October 17.—­The last two mornings have been cloudy and cool.  The rainy season, it is thought by the weather-wise in this climate, will set in earlier this year than usual.  The periodical rains ordinarily commence about the middle of November.  It is now a month earlier, and the meteorological phenomena portend “falling weather.”  The rains during the winter, in California, are not continuous, as is generally supposed.  It sometimes rains during an entire day, without cessation, but most generally the weather is showery, with intervals of bright sunshine and a delightful temperature.  The first rains of the year fall usually in November, and the last about the middle of May.  As soon as the ground becomes moistened, the grass, and other hardy vegetation, springs up, and by the middle of December the landscape is arrayed in a robe of fresh verdure.  The grasses grow through the entire winter, and most of them mature by the first of May.  The season for sowing wheat commences as soon as the ground is sufficiently softened by moisture to admit of ploughing, and continues until March or April.

We had made preparations this morning to visit a rancho, belonging to General Vallejo, in company with the general and Mr. Larkin.  This rancho contains about eleven leagues of land, bordering upon a portion of the Bay of San Francisco, twenty-five or thirty miles distant from Sonoma.  Just as we were about mounting our horses, however, a courier arrived from San Francisco with despatches from Captain Montgomery, addressed to Lieutenant Revere, the military commandant at this post, giving such intelligence in regard to the insurrection at the south, that we determined to return to San Francisco forthwith.  Procuring horses, and accompanied by Mr. Larkin, we left Sonoma about two o’clock in the afternoon, riding at the usual California speed.  After leaving Sonoma plain we crossed a ridge of hills, and entered the fertile and picturesque valley of Petaluma creek, which empties into the bay.  General Vallejo has an extensive rancho in this valley, upon which he has recently erected, at great expense, a very large house.  Architecture, however, in this country is in its infancy.  The money expended in erecting this house, which presents to the eye no tasteful architectural attractions, would, in the United States, have raised a palace of symmetrical proportions, and adorned it with every requisite ornament.  Large herds of cattle were grazing in this valley.

From Petaluma valley we crossed a high rolling country, and reached the mission of San Rafael (forty-five miles) between seven and eight o’clock in the evening.  San Rafael is situated two or three miles from the shore of the bay, and commands an extensive view of the bay and its islands.  The mission buildings are generally in the same ruinous condition I have before described.  We put up at the house of a Mr. Murphy, a scholastic Irish bachelor, who has been a resident of California for a number of