e famed inland sea; on the right are seen the domes and spires
of Oakland, Alameda, and San Francisco; across the valley loom the
mountains, in the rainy season green to their summits, on which rest
the serene blue of the heavens, except when, the frequent fogs bury
everything from sight. On one side of the house, at the same time,
the trade winds from the Pacific chill you to your very bones, on the
other side the burning heat is unbearable. Afar off the humble home of
Joaquin Miller, poet of the Sierras, clearly appears.

There are many beautiful homes on this lofty hilltop, but they were
all for sale at bargains, for their occupants have grown weary of the
cloud bursts of the long dreary rainy season, then of the parching
heats of the equally dreary dry season, when a pickaxe and crowbar are
required to dig a potato unless you keep water running from the hose
day and night. These people long to return to their old homes in New
England where the varying seasons are not so monotonous.

I was invited to accompany a religious society on a week's camp in
a romantic canyon; but I was glad I did not when they returned in a
couple of days, narrating an adventure which daunted the stoutest
hearts. On the second night of their camping, the men were aroused
from sleep by the frightful screams from the women's tent; rushing
out, they saw in the light of the great fire kept burning to frighten
the wild-cats and mountain lions, a circle of venomous rattle-snakes,
hissing like fiends and coiled for springing. The men fought
desperately all night with shotguns and clubs. Life is scarcely worth
the living with these demons, and their natural attendants, the
horrible tarantulas.

CHAPTER XXX.

DISENCHANTED.--HOME AGAIN.

I had secured the adoption of our dictionaries in every county visited
by me, and now the publishers desired me to remain on the Pacific
coast permanently, without salary, relying on commissions on sales of
their books made by me and my sub-agents by canvassing, from house to
house. This financial proposition was far from being alluring, for the
laws enacted by a national democratic rule of four years had ruined
many of the principal industries of this section, and the larger
cities required a license fee of twenty dollars per week from all
canvassing agents. Many houses displayed large signs, "No book agents
allowed here," and they kept ferocious dogs to enforce the rule. The
majority of the people were