4 COUNTY OF PERTH HERALD. ---- Adventures in California and New Mexico. In the spring of 1862, Mr. James Smith, who had been for several years in the Globe office, resigned his situation, and in company with many other Canadians embarked at New York for British Columbia. Having made the voyage in safety to San Francisco, they heard there for-the first time unfavora- ble reports of the Carriboo mines. This deterred many from proceeding further, and among the rest Mr. Smith, who, after re- maining some time in San Francisco, made preparations to start for the Colorado terri- tory in search of gold and adventure. The following extracts from his letters in our possession will give our readers some idea of the dangers he has encountered in his wan- derings through these countries, and will also convey much information about parts of this continent as yet imperfectly known : 'While in San Francisco an excitement was raised regarding rich mines recently discovered on the Colorado River, 200 miles from its mouth, at the head of the Gulf of California, right in a desert of alkali, un- watered' and surrounded by Apaches--In- dians of the most treacherous kind. An Englishman named Morre and I armed and equipped ourselves, and sailed by steamer to San Pedro, 500 niiles south, thence by stage to Los Angelos, thence by ox waggon to San Bernardo. There we purchased horses, and were ready to start, when we were met by a squad of 20 on their way back from the Colorado, their horses 'gone themselves emaciated and completely knocked up with their trip across the desert, which is 150 miles wide. Bad though the accounts were as given by these disappointed gold hunters we were not deterred, but de- layed a fortnight till the rainy season would set in and cool the heat which was insuffer- able. At last we mounted our horses and in due time, after passing over mountains as high, fording streams as rapid, and clamber- ing up passes as steep and rough as can be found on all this broad continent, we reached Holcomb. It is perched on the top of a broken spur from the great range of the Sierra Nevadas. To the north stretches 300 miles of unbroken desert--to the east an alkali waste which leads to the region of the Kawias, Camanches and other Indian tribes----South, more desert leading to Mexico, west, vast valleys and plains, broken only by the coast range, sparsely settled, slightly watered and very hot. For a cir- cuit of twenty miles in every direction we are hemmed in by snow. Beyond that na- ture is green and smiling, and sn ow is only known asa tradition.--I am strong, healthy and in high spirits and would ten times sooner be here than in the Globe office. After one has tasted the pleasures of a free, unrestrained and roving life he can never be content to return to the druagery and confinement of city or rather office life. If I do not succeed here I will just mount my horse, pack my blankets, grub and cooking apparatus behind me, sleep at nights in the open air, and travel on till I find another resting place. You have no idea of the ex- traordinary life led here. Men will be com- paratively rich one day and poor the next. But they never lose heart. When "dead broke" they go at the first job they can get, put up a fence, dig a ditch, plough a field, drive a quartz mill engine or an ox team, plant a vineyard or erect a sawmill--Most of the adyenturers who have resided here some time, speak Spanish, which is of great service to them as there is many Spanish Ranches around. I am living among men who have been in almost every part of the world. One of my present partners landed first in Chili, trayelled through it and Peru, climbed the Andes and prospected for gold at the head waters of the Amazon, then crossed the Ithmus of Panama, travelled Central America, sometimes on foot some- times on mules, then through Mexico and still on to Oregon, and then retracing his steps found his way to the Colorado." A subsequent letter dated 26th May 1863, gives an account of a hazardous journey through the desert from his old location in Calorado to Eldorado Canon, New Mexico. We copy his description of the trip: "T am still farther out of the world than ever. IfI continue I believe I will get to the backside of it sooner or later. Since I last wrote you I have made a long and weary- some trip of many hundred miles through ane of the most arid dismal and dreary des- arts that ever a man crossed. Holcomb Being about "played out,"' as the phrase goes, TI thought it time to quit, so investing my money in a riding horse and grub, I packed ene animal and bestrode the other. I wait- arty in, ed several days in the hope of finding some one going to this place, but in vain, so I started alone, having picked up some little information regarding the route, the water- ing places and grass. Having everything to do myself, pack, unpack, cook, hunt grass, and watch the horses, you may imagine how lonesome it was. For three weeks I only saw one white man, he had neither tobacco nor flour, having been cleaned out by the In- dians, who impose on timid men when they come across them alone. I was rather shaky, haying no provisions, as I had broke my shot gun and thrown it away previously. However I pushed on, and when within four miles of Rock Springs, having travelled 35 miles without grass or water, I was sur- rounded by about 25 or 30 Indians who de- manded flour, tobacco, grub and everything Thad. Seeing I was unarmed they got in- solent, shooting' their arrows--the naked sayages--past my horse's head, shouting at the horses, jeering me, &c. I couldn't stand it, so casting loose my pack animal, which I led behind me, I made right in among them, scattering them like chaff and riding down When I got to the Spring I could scarcely get water for them, they followed me four miles, but find- ing me rather tough at last left me unmo- lested. One of them talked a little Spanish, which language I have learned to speak pretty well since coming to California. You will see I am now out of California and right on the banks of the Colorado River, 60 miles north of where I formerly thought of going. My object in coming here was to find farm- ing ground, but after hunting up to the present time, climbing mountains almost in- accessible, and crossing barren deserts, I have not been able to find a good spring, nor have I seen a tree or a blade of grass since I left Holcomb. In consequence, I have hired out to run in a tunnel into a granite mountain here, at $4.50 per day. The work is hard and grub is pretty high. This is an exceedingly rich mineral country, the captain or Chief's son. but as it contains silver mines, none but capitalists can make much. All this coun- try for hundreds of miles round is rich in copper, gold and silver, but the Indians have been too numerous for prospectors until now, when 250 soldiers have been sent out to Fort Mohave, 75 miles from here, to keep them in subjection.-- Wellington Mercury. Fallacies of the Gentiemen. BY A LADY WHO UNFORTUNATELY KNOWS THEM ONLX TOO WELL. That women are only born to be their slaves. That dinner is to be ready for them the very minute they come into the house. That a lady's bonnet can be put on as quickly as a gentleman's hat. That we can dress in a minute; and that ringing the bell violently has the effect of making us dress one bit the quicker. That they can do everything so much better than we can--from nursing the baby down to poking the fire. That they are "the Lords of the Cre- ation',--( pretty Lords indeed !) | That nothing can be too good for them ; for I am sure if you were to put a hot joint before them every day, that still they would be dissatisfied, and would be grumbling that you never gave them cold meat. That they know our ages so much better than we do ourselves. (It's so very likely) That they may invite whom, and as many as they please; but if we only invite our mamma to come and stop with us, or just a dear unmarried sister or two to stop with us for a month, that there's to be no peace for us as long as they remain in the house. That music can be learned without prac- tising, and that it is necessary for them to rush out, and to slam the door violently, the very moment we begin to open our voices, or to run over the last new Polka. That sleeping after dinner promotes con- versation. That they know what dress and bonnet become us so much better than we do. That it is necessary to make a poor woman cry, because a stupid shirt-button happens to be off. I declare some men must believe that their wives cut off their shirt-buttons purposely, from the savage pleasure they take in abusing them for it. That we are not allowed to faint, or to haye the smallest fit of hysterics, without being told " not to make a fool of ourselves." That housekeeping does not require any money, and if we venture to ask for any, that it is t to be met with all sorts of black looks and insinuations as to ;"" what we can do with it all;" or very agreeable to be told that we will be " the ruin of him some day "--(J should like to see the day !) "J will tell your Father." ' There, Freddie, stop your noise at once !, exclaimed Mrs. Hart. 'TI believe you will make me crazy. Do you hear?' ' Yes, mother, pretty soon,' and Freddie continued to race round the room as bois- terously as ever. ' Freddie, how many times shall I have to speak to you before you mind ?' continued Mrs. H., after haviug waited in vain for her roguish boy to obey. ' Stop at once, I say, and sit down.' ' Mr. Hart sat reading his paper during this time, and' now that Freddie heeded | not his mother's commands, he interposed : ' Freddie, don't you hear your mother ?' ' Yes sir,' answered Freddie. ' Then why don't you stop that noise ?' 'Cause you didn't tell meso; and so I thought I would make it.' A friend assured us that the scene actu- ally oceured in her neighbourhood ; and in- quired, 'What would be your inference con- cerning that mother?' To which we replied , that we should infer that her government was rather deficient. Indeed we should think that she had little control of her boy.' We have thought of it since, and conclud- ed that she belongs to that class of mothers who depend mainly upon the father to ad- minister family discipline. Some mothers possess so little authority that they can most successfully bring their unruly boys to terms by declaring that they will tell their fathers of them. The boys dread to be reported thus to head quarters, and if they really believe that mother will expose them in that way, they yield obedience. '1 will tell your father,' is the last appeal of many a mother who finds it difficult to manage her children. She has found that they fear this threat more than they do her own explict com- mands. We need not say that this manner of bringing children to terms is absurd. Mothers should govern on their own re- sponsibility. God never designed that they should contro] their children as if they were doing it for the father alone. If family government is to be sustained by only one --The father or mother--it should be the latter. For on her depends the training of childhood more than upon the father. She spends her time with the children. She is expected to watch over them and care for them in many respects as their father can- not. They ought to obey her. She ought to possess authority enough to make them obey. Her words should be law with them. .. We may add that in all such cases where the paternal authority is re- spected and the maternal disregarded, it will be found that the mothers have been wont to make the appeal, 'I will tell your father.' This alone is sufficient to cause children to infer that no other authority is worth anything at the fireside. Com- mands that emanate from him only are valid, Such only come with authority, The father is the family lawgiver--the mother is only his mouth-piece, and hardly that when it comes to the test. ; Against such a state of affairs mothers ought to guard, for their own sakes and their children's. Mothers have a right to the obedience of their offspring, and they ought to assert it--Home Monthly. =_ Death-Bed Repentance. The Rev. Albert Barnes, in a deeply solemn discourse on death-bed repentance, preached lately, gave it as the result of forty years' observation in the pastoral office, that 'he had not met with a single instance of sick-bed repentance which, upon the recovery of the individual, turned out to be genuine.'"" That which satisfies us of the dying thief's repentance, he contiued, 'is not what he said, but the testimony of One who could penetrate beneath the sur- face, and could know what we never can, the reality of man's professions." The Rey. H. W. Beecher, in a sermon on the words, ' Behold I stand at the door and knock,' says: ' In my not short ministerial life I recollect of but one man who, after making promises of fidelity in sickness re- membered to keep them after he got well. I went to see him, and he said, ' My sick- ness incapacitates me from talking to you; and something tells me that it would be dis- honorable and cowardly to seek religion now, justat the end of my life--if I am to die; but I promise you that if I ever re- cover I mean to attend to the subject of re- ligion.' And probably the first visit he made after his recovery was at my house and tome. He introduced the topic him- self by saying, "I have come to ask you how I may become a Christian?' And he be- eame a Christian man, and I believe that he has led a consistent Christian life from that hour to this. I do not recollect an- other case of this kind, though I recollect scores of cases of men who made promises in sickness, in afflictions, and broke them when they were released from trouble.' Trust. I saw a little boy one day, who got into sad trouble through not trusting. He was standing on a low rock upon the sands when the tide was coming in. For a time the rock was quite dry, and the little fellow kept jumping up and down with great glee. - At last the waters came rolling very near, and a gentleman who was standing by thought it was time for the child to get down and go further up the beach. But no! he did not believe there was any danger, until a great wave came dashiug up and surrounded the rock, turning it into a little island. For a moment then he looked pale; but the wave rolled back again, and the little boy laughed merrily at his own fears. But the water came nearer and nearer, until the rock stood quite in the middle ofa pool. The gentleman then stepped into the water, and held out his arms : "Come," said he, "my brave little fellow, trust to me --quick! before the next wave comes." But the child began to cry ; he would not let the gentleman take him ; perhaps from not knowing him, or not thinking that his arms were strong' enough. I do not know} the reason. At that momenta great roarmg wave came billowing up, and the boy, to save himself, jumped--not into the gentlemen's arms, but quite the other way--and fell into the water, if he had not been snatched up directly, he must have been drowned. As it was, he was thoroughly wet, covered with sand and dirt, and very much ashamed that he had been so foolish as not to trust the strong arms held out to save him. My dear children, there are greater dan- Tf left to ourselves, sin and hell will swallow us up for ever. But there isa mighty arm held outto us. Jesus says, " Trust in me ; I will save you from your sins, and make you blessed for ever." Tf we will not obey Him, there is no other way. We must perish. Uubelief will be our ruin. gers all around us. Meine SAUER AN ce XM THRowinGe THE CHILD FROM THE Track.--A few years since, an assistant engineer on the Auburn and Canandaigua Branch of the New York Central Railroad, saw a child playing on the track, uncon- scious of the rushing train in the distance. The only chance of escape for the little one, was to brush it, if possible, from the track, before the engine reached it. The braye and benevolent man, in a moment stepped forward to the ' cow-catcher,' and_ crept down to its point, and stretching out his hand, gave the child a blow that sent the bewildered truant to the slope beyond the iron rail. The train thundered by, and the engineer returned; faint and pale to the car ; saying, soon after, that he expected to stain his hand with the life-blood of the child. The intelligence of the noble deed sent a thrill of delight through the cars, followed by expressions of enthusiastic ap- plause. How much greater the rescue, when the hand of Christian love patiently leads an imperrilled young soul from the edge of mortal ruin! The faithful parent, and the teacher of the Sabbath and mission school, who takes a child from the track of ruin, to the shining path of godliness, may not win the world's applause, or attract the attention of any about him; but what a shout of joy goes over the celestial plains ! What a celebration of the rescue will that be, when the heavens " pass away with a great noise, and the elements melt with feryent heat!" Tux Pious Sotpign Boy.--In one of the late Fulton-street prayer-meetings in New York a gentleman said he had just come from the dying bed ofa boyin the hospital, a lad about fifteen years old. The lad had gone toa better world. He died repeating the tweny-third Psalm. He went away with the voice of triumph and shouting. Oh! what a victory he gainedj No more battles. No more forced marches. No more bivoucking in the midst of alarms. His feet are planted on the jasper sea. At a town meeting in Ireland, it was re - cently voted, 'that all persons in the town owning dogs shall be muzzled.' Harry's Boots. Harry Thurston was about four years old. He had never had a pair of boots, but a friend of his mother proposed to give him a pair if they suited him. The boots were brought home, and Harry attempted to put them on. He did not succeed. His mother tried, with no better result. The boots were too small. It was asad disappointment, and Harry's heart ached when his mother said, "Jt isof no use to try toputthem on, You cannot wear them." Not long after Mrs. Thurston entered her parlor, supposing no one was there. She was surprised to see her little son kneeling by the sofa, with his sister sitting on the floor beside him. 'What are you doing?" she inquired. "T am praying to God to make my boots large enough to go on ," he replied. Mrs. Thurston mentioned this particular prayer to a friend in the evening, and the next morning a gentleman called and invited Harry to walk with him. He took him to a shoe store and selected for him a pair of boots. Harry was delighted. The small pair of boots had not been made larger, but another pair had been bought for him, which would not have been had he not thus prayed. They lasted through the winter; but like all others, in time they wore out; and if they had not, the little feet would have outgrown them, The next winter, at Christmas, Harry was visiting an uncle in the country, who wished to make him a Christmas present. and much to Harry's gratification he received another pair of boots. When he returned home he told his mother he had been praying for some new boots, and had expected to get them. It is several years since Harry prayed that God would make his boots large for him, and it is a little singular that he has always had boots, although his mother has never bought him a pair. . Our Saviour taught us to pray for our "daily bread," which, I suppose, includes all our wants; and he has also assured us that He who clothes the grass of the field will much more clothe us. If we who are older had a more childlike and filial trust in God, perhaps we should not have so many unsupplied wants. Mrs. Lewis on Dress---' The waist should be several inches larger than the woman's body ; a little shorter than the pre- sent fashion, and full in front, that the chest may enjoy free action. The bands oft the skirts should be much larger than the body ; the buttons to be placed on the band of the inside skirt, just as they are on a gentleman's pants for suspenders, and the same elastic suspenders worn, crossing be- hind. Make button-holes in the bands of the other skirts, to correspond with the buttons on the inside skirt, and button on ; thus one pair of suspenders will carry three or more skirts. This style of dress is at- tended by no discomfort to the wearer, and allows full action to every organ of the body. Of course, corsets should never be worn. And with the skirts supported as above de- seribed, there is no apology for wearing them. The dress I have described may be made so pretty that it will be much admired. Whalebones have no business in a woman's dress. They spoil all the beauty of outline which Powers and other great artists have found in the natural woman. They inter- fere not less with that peculiar undulating action of the chest and abdomen which re- sults from the normal action of the thoracic and abdominal viscera. And if the waist be short and loose, as advised above, there will be no need of whalebones to keep it down. God knew what He was doing when He made the human body, and made it just -- right in every way; we cannot alter its shape without destroying its beautiful syme- try, and causing disease and premature death.' Wurrner Bounp.--A< noble ship is fully -- freighted with a rich cargo. Her sails are set, the wind is fair; she is sailing swiftly on the broad ocean, everything betokening her onward progress in a prosperous voyage. She is hailed by another vessel-- "Ship ahoy ! whither bound ?" " Nowhere." The question is supposed to be misunder- stood, and is repeated. The answer comes-- "Don't know." " Have you acaptain ?" " Yes, but we don't mind his orders." " Have you a chart, a compass, a chronom- eter toes " Yes, but we never use nor look at them." Young man, outward bound on the ocean of life, how does this compare with your experience, your prospects, your des- tination as an immortal being ?