Friday, Jan. 8. We have as yet no further intelligence in reference to the party of Californians who carried off Mr. Bartlett, of San Francisco. He had gone into the country, it seems, to attend to some of his official duties, when he was captured, and is now detained as a hostage. I came very near falling into a similar trap, a few weeks since. A farmer in Santa Cruz had extended his improvements over the lands of another, which lay contiguous to his own, and it became necessary to go and define the boundaries by the original titles. The day was fixed when I was to be there, and the parties interested were summoned to appear on the spot. But the night before I was to leave, intelligence reached me that an armed party of Californians were encamped close to the road which I should have taken. But for this information, brought in by a citizen of Monterey, I should now be sleeping here and there, under the open heaven, without a change of apparel, and with bandits for bedfellows: on such slender threads hangs security here. I have been told by Californians, who are my friends, that plans have been laid by their countrymen to slip me quietly out of my house at night, or entrap me in my hunting excursions, on the outskirts of the town. I began to think, last night, that this attempt was to be realized. Quick footsteps and a loud rap came to my door, followed by an excited call for the alcalde. My boy went out, with his pistols swung at his side; but the call proved to be an honest one. A shop had been robbed, and a warrant was wanted for the arrest of the supposed felons.
Saturday, Jan. 9. How many inventions a Californian lady has! One who was harboring a Mexican officer that had broken his parol, wishing to do away with all possible suspicion, got up a fandango, to which she took special pains to invite all the American officers. Such open-door hospitality—such challenging of the public eye—threw an air of freedom and frankness over her whole house. Everybody acquitted her at once of the least shadow of suspicion. But while the violins and guitars were trembling and thrilling in concert, and the floor of the old hall was springing to the bounding measures of the fandango, and bright eyes
“Were looking love to eyes that spake again,”
the Mexican officer was snugly taking a nap in the great oven, which, near the cook-house, silently loomed into the moonlight. It must have been a long nap, for the stars that kept the mid-watch were relieved before the company broke up. The officer was then at liberty to leave his oval dormitory to the baker; and creeping forth, had, no doubt, a good laugh with his ingenious hostess over the success of the fandango. There is no disguise so deep as that which seems to seek none.
Sunday, Jan. 10. I held service to-day on board the U. S. ship Dale. Though on deck, no inconvenience was experienced from the weather. The air was soft, and hardly a ripple disturbed the mirror of the sea. Capt. McKean, in the absence of a chaplain, reads the service himself. He appreciates the force of moral influences in the government of his crew, and is well sustained in its exertion by his intelligent officers. It is rarely that you meet with a commander in the service who is indifferent to the religious character of his crew. If he has no religion himself, still he respects it in others, and places his greatest reliance where it exerts a controlling influence. Religion, wherever possessed, vindicates its celestial origin.
The captain of a whale-ship applied to Mr. Damon, of Honolulu, to preach on board his vessel, stating very frankly that he had no religion himself, but then he wanted his ship to appear “a little decent.” Now when a captain applies for a religious service to give an air of respectability to his vessel, it shows that moral truth is in the ascendancy, at least in the dignity of its claims. There was a time when no such expedient was deemed necessary; but a higher light has struck the mariners who float the great Pacific. Their hosannas will yet be rolled to heaven in concert with the loud anthem of her many-voiced waves.
CHAPTER X.
DESTRUCTION OF DOGS.—THE WASH-TUB MAIL.—THE SURRENDER IN THE NORTH.—ROBBING THE CALIFORNIANS.—DEATH-SCENE IN A SHANTY.—THE MEN WHO TOOK UP ARMS.—ARRIVAL OF THE INDEPENDENCE.—DESTITUTION OF OUR TROOPS.—CAPTURE OF LOS ANGELES.
Monday, Jan. 11. I never expected, when threading the streets of Constantinople, where dogs inherit the rights of citizenship, to encounter such multitudes of them in any other part of the world. But California is more than a match for the Ottoman capital. Here you will find in every little village a thousand dogs, who never had a master: every farm-house has some sixty or eighty; and every Indian drives his cart with thirty or forty on its trail. They had become so troublesome, that an order was given a few days since to thin their ranks. The marines, with their muskets, were to be the executioners. The order, of course, very naturally runs into dog-erels.
The dogs, the dogs! my gallant lads—