The time while there passed dully enough with me, arising from the want of desirable company and the non-existence of any places of amusement. I had lots of time to myself and had I been so disposed, had I possessed different mental stamina, force, energy and perseverance, I might easily have acquired a store of useful knowledge. But it is of no use a-croaking now. The time has fled and in place of enjoying at present a cultivated mind I hardly realize ideas enough to make me sensible that I am an intelligent, animated being. And it always will be so with me. I think nature is more to blame for it than I myself. Had I been endowed with Genius great, with even the present balance of mind I think I should have made a great man. I tried once, years ago, to obtain a lofty position in science, labored hard and long and what was the result? A machine capable of a certain amount of labor laid out for it. Nothing else. I had no thought nor ideas of my own of the least practical use. I had better then be satisfied. Although I might possess a great deal more, still I don't think that it would materially benefit my happiness here. April twentieth, eighteen hundred and fifty-eight. This day at ten o'clock, I left the wharf of San Francisco on the steamboat _Golden Age_ for the Atlantic States—for my home in old Virginia and my friends. I came to this country on the twentieth day of August eighteen hundred and fifty-two— making the time that I have been here, five years and eight months to a day. My success here, if not what it might have been, still yielded me a small capital—enough to start me in business most anywhere and consequently by proper management, diligence and industry, I shall be enabled to get along in this world comfortably. Had I mentally as well improved as I did my pecuniary circumstances, I should be well enough satisfied. This, however, is not the case and for this reason and this reason alone am I sorry that I ever came to California. Had I remained at home, associated as I was with men of intelligence and in a pursuit where mental effort was required I would now unquestionably be a smarter if not equally as rich a man. My mind, although naturally sterile, by proper care and pains would have been cultivated; my taste beautified; my feelings and sentiments ennobled. In short, I believe that I would have been a wiser, better, and in consequence a happier man than I am now. Still, courage, "faint heart," the future may even yet bestow on you content and happiness.