A CONVICT WHO WOULD NOT WORK.—LAWYERS AT MONTEREY.—WHO CONQUERED
CALIFORNIA.—RIDE TO A RANCHO.—LEOPALDO.—PARTY OF CALIFORNIANS.—A
DASH INTO THE FORESTS.—CHASING A DEER.—KILLING A BEAR.—LADIES WITH
FIREARMS.—A MOTHER AND VOLUNTEER.
FRIDAY, JUNE 18. One of the prisoners, who is an Englishman, ventured a
criticism on the stonework of another prisoner, which revealed the fact
of his being a stonecutter himself. I immediately sat him at work at his
old trade. But he feigned utter ignorance of it, and spoiled several
blocks in making his feint good. I then ordered him into a deep well,
where the water had given out, to drill and blast rocks. He drove his
drills here for several days, and finding that the well was to be sunk
some twenty or thirty feet deeper, concluded it was better for him to
work in the upper air, and requested that he might be permitted to try
his chisel again. Permission was given, and he is now shaping stones fit
to be laid in the walls of a cathedral. He was taken up for disorderly
conduct, and he is now at work on a school-house, where the principles
of good order are the first things to be taught.
SATURDAY, JUNE 19. We have at this time three young lawyers in Monterey,
as full of legal acuteness as the lancet cup of a phlebotomist. All want
clients, and fees, and the privilege of a practice in this court.
Mexican statutes, which prevail here, permit lawyers as counsel, but
preclude their pleas. They may examine witnesses, sift evidence, but not
build arguments. This spoils the whole business, and every effort has
been made to have the impediment removed and the floodgate of eloquence
lifted. I should be glad to gratify their ambition, but it is
impossible. I should never get through with the business pressing on my
hands in every variety of shape which civil and criminal jurisprudence
ever assumed. I tell them after the evidence has been submitted, the
verdict or decision must follow, and then if any in the court-room
desire to hear the arguments, they can adjourn to another apartment, and
plead as long as they like. In this way justice will go ahead, and
eloquence too, and the great globe still turn on its axle.
SATURDAY, JULY 17. Com. Stockton has left us on his return home over the
continent. His measures in California have been bold and vigorous, and
have been followed by decisive results. He found the country in anarchy
and confusion, and the greater part under the Mexican flag, and has left
it in peace and quietness beneath the stars and stripes. His position in
the march of the American forces from San Diego, and in the battle of
San Gabriel, has not been changed by any subsequent information in the
judgment of the candid and impartial. He tendered the command of the
expedition to Gen. Kearny, which that gallant officer deferred to the
commodore, out of regard to his position at the head of the naval forces
upon which the success of the enterprise must depend. The propriety of
this arrangement is seen in the fact that the general had but sixty
dragoons at his command, and those on foot, while the Pacific squadron
poured six hundred seamen and marines upon the field. There was no
confusion of orders or evolutions on the route; every general movement
emanated from Com. Stockton, with the good understanding and harmonious
action of Gen. Kearny.
It is deeply to be regretted that any thing subsequently occurred to
disturb this spirit of mutual deference and generous devotion to the
crisis which pressed upon our arms. It is not my purpose to comment on
this feature in the affairs of California; but it is due to truth that
history should be set right; that facts warped from their true position
should be reinstated on their own pedestals. The army has covered itself
with laurels on the plains of Mexico, and might have won honors here
with an adequate force; but to rely on sixty dragoons in the face of a
thousand Californians, armed with the rifle and lance, and accustomed to
the saddle from their birth, is to trifle with the stern solemnities of
war. It is requiring too much of us, who have lived here through the
war, and are conversant with its history, to claim our assent to the
allegation, that California has been conquered through the achievements
of the army. _That_ unshrinking arm of the nation has done its work well
and fast elsewhere, but only the vibrations of its blows have trembled
across the confines of California. For matter of these the Mexican flag
would still be flying over these hills and valleys. The seamen or the
Pacific squadron, as reliable on land as faithful on the deck, and the
emigrants, who have come here to find a home, have wrenched this land of
wealth and promise from the grasp of Mexico, and unfurled the stars and
stripes, where they will wave evermore. Let the laurel light where it
belongs.
TUESDAY, AUG. 10. An Indian galloped to my door this morning, having in
lead a splendid pied horse, richly caparisoned, and with an invitation
from a ranchero, forty miles distant, that I would come and spend a few
days with him at his country-seat; so I placed the office in the hands
of Don Davido, well competent to its duties, and with my secretary, Mr.
G——, mounted on another noble animal, started for the mansion of my old
friend from the mountains of Spain, now in the winter of age, but with a
heart warm as a sunbeam. The town, with its white dwellings, soon
vanished behind the pine and evergreen oak, which crown the hills, that
throw around it their arms of waving shade. The little lakes, navelled
in the breaks of the forest, flashed on the eye; the water-fowl, in
clouds, took wing; the quail whirled into the bushes; and the deer
bounded off to their woodland retreats. A grizzly bear, with a storm of
darkness in his face, stood his ground, and never even blinked at the
crack of our pistols.
We were now on the bank of the Salinas, through which we dashed,
allowing our horses a taste of its yellow waters, then up the opposite
bank, and away over the broad plain, which stretches in vernal beauty
beyond. Our horses required no spur, were in fine condition, high
spirits, never broke their gallop, and swept ahead, like a fawn to its
covert. Mine belonged to the daughter of the Don, to whose hearth we
were bound, and had often rattled about among these hills beneath his
fair owner, whose equestrian graces and achievements might throw a fresh
enchantment on the chase that had gathered to its rivalries the beauty
and bravery of Old England. Another mountain stream—a dash through its
foaming tide, and away again through a broad ravine, which bent its
ample track to the steep hills, which threw the shadows of their waving
trees over a thousand echoing caverns. Where the forests broke, the wild
oats waved, like golden lakes, and mirrored the passing cloud; while the
swaying pines rolled out their music on the wind, like the dirge of
ocean. And now another luxuriant plain, where cattle, and horses, and
sheep gambolled and grazed by thousands; and on the opposite side the
white mansion of our host, crowning the headland, and glimmering through
the waving shade, like the columns which consecrate Colonna. Here we
alighted without weariness to ourselves or our spirited animals, though
we had swept through the forty miles in three hours and a half. The
señorita, who had sent me her horse, vaulted into the saddle, which I
had just relinquished, and patting the noble fellow, whom she called
Leopaldo, induced him to exhibit a variety of his cunning evolutions. He
knew his rider as well as a Newfoundlander his mistress, or an eagle his
mountain mate.
It was a festive eve at the Don’s; youth and beauty were there; and as
the sable hues of night sunk on silent tree and tower, the harp and
guitar woke into melodious action; the hour was late when the waltz and
song resigned their votaries to the calmer claims of slumber. My
apartment betrayed the rural diversions of some fairy, one whose floral
trophies threw their fragrance from every variety of vase. The air was
loaded with perfume, and could hardly be relieved by the visits of the
night-wind through the lifted window. My dreams ran on tulips and roses.
Morn blazed again in the east; the soaring lark sung from its cloud; the
guests were up, glad voices were heard in the hall; light forms glanced
through the corridors, and a _buenos dios_ rolled in sweet accents from
lips circled with smiles. Coffee and tortillas went round, mingled with
salutations and those first fresh thoughts which spring from the heart
like early birds from the tree, which the sunlight has touched, while
the dew yet sparkles on its leaves. The horses of the Don were now
driven to the door—a sprightly band—vieing in their hues with the
flowers that sprinkled the meadows where they gambolled, and the guests
were invited to make their selection. My choice fell, of course, on
Leopaldo, who had brought me from Monterey; but his fair owner would
want him; no, he was delivered to me, as the señorita took another quite
as full of fire.
The ladies were now tost into their saddles, and the gentlemen, belted
and spurred, vaulted into theirs. We all struck at once into a hand
gallop, and swept over the broad plain which stretches from the
acropolis of the Don, to the broken line of a mountain range. Here we
spurred into a broad shadowy ravine, overhung with toppling crags, and
breaking through the bold ranges of rock, which threw their steep faces
in wild fantastic forms on the eye. “A coyote!” shouted those in the
van, and started in chase; but this prairie-wolf had his den near at
hand, and soon vanished from sight. Another, and a third, but the chasm
yielded its instant refuge. A fourth was started, who gave us a longer
pursuit; but he soon doubled from sight around a bold bluff into a
jungle. Here the horse of señorita S—— dashed ahead of the whole
caballada, with his dilated eye fastened on a noble buck, and swept up
the sloping side of the ravine to gain the ridge, and cut off his escape
in that direction, while the whole troop spurred hot and fast upon his
retreat below. We were now in for a chase, brief though it might be. The
buck seemed confused; and no wonder, with such a shouting bevy at his
heels, and with the señorita streaming along the ridge, and dashing over
chasm and cliff like the storm-swept cloud where “leaps the live
thunder.” But the proud buck was not to be captured in this way; and as
soon as the other side of the ravine began to slope from its steep line,
up its bank he sprung, and bounded along its ridge as if in exulting
rivalry at the rattling chase of the señorita. “Two _deers_,” shouted
one of the caballeros, “and neither of them to be caught.”
We here wheeled into another mountain gorge, which opened into a long
irregular vista of savage wildness. A gallop of two or three miles
brought us to a spot where the rocky barriers retreated on either hand,
shaping out a bowl, in the centre of which stood a cluster of oaks. On
the lower limb of one, which threw its giant arm boldly from the rough
trunk, a dark object was descried, half lost in the leaves. “A bear, a
bear!” shouted our leader, and dashed up to the tree, which was
instantly surrounded by the whole troop, “Give us pistols,” exclaimed
the señoritas, as bravely in for the sport as the rest. Click, crack!
and a storm of balls went through the tree-top. Down came old bruin with
one bound into the midst, full of wrath and revenge. The horses
instinctively wheeled into a circle, and as bruin sprung for a
death-grapple, the lasso of our baccaros, thrown with unerring aim,
brought him up all standing. He now turned upon the horse of his new
assailant; but that sagacious animal evaded each plunge, and seemed to
play in transport about his antagonist. The pistols were out again, and
a fresh volley fell thick as hail around the bear. In the smoke and
confusion no one could tell where his next spring might be; but the
horse of the baccaro knew his duty and kept the lasso taught. Bruin was
wounded, but resolute and undaunted; the fire rolled from his red eyes
like a flash of lightning out of a forked cloud. Foiled in his plunges
at the horse, he seized the lasso in his paws, and in a moment more
would have been at his side, but the horse sprung and tripped him,
rolling him over and over till he lost his desperate hold on the lasso.
The pistols were reloaded, and señoritas and caballeros all dashed up
for another shower of fire and lead. As the smoke cleared, bruin was
found with the lasso slack, a sure evidence that the horse who managed
it knew his antagonist was dead.
This was sport enough for one day; we galloped on through the defile,
which wound round a mountain spur, till it struck a precipitous stream,
which sent into the green nooks the wild echoes of its cascades.
Following the ravine through which it poured its more tranquil tide, we
debouched at length upon the plain, crowned with the hospitable mansion
of our host. The feats of the morning astonished even the old Don, who
offered his favorite roan to the one whose bullet had killed the bear.
The meed was challenged by each and all, but no one could make good and
exclusive claim. The gentlemen relinquished their claim, but that only
made the matter worse, as it narrowed the contest to the circle of the
señoritas. Dinner was announced; then came the siesta, followed by the
soft twilight, with the harp, guitar, and song, which melted away into
sweet sleep. In the morning Mr. G. and myself, with the glorious
Leopaldo, waved our adieu, and returned to Monterey.
MONDAY, SEPT. 6. A mother, who lives with a man out of wedlock, applied
to me this morning to take her two daughters from an aunt, with whom
they were living, and place them in another family. When asked for her
reasons, she stated that this aunt had not a good reputation, and though
bad herself, she did not want to see her daughters so. I told her she
could hardly expect me to make her daughters better than their mother;
that parental example was stronger than law; that if she wanted to keep
her daughters pure, she must be so herself. She shed tears: I said no
more; but ordered her daughters into the family where she desired.
TUESDAY, SEPT. 7. One of the volunteers broke into my coral last night,
with the intention of reaching the hen-roost, but was frightened nearly
to death by a discharge of mustard-seed from an old fowling-piece, with
which my servant had armed himself for the protection of his poultry.
Some of the volunteers, and I hope much the larger portion, are upright,
honest men, but there are others who will steal any thing and every
thing, from a horse to a hen. One of the evils of a soldier’s lot is,
that the good are often confounded with the bad. But every profession
suffers in the same way.
FRIDAY, SEPT. 10. Our bay is full of sardines; an Indian jumped into the
surf and scooped up for me, with his blanket, half a peck in a few
minutes. The pelican follows these small fish, and pounces down upon
them with a savage ferocity. There is something in such a sudden
destruction of life, even in a minnow, which you don’t like. I have
often wished the bird just shot again on the wing.
We are looking every moment for the return of the Cyane, under Commander
Du Pont, from the Sandwich Islands, where she has been on important
service. She is the water-witch of the Pacific—if ceaseless motion can
claim that honor. Her commander enjoys so thoroughly the confidence and
affection of his officers and crew, they go with him through all this
exhausting service without a murmur. It is a happy tact that can
maintain discipline and wield at any moment the whole moral and physical
power of such a ship.