A Dangerous Journey, California 1849

IN THE SUMMER OF 1849 there was in California one J. Ross Browne representing the United States Postal Service. In the course of his official duties he made a trip by “mulepower and footpower” from San Francisco to San Luis Obispo. The tale of this trip is authentic, unusual Californiana: the narrative combines the outlandish happenings of the journey—including a brush with outlaws, and a death battle between a bull and a huge bear—with a reporter’s penetrative observation on the rugged life in California a century ago.

A Dangerous Journey was first published as two articles in Harper’s Monthly for May and June, 1862. It was reissued in 1864 as a compilation, Crusoe’s Island: A Ramble in the Footsteps of Alexander Selkirk with Sketches of Adventure in California and Washoe.

This edition was first published in 1950.