228 Audubon's Western Journal 



April l6th. I am still at Stockton making- 

 various excursions with Layton and his friend 

 Howard from New Orleans, and sketching con- 

 stantly and steadily. I am indeed crowding all 

 sail to start for home on the steamer which sails on 

 June ist, with Capt. Patterson. I have made 

 nearly ninety careful sketches, and many hasty 

 ones, the most interesting I have been able to find 

 in these southern mines, and expect to leave in a 

 few days for Sacramento. 



Stockton, April l8th. I am hardly fit to write 

 for I have just had most melancholy news from 

 Simson. Lieut. Browning, my dear and devoted 

 friend ; to whom I owe a debt of gratitude which 

 I can never pay, for his friendship and kindness to 

 me last year, from the hour that he took my hand 

 on the accursed Rio Grande River until we parted 

 in San Francisco, has been drowned. With Lieuts. 

 Bache and Blunt he was examining the coast near 

 Trinidad Bay, and on attempting to land, the boat 

 "broached to" in the breakers and capsized. Five 

 were drowned, among them Lieuts. Browning and 

 Bache. Thus is added another victim to our 

 ill-fated expedition. Strange that from first to 

 last we have been so fatally followed. Night 

 after night Browning and I shared the same tent, 

 the same blankets ; we knew each [other] well, we 

 were friends. 



