QUILP DEPARTS FOR THE SOUTH—SAN LUIS—RAMSEY—I AM LEFT FOR DEAD—THE EARLY HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA—DISCOVERY OF SAN FRANCISCO—SPANISH MISSIONS—A DIGRESSION—DIGRESSION, CONTINUED—A RAINY SEASON—A LITTLE CRAB.
April, 1851.
It was long after dark when I arrived at Santa Rosa Valley, perfectly “knocked up.� Englishmen are generally good pedestrians; but there is a great difference between walking on the level in well-made shoes, and dragging through deep sloughs and acres of thick clayey mud in heavy ill-fitting jack-boots, particularly when the boots appear unwilling to proceed in your society, and one or other of them is continually disengaging itself, as if wishing to be left behind regardless of expense.
I found that the Carillo family had left Santa Rosa, and the valley had been purchased by Americans for the purpose of cultivating grain, for which many parts of it were well adapted. The Carillos had departed, with horses, dogs, Indians, and Quilp, for the south, where the wine came from, where the temperature was better adapted to their “far-niente� dispositions, and where in particular Quilp was likely to enjoy a longer lease of life than his undisguised hatred of Americans would probably have permitted had he remained much longer at the valley. As slothfulness and ignorance stepped out, intelligence and industry usurped their place, and on the rich plain the wild waving oats fell to the ruthless scythe, whilst the plough upturned the maiden soil on every side.
And so must other lands and other people of this continent succumb to the increasing wants of Anglo-Saxon man. As the red-Indian retires before the pale-face, so will inert bigotry in the new world disappear before the march of energy; and the bounteous riches with which the Creator has strewed this portion of the globe must some day be under a rule that will admit of these benefits being extended to mankind, no longer to be closed to the world, through the petty warfares or restrictive seclusion of a people too inert to seize the advantages around them, and (with a full sense of this) too jealous to admit others to do so.
* * * *
About five miles from Sonoma is an “embarcadero,� or landing place, situated on a mud creek, which is navigable for small boats, and communicates with the bay of San Francisco. Here are three houses, which conjointly represent the town of San Luis; opposite the town some fishing-boats lay at anchor, and in one of these I bargained for a passage to San Francisco, in company with eight live bullocks, that were now lying on the strand, bound neck and heels together, moaning piteously, as if impatient to get to the butcher’s and have it all over.
With the exception of the owners of the three houses, the population of San Luis was a particularly floating one, being represented for the most part by the crews of the fishing-smacks, of which there were at times a great number in port.
From the centre house there proceeded the sound of a fiddle, and, as no one could be perceived outside, it became evident that the floating population had here assembled to wile away the hours until the tide served to enable the boats to leave.
I entered the house and found it to consist of a store and drinking-shop combined; and, in virtue of its latter attraction, it was filled, as I had anticipated, by the men belonging to the boats, who, already half drunk, were tossing off champagne,[7] out of tin pannikins, and drinking to a speedy voyage across the bay. The proprietor of the establishment was not only an Englishman, but he was one of those plump, rosy-cheeked, good-natured-looking fellows that attract the eye at once, and whose smile is sympathetic; he was a gentleman, that is to say, he had been educated as one, and had lived as one, and was none the less one (as I found afterwards), now that he kept a grog-shop. I shall call him Ramsey; he was one of those men who never make money, for they cannot save; so that when Ramsey left, as he did, a high and very remunerative position of trust on the Pacific coast, and came up to San Francisco with a cargo of flour, in the expectation of making a fortune; and when he determined on taking the flour up the river Sacramento, and the flour was caught in a squall in the bay and went down, Ramsey found that he had done a very foolish thing. However, all smiles and good-humour, he took the grog-shop and store at San Luis, where I found him.