I do not remember ever to have
experienced such disagreeable effects from the wind and the clouds of
dust in which we were constantly enveloped, driving into our faces
without intermission. We encamped this afternoon in a grove of willows
near a rancho, where, as yesterday, we found corn and beans in
abundance. Our horses, consequently, fare well, and we fare better than
we have done. One-fourth of the battalion, exclusive of the regular
guard, is kept under arms during the night, to be prepared against
surprises and night-attacks. Distance 12 miles.
_January 9_.--Early this morning Captain Hamley, accompanied by a
Californian as a guide, came into camp, with despatches from Commodore
Stockton. The exact purport of these despatches I never learned, but it
was understood that the commodore, in conjunction with General Kearny,
was marching upon Los Angeles, and that, if they had not already
reached and taken that town (the present capital of California), they
were by this time in its neighbourhood. Captain Hamley passed, last
night, the encampment of a party of Californians in our rear. He landed
from a vessel at Santa Barbara, and from thence followed us to this
place by land.
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