The only meat consumed here to any extent is beef. It is beef for breakfast, beef for dinner, and beef for supper. A pig is quite a rarity; and as for chickens, they are reserved for the sick. The woods are full of partridges and hare; the streams and lagoons are covered with ducks and wild geese; and the harbor abounds with the most delicious fish. But no Californian will angle or hunt, while he has a horse or saddle left. And as for the Indians, but very few of them have any hunting gear beyond the bow and arrow; with these they can kill the deer and elk, but a partridge and hare are too shy and too quick. They spear a large salmon which frequents Carmel river, three miles distant, and bring it in to market. This fish is often three feet long, extremely fat, and of a flavor that takes from Lent half the merit of its abstinence. Spearing them is high sport for the Indian, and is another feature in California life. THURSDAY, AUG. 27. Nothing puzzles me so much as the absence of a penitentiary system. There are no work-houses here; no buildings adapted to the purpose; no tools, and no trades. The custom has been to fine Spaniards, and whip Indians. The discrimination is unjust, and the punishments ill suited to the ends proposed. I have substituted labor; and have now eight Indians, three Californians, and one Englishman at work making adobes. They have all been sentenced for stealing horses or bullocks. I have given them their task: each is to make fifty adobes a day, and for all over this they are paid. They make seventy-five, and for the additional twenty-five each gets as many cents. This is paid to them every Saturday night, and they are allowed to get with it any thing but rum. They are comfortably lodged and fed by the government. I have appointed one of their number captain. They work in the field; require no other guard; not one of them has attempted to run away. FRIDAY, AUG. 28. The ox-cart of the Californian is quite unique and primitive. The wheels are cut transversely from the butt-end of a tree, and have holes through the centre for a huge wood axle. The tongue is a long, heavy beam, and the yoke resting on the necks of the oxen, is lashed to their horns, close down to the root; from these they draw, instead of the chest, as with us; and they draw enormous loads, but the animals are large and powerful.