brought with us.  While some of the sailors were preparing breakfast, others, with their muskets, shot wild geese, with which the plain was covered.  An excellent breakfast was prepared in a short time by our sailor companions, of which we partook with them.  No benevolent old gentleman provides more bountifully for his servants than “Uncle Sam.”  These sailors, from the regular rations served out to them from their ship, gave an excellent breakfast, of bread, butter, coffee, tea, fresh beefsteaks, fried salt pork, cheese, pickles, and a variety of other delicacies, to which we had been unaccustomed for several months, and which cannot be obtained at present in this country.  They all said that their rations were more than ample in quantity, and excellent in quality, and that no government was so generous in supplying its sailors as the government of the United States.  They appeared to be happy, and contented with their condition and service, and animated with a patriotic pride for the honour of their country, and the flag under which they sailed.  The open frankness and honest patriotism of these single-hearted and weather-beaten tars gave a spice and flavour to our entertainment which I shall not soon forget.

From the embarcadero we walked, under the influence of the rays of an almost broiling sun, four miles to the town of Sonoma.  The plain, which lies between the landing and Sonoma, is timbered sparsely with evergreen oaks.  The luxuriant grass is now brown and crisp.  The hills surrounding this beautiful valley or plain are gentle, sloping, highly picturesque, and covered to their tops with wild oats.  Reaching Sonoma, we procured lodgings in a large and half-finished adobe house, erected by Don Salvador Vallejo, but now occupied by Mr. Griffith, an American emigrant, originally from North Carolina.  Sonoma is one of the old mission establishments of California; but there is now scarcely a mission building standing, most of them having fallen into shapeless masses of mud; and a few years will prostrate the roofless walls which are now standing.  The principal houses in the place are the residences of Gen. Don Mariano Guadaloupe Vallejo; his brother-in-law, Mr. J.P.  Leese, an American; and his brother, Don Salvador Vallejo.  The quartel, a barn-like adobe house, faces the public square.  The town presents a most dull and ruinous appearance; but the country surrounding it is exuberantly fertile, and romantically picturesque, and Sonoma, under American authority, and with an American population, will very soon become a secondary commercial point, and a delightful residence.  Most of the buildings are erected around a plaza, about two hundred yards square.  The only ornaments in this square are numerous skulls and dislocated skeletons of slaughtered beeves, with which hideous remains the ground is strewn.  Cold and warm springs gush from the hills near the town, and supply, at all seasons, a sufficiency of water to irrigate any required extent of ground on the plain below.  I noticed outside of the square several groves of peach and other fruit trees, and vineyards, which were planted here by the padres; but the walls and fences that once surrounded them are now fallen, or have been consumed for fuel; and they are exposed to the mercies of the immense herds of cattle which roam over and graze upon the plain.