sleep, became fatigued, and proposed a halt for a few hours. It was in the valley of the Salinas (salt river called Buena Ventura in the old maps), and the haunt of marauding Indians. For safety during their repose, the party turned off the trace, issued through a cañon into a thick wood, and laid down, the horses being put to grass at a short distance, with the Spanish boy in the saddle to watch. Sleep, when commenced, was too sweet to be easily given up, and it was half way between midnight and day, when the sleepers were aroused by an estampedo among the horses, and the calls of the boy. The cause of the alarm was soon found, not Indians, but white bears-this valley being their great resort, and the place where Colonel Fremont and thirty-five of his men encountered some hundred of them the summer before, killing thirty upon the ground.

"The character of these bears is well known, and the bravest hunters do not like to meet them without the advantage of numOn discovering the enemy, Colonel Fremont felt for his pistols, but Don Jesus desired him to lie still, saying that 'people could scare bears;' and immediately hallooed at them in Spanish, and they went off. Sleep went off also; and the recovery of the horses frightened by the bears, building a rousing fire, making a breakfast from the hospitable supplies of San Luis Obispo, occupied the party till day-break, when the journey was resumed. Eighty miles, and the afternoon brought the party to Monterey.

"The next day, in the afternoon, the party set out on their return, and the two horses rode by Col. Fremont from San Luis Obispo, being a preser to him from Don Jesus, he (Don Jesus) desired to make an expriment of what one of them could do. They were brothers, on a grass younger than the other, both of the same color (cinnam ), and hence called el cañalo, or los cañalos, (the cinnamon or the cinnamons.) The elder was to be taken for the rial; and the journey commenced upon him at leaving Muterey, the afternoon well advanced. Thirty miles under the saddle done that evening, and the party stopped for the night. In the morning the elder

cañalo was again under the saddle for Col. Fremont, and for ninety miles he carried him without a change, and without apparent fatigue. It was still thirty miles to San Luis Obispo, where the night was to be passed, and Don Jesus insisted that cañalo could do it, and so said the horse by his looks and action. But Col. Fremont would not put him to the trial, and, shifting the saddle to the younger brother, the elder was turned loose to run the remaining thirty miles without a rider. He did So, immediately taking the lead and keeping it all the way, and entering San Luis in a sweeping gallop, nostrils distended, snuffing the air, and neighing with exultation at his return to his native pastures; his younger brother all the time at the head of the horses under the saddle, bearing on his bit, and held in by his rider. The whole eight horses made their one hundred and twenty miles each that day (after thirty the evening before), the elder cinnamon making ninety of his under the saddle that day, besides thirty under the saddle the evening before; nor was there the least doubt that he would have done the whole distance in the same time if he had continued under the saddle.

"After a hospitable detention of another half a day at San Luis, Obispo, the party set out for Los Angeles on the same nine horses which they had rode from that place, and made the ride back in about the same time they had made it up, namely, at the rate of 125 miles a day.

"On this ride, the grass on the road was the food for the horses. At Monterey they had barley; but these horses, meaning those trained and domesticated, as the cañalos were, eat almost anything of vegetable food, or even drink, that their master uses, by whom they are petted and caressed, and rarely sold. Bread, fruit, sugar, coffee, and even wine (like the Persian horses), they take from the hand of their master, and obey with like docility his slightest intimation. A tap of the whip on the saddle, springs them into action; the check of a thread rein (on the Spanish bit) would stop them: and stopping short at speed they do not

jostle the rider or throw him forward. They leap on anything. -man, beast, or weapon, on which their master directs them. But this description, so far as conduct and behavior are concerned, of course only applies to the trained and domesticated horse.*

See Appendix D. "The ride of one hundred."

CHAPTER VIII.

CONQUEST OF CALIFORNIA COMPLETED JOINS COMMODORE STOCKTON-DESCRIPTION OF HIS PARTY ON ITS ARRIVAL

AT MONTEREY-ORGANIZES THE CALIFORNIA BATTALION

IS

APPOINTED MAJOR-ORIGIN OF THE

CONTROVERSY BETWEEN COMMODORE STOCKTON AND BRIGADIER GENERAL KEARNEY-COMMODORE STOCKTON'S REPORT OF THE CONQUEST OF SOUTH

CALIFORNIA-INSURRECTION

OF THE WAH-LAH-WAH-LAH INDIANS QUELLED-CAPITULATION OF COUENGA-FREMONT GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA.

AMPLER details of some of the events which preceded the capitulation of Couenga so eloquently grouped by Col. Benton, are necessary to a perfect appreciation of the military and administrative ability displayed by Col. Fremont in the emancipation of California.

Castro's first hostile message reached him in the midst of his scientific employments about eight leagues from Monterey on the 3d of March, 1846. By the 1st of July he had scattered the combinations of Mexicans and Indians that had been formed against him. On the 4th of July he was elected governor of California by the revolutionists, and on the 10th about sunset, he received the gratifying intelligence, that encouraged by his success in the interior, Commodore Sloat had taken Monterey, and that the American flag had been

flying from the fort since the 7th. He immediately set out for the commodore's quarters, with his troops of 160 mounted riflemen, in order to secure the co-operation of the only branch of the American military service in force in that quarter of the globe. He reached Monterey on the 19th of July. It so happened that the British ship of war Collingwood, of 80 guns, had arrived about a week after the capture. Had she arrived a week sooner it is generally conceded that the place could not have been taken without a contest with her commander Sir George Seymour, the people of the place having entered into arrangements with a view of transferring their allegiance to Great Britain. Among the officers of the Collingwood who happened to be at Monterey and saw Fremont enter the place with his company, was Lieutenant Frederick Walpole, of the Collingwood, who has given his impressions of the spectacle in a very readable book which he published on his return to England, entitled "Four years in the Pacific, in her Majesty's Ship Collingwood,' from 1844 to 1848."

"During our stay in Monterey," says Mr. Walpole, "Captain Fremont and his party arrived. They naturally excited curiosity. Here were true trappers, the class that produced the heroes of Fennimore Cooper's best works. These men had passed years in the wilds, living upon their own resources; they were a curious set. A vast cloud of dust appeared first, and thence in long file emerged this wildest wild party. Fremont rode ahead, a spare, active-looking man, with such an eye! He was dressed in a blouse and leggings, and wore a felt hat. After him came five Delaware Indians, who were his body-guard, and have been with him through all his