presenting nothing but abrupt mountain ridges from 1,000 to 2,000 feet high. For hundreds of miles around you will scarcely find a level spot twenty yards square. The rivers are narrow streams, with rocky beds, gliding swiftly along the bottom on deep and precipitous canons; confined between almost perpendicular walls, a few hours of rain or snow thawing suffice to render them impassable. The freshet which carried away the bridge over the Klamath filled the river to the height of 150 feet above its natural level. Three-fourths of the country is covered with dense forests of redwood, pine, and spruce. The open spaces are all on the southerly slopes of the ridges, which are less abrupt than the northerly ones. These opening are all excellent pasture land, sufficient to graze immense numbers of cattle, in which the entire wealth of the inhabitants appears to consist. Indian depredations and murders have caused most of them to be abandoned. The half dozen or so stock owners that have the courage to remain on their ranches lie down with their arms by their sides, and dare not go from their house to their barn without their rifles in hand. Every few miles we came to the ruins of ranch buildings which had been burned by the Indians. But a week before we arrived at Minor's, on Redwood Creek, his next neighbor had been driven away from his ranch, four miles above, by the Indians, who burned his house and improvements. Thousands of cattle are roaming wild over the hills, their terrified owners not daring to return to look after them. At Angel Camp (only twelve miles from Arcata) we found the settlers in the neighborhood in the greatest alarm. One of them had been shot at the day before by an Indian, and on the very day of our arrival large numbers of Indians were seen all around them. We camped there after dark. At the kindling of our camp-fire a signal gun of alarm was fired by a settler, who took us for Indians. The trail we were upon, which was the direct and principal route from Arcata to Weaverville, had been for some time entirely deserted by the whites for fear of the Indians. You may readily imagine that in this state of things no Indian can show his head any-where without being shot down like a wild beast. The women and children, even, are considered good game, not only in the mountains but here all around us, where familes who have brought up Indian children (whose parents have been massacred) have to exercise constant watchfulness to prevent their being murdered. The horrible massacre some time since on Indian Island, in this harbor, of some 150 peaceable and friendly Indians, mostly squaws and chidren, you have no doubt heard of. Public opinion here excused and almost justified the act. Beyond all question, the two proximate causes of the present deplorable state of things are, first, the escape of all the bad and turbulent Indians that were captured some years since by General Kibbe (by a breach of faith, I am assured), and sent down to the Mendocino Reservation. The squaws and children of these Indians were either left behind them or killed or captured from them by the hostile tribes through which they passed on their return. These men, having no longer any domestic ties, have become desperate, and take the lead in all expeditions against the whites. Secondly, the State volunteers' capmaign of last year, which was a mere series of Indian hunts, whose only object was to slaughter, of caurse. The last act in that bloody drama, the fight at the head of Redwood Creek, did no much tend to prepare the Indians for subjection. The company under Captain Werk was there defeated and driven back with loss. In view of the limited number of troops that can be spared for service in this district, making any combined and extensive movement impossible, the policy I have thought