Marysville is a city of some importance: being situated at the head of navigation, it is the depot and starting-point for the extensive district of mining country lying north and east of it. It is well laid out in wide streets, containing numbers of large brick and wooden buildings, and the ground it stands upon is ten or twelve feet above the usual level of the river. But when we waded up to it, we found the portion of the town nearest the river completely flooded, the water being nearly up to the first floor of the houses, while the people were going about in boats. In the streets farther back, however, it was not so bad; one could get along without having to go much over the ankles. The appearance of the place, as seen through the heavy rain, was far from cheering. The first idea which occurred to me on beholding it was that of rheumatism, and the second fever and ague; but I was glad to find myself here, nevertheless, if only to experience once more the sensation of having on dry clothes. I learned that several men had been drowned on different parts of the plains in attempting to cross some of the immense pools or sloughs such as we had passed on our way; while cattle and horses were drowned in numbers, and were dying of starvation on insulated spots, from which there was no escape. I saw plenty of this, however, the next day in going down by the steamboat to Sacramento. The distance is fifty or sixty miles through the plains all the way, but they had now more the appearance of a vast inland sea. It would have been difficult to keep to the channel of the river, had it not been for the trees appearing on each side, and the numbers of squatters’ shanties generally built on a spot where the bank was high and showed itself above water, though in many cases nothing but the roof of the cabin could be seen. On the tops of the cabins and sheds, on piles of firewood, or up in the trees, were fowls calmly waiting their doom; while pigs, cows, and horses were all huddled up together, knee-deep in water, on any little rising ground which offered standing-room, dying by inches from inanition. The squatters themselves were busy removing in boats whatever property they could, and at those cabins whose occupants were not yet completely drowned out, a boat was made fast alongside as a means of escape for the poor devils, who, as the steamer went past, looked out of the door the very pictures of woe and dismay. We saw two men sitting resolutely on the top of their cabin, the water almost up to their feet; a boat was made fast to the chimney, to be used when the worst came to the worst, but they were apparently determined to see it out if possible. They looked intensely miserable, though they would not own it, for they gave us a very feigned and uncheery hurrah as we steamed past.