"My mother had kept a daily journal on the ship, _Brooklyn_, also the first five or six years in San Francisco, calling it 'The Early Annals of California.' This I considered invaluable from the reliability and the fullness of its historic matter and data, and after her demise I searched for it but it was gone. This I thought strange indeed, for she had assured me of its preservation about eighteen months before her last illness. I have heard her relate many incidents of those times. Once when nearly famished, (hostilities not yet being concluded between Mexico and the United States,) two men ventured outside the town to lasso one of the cattle browsing so near them, but were themselves caught by cruel Mexicans in ambush, and killed and quartered, their bodies left lying on the sand in view of the wretched inhabitants. At another time a Mexican was intercepted and searched. In one boot was found an order from General Castro, to attack by night and kill everything above four years old that could speak English. The messenger was buried in the sand. After awhile the native women became curious, and some of them ventured past the guard after dark, and being touched with compassion, returned in the same cautious manner, with bottles of _leche_ (milk) slung around their waists under their flounced dress skirts, and _tortillas_ (flour and water cakes) concealed beneath their _revosas_ (mantles,) for the women and children. Soon after the landing the brethren strayed around, glad to be on land and looking to see what they could find. 'Any fruit?' asked one of a returning comrade. 'Yes,' said he, 'grape, lots of 'em.' There was a rush off in that direction and a fruitless search. Being sharply questioned, he pulled a handful of grape shot out of his pocket, which he had picked up from the scene of a recent engagement. The same day a gentleman passenger, traveling for pleasure, brought a bouquet of wild flowers to me, saying: 'Little lady, I herewith present you the first bouquet ever offered by a white man to a white woman in Yerba Buena.' Yerba Buena was the original name of San Francisco, and means 'good herb'--from a kind of pennyroyal growing wild there at that time. My mother kept the flowers many years and told me the story over their odorless ashes. My father and mother with many of the Saints, (sixteen families) moved from the ship into the 'old adobie,' partitioned off with quilts. Soon after he rented a house, but the largest room was required of him as a hospital for the wounded soldiers; the next largest for a printing office. The press was an old Spanish press, and there being no W in that alphabet, they used to turn the M upside down. My mother used to help decipher the dispatches, many of them being written on the battlefield with a burnt stick or coal.