the colonel, relieving me from his weight, observed, in extenuation of what might otherwise have appeared a liberty, "that he was obliged to be a little sarcy on this road." Fleas are very prevalent in the southern mines, and my first introduction to the species was in this wise. The colonel turned suddenly to me, his hands