Excerpt from California Sketches: New and Old These Sketches wrote themselves, as it were. About three years ago my friend, Prof. Alonzo Phelps (formerly of Harvard University), in reply to my remark that somebody ought to preserve the vanishing phases of the early California life, said, "Yes, it ought to be done, and you are the man to do it." The matter was then dismissed from my mind as the flattering suggestion of a partial friend. After leaving California, every thing connected with my life, or that had come under my observation while there, assumed a fresh interest to my own mind. The remark of my friend was remembered, and, more to gratify a kindly impulse than with a view to make a volume, in snatches of such leisure as an editor gets, the penciling of these humble Sketches began. Now that the little book is finished, I am at least half sorry it was ever begun. Yet there has been a pleasure in writing it. The old days have come back to me again, and images that were fading have stood before me in the form and color of life. Ah! if I could make them stand thus before my kind readers! The Sketches are all from real life. In one or two instances names are disguised for obvious reasons. I have told the story as I saw it, and as I remember it. There is no fancy-sketch among these chapters. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.