SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA. 489 
it was provoking, notwithstanding all my care, to be 
robbed by this rascally people wherever I went. 
While speaking of my misfortune, one of the passen- 
gers said his silk handkerchief had been taken from his 
coat pocket by the man who brought him in his arms 
to the boat. Two other passengers, on examining their 
pockets, found that they had sustained a similar loss. 
I could not help laughing, informing them that I had 
taken the precaution to secure a fine silk handkerchief 
I had just bought, by putting a couple of oranges in 
my pocket above it. “ You had better look,” said 
my friends, “and see what your precautions amount 
to.” I did so, and found I had been operated upon 
as effectually as the rest. 
January \ltJi — l^th. These days were spent at sea, 
bound for San Bias, distance one hundred and twenty 
miles. We had expected to reach there in one day, 
but were retarded by light winds and calms. No inci- 
dent occurred worthy of notice. We had some ten or 
twelve passengers, all Mexicans but three. Of these, 
one was a German, Mr. Mejer, a merchant of Colima, 
Mr. Augustus Harcourt,'^' a Scotchman, and myself Mr. 
Harcourt had just arrived at Mazatlan from El Paso 
del Norte, by way of the city of Chihuahua, and gave 
me information from that place to a late date. 
January 14^7^. This morning we entered the har- 
* This Mr. Harcourt was the same person who was formerly con- 
nected with the United States Quarter-master’s office at Santa Fe, New 
Mexico, where he was guilty of some irregularities, such as placing the 
name of the Quarter-master to drafts on the government, to the serious 
loss of sundry merchants who cashed them, as well as to the Quarter- 
master himself. 
