The luxuriant grass is now brown and crisp. The hills
surrounding this beautiful valley or plain are gentle, sloping, highly
picturesque, and covered to their tops with wild oats. Reaching Sonoma,
we procured lodgings in a large and half-finished adobe house, erected
by Don Salvador Vallejo, but now occupied by Mr. Griffith, an American
emigrant, originally from North Carolina. Sonoma is one of the old
mission establishments of California; but there is now scarcely a
mission building standing, most of them having fallen into shapeless
masses of mud; and a few years will prostrate the roofless walls which
are now standing. The principal houses in the place are the residences
of Gen. Don Mariano Guadaloupe Vallejo; his brother-in-law, Mr. J.P.
Leese, an American; and his brother, Don Salvador Vallejo. The quartel,
a barn-like adobe house, faces the public square. The town presents a
most dull and ruinous appearance; but the country surrounding it is
exuberantly fertile, and romantically picturesque, and Sonoma, under
American authority, and with an American population, will very soon
become a secondary commercial point, and a delightful residence.
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