274 Sketch of the Life of Mr. David Douglas, 



or two's conversation witli you to renew the pleasant moments we 

 passed in 1830, would at this time and distance of place, afford me 

 the utmost gratification, the more especially to one so ill qualified 

 for writing as I am. Indeed writing is out of my line of life. I 

 spent 19 months in California and amassed a collection, of such 

 an extent, as can only be equalled by its novelty and beauty. 

 California is a most beautiful and highly diversified country. 

 Snowy mountains, low hills clothed w?th wood, extensive plains, 

 undulating grounds, in fact all except the Great River, which 

 certainly sometimes makes but a cold feature in American 

 scenery. The climate, though warm is healthy, and were it 

 not for the intense drought of July and August, the soil would 

 be very productive. In no part of the world have I experienced 

 such a dryness in the atmosphere, nor can I call to my memory 

 having read of greater. Even the deserts of Arabia and Egypt, 

 the plains of Sin and Ispahan in Persia, I mean the driest places 

 on the globe, when satisfactory observations have been made, 

 are more humid than California. Often when the thermometer 

 Fahr., stands at 80° or 100°, 30° or 40° of dryness is by no means 

 unfrequent. On some occasions I have sunk the thermometer 

 below zero, and after repeated trials, with all the care I am ca- 

 pable of bestowing on such a delicate operation, not the least 

 particle of moisture could be detected. But nature ever kind 

 and varied in her operations, compensates for this extreme dry- 

 ness of the daytime by copious dews during the night, at all times 

 proportionate to the dryness of the preceding day. Otherwise 

 animals or vegetables could not live ; the most would only be exis- 

 tence, and that for but a short period. In 1831, the rain was 

 only '700 of an inch, the 39th part of the mean of the English 

 climate. Notwithstanding these great drawbacks to this beauti- 

 ful country, it is the land of the vine, the olive, the fig, the ba- 

 nana, and in the southern parts, of the sugar cane, and a variety 

 of the usual fruits seen in semi-tropical climates. The vine is 

 cultivated to a large extent, from 10,000 to 100,000 in one vi- 

 neyard. The wine is excellent, indeed, that word is too small for 

 it ; it is very excellent. I lived almost exclusively with the fathers 

 who without an exception, afforded me the most essential assis- 

 tance, hospitality to excess, with a thousand little courtesies 

 which we feel and cannot express. I had no bickerings about su- 

 perstition, no attempts at conversion or the like, the usual com- 

 plaints of travellers, indeed so much to the contrary, that on no 



