Tuesday, Sept. 7. One of the volunteers broke into my coral last night, with the intention of reaching the hen-roost, but was frightened nearly to death by a discharge of mustard-seed from an old fowling-piece, with which my servant had armed himself for the protection of his poultry. Some of the volunteers, and I hope much the larger portion, are upright, honest men, but there are others who will steal any thing and every thing, from a horse to a hen. One of the evils of a soldier’s lot is, that the good are often confounded with the bad. But every profession suffers in the same way.
Friday, Sept. 10. Our bay is full of sardines; an Indian jumped into the surf and scooped up for me, with his blanket, half a peck in a few minutes. The pelican follows these small fish, and pounces down upon them with a savage ferocity. There is something in such a sudden destruction of life, even in a minnow, which you don’t like. I have often wished the bird just shot again on the wing.
We are looking every moment for the return of the Cyane, under Commander Du Pont, from the Sandwich Islands, where she has been on important service. She is the water-witch of the Pacific—if ceaseless motion can claim that honor. Her commander enjoys so thoroughly the confidence and affection of his officers and crew, they go with him through all this exhausting service without a murmur. It is a happy tact that can maintain discipline and wield at any moment the whole moral and physical power of such a ship.
CHAPTER XV.
A CALIFORNIA PIC-NIC.—SEVENTY AND SEVENTEEN IN THE DANCE.—CHILDREN IN THE GROVE.—A CALIFORNIA BEAR-HUNT.—THE BEAR AND BULL BATED.—THE RUSSIAN’S CABBAGE HEAD.
Wednesday, Sept. 22. The lovers of rural pastimes were on an early stir this morning with their pic-nic preparations. Basket after basket, freighted with ham, poultry, game, pies, and all kinds of pastry, took their course in the direction of a wood which stands three miles from town, and shades a sloping cove in the strand of the sea. The sky was without a cloud, and the brooding fog had lifted its dusky wings from the face of the bright waters. At every door the impatient steed, gayly caparisoned, was waiting his rider. Into the saddle youth and age vaulted together, while the araba rolled forward with its living freight of laughing childhood. The dogs swept on before, barking in chorus, and flaring the gay ribbon which some happy child had fastened round the neck.
This mingled tide of health and social gladness flowed on to the grove of pine and birch, which threw their branching arms in a verdant canopy over a plat of green grass, which had been shorn close to the level earth. Around this arena strayed every variety of twig-inwoven seat, where matron and maiden, in the flow of the heart, forgot their disparity of years. The children wreathed each other’s locks with coronals of flowers, the soft breeze whispered in the pines, and the little billow murmured its music on the strand. And now the violin, the harp, and guitar woke the bounding dance. Forth upon the green the man of seventy, still erect and tall, led the blooming girl of sixteen. Age had whitened his locks, but the light of an unclouded spirit still rolled in his eye, and the salient bound of youth still dwelt in his limbs. His young partner, with her tresses of raven darkness, inwoven with snow-white flowers,—with a cheek, where the mantling tide of health was curbed into a blush—and a step light and elastic as that of the gazelle, seemed as one of Flora’s train, just lighted there to swim in youth and beauty in the wild woodland merriment. By the side of these, others, in mingled youth and age, lead down the double files, and balance and whirl in the mazy measures which roll from the orchestral band. As these retire, others still spring to the arena, and the dance goes on, ever changing, and still the same. No faltering step delays its feathered feet, no glance of envy disturbs its love-lit smiles, no look of clouded care overshadows its real mirth:
“The garlands, the rose-odors, and the flowers,
The sparkling eyes, and flashing ornaments,
The white arms and the raven hair, the braids