The sun was far down his western slope when we reached the rancho of Mr. Murphy, and camped for the night under the evergreen oaks, which throw the soft shade of their undying verdure over a streamlet that murmurs near his door. The old gentleman invited us in to share his restricted apartments, but we had so long slept under trees, that we preferred the free air, the maternal earth, and the stars to light us to our slumber. Truly I never slept so soundly on the garnished couch, and never found in sleep such a renovating refreshment. I can now comprehend why it is the hunter clings to his wild life, and prefers the precarious subsistence of his rifle to teeming stalls. He lives out of himself; his sympathies are with nature; his sensations roll through boundless space. It is for _his_ eye the violet blooms, and the early cloud catches the blush of morn; it is for _his_ ear the bird sings from its green covert, and the torrent shouts from its cliff; it is to cheer _his_ footsteps that the twilight lingers, and the star blazes in the coronet of night: all the changes of the varied year are for _him_; and around his wild-wood home the seasons lead the hours in perpetual dance; and when his being shall resign its trust, the dirge of the deep wood will sing his requiem, and the wings of the wind, filled with the fragrance of flowers, bear his spirit to its bright abode. WEDNESDAY, NOV. 22. We broke camp at sunrise, took our coffee, harnessed up, and began to lumber ahead. Our driver, who owned the dull steeds which he reined, was a native of New England, and betrayed his origin in the perpetual hum of a low plaintive tune, which spun on for hours in the same unconscious monotony. Even the crack of his whip, which came in frequently, had only the effect to give some note a slight emphasis, while the low dirge still murmured on, true to its unbroken flow as the tick of the death-watch to its admonitory errand. Thus the hours of the day, their tender requiem being sung, stole silently into the past.