Some newspaper scribbler, last autumn, announced the death of Carson, and said, in connection, "His latest and _most remarkable exploit_ on the plains, was enacted in 1853, when he conducted a drove of sheep safely to California." Probably the writer was one of those whose eager curiosity had met a rebuff, in the quiet dignity with which Carson received the officiousness of the rabble who thronged around him on that visit. Not that he appreciated honor less, but that its unnecessary attachments were exceedingly displeasing to him. In this terribly fast city, where the _monte_ table, and its kindred dissipations, advertised themselves without a curtain, and where to indulge was the rule rather than the exception, Carson was able to stand fire, for he had been before now tried by much greater temptations. In the strange commingling of people from all quarters of the globe, whom Carson witnessed in San Francisco, he saw but a slight exaggeration of what he had often witnessed in Santa Fe,--and indeed, for the element of variety, in many a trapping party, not to name the summer rendezvous of the trappers, or the exploring parties of Col. Fremont. To be sure the Chinamen and the Kanackers were a new feature in society. But whether it be in the many nationalities represented, or in the pleasures they pursued, except that in San Francisco there was a lavishness in the expenditure of wealth commensurate with its speedier accumulation, there was little new to him, and while he saw its magic growth with glad surprise, the attractions this city offered could not allure him. Nor could the vista it opened up of a chance to rise into position in the advancing struggles for political ascendency, induce one wish to locate his home in a spot so wanting in the kindly social relationships; for he had tried the things and found them vanity and vexation of spirit, and now he yearned for his mountain home, and the sweet pastoral life which it afforded in his circle of tried friends. He saved the money he had secured by the sale of his flocks, and went down overland to Los Angelos to meet Maxwell, who took the trip by sea, which Carson having tasted once, could not be persuaded to try again, and there renewing his outfit, and visiting again some of its honored citizens, they started homeward, and had a pleasant passage till they reached the Gila River, where grass became so scarce that they were compelled to take a new course in order to find food for their horses; but Carson had no difficulty in pursuing a measurably direct course, and without encountering a snow storm, often terribly severe in the mountains of this interior country, he reached Taos on the third of December 1853.