mss142-vasilevShishmarev-i4-017

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three months in California. In the meantime, on the sloops
they repaired the rigging, calked the decks, topsides, and
painted them again on the outside. In the established ob-
servatory, we checked the chronometers and the longitude of
the port. From the many lunar and star distances, and from
the movements of the Jupiter satellites, we derived a mean of
122⁰ 27' 24" W. The tide at midnight reached about eight feet.

Having mentioned the very uninteresting tasks that we
had during our three months' stay in California, I shall now
turn to the remarkable evernts that occured then, and to a
description of the condition of this land of that time, the
manners and customs of its inhabitants, white as well as red-
skinned, and products of this beautiful country.

The "Presidio of San Francisco," as mentioned before,
was located on a flat plateau and consisted of an enormous
brik building, having a spacious square courtyard onto which
all windows and doors looked, but the exterior walls were
blind except for two gates and gun embrasures. One wing was
occupied by th church (the empty room allocated to us was
formerly the quarters of a monk who had moved to the Mission
of Santa Clara) and was the quarters of the commandant and
the cavalry lieutenant Don Ignatio Martines [ Ignacio Martinez].
In the other wing were located the common hall, in which gala
festivals took place, and the quarters of the artillery lieut-
enant, Don Lui Pancho and two sergeants of cavalry and in-
fantry. In the remaining two were located the soldiers and
the armory. The church was very pretty and the altar even