Kearney before he left, in pursuance of instructions from the War Department, merely to subserve a political end, for there were few or no people in Lower California, which is a miserable, wretched, dried-up peninsula.  I remember the proclamation made by Burton and Captain Bailey, in taking possession, which was in the usual florid style.  Bailey signed his name as the senior naval officer at the station, but, as it was necessary to put it into Spanish to reach the inhabitants of the newly-acquired country, it was interpreted, “El mas antiguo de todos los oficiales de la marina,” etc., which, literally, is “the most ancient of all the naval officers,” etc., a translation at which we made some fun.

The expedition to Mazatlan was, however, for a different purpose, viz., to get possession of the ports of Mazatlan and Guaymas, as a part of the war against Mexico, and not for permanent conquest.

Commodore Shubrick commanded this expedition, and took Halleck along as his engineer-officer.  They captured Mazatlan and Guaymas, and then called on Colonel Mason to send soldiers down to hold possession, but he had none to spare, and it was found impossible to raise other volunteers either in California or Oregon, and the navy held these places by detachments of sailors and marines till the end of the war.  Burton also called for reenforcements, and Naglee’a company was sent to him from Monterey, and these three companies occupied Lower California at the end of the Mexican War.  Major Hardie still commanded at San Francisco and above; Company F, Third Artillery, and Shannon’s company of volunteers, were at Monterey; Lippett’s company at Santa Barbara; Colonel Stevenson, with one company of his regiment, and the company of the First Dragoons, was at Los Angeles; and a company of Mormons, reenlisted out of the Mormon Battalion, garrisoned San Diego—­and thus matters went along throughout 1847 into 1848.  I had occasion to make several trips to Yerba Buena and back, and in the spring of 1848 Colonel Mason and I went down to Santa Barbara in the sloop-of-war Dale.

I spent much time in hunting deer and bear in the mountains back of the Carmel Mission, and ducks and geese in the plains of the Salinas.  As soon as the fall rains set in, the young oats would sprout up, and myriads of ducks, brant, and geese, made their appearance.  In a single day, or rather in the evening of one day and the morning of the next, I could load a pack-mule with geese and ducks.  They had grown somewhat wild from the increased number of hunters, yet, by marking well the place where a flock lighted, I could, by taking advantage of gullies or the shape of the ground, creep up within range; and, giving one barrel on the ground, and the other as they rose, I have secured as many as nine at one discharge.  Colonel Mason on one occasion killed eleven geese by one discharge of small shot.  The seasons in California are well marked.