Page:History of California, Volume 3 (Bancroft).djvu/133

Rh object was not only to protect those establishments against gentile tribes, but also and perhaps chiefly to prevent a further extension of Russian power. The missions were to be called upon to furnish the required aid in laborers, implements, and food, the corresponding instructions being also sent through the guardian to the president. Echeandia s reply was to the effect that there were no means to build a fort, but he would try to construct quarters near San Rafael for a military guard, and he did in March 1828 order Romualdo Pacheco to go to the north and select a suitable site, which is the last I hear of the matter.

Respecting the seasons from 1826 to 1830, I find nothing or next to nothing in the records; but I suppose that the winter of 1827–8. was a wet one, and the next of 1828–9 one of unprecedented drought. The flood is mentioned in various newspaper items, on the authority of Vallejo and other old Californians, and of trappers said to have been in the Sacramento Valley; it is confirmed by one letter of the time, January 1828, which speaks of the flood at Monterey as something like that of 1824–5. The drought of 1829 is shown by the failure of the crops, the total harvest being 24,000 fanegas, the smallest from 1796 to 1834, and less than half the average for this decade; though strangely I find no correspondence on the subject save two slight items, one from San Rafael and the other from San Diego.