Three months after the survey of the Espiritu Santo Rancho, I was again in the valley of the Sacramento.

But a general and terrible visitation had erased the memory of that event as completely as I supposed it had obliterated the boundary monuments I had planted.

The great flood of 1861-62 was at its height when, obeying some indefinite yearning, I took my carpetbag and embarked for the inundated valley.
There was nothing to be seen from the bright cabin windows of the GOLDEN CITY but night deepening over the water.

The only sound was the pattering rain, and that had grown monotonous for the past two weeks, and did not disturb the national gravity of my countrymen as they silently sat around the cabin stove.

Some on errands of relief to friends and relatives wore anxious faces, and conversed soberly on the one absorbing topic.