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[Note:] Incomplete letter- begins with 2nd sheet; no salutation, signature or addressee

2.	
June 20th 1852

Well, now having a week or ten days before me I shall take Time by his forelock and just keep one step in advance of the bald old gentleman until I perform all my promises. Aint that a wonderful resolution. The greater wonder will be if I stick to it.

I see by looking back a foot or two that I was talking about daguerreotypes -- I don't know whether you would laugh or sigh at an exhibition on 2nd Street. Having the agency of some property there, I rented some rooms to a Daguerrian Artist of the finest ability. He has fitted them up in luxurious and tasteful style and his establishment is superior to any I ever saw. His collection of portraits is unequalled. One of himself is, -- frame and all -- nearly two feet square and resembles in clearness a lithograph. Being in his rooms, on the first day of his operating, he wished me to sit during the first trial of his lights. The effect was moderately good, but he did not finish the picture off, and I left, thinking no more about it. Judge of my surprise then, when, on walking down 2nd street one morning, I found myself in a magnificent frame hanging out on the side walk, in front of his rooms, in company with such characters as Father Mattheny, Jenny Lind & Catherine Hayes. The plate was about a foot square & I imagine I cut something of a figure, for being a [?] -- 		
Somebody fired a pistol in the next room and there have been so many accidents lately that it jogged the rest of the last sentence off from the end of my pen. I'll not stop to look for it now, but having nothing better than passing incidents, will work some of them down.

The city is in a perfect State of California excitement again today. Another of those sanguinary scenes that have dyed the pages of her history with blood has just been enacted. A prominent lawyer claiming some respectability, backed by two rowdies, met one of the County Judges in the Court House as he descended from the bench, and demanded a retraction of some offensive language used by the Judge a few days since. The latter refused it -- the lawyer raised his cane to strike, when the Judge drew a sword cane and stabbed the lawyer through the body near the heart. The wounded man turned and left the room and the Judge was instantly arrested by an officer and disarmed. One of the rowdies, the friend of the lawyer, then presented his pistol



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at the Judge and fired, but missing him shot the officer through the body. The rowdy still advancing for a second shot at the judge, the officer drew his pistol & though himself dangerously wounded, fired two ineffectual shots at the assailant. The judge & the rowdy then closed in a hand to hand fight. The former being a powerful man, soon threw the other upon the floor wrested away his pistol, placed it against his head and in another moment would have blown his brains out, had not a policeman walked in & knocked away the pistol. The ball was driven through the ceiling.

The two wounded men were taken care of, the rowdy arrested & the Judge released. A crier with a bell went through the streets calling a meeting at the Orleans Hotel and in a very short space of time, a thousand excited men were on the spot, many crying, "hang the rowdy". For a moment, things looked stormy, but a committee was soon appointed to investigate & report the facts instanter, and another of fifteen detailed to guard the prisoner. When the facts were reported they were found to be those I have related, when a third Committee was appointed to call upon the District Judge and request him to take up the matter and try the prisoner tomorrow. He promised to do so as soon as the case could be brought lawfully before a Grand Jury, & thus the matter stands. The excitement has very much abated & no violence will probably be attempted. Neither of the wounded men have died, though the lawyer is believed to be mortally wounded, -- the dirk having penetrated the lungs. As if in very mocking of the Law this battle took place in the Court Room of the Criminal Court, -- the Senate Chamber of the last legislature. California seems to be doing but little towards acquiring the name of a law-abiding State.

About ten days ago, having for fifteen months tied myself pretty closely to Sacramento, the weather being warm, business dull & myself unoccupied, I planned a visit to the cool breezes & blue waters of the Bay of San Francisco. The fine packets had left, but the finer, floundering little propeller, "Major Tompkins", was drawing in his plank as 



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as [sic] I reached the Levee, & without much thought for accommodations, I elbowed my way on board. Away we went, wheezing and splashing, to the great terror no doubt of all bull frogs & tadpoles. The little deck, was jammed with humans of every nation; but the placid waters, the dark green verdure of the copses, the far reaching plains, the distant, blue mountains, the grazing herds, the yellow harvest fields, the neat cottages, with a summer sky, bright snow & soft cooling breezes were so many sources of attraction & enjoyment, that trivial discomforts were unheeded. From two till seven the hours passed swiftly, when a tinkling bell below caused a sudden rush. "Smelling" my supper "afar off", I hastened on, thinking I was first but horror! a small table crowding fifteen plates & tea cups in the center of a triple circle of hungry men was all I could see. Yes, triple circle, the first on three legged stools at the edge of the table hungrily gorging, the second, one remove behind, looking doubtful -- the third, one remove further almost despairing. The first done, they vacated in favor of the 2nd circle who took their seats, waiting the clearing, resetting & furnishing the board, in excellent silence. Circle 4 forms, in which was I, & after waiting for Nos 2 and 3, we fall heirs in regular succession to the three legged stools and in our time the table is reset for the fourth time & we commence. When about half through, the tax-gatherer appears, taps each right shoulder -- "a dollar, if you please". This causes the appetites to return out of [?] & the table is eaten perfectly bare of everything but hardware and crockery. Then we abdicate complacently in favor of our respective successors and they in turn go through the same ceremony. How the last of our hundred and ten passengers fared, I never heard.

But the sun sinks behind the hills & I seek the deck. The river widens and Monte Diablo -- on the southern horizon when we started at two o'clock, -- now looms up with a bold gloomy frown, "dead ahead", directly south. As we approach it the shore still recedes on either hand, and we enter an arm of the salt water that stretches boldly southward, till within a few miles of the base of the peak, where it suddenly yet peacefully sweeps directly off to the west as if terrified by the frown of the somber moun-



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-tain. As our boat sweeps around with the curve, the mountain is thrown on the "larboard", till having escaped its immediate presence, we turn southward again & take our former course. "Now comes still evening on". The waters are widening & though but half our trip is made, we are evidently nearing the water of the Bay of San Francisco. The character of the river is lost and we seem to enter a succession of broad, deep, ruffled lakes connected by wide necks. Bold, rolling, rounded hills whose curving outlines are sharply defined against the evening sky, & whose sides are checkered by white patches of the luxuriant, wild oat, now in harvest, chain in these lakes coursing down to wash their feet in the briny waters.* At length the gold of the cloudless west has faded, and a starry night flashes the lights of a thousand gems upon the sparkling waters. Though on leaving Sacramento the breeze was light & gentle, yet with each hour its strength has increased with a singular regularity until it blows fresh & strong & cool, but not yet cold. A new feature is now added to the scene. The broad blushing moon climbs above the hills & throws a wide track of light across the dancing billows, illuming far & near the watery waste, the direr shores, and the hill-sides, and plunging the ravines into deeper and more somber shadows. A band of travelling minstrels among the passengers have gathered on the leeward side of the pilot house and deck, and inspired by the influences of the moment, give vent to their feelings in minor melodious songs. They are no inferior or ill-trained band, and their fine voices, in perfect unison, raising high above the dash of waves, are truly eloquent with melody. Hour after hour thus passes pleasantly away until the moon riding high in the heavens, moves us to seek our rest & sleep. "To sleep" -- echoes Hamlet in his soliloquy, "perchance to dream"! No, not to sleep or dream either, because my berth had been previously engaged to twelve or fifteen different individuals, and as that was a larger number than could comfortably sleep in a box about the size of a coffin, several of us had to postpone our claims. Had I taken my [Note: except for footnote, end of page & partial letter]

*Isn't that a distressingly poetic figure about the hills washing their feet? It reminds me of Warner Platt's eloquence over a youthful porker, illegally pickled in "briny waves."