SUNDAY, MARCH 11. What crowds are rushing out here for gold! what multitudes are leaving their distant homes for this glittering treasure! Can gold warrant the hazards of the enterprise? Can it compensate the toils and suffering which it imposes? Can it repair a shattered constitution, or bring back the exhilarating pulse and play of youth? Let the wrecks of those who have perished speak; let the broken hearts and hopes of thousands utter their admonition: their voices come surging over these pines, breaking from these cliffs, sighing in the winds, and knelling from the clouds. Your treasures you must resign at the dark portal of the grave; there the glittering heap, and the strong arms which wrenched it from the mine, lie down together; the spirit walketh alone through that troubled night; but a ray twinkles through its long aisle of darkness: follow that in meekness and faith, and it will lead you to the spirit-land. There dwell your kindred who adorned virtue with a spirit of contentment,—there the parent whose latest prayer was for you,—there the sister, who, in the hush of voices around, heard the sweet strains of an unseen harp, and was charmed away from the delusive dreams of earth, ere a hope of the heart had been broken, or sorrow had saddened a smile. What is wealth to such an inheritance? what the society of kings to such companionship? Plume your wing for heaven ere it droops in the death-dew of its dissolving strength. TUESDAY, MARCH 20. The land titles in California ought to receive the most indulgent construction. But few of them have _all_ the forms prescribed by legislative enactments, but they have official insignia sufficient to certify the intentions of the government. To disturb these grants would be alike impolitic and unjust; it would be to convert the lands which they cover to the public domain, and ultimately turn them over to speculators and foreign capitalists. Better let them remain as they are: they are now in good hands; they are held mostly by Californians,—a class of persons who part with them on reasonable terms. No Californian grinds the face of the poor, or refuses an emigrant a participation in his lands. I have seen them dispose of miles for a consideration less than would be required by Americans for as many acres. You are shut up to the shrewdness and sharpness of the Yankee on the one hand, and the liberality of the Californian on the other. Your choice lies between the two, and I have no hesitation in saying, give me the Californian. If he has a farm, and I have none, he will divide with me; but who ever heard of a Yankee splitting up his farm to accommodate emigrants? Why, he will not divide with his own sons till death has divided him from both. Yankees are good when mountains are to be levelled, lakes drained, and lightning converted into a vegetable manure; but as a landholder, deliver me from his map and maw. He wants not only all on this side of creation’s verge, but a _leetle_ that laps