The wild Indians here have a vague belief in the soul’s immortality. They say, “as the moon dieth and cometh to life again, so man, though he die, will again live.” But their future state is material; the wicked are to be bitten by serpents, scorched by lightning, and plunged down cataracts; while the good are to hunt their game with bows that never lose their vigor, with arrows that never miss their aim, and in forests where the crystal streams roll over golden sands. Immortal youth is to be the portion of each; and age, and pain, and death, are to be known no more. MONDAY, AUG. 31. I am at last forced into a systematic arrangement of my time; without it, I could never get through with my duties. I rise with the sun, read till eight o’clock, and then breakfast, at nine, enter on my duties as alcalde, which confine me till three, P. M., then dine; and at four take my gun and plunge into the woods for exercise and partridges; return at sunset, take tea, and in the evening write up my journal, and an editorial for the Californian. When the Sabbath comes, I preach; my sermons are composed in the woods, in the court-room, or in bed, just where I can snatch a half hour. I often plan them while some plaintiff is spinning a long yarn about things and matters in general, or some defendant is losing himself in a labyrinth of apologetic circumstances. By this forbearance both are greatly relieved; one disburdens himself of his grievances, the other lightens his guilt, and, in the mean time, my sermon develops itself into a more tangible arrangement. My text might often be—“And he fell among thieves.” TUESDAY, SEPT. 1. It is singular how the Californians reckon distances. They will speak of a place as only a short gallop off, when it is fifty or a hundred miles distant. They think nothing of riding a hundred and forty miles in a day, and breaking down three or four horses in doing it, and following this up by the week. They subsist almost exclusively on meat, and when travelling, sleep under the open sky. They drive their ox-carts, loaded with lumber or provisions, two hundred miles to market. Their conceptions seem to annihilate space.