,
we procured lodgings in a large and half-finished adobe house, erected
by Don Salvador Vallejo, but now occupied by Mr. Griffith, an American
emigrant, originally from North Carolina. Sonoma is one of the old
mission establishments of California; but there is now scarcely a
mission building standing, most of them having fallen into shapeless
masses of mud; and a few years will prostrate the roofless walls which
are now standing. The principal houses in the place are the residences
of Gen. Don Mariano Guadaloupe Vallejo; his brother-in-law, Mr. J.P.
Leese, an American; and his brother, Don Salvador Vallejo. The quartel,
a barn-like adobe house, faces the public square. The town presents a
most dull and ruinous appearance; but the country surrounding it is
exuberantly fertile, and romantically picturesque, and Sonoma, under
American authority, and with an American population, will very soon
become a secondary commercial point, and a delightful residence. Most
of the buildings are erected around a _plaza_, about two hundred yards
square. The only ornaments in this square are numerous skulls and
dislocated skeletons of slaughtered beeves, with which hideous remains
the ground is strewn. Cold and warm springs gush from the hills near
the town, and supply, at all seasons, a sufficiency of water to
irrigate any required extent of ground on the plain below. I noticed
outside of the square several groves of peach and other fruit trees,
and vineyards, which were planted here by the _padres_; but the walls
and fences that once surrounded them are now fallen, or have been
consumed for fuel; and they are exposed to the _mercies_ of the immense
herds of cattle which roam over and graze upon the plain.

_October 15_.--I do not like to trouble the reader with a frequent
reference to the myriads of fleas and other vermin which infest the
rancherias and old mission establishments in California; but, if any
sinning soul ever suffered the punishments of purgatory before leaving
its tenement of clay, those torments were endured by myself last night.
When I rose from my blankets this morning, after a sleepless night, I
do not think there was an inch square of my body that did not exhibit
the inflammation consequent upon a puncture by a flea, or some other
equally rabid and poisonous insect. Small-pox, erysipelas, measles, and
scarlet-fever combined, could not have imparted to my skin a more
inflamed and sanguineous appearance. The multitud