_March 24th._—Drive out in a buggy to the mule ranch. The country very bare of timber, but thickly covered with grass. Every hillock, I observe, is burrowed like a rabbit-warren by the Californian ground-squirrel (_Spermophilus Beechyii_). I am told that it is next to impossible to drive out or exterminate these most destructive pests; entire fields of young wheat are cleared off by them, as if mowed down; gardens are invaded, and a year’s labour and gain destroyed in a single day. Trapping, shooting, and strychnine have failed to accomplish the work of extinction. Farmers often flood entire districts, ‘to drown out the darned cusses!’ Their habits are strictly diurnal; and pretty lively little fellows they are, scampering off to their holes on the approach of danger, where they sit up on their hind-legs, peering curiously at the intruder. You may come very near now: there is a safe retreat behind, and he knows it. When too close, however, for safety’s sake, the squirrel gives a shrill defiant whistle, like the laugh of a sprite, and dashes into its burrow. Purchased twenty-one mules, at 150 dollars per head; the others were team-mules, and too large for pack animals. My mules are to remain on the ranch until I have completed my other purchases. _March 25th._—Cross in the stage from Stockton to Sacramento, a distance of about forty miles, through a country fertile in the extreme. Wild flowers, in endless variety of colour, decked the grass-land. The hawthorn, white with blossom, perfumes the air; and the waving green cornfields contrast pleasantly with the foliage of the oaks and chestnuts scattered about in graceful clumps. We change horses at Woodbridge, Fugit Ranch, and Elk Grove, and at four o’clock pull up at the St. George’s Hotel, Sacramento. _March 26th._—I am again on the road, this time bound to Grass Valley. A clumsy railway with cars, or carriages, like the yellow caravans giants, dwarfs, and wise pigs travel in, bumps me out to Fulsome, about thirty miles off. Here I am hustled into a stage, without a chance of seeing anything but mud, in which the horses are standing kneedeep. This stage is different from any I have seen; loops, straps, and other contrivances, clearly meant to hold on by, evidence an inequality of motion and tendency to upset that give rise to disagreeable forebodings. Constructed to hold nine inside, the centre seat swings like a _bale_ dividing horses in a stable, and being somewhat rounded and padded, looks very like it. Five passengers seat themselves. I have hardly time to look at them, when a loud cracking of whips, several voices yelling ‘Hi! git up!’ ‘Hi! git along!’ and a sudden jerk sends me upon the _bale_—a general splash and scramble—and we are off!