186 A CALIFORNIA TRAMP. 



and feudalism, and accented with sonorous Castilian nomen- 

 clature. Now, such names as Dog Gulch, Grass Valley and 

 Rogue River are taking the place of the sweet names of a 

 language which could make the most effective oaths sound as 

 lover's mou things. Even these are being drowned by Yankee 

 substitutes, and the mellifluous " carambas,^^ ^^carajos" '^coze- 

 dos^' and '' sacramentos," which to me never sounded more 

 harmful from the tongue of a Mexican than "Dear me" and 

 "Oh! my" from an emotional Eastern woman, are disused by 

 the vile objurgations of the "Americanos." In those days the 

 Mexican "geed" and "hawed" his oxen in Spanish, and "got 

 them up" and "whoaed" them similarly; now his "anda,'^ 

 his ^'circo^' and other ox-directing synonyms are only heard 

 in out-of-the-way " Sleepy Hollow " ranches. 



As to the appearance of the country I was to travel over, it 

 was like this; for although a score and a half of years have 

 elapsed since I was there, it is now plainly before me : North- 

 ward stretched, as far as the eye could reach, a nearly level 

 plain, the first part bare of green vegetation and for some 

 distance covered with a chaparral of sage-brush higher than 

 one's head. Beyond the soil grew better, and forty miles from 

 my starting point was green with pasture. The first settle- 

 ment was twenty-two miles on the road, and after awhile the 

 plain was dotted at intervals of four or five miles with the 

 white walls of ranche buildings. The right of the vista was 

 flanked by a range of the Sierra Nevada as far as I could see ; 

 the mountain rising abruptly for thousands of feet, the upper 

 part white with snow. Ten to fifteen miles oft' to the left a 

 low range of hills bounded the valley, and westward the plain 

 extended to the Pacific, some thirty miles away. 



I started about 10 o'clock on the 19th of December, 1858. 

 I cannot say I had no company, for on the road for miles our 

 party was scattered ; at long intervals, of course, for there 

 would not be more than two or three in sight at once. A 



