"After a hospitable detention of another half a day at San Luis Obispo, the party set out for Los Angelos, on the same nine horses which they had rode from that place, and made the ride back in about the same time they had made it up, namely, at the rate of 125 miles a day.
"On this ride, the grass on the road was the food for the horses. At Monterey they had barley; but these horses, meaning those trained and domesticated, as the cañalos were, eat almost anything of vegetable food, or even drink, that their master uses, by whom they are petted and caressed, and rarely sold. Bread, fruit, sugar, coffee, and even wine, (like the Persian horses,) they take from the hand of their master, and obey with like docility his slightest intimation. A tap of the whip on the saddle, springs them into action; the check of a thread rein (on the Spanish bit) would stop them: and stopping short at speed they do not jostle the rider or throw him forward. They leap on anything—man, beast, or weapon, on which their master directs them. But this description, so far as conduct and behavior are concerned, of course only applies to the trained and domesticated horse."
[CHAPTER XXX.]
During the autumn of 1846, Fremont had had no time to visit his Mariposa purchase; but in the winter, while at Los Angelos, inviting Carson and Godey and two of his Delaware Indians, and his constant attendant Dobson, to take a tramp with him for hunting, in the time of sunny skies in February, he extended his hunt thither, and accomplished the discovery that he had a well-wooded and well-watered—for California well watered—tract of land, of exceeding beauty, clothed, as it was at this season, with a countless variety of flowering plants, these being the grasses of the country, and seemingly well adapted for tillage, certainly an excellent spot for an immense cattle ranche. They killed deer and antelope and smaller game, and with the lasso captured a score of wild horses from a drove of hundreds that fled at their approach; returning to Los Angelos within a week from the time of their departure, laden with the spoils of the chase.
Nor could these busy men refuse the kindly hospitalities tendered them by the old and wealthy natives of Los Angelos. We have described their style of life as Carson had witnessed it in 1828; and now at a ball given by Don Pio Pico—for the fandango of the Mexican is a part of his life, and with all his reverses of fortune it must come in for its place—Carson and Fremont are of course guests, and Lieutenant Gillespie, and some other of the American officers. As the company was a mixed one, we will not attempt a description, but quote from Bayard Taylor's California, a scene of a similar kind at the close of the Constitutional Convention, about two years later, when, with the discovery of gold, California had a population sufficient to demand a State government, and made one for herself, and prepared to knock for admission into the Union of States. In this Convention were the old fathers of California, American army officers, and some more recent arrivals; and well was it for California that the steps for the organization of her State government were taken so early, when the fact of Mexicans and natives having a claim was not ignored, as it might have been at a later date by the reckless adventurers who thronged the golden shore.
But it is only the ball at the close of the Convention we propose to describe, at which Col. Fremont and David C. Broderick were present, as members of the Convention.
"The morning Convention was short and adjourned early yesterday, on account of a ball given by the Convention to the citizens of Monterey. The members, by a contribution of $25 each, raised the sum of $1,100 to provide for the entertainment, which was got up in return for that given by the citizens about four weeks since.
"The Hall was cleared of the forms and tables, and decorated with young pines from the forest. At each end were the American colors tastefully disposed across the boughs. Then chandeliers, neither of bronze or cut-glass, but neat and brilliant withal, poured their light upon the festivities. At eight o'clock—the fashionable hour in Monterey—the guests began to assemble, and in an hour afterward the Hall was crowded with nearly all the Californian and American residents. There were sixty ladies present, and an equal number of gentlemen, in addition to the members of the Convention. The dark-eyed daughters of Monterey, Los Angelos, and Santa Barbara mingled in pleasing contrast with the fairer bloom of the trans-Nevadian belles. The variety of feature and complexion was fully equaled by the variety of dress. In the whirl of the waltz, a plain, dark, nun-like robe would be followed by one of pink satin and gauze; next, perhaps, a bodice of scarlet velvet, with gold buttons, and then a rich figured brocade, such as one sees on the stately dames of Titian.