Toward the close of June, 1848, the gold-fever being at its height, by Colonel Mason’s orders I made preparations for his trip to the newly-discovered gold-mines at Sutter’s Fort.  I selected four good soldiers, with Aaron, Colonel Mason’s black servant, and a good outfit of horses and pack-mules, we started by the usually traveled route for Yerba Buena.  There Captain Fulsom and two citizens joined our party.  The first difficulty was to cross the bay to Saucelito.  Folsom, as quartermaster, had a sort of scow with a large sail, with which to discharge the cargoes of ships, that could not come within a mile of the shore.  It took nearly the whole day to get the old scow up to the only wharf there, and then the water was so shallow that the scow, with its load of horses, would not float at the first high tide, but by infinite labor on the next tide she was got off and safely crossed over to Saucelito.  We followed in a more comfortable schooner.  Having safely landed our horses and mules, we picked up and rode to San Rafael Mission, stopping with Don Timoteo Murphy.  The next day’s journey took us to Bodega, where lived a man named Stephen Smith, who had the only steam saw-mill in California.  He had a Peruvian wife, and employed a number of absolutely naked Indians in making adobes.  We spent a day very pleasantly with him, and learned that he had come to California some years before, at the personal advice of Daniel Webster, who had informed him that sooner or later the United States would be in possession of California, and that in consequence it would become a great country.  From Bodega we traveled to Sonoma, by way of Petaluma, and spent a day with General Vallejo.  I had been there before, as related, in the business of the alcalde Nash.  From Sonoma we crossed over by way of Napa, Suisun, and Vaca’s ranch, to the Puta.  In the rainy season, the plain between the Puta and Sacramento Rivers is impassable, but in July the waters dry up; and we passed without trouble, by the trail for Sutter’s Embarcadero.  We reached the Sacramento River, then full of water, with a deep, clear current.  The only means of crossing over was by an Indian dugout canoe.  We began by carrying across our packs and saddles, and then our people.  When all things were ready, the horses were driven into the water, one being guided ahead by a man in the canoe.  Of course, the horses and mules at first refused to take to the water, and it was nearly a day’s work to get them across, and even then some of our animals after crossing escaped into the woods and undergrowth that lined the river, but we secured enough of them to reach Sutter’s Fort, three miles back from the embcarcadero, where we encamped at the old slough, or pond, near the fort.  On application, Captain Butter sent some Indians back into the bushes, who recovered and brought in all our animals.  At that time there was not the sign of a habitation there or thereabouts, except the fort, and an old adobe-house, east of the fort,