s 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. About October and November the rains begin, and the whole
country, plains and mountains, becomes covered with a bright-green
grass, with endless flowers. The intervals between the rains give
the finest weather possible. These rains are less frequent in
March, and cease altogether in April and May, when gradually the
grass dies and the whole aspect of things changes, first to yellow,
then to brown, and by midsummer all is burnt up and dry as an
ashheap.

When General Kearney first departe