The San Joaquin river is, without doubt, the crookedest navigable stream in the world. There was never a snake that could contort himself into so fantastic an outline as presented by that lazily meandering branch of the Sacramento. So crooked is it, that one entertains a constant dread of running ashore; the bank is always dead ahead and unpleasantly near. This serpentine river traverses a perfectly level plain throughout the navigable part of its course, its banks being flanked by tule beds which extend farther than the eye can see. Indeed, the valley of the San Joaquin is one vast bed of tules, extending fully one hundred and fifty miles. When, as sometimes happens during the dry season, the tule beds take fire, the spectacle, especially at night, is at once grand and terribly impressive. I remember on one occasion taking a night trip up the river during one of these fires. The scene in the vicinity of Monte Diablo, was one of the most majestic and awe inspiring I have ever witnessed. The name of “Devil’s Mountain” seemed singularly appropriate. It was nearly three in the morning when I arrived at Stockton, and, as there was nothing to be gained by going ashore, I remained on board the boat, determined to get the full benefit of a morning nap. It seemed to me that I had just closed my eyes, when I was awakened by the yelling of the roustabouts and stage agents on the wharf. I had barely time to dress, hustle ashore and hurriedly swallow a cup of coffee, before my stage was ready to start, and I was off for Jacksonville--the particular town of Tuolumne county that I had determined to favor with my medical skill and fortune-hunting ambition. There was nothing pleasant about that stage ride--it was memorable only for its inconveniences and its motley load pf passengers. A hot, dusty, bumping journey in the old time California stage makes pretty reading as Bret Harte has described it but I am free to say that the reality was not so enjoyable. The red dust of the California stage road gets into a fellow’s system so deeply that his ideas are likely to be of a practical or even profane sort, even though he be normally quite sentimental. Picturesque, however, the ride certainly was. Several red-shirted, rough-bearded miners, lent just the right touch of local color, while the imitation frontiersman--of whom I was the type--was sufficiently well represented to afford a suitable foil for the genuine article, as typified by my brawny-chested, be-pistoled, unkempt fellow passengers.