that was known to exist in the vicinity.
Without much trouble the hut was found,
near a running stream, surrounded by huge
redwood trees. The backwoodsman, a powerful
Missourian, whose name was March, being
at home, lent his mule to bring the luggage
up; and, by nightfall, the English party was
encamped within a few yards of this man's
dwelling,

Two other backwoodsmen lived with
March, bringing up to three the number of the
population in that district. These three
men nevertheless had been at work in the
recesses of the forest. With their own six
hands they had just built a massive sawmill,
to which they had applied the power of the
stream, by means of an overshot wheel. The
heavy beams of the millframe, the dam, and
race, had all been formed from the adjacent
redwood trees. Nothing was wanting but
the saw, and for that the builders meant to
make a trip to San Francisco. Thus, as Mr.
Marryat rightly says, the American goes
ahead because he looks ahead. From the
first tents of San Francisco orders were sent
out for steam engines and foundries which
now do the daily work of an important city.
In the same spirit March's mill was built in
a lonely wood, with the safe expectation that
its use would soon appear, and it now barely
supplies the wants of an agricultural
population that is settling round about it.

By the advice of March, Mr. Marryat and
his companions walked over the hills to look
at a valley on which they were strongly
advised to squat. The valley was found to
contain about twenty acres of ground,
perfectly level, bounded on one side by masses
of redwood trees, and on the other by a fine
stream whose banks were shaded with alders
and wild vines. In the valley itself was
neither shrub nor tree; except that, from its
centre, rose a clump of seven gigantic
redwoods which grew in a circle, and so formed a
natural chamber, to which there was but a
single entrance. Of this valley, the English party
made a winter's home. The space within the
central clump was perfected as to its
accommodations by the addition of a boarded
floor and a brushwood roof. Barnes, who
was a famous woodsman, laid his axe to the
trees beyond the stream, and proceeded to
the manufacture of rails and other things
proper to be set up by an occupier of the
ground. Mr. Thomas took charge of the
home department, and Mr. Marryat devoted
himself and his gun to the business of finding
victuals for the whole establishment.

The redwood tree here mentioned—the
arbor vitæ— is to the Californians as much a
possession and a wonder as their gold. It
grows to be some eighteen feet in girth,
one hundred and fifty feet in height, and is
as straight as it is tall. Its timber is very
durable, and at the same time easily worked,
with no other tools than an axe, a betel, and
some wedges. An unusually large redwood
tree is something most enormous. In
Calaveras county a group of them, each tree
being from two hundred to two hundred and
fifty feet in height, were found to measure in
girth from fifty feet to sixty, seventy, and
eighty. The largest was felled, and the bark
which was removed to San Francisco, and
set up in its original position, formed a
spacious room, seven-and-twenty feet from
end to end.

The redwood bark is commonly found
perforated in every direction by a kind of
starling, called for his pains the carpentaro—
carpenter. The carpentaros labour indefatigably
to form cells in the trees, which they
fit tightly with acorns for their winter
provender. They work noisily, chiefly upon the
tops of the redwoods, and are always at
work when they are not fighting. There is a
gray squirrel who profits by their labour.
When he ascends a redwood he is immediately
surrounded by the birds, who know
what he wants, and attack him with an angry
chatter. Taking no heed of them he extracts
whichever acorn is most tempting in his eyes,
pops it into his mouth, and turns his head
from side to side, looking at the indignant
birds with comical composure. Then down
he comes, whisking his silvery tail, and the
carpentaros assemble round the pillaged hole
to scream at the whole rascally business, and
rate the robber soundly in his absence. Often
it happens that while they are in the midst
of their vituperation, the gray squirrel again
appears among them, having found the first
acorn so ripe and good that he thinks he
will take another. By that time the noise in
the tree has brought fresh flights of carpentaros
to the scene of quarrel, and the chorus
of protest against his proceedings becomes
altogether deafening. A worse enemy to the
carpentaro is the Digger Indian. The diggers
light a fire at the root of a well-acorned
redwood tree, in that way fell it, and when it
has fallen pick its acorns out and carry
many baskets-full away.

After a little time, by help of Barnes the
woodman, there was a two-roomed house
built near the redwood clump, and this was
kept free from the vermin—which abound in
the land, and are brought home in fresh
colonies with the skin of every slain animal—
by a few simple precautions. Everything was
turned out of the hut daily and hung up in the
sun, the floor was then well watered; and, by
these precautions, accompanied with a
scrupulous regard for cleanliness, a ban was set
upon centipedes and scorpions, and all black
cattle that seek pasture upon human flesh.
The settlers had books, and one of them
usually read aloud after the day's active work
or sport— when supper was done and pipes
were lighted— from a volume of Fielding,
Goldsmith, or De Foe. Barnes also took
writing lessons; but, on one occasion, these
amusements were set aside for a great debate
on a proposed farming operation. Onions