his heart with joy. To complete his contentment, Dr
Coulter interceded for him with the captain, who gave the poor fellow a
free passage back to his own country.

The tigers and patriots of Colombia, ugly customers though they be, are
far less formidable than the highwaymen and grisly bears abounding in
California. The robbers go about on horseback, well armed and provided
with lassos, which they throw over the heads of their victims. The usual
objects of their attack are travellers for trade or amusement--any one, in
short, who carries saddlebags--and sometimes even the hunter, toiling his
way to a seaport with a bundle of furs upon his back, is held worth
despoiling of his hard-earned burden. But Californian hunters, cautious
and keen-eyed, and deadly shots, seldom allow themselves to be surprised,
or give up their plunder without a tussle. The doctor tells us of one
fellow, a sort of Californian Natty Bumpo, with whom he passed some time,
and who had defeated and slain with his own hand a gang of six robbers,
making prize of their horses, arms, and accoutrements. In the woods and
prairies of those wild districts, men become inured to hardship and danger
of every kind. And to those who can dine by the bivouac fire and under the
shade of the forest as cheerfully and heartily as in gilded halls and off
polished mahogany, and who can sleep as soundly on fresh turf as in a
luxurious feather-bed, California is a paradise, realising those happy
hunting grounds to which the Indian warrior believes death a passage. The
lakes and rivers abound with fish and wild fowl--trout and salmon, swans,
geese, and ducks; the hazel-nut covers are alive with feathered game; the
forests and mountains with buffalo, deer, hares, and innumerable other
animals. Of beasts of prey, the principal are the jaguar or spotted
leopard, the puma or American lion, and bears--black, brown, and grisly.
These three specimens of the bruin family differ greatly in their habits
and degree of ferocity. The black and brown bears are peaceable,
well-behaved animals, whose principal occupation seems to consist in
furnishing amusement for the hunters by their comical antics. At night
they come round the fires; "but you need not trouble yourselves about a
dozen of them, as, in most instances, they will let you alone, and keep a
respectful distance, sitting on their haunches, scratching themselves with
their fore-paws, wondering what brought you there, and taking a loo