Monday, July 24th.—We have determined to start for the Bear River. We worked hard last week, but suffered greatly from the heat; almost every man of us complains of feverish symptoms, with pains in the limbs, back, and loins, yet we are better than the majority of the miners. These washings have now become nearly as crowded as the Mormon diggings were when we left them, and immense sums have been made by some of the luckier adventurers amongst the ravines. The whole valley is dotted over with tents and green bush arbours, and there is hardly a watercourse but which is sprinkled with miners, digging, sifting, and washing. About half of the people work together in companies—the other half shift each for himself. There are hundreds of Indians, many of them fantastically dressed, for they can purchase fine clothing now, even at the extravagant rates at which all articles are charged at Weber's store. They labour one day, and get drunk on pisco or the "strong water" on another. One of them rolled down a rocky ravine lately, in an intoxicated state, and was killed.

As we were lying down in the shade of the tent yesterday, we were visited by an old trapper called Joe White. He had recognized Bradley and Don Luis, whom he had met on the coast, and we invited him to take coffee with us. Joe White had come into this part of the country with Captain Sutter, whom he spoke very highly of, and of whose early efforts to form a settlement he gave us an account. Their party was the very first of the white settlers in the wilderness. They live some time in a camp formed of the tented wagons they had brought with them, until they could run up a few rough shanties, and some protecting outworks. During the time they were constructing these, and indeed for some months afterwards, they were dreadfully harassed by the Indians, who made onslaughts on their cattle, carried away, killed, and eat both horses and oxen. The Indians are by no means particular. One night, after the party had been lulled into a sense of security by the apparent friendly disposition of the Indians, who occasionally came into their camp, and no watch was being kept, upwards of a score of horses and mules were driven off; the loss of which Sutter's people knew nothing of until they woke up in the morning, and found the ropes all cut. They started off at once on the trail, and soon found that it led to an Indian rancheria, about eight miles up the Sacramento. This rancheria was, they believed, the refuge of the "Ingin varmints," as Joe While styled them, from whose depredations they were constantly suffering. Captain Sutter determined to take signal revenge. They returned to the Fort that day, but next morning started off in a strong party, each man armed with his never-failing rifle and big bowie-knife, and taking with them a howitzer which the Captain had brought with him over the Rocky Mountains. The Indians must, however, have had information by their scouts of the expedition; for, when the party reached the rancheria, they found it deserted—not even a solitary squaw left among the huddled-up collection of huts. Determined not to be foiled, the party set to work to demolish the village. The construction of the Indian houses rendered this an easy task, but, to complete it, fire was requisite. No sooner had the smoke risen from the kindling wood, than their ears were saluted with a dismal yell from a little densely-wooded island a couple of hundred yards up the stream. Starting out in all directions from the high grass and underwood, appeared a crowd of squaws with their children, who gave whoop after whoop, and, brandishing boughs of trees, imprecated curses upon the destroyers of their rancheria.

Captain Sutter and his party of trappers were somewhat startled at this proceeding, and the question immediately occurred to them as to where the men could be. The party pushed their way homewards as fast, as possible; leaving the rancheria burning and the squaws and children still yelling and whooping on the island. It was as they expected. On coming within two miles of the Fort, they heard the crack upon crack of distant rifles. Putting their horses to the gallop, they arrived just in time to see the Indians totally routed, and scampering away as fast as their horses would carry them into the woods.

After this double defeat, the tribes seem to have given up all idea of prosecuting a war against their new neighbours, and, gradually relinquishing their thievish habits, settled in the neighbourhood of the Fort—sometimes hunting and trapping for the pale faces, and at others labouring away at ditching and brick-making, being paid chiefly in articles of clothing and small allowances of pisco. The trapper told us that Captain Sutter has now a tin coin in circulation, stamped with his name, and good for a certain amount of merchandize at the Fort.

After listening to a few more wonderful adventures of this sort, Bradley turned the conversation upon the country about Bear River. The trapper said he knew it well, and had heard that there was plenty of gold there. He asked him if he would undertake to guide us thither, and, after some bargaining, he consented. The sum he was to have was sixty-five dollars and his food. Considering the high rates of all things here, this was a low figure enough, but the old trapper candidly told us that he was sick and tired of paddling about in the water washing for gold, and that he would prefer a few days' jaunt in the wilderness. The climate was much cooler further to the north, he informed us, and comparatively few miners had penetrated to the Bear Valley. We had a long debate upon the matter, and ultimately it was determined to start the day after to-morrow (Wednesday).

July 25th, Tuesday.—This day has been devoted to preparations for our journey. Our stock of provisions, with the exception of breadstuffs, is quite exhausted. We have had, therefore, to lay in a stock, but we found everything, of course, inordinately dear; so we have contented ourselves with buying some bacon, and dried beef, and coffee, resolving to trust to our rifles for further support, there being plenty of game in the neighbourhood of the Bear Valley. By the advice of Joe White, we intend not only to load the pack-horses with a portion of our stock of provisions, but each man is to take a fortnight's rations for himself. The pack-horses will carry about another fortnight's supply. We should have preferred, if we could have managed it, to despatch the gold we have amassed since Bradley's mission to Captain Sutter, down to the Fort; but, after some deliberation, we have resolved not to risk its transit without an escort, and, accordingly, have agreed to load one horse, the most sure-footed of the lot, with the valuable burden, and to attach its trail ropes to the horses ridden by ourselves in turn.

This evening three men, hearing of our intended expedition, offered to join the party. These were Edward Story, an American lawyer, who had been one of the inferior alcaldes during the Spanish regime at Monterey; John Dowling, first mate, and Samuel Bradshaw, the carpenter, of an American whaling ship which they had left at San Francisco. The lawyer was an intelligent person, conversant with the language of several of the tribes—the mate seemed to have his wits about him, and the carpenter would obviously be a great acquisition, particularly as we were now about to plunge even beyond the furthest outposts of civilization, where, in all probability, we may have to secure ourselves against attacks from the Indians without the possibility of any help beyond that which we could render to each other. We were rather pleased with their offer, and received them as an addition to our party. All three had horses, although, as usual with seamen, the mate and carpenter were terribly awkward equestrians.

Wednesday, July 26th.—This day we struck our camp before sunrise, and had the horses securely packed and all in motion in the early cool of the morning. The march was a fatiguing one; the country appearing to be a succession of woody bottoms, or valleys and steep rocky ridges, which tried the metal of our loaded horses severely. From the summit of one of the hills more elevated than the rest we obtained a distant view of the valley of the Sacramento. Our general course was north north-west. The trapper, who proved an able guide, varied the direction from time to time so as to lead us through the easiest paths, taking care to steer clear of the deep canones that split up the hills in every direction. We dined at noon as usual, and that very well, on some hare soup made from a couple of hares which we had shot during the morning, and some dried beef. The signs of deer were very frequent. After mounting and descending a very precipitous and rocky ridge, we encamped near some waterfalls in a wide open valley. The night was somewhat cold, and we enjoyed a blazing fire of pine sticks, which we cut from the dried trees in the vicinity.

Friday, July 28th.—Yesterday morning dawned clear and rather coolish. In the forenoon we crossed the north fork of the Americanos, which was here but a trifling stream. The general character of the country was becoming more and more mountainous and difficult to traverse, and we found the labour of the journey sufficiently severe. A great number of water-courses crossed our path, but the channels were quite dry, the stones and shingle white and bleaching in the sun. An unfortunate accident occurred during the afternoon's march to one of the pack-horses, which stumbled over a heap of rough stones in clambering up from the bed of a torrent, and broke its leg. We had to shoot the poor animal to put it out of pain. Its burden was equally distributed between its more fortunate fellows. We encamped amongst rocks, and had a poor supper of flour cakes and bacon scraps. During the night Don Luis was attacked with aguish symptoms. I prescribed bark, which appeared to relieve him.