There is hardly a shanty among them which does not contain more true contentment, more genuine gladness of the heart, than you will meet with in the most princely palace. Their hospitality knows no bounds; they are always glad to see you, come when you may; take a pleasure in entertaining you while you remain; and only regret that your business calls you away. If you are sick, there is nothing which sympathy and care can devise or perform which is not done for you. No sister ever hung over the throbbing brain or fluttering pulse of a brother with more tenderness and fidelity. This is as true of the lady whose hand has only figured her embroidery or swept her guitar, as of the cottage-girl wringing from her laundry the foam of the mountain stream; and all this from the _heart_! If I must be cast in sickness or destitution on the care of the stranger, let it be in California; but let it be before American avarice has hardened the heart and made a god of gold. MONDAY, DEC. 13. A Californian, who had been absent some two years in Mexico, where he had led a gay irregular life, finding or fancying on his return grounds for suspecting the regularity of his wife, applied to me for a decree of divorce, _a vinculo matrimonii_. I told him that it was necessary, that on so grave a subject, he should come into court with clean hands; that if he would swear on the Cross, at the peril of his soul, that he had been faithful himself during his long absence, I would then see what could be done with his wife. He wanted to know if that was United States law; I told him it was the law by which I was governed—the law of the Bible—and a good law, too—let him that is without sin cast the first stone. “Then I cannot cast any stone at all, sir,” was the candid reply. “Then go and live with your wife; she is as good as you are, and you cannot require her to be any better.” He took my advice, is now living with his wife, and difficulties seem to have ceased. Nothing disarms a man like the conscious guilt of the offence for which he would arraign another.