CHAPTER III.

EARLY RECOLLECTIONS OF CALIFORNIA—­(CONTINUED).

1849-1850.

The department headquarters still remained at Monterey, but, with the few soldiers, we had next to nothing to do.  In midwinter we heard of the approach of a battalion of the Second Dragoons, under Major Lawrence Pike Graham, with Captains Rucker, Coutts, Campbell, and others, along.  So exhausted were they by their long march from Upper Mexico that we had to send relief to meet them as they approached.  When this command reached Los Angeles, it was left there as the garrison, and Captain A. J. Smith’s company of the First Dragoons was brought up to San Francisco.  We were also advised that the Second Infantry, Colonel B. Riley, would be sent out around Cape Horn in sailing-ships; that the Mounted Rifles, under Lieutenant-Colonel Loring, would march overland to Oregon; and that Brigadier-General Persifer F. Smith would come out in chief command on the Pacific coast.  It was also known that a contract had been entered into with parties in New York and New Orleans for a monthly line of steamers from those cities to California, via Panama.  Lieutenant-Colonel Burton had come up from Lower California, and, as captain of the Third Artillery, he was assigned to command Company F, Third Artillery, at Monterey.  Captain Warner remained at Sacramento, surveying; and Halleck, Murray, Ord, and I, boarded with Dona Augustias.  The season was unusually rainy and severe, but we passed the time with the usual round of dances and parties.  The time fixed for the arrival of the mail-steamer was understood to be about January 1, 1849, but the day came and went without any tidings of her.  Orders were given to Captain Burton to announce her arrival by firing a national salute, and each morning we listened for the guns from the fort.  The month of January passed, and the greater part of February, too.  As was usual, the army officers celebrated the 22d of February with a grand ball, given in the new stone school-house, which Alcalde Walter Colton had built.  It was the largest and best hall then in California.  The ball was really a handsome affair, and we kept it up nearly all night.  The next morning we were at breakfast:  present, Dona Augustias, and Manuelita, Halleck, Murray, and myself.  We were dull and stupid enough until a gun from the fort aroused us, then another and another.  “The steamer” exclaimed all, and, without waiting for hats or any thing, off we dashed.  I reached the wharf hatless, but the dona sent my cap after me by a servant.  The white puffs of smoke hung around the fort, mingled with the dense fog, which hid all the water of the bay, and well out to sea could be seen the black spars of some unknown vessel.  At the wharf I found a group of soldiers and a small row-boat, which belonged to a brig at anchor in the bay.  Hastily ordering a couple of willing soldiers to get in and take the oars, and