Book Reviews [pp. 222-224]

Book Reviews.
I'd like ter hev a little mound
O' dirt an' rocks heaped over me,
A long ways off from any town,
Or camp, or trail; because, you see,
I'd like ter hey a good long sleep,
An' not be in somebody's way.
Expect ter land in heaven? yer say.
Do I look like a saint, now, eh?
I guess heaven's most too good fer me!
No, I ain't fit ter be a saint
No more'n an' Injun in his paint
An' breech-clout is! I'd jest as soon tell
That I ain't none too good fer- well
I won't say that; I think thar'll be
Some place rigged up for sich as me,Some diggin's, maybe, whar a man
Could git'bout two bits ter the pan
\Vith no sich thing as playin' out.
Sich place as that would be about
As good a heaven as I deserve;
Some place whar a man would n't git old,
An' bunged up with the cramps an' cold,
An' crippled with the rheumatiz,
Would be a great improve on this,
An' may be - like as not- who knows?I sometime think the truth o''t is
That all of us are yer to serve
Some purpose in the gen'ral plan
That bein' so, may be I've filled
The plan that Providence has willed
Jest's well as though I'd been a man
O' better parts.
But here I be,
A driftin' ter theology;
Let s all turn in! That " airly start,"
Now recollect! Of course, White Pine
Will furnish all o' us a mine,
That's richer than the Eberhardt.
John Brayshaw7 Kay.
A Correction.
[Extract from a letter dated May 7, I892, from
Mr. John Murray, whose article in the May OVERLAND) on "California's Discovery of Gold in I84I1"
will be remembered. ]
I now copy verbatim from the Colonel [Colonel
Warner, who testified to the discovery, and writes
to thank Mr. Murray "for industry and perseverance"]: " There is a clerical error or misprint in
your article which, although of no personal importance to me, might when discovered throw discredit
upon or weaken other statements made in my letter
to you. My age is given as thirty-eight, when it was
but thirty-four, in the year of the gold discovery. I
arrived in Los A. Dec. 5th, I83I, and was twentyfour years and fifteen days old on that day. I do
not know that it is of sufficient importance to require a correction, by asking the editor to give in a
future number a note correcting the error. I leave
this matter entirely with you."' It would seem then
as if the Col, were 85 years old - and nrot nearly go90.
I wrote him that "I shall submit that clerical error
of your age (38 instead of 34) to the editors, and it
will rest with them as to correction. Shall tell them
that I desire the correction."
BOOK REVIEWS.
Documents from the Sutro Collection.
THE Historical Society of Southern California is
doing the California public a service that might have
been expected from some agency nearer the headquarters of the Sutro Library. It is publishing, with
translations, a series of the rare and valuable documents concerning the exploration of California, which
have been secured by Mr. Sutro. Vol. II, Part I,
of the publications of this society, contains nineteen
documents, found by Mr. Sutro, through his agents,
in a search in the India archives of Seville, to which
he obtained access by express order from the King of
Spain. But two or three of these documents were
known to Mr. H. H. Bancroft, or have ever been
printed in this country, or mentioned in any history
of the exploration of the coast.
They begin with a letter from Fray Andres de
Aguirre to the Archbishop of Mexico, written in
1584-5, relating at second hand the story of a Portuguese trader about some rich and civilized islands
located in the middle of the Pacific,-islands purely
mythical, as it proved. Eight of the nineteen documents are paragraphs concerning the coast, taken
from letters on other topics. Two are the diaries of
Fathers Crespi and De la Pefia, which have been
known and published before. The rest are letters,
extending over the period from 1584 to I603. Most
of them are written by the several viceroys of New
Spain and by Sebastian Vizcaino. Two are from
Father Junipero Serra. Almost all are addressed to
the King of Spain. They supply links in the history
of the discovery and Spanish possession of Califor
222
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