two rivers, the one flowing north, the
other south, join a few miles below Sacramento, and empty their waters
into the bay of San Francisco.

That part of the great inland plain of California which is drained by the
Sacramento is called after its river. It is more thickly inhabited than
the southern or San Joaquin Valley, partly because the foot-hills on its
eastern side were the scene of the earliest and longest continued, as well
as the most successful, mining operations; partly because the Sacramento
River is navigable for a longer distance than the San Joaquin, and thus
gave facilities for transportation which the lower valley had not; and,
finally, because the Sacramento Valley had a railroad completed through
its whole extent some years earlier than the San Joaquin Valley.

The climate of the Sacramento Valley does not differ greatly from that of
the San Joaquin, yet there are some important distinctions. Lying further
north, it has more rain; in the upper part of the valley they sometimes
see snow; there is not the same necessity for irrigation as in the lower
valley; and though oranges flourish in Marysville, and though the almond
does well as far north as Chico, yet the cherry and the plum take the
place of the orange and lemon; and men build their houses somewhat more
solidly than further south.

The romance of the early gold discovery lies mostly in the Sacramento
Valley and the adjacent foot-hills. Between Sacramento and Marysville lay
Sutter's old fort, and near Marysville is Sutter's farm, where you may
still see his groves of fig-trees, under whose shade the country people
now hold their picnics; his orchards, which still bear fruit; and his
house, which is now a country tavern.

Of all his many leagues of land the old man has, I believe, but a few
acres left; and of the thousands who now inhabit and own what once was
his, not a dozen would recognize him, and many probably scarcely know
his name. His riches melted away, as did those of the great Spanish
proprietors; and he who only a quarter of a century ago owned a territory
larger than some States, and counted his cattle by the thousands--if,
indeed, he ever counted them--who lived in a fort like a European noble of
the feudal times, had an army of Indians at his command, and occasionally
made war on the predatory tribes who were his neighbors, now lives upon a
small annuity granted him by the State of California. He saved little, I
have heard, from