What I saw on the west coast of South and North America, and at the Hawaiian Islands.: By H. Willis Baxley, M.D.

TO THE YO-SEMITE.
another IKentucky volunteer, M]r. James Lamb, whose knowledge of this region and its native tribes was a guarantee of
safety, and who proved an adept in managing the domestic
economy of our future cabin household.
It cannot be denied that the charge of unjust and cruel
treatment of the Indian race by our countrymen is truthfully
made. Inferior to us in blood, in culture, and in power, the
original possessors of the land, and ever ready to extend the
hand of hospitality and friendship to the stranger who came to
them in the spirit of peace seeking benefits; sufferers, too, from
the vices of civilization, more studiously taught to them than
its virtues, they deserve at our hands as a people, an extension of
the most benign policy, and individually protection, charity, and
mercy; instead of which they are the victims of systematic fraud,
persecution, and frequent atrocity, rapidly leading to their extermination. The murder of an Indian at the hands of a white
man, if not magnified into a merit, receives no punishment;
but the killing of a white man by an Indian, whatever the mitigating circumstances, calls for the blood of the offender, and
brings a new curse upon his tribe; while the kidnapping of
Indian children and selling them to service in California, has
been made the subject of newspaper comment in San Francisco,
and they are sometimes seen unaccountab7y in domestic employminent, the stealing and carrying off of a white child by
the Sioux or Chippewas, fills the whole land with lamentation,
and calls for a Presidential decree, sacrificing a hecatomb of
human victims. Shall we continue thus indifferent to the incullations of justice and mercy, and wilfully incur the retribution which in some form or other will surely follow?
Our route from Black's was up Bull Run, well known as the
old Indian trail to the Mono Lake region, on an important " divide," more easily travelled in winter and earlier in spring than
others on which the snow is heavier and lies longer. A short
distance brought us to a deep gorge between ridges, covered
with pitch and sugar pine, the latter so called from its yielding
a sugar of turpentine, which is both purgative and diuretic,
cedar and black oak timber, charred bark of standing trees,
many black and fallen trunks, and the ashy earth swept of un
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