_April 26th._—Purchase 59 mules, with a complete pack and equipment. My mules and men, that I had sent by land from Stockton, arrive. Hire two additional hands, and order the provisioning for my intended trip. _April 27th._—Mules and men need rest; breakfast over. ‘Now, Cap’en,’ says mine host, as I was debating whether it would be wiser to remain quietly at home, and enjoy a thoroughly idle day, or join the hunters, I calkilate we’ve got to worry out this day somehow. S’pose we take a ride over to the Tuscan Springs. It’s a mighty strange place, you bet your life; they say it’s right over the devil’s kitchen, and when he’s tarnation hot, he comes up and pops out his head to get a taste of fresh air. The very water comes risin’ up a-bilin’, and the pools flash into flame like powder, if you put fire near ‘um.’ ‘Why, Major,’ I replied, ‘it is the place of all others I should enjoy seeing. How far is it?’ ‘Waal, it ain’t over ten mile, but a mighty bad road at that.—Here, Joe, saddle up, and bring round two mustangs.’ The mustangs are small compact horses, seldom exceeding fourteen-and-a-half hands in height, descended from Spanish stock, originally brought into Mexico on its conquest by the Spaniards. They run wild in large herds on the grassy prairies in California and Texas, and are just lassoed when needed. I may perhaps mention, _en passant_, that a lasso is from thirty to forty feet long, and made of strips of raw hide plaited together. When a mustang is to be caught, an experienced hand always keeps the herd to windward of him; sufficiently near he circles the lasso round his head, and with unerring certainty flings it over the neck of the horse he has selected. The end of a lasso being made fast to a ring in the saddle, as soon as the horse is captured, the rider turns his steed sharp round, and gallops off, dragging the terrified and choking animal after him. The terrible noose becomes tighter and tighter, pressing on the windpipe, until, unable to offer further resistance, the panic-stricken beast rolls in agony, half suffocated, on the prairie. Never after this does the horse forget the lasso—the sight of it makes him tremble in every limb. I have seen the most wild and vicious horses rendered gentle and docile in a minute, by simply laying the lasso on the neck behind the ears.