WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 27. The night had been dark, the wind bleak, and the rack was driving on the sky, when the first rays of the sun kindled the soaring cliffs. We had the great Tulare plain to pass, and lost no time in finishing our breakfast and effecting an early start. Crossing the plain attached to the rancho, which we had left, our road lay among steep conical hills feathered with pine, and pyramids of rock piled in naked majesty. From these we opened on the great plain of the San Joaquin, stretching away like a Sahara, and without an object on which the eye could rest. The sun was hot, and not a breath of wind crept over the cheerless expanse. A column of cloud, soaring on the distant horizon, showed where the fearful flame was at work. We were now in the midst of the plain, when a moving object, dim and distant, rapidly advanced into more distinct vision. It was a band of wild horses, rushing down the plain like a foaming torrent to the sea. “With flowing tail and flying mane, With nostrils never stretched by pain, Mouths bloodless to the bit or rein; And feet that iron never shod, And flanks unscarred by spur or rod, A thousand horse—the wild, the free— Like waves that follow o’er the sea— Came thickly thundering on.” We instantly seized the halters of our pack-mules, and not knowing whether to advance or retreat, waited the issue where we stood. They swept past us but a short distance ahead, heeding us as little as the Niagara the reeds that tremble on its bank. The very ground shook with the thunder of their hoofs. Their arching necks and flowing mane, their glossy flanks and sinewy bound made you begrudge them their freedom. You thought what a flight you might make on them into the mines. It seemed a pity that so much celerity and strength should be thrown away upon a stampede.