The placid and impartial manner with which the landlord himself regards the contest between the stranger and the town dogs will lead you to doubt whether his house is not too full to accommodate another guest, and whether he is not benevolently letting the dogs spare him the pain of refusing you a night's lodging; but it is gratifying to be assured, when you at last reach the door, that the dogs "scarcely ever bite any body." Clear Lake is a large and picturesque sheet of water, twenty-five miles long by about seven wide, surrounded by mountains, which in many places rise from the water's edge.

At Lakeport you can hire a boat at a very reasonable price, and I advise the traveler to take his blankets on board, and make this boat his home for two or three days.

He will get food at different farm-houses on the shore; and as there are substantial, good-sized sail-boats, he can sleep on board very enjoyably.

Aside from its fine scenery, and one or two good specimens of small Californian farms, the valley is remarkable for two borax lakes and a considerable deposit of sulphur, all of which lie close to the shore.
At one of the farm-houses, whose owner, a Pennsylvanian, has made himself a most beautiful place in a little valley hidden by the mountains which butt on the lake, I saw the culture of silk going on in that way in which only, as I believe, it can be made successful in California.

He had planted about twenty-five hundred mulberry-trees, built himself an inexpensive but quite sufficient little cocoonery, bought an ounce and a half of eggs for fifteen dollars, and when I visited him had already a considerable quantity of cocoons, and had several thousand worms then feeding.
It was his first attempt; he had never seen a cocoonery, but had read all the books he could buy about the management of the silk-worm; and, as his grain harvest was over, he found in the slight labor attending the management of these worms a source of interest and delight which was alone worth the cost of his experiment.