PROPHETIC SHADOWS AND JOURNALISTS.
Coming events cast their shadows before. When Com. Jones, several years since, captured Monterey, no political seer discovered in the event the precursor of an actual, permanent possession. No flag waved on the horoscope save the Mexican; no thunder broke on the ear of the augur, except what disturbed the wrong quarter of the heaven; and even the birds, which carried the fate of nations in their sounding beaks, flew in a wrong direction. But the first occupation, though it came and went as a shadow, was an omen, which has now become a reality—a great eventful fact in the history of the age. The commodore, who struck this first uncertain blow, is now here entrusted with the defence of the new acquisition. His spirit of intelligence and enterprise is making itself felt in every department, that justly falls within the prerogatives of a commander-in-chief.
There are a multitude of topics connected with the wild life and new condition of affairs in California, which must escape the pen of any one journalist. Some of them are touched with vivid force in the graphic pictures of “El Dorado,” others are sketched with lively effect in the pages of “Los Gringos,” while California as she was, before gold had cankered her barbaric bliss, is thrown wildly on our vision, by the author of “Two Years Before the Mast.” Her geography, the habits of her citizens, and her resources, when little known beyond the furtive glances of the coaster, are faithfully delineated in the pioneer pages of Col. Fremont, Capt. Wilkes, and Mr. Robinson. Every traveller can find in California some new untouched feature for a sketch. They unroll themselves on the eye at every glance. With the reader they are rather sources of wonder and amusement, than solid advantage. Our globe was invested with no claims to utility till it had emerged from chaos; then verdure clothed its hills and vales; then flowing streams made vocal the forest aisles; then rolled the anthem of the morning star.