y so,
yet what was surprising, the emigrants themselves perceived nothing very
extraordinary in all these cannibalisms, but seemed to regard it as an
every day occurrence--surely they were deranged. The party who went to
their relief deserved all praise, for they, too, endured every hardship,
and many were badly frostbitten. The cause of all this suffering was
mainly attributable to the unmeaning delay and indolence attending their
early progress on the route, but with every advantage in favor of
emigration, the journey in itself must be attended with immense
privation and toil. The mere fact, that by the upper route there is one
vast desert to be travelled over, many hundred miles in width, affording
very little vegetation or sustenance, and to crown the difficulty,
terminated by the rugged chain of Californian mountains, is almost
sufficient in itself to deter many a good man and strong, from exposing
his life and property, for an unknown home on the shores of the Pacific.

CHAPTER XII.

Tarrying a fortnight at Yerbabuena, we then crossed the bay and dropped
anchor beneath the lofty hills of Sousoulito, where we busied ourselves
filling up with fresh water. This anchorage is a great resort for whale
ships, coming from the north-west fishing grounds, for water and
supplies; the procurante of which was an Englishman, for many years a
resident in the country, and possessing myriads of cattle, and a
principality in land and mountains; among other valuables, he was the
sire of the belle of California, in the person of a young girl named
Marianna. Her mother was Spanish, with the remains of great personal
charms; as to the child, I never saw a more patrician style of beauty
and native elegance in any clime where Castillian donas bloom. She was
brunette, with an oval face, magnificent dark grey eyes, with the
corners of her mouth slightly curved downward, so as to give a proud and
haughty expression to the face--in person she was tall, graceful and
well shaped, and although her feet were encased in deer skin shoes, and
hands bare, they still might have vied with any belles of our own. I
believe the lovely Marianna was as amiable as beautiful, and I know her
bright eye glancing along the delicate sights of her rifle, sent the
leaden missive with the deadly aim of a marksman, and that she rode like
an angel, and could strike a bullock dead with one quick blow of a keen
blade, but notwithstanding these domestic accompl