. 34 ERYTHEA. 



time in November, 1845, whence he proceeded directly across 

 Mexico to Mazatlan, on the shores of the Pacific. Passage to Cali- 

 fornia was not, however, easily obtainable. The officers of the war 

 ships of the United States bound for Monterey looked upon him as a 

 political spy, for both England and the United States were eagerly 

 watching the first opportunity to seize the fair lands of Alta Cali- 

 fornia. It was not, therefore, until the 12th of May of the follow- 

 ing year that he gained passage from Mazatlan for Monterey, where 

 he arrived on the 7th of June, 1846. The verdant fields and pine- 

 covered hills of that region proved an agreeable change from the 

 arid country on the Mexican west coast. Among the first plants 

 that he collected were Ceanothtisthyrsifloriis, Adenostomafasciculatum, 

 Ribes malvaceum, Diplacus glutinosus, Garrya elliptica, and GauUheria 

 Shallon. He also records and sends home to the Society, without an 

 exclamation or word of surprise, the measurements of a redwood^ 

 (^Sequoia sempervirens), in the Santa Cruz region, 270 feet high 

 and 55 feet in circumference 6 feet from the ground. Hart- 

 weg had, however, by this time journeyed in lands filled with a 

 strange vegetation. He had measured a specimen of Taxodiuvi 

 distichum 98 feet in circumference 6 feet from the ground, which 

 grew within a few leagues of Oajaca. This measurement, of 

 course, included the longitudinal board-like excrescences, or knees, 

 which descend the main stem, and at the base project 6 or 8 feet 

 from the trunk proper. 



This period, as has been intimated, was in California a season of 

 great political disturbance, and Hartweg, who was above all things 

 a cautious traveler, did not venture far from "the quiet little town 

 of Monterey." He seems to have been, nevertheless, a man of great 

 physical strength and endurance, and with the exception of attacks 

 from fever in the lowlands of the tropics or elsewhere, he incurred 

 few serious misfortunes, and it was his surpassing good luck while in 

 Mexico to fall in with "pronounciados" who were invariably poor 

 marksmen. In any event he made short excursions about the town — 

 one to Santa Cruz, returning in time to see the United States naval 

 forces land and raise the American flag without opposition over 

 the old Spanish capital ; another to Carmel Bay, and another to 



I Doubtless one of the "Santa Cruz Big Trees." 



