The next subject of description is Monterey, which has lately assumed a peculiar interest, as one of the objects of the American invasion. The Bay of Monterey forms a segment of a circle with a chord of about eighteen miles. Monterey had always been the seat of government, though it consisted of but a few buildings. But, since the revolution of 1836, it has expanded into a population of about seven hundred souls. The town occupies a plain, bounded by a lofty ridge. The dwellings are the reverse of pompous, being all built of mud bricks. The houses are remarkable for a paucity of windows, glass being inordinately dear; even parchment almost unattainable, and the artists in window-making charging three dollars a-day!
But, to the Californians, perhaps this privation of light is not an evil. While it makes the rooms cooler, it cannot, by any possibility, interfere with the occupations of those who do nothing. The bed affords a curious contrast to the rest of the furniture. While the apartments exhibit a deal-table, badly made chairs, probably a Dutch clock, and an old looking-glass, the bed "challenges admiration by snowy white sheets, fringed with lace, a pile of soft pillows, covered with the finest linen or the richest satin, and a well-arranged drapery of costly and tasteful curtains." Still this bed is "but a whited sepulchre," with a wool mattress—"the impenetrable stronghold of millions of——." We leave the rest to the imagination.
The history of "Political Causes and Effects" would make a curious volume; and it would admirably display, at once the profound agency of Providence, and the shortsightedness of human policy. It would scarcely be supposed that the devastation of Europe, and the sack of Berlin, Vienna, and Moscow, found their origin in a Spanish treaty, on the banks of the Mississippi, half a century before.
The power of France in the interior of America, which had extended from Canada to Louisiana, and which formed a line of posts for its boundary along this immense internal frontier, kept the British Colonies in a state of constant alarm; and, by consequence, in a state of continual dependence on England. But the English possession of Canada, in 1763, and the cession of Louisiana to Spain at the same period, as they lessened the alarms, loosened the allegiance of the British colonies. The next steps were more obvious. The war of the United States, in which France was an auxiliary, inflamed the French population with the hope of breaking down the strength of England and the aristocracy of France. But the expense of equipping the French allied force fell heavy on an exchequer already burthened by the showy extravagance of the Regent Orleans, and by the gross profligacies of Louis XV. To relieve the exchequer, the States General were summoned; and from that moment began the Revolution. The European war was the result of a republican government, and the conquest of the Continent the result of placing Napoleon on the throne of the empire. What further results may be still preparing are beyond our knowledge; but it can scarcely be conceived that the chain is yet finally broken.
But before we take leave of California, we must do it the justice to speak of San Barbara, which, as the author rather emphatically expresses it, is to Monterey "what the parlour is to the kitchen."
The bay is an unfavourable one, being exposed to the "worst winds of the worst season." But the town having been selected as the favourite retreat of the more respectable functionaries of the province, Santa Barbara exhibits the charms of aristocratic manners. The houses, externally, are superior to any others on the coast, and, internally, exhibit taste in their furniture and ornament. The ladies excite the author's pen into absolute rapture; their sparkling eyes and glossy hair, are, in themselves, sufficient to negative the idea of tameness or insipidity, while their sylph-like figures exhibit fresh graces at every step. This is supported by the more important qualities, of "being by far the more industrious half of the community, and performing their household duties with cheerfulness and pride."
The men are a handsome race, and the greatest dandies imaginable, completely modelled on the Andalusian Majo, and displaying the finest linen, the most embroidered pantaloons, and the most glittering jackets in the western world. Of course, it cannot be expected of any Spaniards that they should do much, and beaux so fine cannot be expected to do any thing. Accordingly, his day is spent in riding from house to house, on a horse as fine as himself, a living machine of trappings, and the nights in dancing, billiard-playing, and flirting.
In all countries where serious things are habitually turned into trifles, trifles become serious things. "The balls, in fact, seem more like a matter of business than any thing else that is done in California. For whole days beforehand, sweetmeats are laboriously prepared in the greatest variety, and from beginning to end of the festivities, which have been known to last several successive nights, so as to make the performers, after wearing out their pumps, trip it in sea-boots, both men and women displaying as much gravity as if attending the funeral of their friends."
A still more humanising portion of their tastes is their passion for music. The guitar is heard in every house. Father, mother, and child are all playing and singing; and, to the praise of their taste be it spoken, playing nothing but the fandangoes, seguidillas, and ballads of Spain; the truest, purest, and most touching of all music; well worth all the hammered harmonies of the German school, and all the long-winded and laborious bravuras of the Italian. The Spanish music is the most refined, and yet the most natural, in the world.
We are glad to see this experienced judge of men and things speaking of the Californians as "a happy people possessing the means of physical pleasure to the full," even though he qualifies the opinion by their "knowing no higher kind of enjoyment."