Lieut. Ord[36] lay next me, and this morning left for the steamer bound for San Francisco, and I went to the office for letters, but found none, so set to work to get provisions ready for the company.

Five miles from San Diego is the bay, beautiful enough on one side, but opposite are long islands of flat land, and the view ends in distant hills far below, no doubt the coast line. Here I saw many old acquaintances among the birds, the brown pelican wheels and plunges for his prey, as on the Gulf of Mexico, terns, curlews (the long-billed), the California black-bellied plover, and great numbers of the horned grebe. I killed two of them, and left them with Mr. Murray, as I carried my gun when I went to the fort for our provisions, which were stored in old hide warehouses. The traffic in hides and jerked beef has been for many years the great industry at this place.

I rode on to our camp in the rain, the first we had had for some weeks, and though now cold, and chilling us to the bone, we would have given worlds for it a short time previously, whilst crossing the dreary desert.

CHAPTER VI
CALIFORNIA FROM SAN DIEGO TO SAN FRANCISCO

San Diego. November 6, 1849. We started for Los Angeles at ten this morning, leaving behind Havens, Sloat, Watkinson, Lee, Snider, Perry, Dr. Trask, Steele, Bachman, Stevens and Cree, to follow by boat; Cree remained at my request to take care of Stevens, who is seriously ill, and Bachman is not strong enough to march further.

The road from San Diego is a pleasant one; northwest over a few moderate hills brings the traveller to the edge of a large bay, which from its appearance seems to be shallow; to the west, mountains, not the Coast Range, and a few miles along this bay, a beautiful "hollow" rather than valley, opens, and after six or eight miles leads to some steep and disagreeable hills, where our first night from San Diego will be passed. I did not regret leaving San Diego, except for the kindness received there (it is a miserable Mexican town) and our own rather forlorn condition. About forty men continue with me, half of us on foot, the other half scarcely much better, as our animals are woefully jaded, but we could not stop, for we are even worse off for funds than for mounts, as we have only about four hundred dollars, for all our expenses, for over six hundred miles. But our outlay will be small, for with all the assistance of the officers, which has been most liberally given, we have only secured half rations of flour and pork; we are so accustomed to doing without sugar and coffee, that we scarcely care for it.

November 7th. We were off at daylight according to custom, and followed the trail over hill and hollow, with an occasional valley. At times the ocean was in full view, its soft blue horizon line melting into the clear, cloudless sky. To our right, high over the Mission of St. Louis del Rey, smiled, glistening in snowy purity, the highest peaks of the Snowy Mountains, Sierra Nevada. The soil is black loam, and the bottoms still blacker, but on this day's travel much of the soil has been salt.

Seeing a few ducks alight at a little lake, almost like a running stream, I went after them, and found some hundreds of gadwalls, and bald-pates, and in half an hour had sufficient for all our company, which I need not tell you we enjoyed, though not cooked at Baltimore "à la Canvasback."

Hundreds of California marmots are seen daily, at a distance looking like a common squirrel, so much so that the men all call them squirrels; their color varies very much, being every shade of grey and reddish brown.

The Mission of Luis Rey,[37] as it is now called, now in the possession of the Americans, is kept by an old Mexican; it presents, as you get the first view of it going north, one of the most impressive scenes I can recall; its long row of low, but regular arches, the façade whitewashed, and the church at the east end, with many outlying buildings covered with red tiles, the whole standing in a broad valley running eastward for miles, until the view ends in the snowy peaks of the Sierra Nevada, compels the traveller to pause and to admire.