232 Audubon's Western Journal 



poles, so did as we had done often before, spread 

 one side of the tent on the ground and laid our 

 blankets on that, and covered ourselves with the 

 other part; a corner was put over my gun used as a 

 pole, which gave a place to sit, and also protected 

 our solitary candle from the wind, so we ate our 

 supper in comfort, and enjoyed a kill-deer and a 

 couple of snipe we had shot. 



We did not hear a sound but the croakings of 

 hundreds of frogs from the pond by our side. Our 

 long campings out had accustomed us to solitudes 

 like this, but on our desolate, half starving march 

 of last year, doubt, anxiety, yes and fear, had always 

 taken from the complete enjoyment of such free- 

 dom as this. The country was so flat that the 

 horizon was lost even in the bright moonlight, and 

 the perfect silence, the pure cloudless sky overhead, 

 the quiet little lake, tended to make everything 

 full of solemnity and peace. 



April 26th. This morning half a gale was blow- 

 ing from the northwest and we were glad to wear 

 our blanket coats until the sun warmed up the earth. 

 We reached "Sutter's Fort" at noon, and lay down 

 under the adobe wall to take our lunch. I was 

 disappointed in the view I had hoped to take ; here, 

 on a boundless plain, with two or three hospitals 

 around it, stands a sort of rancho, not so good in 

 many respects as those of New Mexico, but all in 

 the same style, the sides being a series of rooms, 



