Book excerpt: Excerpt from Sketches of Travels in South America, Mexico and California While pursuing a journey to and from California, some years since, and during my sojourn there, I kept a daily record of "what I saw and did." It was a source of great interest and pleasure to me, especially as it was written and continued at the desire of the dear and valued friend to whom this book is dedicated. And being a stranger, wandering among strangers, often deprived of all congenial society, it became my chief delight to note down my impressions of the countries I visited. Of course, my recollections of events and occurrences are stronger and more vivid than they would otherwise have been, and since my return many questions having been asked by acquaintances relative to a miners life &c., frequent reference to my journal has been made. One of the editors of a religious paper, who had often listened to my reminiscences of a life among the miners, solicited me to contribute articles for his paper, which appeared under the signature of Quartz: and were continued until I had communicated the principal incidents of my three years absence. These articles, it gives me pleasure to say, were favorably received, and I have been frequently requested to publish them in book form. They are now offered to the public, with diffidence and some little hesitancy - and while they may possess no literary merit, still a full and correct history of events which came under my own observation, will, it is hoped, compensate for other deficiencies. 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.