Sanchez at once promised to provide the ship daily with fresh meat, but advised me to send a boat to the mission of Santa Clara for a supply of vegetables, which were there to be had in superfluity. The Presidio had, with a negligence which would be inconceivable in any other country, omitted to cultivate even sufficient for their own consumption. As I had not visited the mission of Santa Clara during my first visit to California, I now determined to proceed thither on the following day, in the long-boat. Sanchez provided a good pilot, and sent a courier overland to announce my arrival at the mission. The bay of St. Francisco is full ninety miles in circuit: it is divided by islands into two pretty equally sized basins, a northern and a southern. On the banks of the southern, which takes an easterly direction, lie the three missions, St. Francisco, Santa Clara, and St. Jose. Of the northern half of the bay I will speak hereafter. On the morning of the 28th of September, the Barcasse was ready, and equipped with every thing necessary for our little voyage. Favoured both by wind and tide, we sailed eastward past many charming islands and promontories, to the mission of Santa Clara, which lay at a distance of five-and-twenty miles, in a straight line from the ship. The country presented on all sides a picture of beauty and fertility: the shores are of a moderate elevation, and covered with a brilliant verdure; the hills, towards the interior, swell gently into an amphitheatre, and the background is formed by high thick woods. Groves of oaks are scattered upon the slopes, separated by lovely meadows, and forming more graceful and picturesque groups than I have ever seen as the produce of art. With very little trouble, the most luxuriant harvests might be reaped from this soil; but a happy and industrious population has not yet been established here, to profit from the prodigality of Nature. The death-like stillness of these beautiful fields is broken only by the wild animals which inhabit them; and as far as the eye can reach, it perceives no trace of human existence; not even a canoe is to be seen upon the surrounding waters, which are navigable for large vessels, and boast many excellent harbours;--the large white pelican with the bag under his bill, is the only gainer by the abundance of fish they produce. During the centuries of Spanish supremacy in California, even the exertion of procuring a net has been deemed too great. How abundantly and happily might thousands of families subsist here! and how advantageously might the emigrants to Brazil have preferred this spot for colonization! There, they have to struggle with many difficulties, are often oppressed by the government, and always suffer under a scorching sun. Here, they would have found the climate of the South of Germany, and a luxuriant soil, that would have yielded an ample recompense for the slightest pains bestowed upon it.