272 HISTORY OP CALIFORNIA. 



from his distant height, to gaze after his companions, 

 a moment in vain. But his heart quivered with ven- 

 geance, and the thin white locks of the old man in the 

 valley, still mingled with the gray twilight, like the 

 sackcloth and ashes of despair. 



" And this is what they call fighting the Indians ! 

 A few days hefore only, we saw a young mountaineer 

 wild with rage, threaten the life of an American who 

 had ventured to suggest, that the murders committed 

 by these Indians were provoked by many previous 

 murders by the whites, and that they should be avenged 

 by the death of the guilty among the Indians, and not 

 by an indiscriminate slaughter." 



We cannot think highly of the civilization of the 

 white men who take such unmerciful and indiscriminate 

 revenge as this. Such are not the means to gain the 

 Indians over to a peace. Revenge only breeds revenge ; 

 and those who commit such slaughter in retaliation 

 for the murder of one or two men must look to the 

 consequences. 



The great body of the travel to California is at 

 present by way of the Isthmus of Panama ; but those 

 who intend to settle permanently in the State, and 

 who will increase the real population of it, take the 

 overland route from Independence, Missouri. The 

 shortest and best route for commercial purposes will 

 soon be opened across Nicaragua. This will have 

 many advantages over the old Isthmus route, but will 

 not cause that one to be abandoned altogether. Chagres 

 has become somewhat Americanized, and so have 

 Gorgona, Cruces, and Panama. Travel has been some- 

 what facilitated by the addition of American boats on 

 the Chagres River, and the provision of the mountain 

 mules for the rough road to Panama, in sufficient 



