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328 the blue waters, and the thousand evidences of life and progress developed in a few short years by the indomitable energy of our people on this outer edge of the continent—this western outpost of the Great Republic. On again, down a broad, graded road, which is cut along the side of a cañon, leading eastward among beautifully-rounded hills, covered with a dense growth of wild oats to their very summits, across a narrow valley, and up over the broken hill-range of Las Trampas, and down once more into a broad, beautiful valley, filled with farm-houses and wide fields of ripening grain, which seem wonderfully like those of the prairie country of Illinois. We pass through two or three country villages, each consisting of a store or two, post-office and express-office combined, a hotel, billiard-saloon, and two or three small rum-mills, and stop to refresh at each.

The sun is sinking behind the Western hills when we pass up by a short cut through a winding canon filled with wild mustard plants, as high as our horses' heads, through which we push our animals with difficulty, and emerge on a gravelly, unfenced and uncultivated plain, which stretches away to the foot of Mount Diablo, and catch a glimpse of Clayton, where we propose to pass the night. The company all together, we propose a taste of fragrant pisco (Peruvian white brandy) all round, sundry bottles of that and other refreshments having been stowed away under the seat of the carriage in which the doctors are riding. Something knocks Dr. Murphy's hat off, and I, Greaser style, swing down from my saddle, catch