in the open roadstead, and spent there about ten days, visiting all the usual places of interest, its foretop, main-top, mizzen-top, etc.  Halleck and Ord went up to Santiago, the capital of Chili, some sixty miles inland, but I did not go.  Valparaiso did not impress me favorably at all.  Seen from the sea, it looked like a long string of houses along the narrow beach, surmounted with red banks of earth, with little verdure, and no trees at all.  Northward the space widened out somewhat, and gave room for a plaza, but the mass of houses in that quarter were poor.  We were there in November, corresponding to our early spring, and we enjoyed the large strawberries which abounded.  The Independence frigate, Commodore Shubrick, came in while we were there, having overtaken us, bound also for California.  We met there also the sloop-of-war levant, from California, and from the officers heard of many of the events that had transpired about the time the navy, under Commodore Sloat, had taken possession of the country.

All the necessary supplies being renewed in Valparaiso, the voyage was resumed.  For nearly forty days we had uninterrupted favorable winds, being in the “trades,” and, having settled down to sailor habits, time passed without notice.  We had brought with us all the books we could find in New York about California, and had read them over and over again:  Wilkes’s “Exploring Expedition;” Dana’s “Two Years before the Mast;” and Forbes’s “Account of the Missions.”  It was generally understood we were bound for Monterey, then the capital of Upper California.  We knew, of course, that General Kearney was enroute for the same country overland; that Fremont was therewith his exploring party; that the navy had already taken possession, and that a regiment of volunteers, Stevenson’s, was to follow us from New York; but nevertheless we were impatient to reach our destination.  About the middle of January the ship began to approach the California coast, of which the captain was duly cautious, because the English and Spanish charts differed some fifteen miles in the longitude, and on all the charts a current of two miles an hour was indicated northward along the coast.  At last land was made one morning, and here occurred one of those accidents so provoking after a long and tedious voyage.  Macomb, the master and regular navigator, had made the correct observations, but Nicholson during the night, by an observation on the north star, put the ship some twenty miles farther south than was the case by the regular reckoning, so that Captain Bailey gave directions to alter the course of the ship more to the north, and to follow the coast up, and to keep a good lookout for Point Pinos that marks the location of Monterey Bay.  The usual north wind slackened, so that when noon allowed Macomb to get a good observation, it was found that we were north of Ano Nuevo, the northern headland of Monterey Bay.  The ship was put about, but little by little arose one of those