There are but few women yet in California. Several merchants, and others who intend to spend some years in the country, send for their families. But the situation of these ladies is not the most comfortable, owing to the want of society, and to the utter impossibility of procuring servants in the family. By the death of their husbands, the condition of the wives would be pitiable, though there seem to be enough who would persuade them to change their solitary life as soon as possible. A lady now in this city, soon after her arrival here lost her husband. Before he had been dead a week, she received three proposals of marriage. The price of labor is yet very high, though not as high as it was in the spring. Good carpenters and masons command their $8 a day. The citizens frequently send their clothes to the Sandwich and Society Islands, and even to Valparaiso, and other places on the coast, to be washed, to avoid the great expense for washing here. All kinds of goods are lower than they were a few months since. Coal, which was $100, is now $9 a ton. Vegetables have fallen from $1 to 25 cts. a lb. Eggs maintain their high price, selling at $20 a dozen. After much inquiry, we have determined to go, for our next mining season, to the southern mines. We are led to this determination chiefly on account of the better health enjoyed there. CHAPTER IV. SOUTHERN MINES. Having made our preparations, and engaged passage on board a schooner for Stockton, on the 19th day of October we started. Our company was made up chiefly of young gentlemen from Boston. Our sail up the bays and the San Joaquin River was accomplished in six days. We furnished our own provisions, which, owing to the length of our journey, proved insufficient. Notwithstanding the very heavy dews, we were compelled to sleep on deck. In consequence, one of our company took so severe a cold that he returned to San Francisco from Stockton, abandoning mining; while another, a young man from Uxbridge--alas! will disregard all the earnest advice of his friends to return, and will go on, a doomed man--will reach the mines, and we shall there leave him in his grave. Poor C., may his sad story be a warning to multitudes of young men, having good business and good prospects at home, to remain there, contented with small, but steady and sure gains! Sad, sad was his fate to be, for we were soon to bury him, in sight, and within a few yards of those rich deposits, the exaggerated accounts of which are now luring him, and will lure so many others to their ruin! Poor friend! even the hardened muleteers, having charge of our provisions, pity his sorrows, and walk themselves, that they may supply a mule for his faltering and fainting steps. All see death in his haggard countenance and sunken eyes, yet _he sees it not_. Never shall I forget my interview with him, while I walked by the mule on which he was riding, a few days only before his death. He was telling me of the bright and happy future