CHAPTER XLIV.

Having now related the principal events which I witnessed, or in which I was an actor, both in California and in Texas, as these countries are still new and but little known (for, indeed, the Texans themselves know nothing of their inland country), I will attempt a topographical sketch of these regions, and also make some remarks upon the animals which inhabit the immense prairies and mountains of the wilderness.

Along the shores of the Pacific Ocean, from the 42 deg. down to the 34 deg.  North, the climate is much the same; the only difference between the winter and summer being that the nights of the former season are a little chilly.  The causes of this mildness in the temperature are obvious.  The cold winds of the north, rendered sharper still by passing over the snows and ices of the great northern lakes, cannot force their passage across the rocky chain south of the latitude 44 deg.  N., being prevented by a belt of high mountains or by impenetrable forests.  To the eastward, on the contrary, they are felt very severely; not encountering any kind of obstacles, they sweep their course to the very shores of the Gulf of Mexico, so that in 26 deg.  N. latitude, on the southern boundaries of Texas, winter is still winter; that is to say, fire is necessary in the apartments during the month of January, and flannel and cloth dresses are worn; while, on the contrary, the same month on the shores of the Pacific, up to 40 deg., is mild enough to allow strangers from the south, and even the Sandwich islanders, to wear their light nankeen trowsers and gingham round-abouts.

There is also a wide difference between the two coasts of the continent during summer.  In Upper California and the Shoshone territory, although the heat, from the rays of the sun, is intense, the temperature is so cooled both by the mountain and sea-breeze, as never to raise the mercury to more than 95 deg.  Fahrenheit, even in St. Diego, which lies under the parallel of 32 deg. 39’; while in the east, from 27 deg. in South Texas, and 30 deg. at New Orleans, up to 49 deg. upon Lake Superior, the mercury rises to 100 deg. every year, and frequently 105 deg., 107 deg. in St Louis, in Prairie du Chien, Green Bay, St. Anthony’s Falls, and the Lake Superior.

The resume of this is simply that the climate of the western coast of America is the finest in the world, with an air so pure, that during the intense heat of summer a bullock, killed, cleansed, and cut into slices, will keep for months without any salting nor smoking.

Another cause which contributes to render these countries healthy and pleasant to live in is, that there are, properly speaking, no swamps, marshes, nor bayous, as in the United States, and in the neighbourhood of Acapulco and West Mexico.  These lakes and bayous drying during summer, and exposing to the rays of the sun millions of dead fish, impregnate the atmosphere with miasma, generating typhus, yellow fever, dysenteries, and pulmonary diseases.