Chap. VII. AN EXPENSIVE SHEPHERD. 547 
fact all the North Americans — who had either hired 
themselves in order to travel to California free of expense, 
or who, on our arrival in the gold country, demanded too 
high wages, were dismissed. The Mexican muleteers 
were sent with the herds to the hills for pasture, and I, 
with a few others, remained to guard the camp until further 
arrangements were concluded. Four or five days passed 
thus, which I partly spent with the Colonel, a native of 
the United States, who had been married to a daughter of 
one of the oldest and most prominent Mexican families in 
California, and was a resident in the country long before 
its annexation. We had much conversation on the past 
and present condition of the country. His estates cover 
eight square leagues — about seventy English square miles 
— in one of the most beautiful plains in the State of Califor- 
nia. Lofty mountains rise all around ; some, as the Cerro 
de San Antonio, so high that they are covered with snow 
the greater part of the year. The Colonel settled here in 
1840; and, before this country was transferred to the 
United States, and the Mexican peon-law abolished, he 
had had 1200 Indian peons in his service. But since 
that change took place, and the Indians acquired free- 
dom to go where they please, they have retired to the 
neighbouring mountains, and it is difficult to get any of 
them to work, even for wages. The labour of free whites 
is paid exceedingly high ; for instance, the Colonel has to 
pay a shepherd five dollars a-day — a rate of wages which, 
with roast-lamb gratis to boot, will appear rather high to a 
European landowner. But, apart from these obstacles, 
the estate had suffered greatly in the Californian war : the 
buildings were dilapidated, and 10,000 vines, with 4000 
fruit-trees, had been destroyed. By the robberies of the 
Tulare Indians the estate had since lost horses to the value 
2 N 2 
