k his own meals; and General Persifor Smith, the present commander
of the division, has been abandoned by every servant. We officers all
are doing our own housework. As it is, ordinary laborers are getting
ten and twenty dollars a day, and house servants ask and are getting
$200 a month! Everybody figures on making twenty dollars a day at the
mines, with chance of making much more; so ordinary wages don't tempt.
The whole country is simply crazy." And Lieutenant Sherman turned on
his heel and marched off, as if indignant--and well he might be, for it
was soon found out that the army officers in California were having
hard work to live within their small pay.

The _California_ steamed northward, with the hilly California coast
much in sight on the right, although distant. Some of the table-lands
and hills shone yellow as if gold-plated, and raised high hopes among
many of the passengers. Wasn't this the Land of Gold, at last? But
Lieutenant Sherman and Mr. Grigsby, and a few others familiar with the
country, explained that the yellow was immense fields of wild oats,
already ripening.

At sunset was passed an island called Santa Catalina Island, inhabited
by thousands of wild goats. It was owned by a Spanish family who
annually killed the goats for their meat and hides. Out of sight
inland, was said to be the town of Los Angeles, the largest inland town
of California, and older than San Francisco.

The next stop would be Monterey. During the night the wind blew hard,
kicking up the roughest sea of the whole voyage, and once throwing
Charley out of his bunk, almost on top of Mr. Grigsby's cot.

"Hello," grunted the Fremonter, "hold fast, there. We must be rounding
Cape Conception, above Santa Barbara. That's a sort of a Cape Horn of
this coast, dividing it off. But we'll have fair sailing again, on the
other side."

In the morning the storm had waned, but the seas still ran high, in
immense white-crested waves that tossed and foamed, and leaping at the
steamer tried to climb aboard. The sky was gloriously blue, without a
cloud, and the air tasted salty crisp. Now the Coast Range of
California loomed large; its hither bases spotted with the yellow of
oats and the green of trees. Ramparts of high cliffs, separated by
strips of green and brown low-lands, bordered the ocean.

After breakfast a long point, jutting out from the shore ahead, was
hailed by the knowing ones aboard as Point Pinos (Pines Point),