SAN JOSÉ GARRISONED.—A CALIFORNIA RAIN.—ESCAPE OF CONVICTS.—SHOOTING
EDWARDS.—TWO WASHERWOMEN.—DEATH OF MR. SARGENT.—INDIAN HENS.—HUNTING
CURLEW.—THE CALIFORNIA HORSE.—AN OLD EMIGRANT.—THE GRIZZLY BEAR.
FRIDAY, NOV. 27. The prize brig Julia, Lieut. Selden commanding, arrived
here to-day from San Francisco. She left there the Savannah and Warren.
Fifty of the Savannah’s men had been sent by Capt. Mervin to San José,
under command of Lieut. Pinkney, where they will form a military post,
of sufficient strength, it is believed, to repel any hostile attacks,
and maintain the flag. The northern half of California is now pretty
safe; the ranchos may suffer from marauding parties of the enemy, and
some acts of violence be committed, but no important post can be
wrenched from our possession. In the south we hold San Diego, and have
an enemy in the field at los Angeles. They will probably break covert at
two or three different points; some will fly for Mexico, and some for
the sheltered coves of the San Joaquin. Let those catch them who can; I
would as soon track a chamois among the clefts and pinnacles of the
Alps.
SATURDAY, NOV. 28. It is now near the close of that month which in other
climes is often one of the most unpleasant in the year; but here it has
been one of unrivalled brilliancy. The sky has been almost without a
cloud, the winds have slept, and the soft air has lain on the landscape
like a golden slumber. Such is the tranquil beauty in which the vernal
year here sinks to repose.
“Ah! ’twere a lot too bless’d,
Forever in thy color’d shades to stray;
Amid the kisses of the soft southwest
To rove and dream for aye;
And leave the vain low strife
That makes men mad; the tug for wealth and power,
The passions and the cares that wither life,
And waste its little hour.”
BRYANT.
SUNDAY, NOV. 29. Two Californians called upon me to-day, to decide a
difficulty which had arisen between them in some money transactions. I
told them to call on some week-day—that I attended to no business
matters on the Sabbath. They apologized for interfering with my
_recreations_; I told them I had no recreations to be disturbed, but I
would not open my office for business on the Sabbath. Had I told them I
was going to a cock-fight, their only wonder would have been that they
had not heard of the sport; and both would have forgotten their business
in hunting their cash for the ring. Such is the moral obtuseness which a
perversion of the Sabbath induces. The heart on which the dews of this
sacred morn have never melted, will be desolate of moral verdure; though
here and there a leaf may spring like flowers in the cleft of a rock.
MONDAY, NOV. 30. We have had at last a true specimen of California
showers. The wind blew a gale from the south. Cloud on cloud was piled
into the zenith, till the whole dome of heaven was filled with
substantial darkness. The earth lay in an eclipse. A few heavy rolls of
thunder, and the rain fell in torrents; it lasted twelve hours. Every
roof and frowning cliff became a cascade. Down each ravine rolled an
exulting tide. The aquatic bird dashed onward in its foam to the sea.
Suddenly the wind veered into the west, and in a few moments the sky was
without a cloud. Field and forest flashed out in the splendors of the
sun; and on the soft wind came gushes of music from the wild-wood.
Instead of bleak November, you would have said:
“Fairer and brighter spreads the reign of May;
The tresses of the woods
With the light dallying of the west wind play
And the full briming floods,
As gladly to their goal they run,
Hail the returning sun.”
PERCIVAL.
TUESDAY, DEC. 1. I was startled from my slumbers last night by the
report of a musket under my window; and, seizing my rifle, rushed to the
door but could perceive no one near, and only heard, in the darkness,
the sound of retreating footsteps. The mystery was soon explained: the
convicts had escaped from prison, and the sentry, posted near my
residence, had fired upon them as they rushed past. Several of the guard
went immediately in pursuit, and succeeded in apprehending two; but
seven others, favored by the darkness and storm of the night, had
cleared the town.
It appeared, on investigation, that the sentry, posted at the prison,
had stolen the keys from the guardroom, where they were kept, unlocked
the outer and inner doors, and then run himself with the convicts.
Another sentry, by a preconcerted plan, had also joined them. Only one
prisoner remained in the apartment which had been unlocked. When asked
by me why _he_ did not run, he said he would not be seen running from
Tophet in such company. This was the funny fellow who stole the money.
One of those who escaped, was a great overgrown Californian—a monstrous
mass of flesh and bone. He had been shot in the leg in a previous fray,
and always affected the cripple, hobbling about on huge crutches, which
fairly bent under him. But last night, when his pursuers were close on
his trail, he bounded forward like a rabbit. Crutches, and all occasion
for them, had been left behind. You would have thought some shape of air
were flitting before you, but for the heavy puffs which heaved, at brief
intervals, from his laboring trunk. An innocent man escaping from
violence has often a hard time of it, but a felon escaping from justice
much harder; his guilty conscience will long keep the pursuer at his
heels.
WEDNESDAY, DEC. 2. A party, well mounted and armed, started this morning
in pursuit of the convicts. They overtook one of them and the two
sentries about twenty miles distant. The sentries still had their arms,
which they surrendered, and delivered themselves up without resistance.
The convict was shot down through the impetuosity of one of the party.
There is a degree of ferocity in shooting down an unarmed man at which
humanity revolts. We can hardly find an apology for it, even in the
brutal instincts of the savage. The fate of the two sentries concerned
in liberating the prisoners whom they were posted to guard, is
uncertain. If tried by a court-martial, their sentence will be death; if
delivered over to the civil authority, they will be sentenced to the
public works for a long term of years.
THURSDAY, DEC. 3. The convict Edwards, found with the two sentries, and
who had been shot after he had surrendered, was left in a dying
condition on the public road. My constable left this morning to find
him, but was unable to cross the Salinas river on account of the
freshet, and its extreme rapidity. His horse got frightened and refused
to swim him over. He fastened him on this side, and, divesting himself
of his hat, shoes, and coat, plunged in; but the current after sweeping
him down a mile or more, landed him on the same side from which he had
started.
He is a man of great humanity as well as courage and resolution, and it
was not with his consent that Edwards was left at night-fall, wounded
and dying, exposed to a pitiless storm, and to be devoured by wild
beasts. It was inhuman to leave him in this condition, when he might
have been brought in, or taken to some house in the neighborhood. Those
in fault, now that the wrong has been done, and is irretrievable, would
gladly veil it from the public eye. There is a tongue in cruelty, which
those who inflict it can never silence. It will speak out and awaken
pangs in the most callous conscience. If we have no mercy on others, how
can we expect it for ourselves in that day when we most need it?
“Teach me to feel another’s woe,
To hide the faults I see;
The mercy I to others show,
That mercy show to me.”
FRIDAY, DEC. 4. The moment a child is born on a farm in California, and
the nurse has had time to dress it, it is given to a man on horseback,
who, with its future godfather and godmother, ride post-haste with it to
some mission, and present it to a priest for baptism. This ceremony
concluded, the party, full of glee, start on their return; and the
little new-comer may now, perhaps, rest a week or two before he starts
on another excursion; but after that, hardly a day will elapse without
his being on horseback. He literally rides from his cradle to his grave.
Thus, by the time a boy is ten or twelve years of age, he becomes an
expert rider, is devoted to the saddle, and looks upon pedestrial motion
as a contemptible way of getting through the world. He would sooner
travel a hundred miles on horseback than ten on foot, and connect less
fatigue and hardship with the result. Most of his labors, too, are on
the saddle. He has a farm of twenty or thirty miles to ride over; vast
wheat-fields to survey, and, perhaps, ten thousand head of cattle to
keep from straying. He would have but little time for repose if he went
by steam.
SATURDAY, DEC. 5. Of all the women I have had to deal with here the
washerwomen are the most unmanageable. Two of them entered my office
to-day as full of fight as the feline antagonists of Kilkenny. It seems
they had been out washing in one of the little pools created by the
recent showers, when one had taken that part of the margin previously
occupied by the other. War offensive and defensive immediately
commenced. One drew a knife, which had a blade two mortal inches in
length, and the other a sharp ivory bodkin. But what their weapons
wanted in terror and strength their ungentle anger supplied.
At last one cried out, “the alcalde;” the other echoed it, and so they
both rushed down to the office to have their difficulties settled. Both
of course commenced talking at the same time; and their stories ran
together like two conflicting rivulets forced into the same channel.
There was plenty of tumult and bubble. When these had a little subsided,
I began cautiously to angle for the truth—a difficult trout to catch in
such waters. But one darter after another was captured, till I had
enough to form some opinion of those that had escaped. These we
discussed till bitter feeling, like biting hunger, became appeased. The
rest was very easily settled. Both went away declaring either margin of
the pool good enough, and each urging on the other the first choice.
How gentle is forgiveness! and how sweet
To feel the severed heart flow back again
To one we loved, estranged by hasty words!
SUNDAY, DEC. 6. Mr. Sargent, who came out in the Congress in the
capacity of clerk to the purser, and who had been left here several
weeks since for the restoration of his mind and health, was missed from
his quarters on Tuesday last. He has been laboring for some time under
mental aberrations which wear a reasoning show, and which alarm only the
close observer. His amiable disposition and exemplary life exempted him
from all reproach, and have excited a general sympathy and concern for
his uncertain fate. He was last seen winding his way through the forest
which skirts Monterey, towards a ledge of rocks which overhangs the
boiling surf of the bay. I have traversed the beach for miles, and
watched each swell as it rolled in, to see if it bore on its crest aught
like a human form. But nothing came to the shore or eddied in the surge,
to resolve mystery and give a painful certainty to doubt. The sea itself
is an awful mystery, and becomes doubly so when the fate of one we loved
is locked in the tongueless silence of its unfathomed depths.
The waves tell not the fate of those
On whom their hasty waters close;
But deeper still their secrets spread,
That travel with their drifting dead.
MONDAY, DEC. 7. The simplest article for the table is often beyond the
reach of your money here. I have found it so difficult to procure a few
eggs, when required, that I have at last gone to keeping hens. I
purchased six of an Indian woman for six dollars, and a rooster for
fifty cents. On asking the woman why she charged only half price for the
rooster, she replied that the fellow laid no eggs, and as for his
crowing that did nobody any good. Sounder reasons than these could not
be furnished in a much higher place than a hencoop. The habits of these
hens are a little singular. They are perfectly tame, and are as much at
home in the kitchen as the cook. They never trouble themselves much
about a nest, but deposite their eggs where they find it most
convenient; one takes the tea-tray, another the ironing-table, a third
the oven, and there is one that always gets into the cradle. She is not
at all disturbed by the tossing of the little fellow on whose premises
she is obtruding. Neither she nor any of her feathered sisters cackle
when they leave the nest. They don’t seem to think that any thing worth
making an ado about has come to pass. The rooster, it is true, perks up
a little, and perhaps feels a feather taller. But this is the vanity of
his sex. There are a great many who crow over what others have done.
TUESDAY, DEC. 8. The banditti, that have hovered for some weeks past in
the vicinity of Monterey, have made it unsafe to venture out on our
hunting excursions, unless in sufficient numbers to repel an attack. But
last evening, the want of exercise, and of something to relieve the
endless monotony of beef on the table, induced me forth. I took my boy,
and put into his hands one of Colt’s revolving rifles, and took myself
the fowling-piece. We had hardly got a mile from town, when two horsemen
broke from the covert of the woods, and dashed down in our direction. I
had but little more than time to exchange pieces with my boy, when they
were within rifle shot. Their garb showed them to be Californians. My
heart beat a great deal louder than usual. But they suddenly wheeled,
and soon disappeared behind one of the hills which look out on the bay.
They had no arms, except pistols at the saddle-bow. Whether they had
hostile intentions, I know not: their movements had very much that
appearance; and I must say I never before experienced so fully those
feelings men describe in going into battle. They are not fear so much as
an intensity of excitement, which seems as if it would suffocate life:
it is dispelled with the first gun. I had once occasion to repel an
exasperated Spaniard with a pistol, and though I had anticipated his
attack, was prepared for it, and believed that the aim of the pistol
would make him sheath his knife; still there was for a moment an
intensity of feeling that would, if prolonged, destroy one. We continued
our hunting, but changed our ground to the vicinity of the sea, and
brought home a dozen curlew, which almost rival in flavor the
canvas-back duck.
WEDNESDAY, DEC. 9. The horses of California are of a hardy nature; and
it is well for them that they are, considering the inhuman manner in
which they are generally treated by the natives. If a man wants to ride
forty or fifty miles from his residence, he mounts his horse, and spurs
off upon the gallop. On arriving at the place of his destination, he
ties him to a post, where he stands two or three days, waiting for his
master. During this time he is not once fed, and is quite fortunate if
he gets a swallow of water. At last, his rider comes, mounts him, and he
takes him back again at the same free and easy gait with which he first
started. This, of course, is confined to the summer season, when the
grass has the most substance and nutriment: still it is almost
incredible. Besides the weight of his heavy rider, the horse generally
carries fifty or sixty pounds in the gear of his saddle, and double this
in a soaking rain. It requires two large tanned ox hides to fit out a
Californian saddle; then add to this, the wooden stirrups, three inches
thick, the saddle-tree, with its stout iron rings and buckles, a pair of
goat-skins across the pommel, holsters and pistols, and spurs at the
heels of the rider, weighing from four to six pounds, and we have some
idea of what a Californian horse has to carry. Still he is cheerful and
spirited, and never flags till nature sinks with exhaustion. A man who
can abuse such an animal, ought to be bitted and saddled himself.
THURSDAY, DEC. 10. The old as well as the young are coming over the
mountains. I had an emigrant to dine with me to-day, who has recently
arrived, and who is seventy-six years of age. His locks are as free of
gray hairs as those of a child, and his eye still flashes with the fires
of youth. He is among the volunteers, and you may see him every day on a
spirited horse, with a rifle at his saddle-bow. He has four sons with
Col. Fremont. They enlisted before they had time to unpack their
saddles, and have with them the remnants of the biscuit and cheese which
they brought from the United States. I asked the old man what could
induce him at his age to come to California. He said his children were
coming, and so he determined to come too. I asked him if he had no
compunction in taking up arms against the inhabitants the moment of his
arrival. He said he had Scripture example for it. The Israelites took
the promised land of the East by arms, and the Americans must take the
promised land of the West in the same way. I told him that would do, if
he could show the same high commission. But I find this kind of parallel
running in the imagination of all the emigrants. They seem to look upon
this beautiful land as their own Canaan, and the motley race around them
as the Hittites, the Hivites, and Jebusites, whom they are to drive out.
But they have gone at it with other weapons than ram’s horns, except as
powder-flasks.
FRIDAY, DEC. 11. The grizzly bear is the most formidable and ferocious
animal in California; and yet, with all this ferocity of disposition,
rarely attacks a man unless surprised or molested. The fellow never lies
in wait for his victim. If the hunter invades his retreat or disputes
his path he will fight, but otherwise contents himself with the immunity
which he finds in the wildness of his home and the savage grandeur of
his nature. It is never safe to attack him with one rifle; for if you
fail to hit him in a vital part, he is on you in the twinkling of an
eye. Your only possibility of escape is up a near tree, too slender for
his giant grasp; and then there is something extremely awkward in being
on the top of a tree with such a savage monster at its root. How long he
will remain there you cannot tell; it may be a day, and it may be a
week. Your antagonist is too shrewd to hand you up your rifle, or let
you come down to get it. You are his prisoner, more safely lodged than
in a dungeon, and he will set you at liberty when it suits him. He
sleeps not himself at his post; day and night his great flashing eyes
are fastened upon you. The lyre of Orpheus may have lulled to sleep the
sentinel of Hades, but its magic tones have never charmed to slumber the
sentinel of the California forest.
The full-grown California bear measures from eight to ten feet in
length, and four or five in girth. His strength is tremendous, his
embrace death. Had the priest of Apollo fallen into his folds, he would
have perished without any of those protracted agonies which the
sympathetic muse has wailed round the world. Nature has thrown over him
a coat of mail, soft indeed, but impervious to the storm and the arrow
of the Indian. The fur, which is of a dark brown color, is nearly a span
long, and when the animal is enraged each particular hair stands on end.
His food in the summer is chiefly berries, but he will now and then, on
some of his feast days, slaughter a bullock. In winter he lives on
acorns, which abound in these forests. He is an excellent climber, and
will ascend a large oak with the rapidity of a tar up the shrouds of his
ship. In procuring his acorns, when on the tree, he does not manifest
his usual cunning. Instead of threshing them down like the Indian, he
selects a well-stocked limb, throws himself upon its extremity, and
there hangs swinging and jerking till the limb gives way, and down they
come, branch, acorns, and bear together. On these acorns he becomes
extremely fat, yielding ten or fifteen gallons of oil, which is said to
be sufficiently pungent and nutritive as a tonic to tuft a statue’s
marble head.
The she bear has one peculiarity that must puzzle even the philosophical
inquirer. As soon as she discovers herself with young, she ceases to
roam the forest, and modestly retires from the presence of others, to
some secluded grotto. There she remains, while her male companion, with
a consideration that does honor to his sex, brings her food. She
reappears at length with her twin cubs, and woe to the luckless wight
who should attempt to injure or molest them. They are guarded by an
affection and ferocity with which it would be madness to trifle. For
them she hunts the berries, and dislodges the acorns. Her maternal care
is a beautiful trait in her savage nature, and
“Shines like a good deed in a naughty world.”
[Illustration: Burt, sc.]