OCR Text |
Show 70 PERSONAL ADVENTURES and fetching up under a favourable breeze, we reached Monterey on the morning of the 18th of February. The bay on which this town is situated is large, extending north-east some eighteen or twenty miles, but, being shallow, does not afford much protection to vessels ; indeed, the harbour itself is not more than a mile in length, and is formed of piles of rock and loose stone, jutting out into the sea. On entering the roadstead, every object appeared to me-it might be fancy-on the most diminutive scale, with the exception of the hills surrounding the town, which are lofty, and present a pleasing aspect. They are studded with pines, stunted oaks, and small shrubs; and though this was the end of the winter season, the vegetation appeared most flourishing. From this almost evergreen back.; ground the tiny, one-story houses stand out in bold relief, their whitewashed faces glistening in the sun, and deepening the verdure of the landscape. These miniature habitations have three or IN CALIFORNIA. 71 more apartments, connected with one another, the roof, common to all, projecting some four or five feet beyond the walls, and forming a kind of verandah. I like\vise observed several log-houses, built by the Americans, as I justly concluded, the natives possessing no idea of this sort of edifice. To the extreme right, on the summit of a lofty hill, and on the top of a nondescript building which presented the appearance of a collection of palings and log-huts, heaped promiscuously together, but which I was informed was the fort, waved the flag of the United States. The picture was completed by the presence of three vessels, riding lazily on the heaving bosom of the now calm sea : one of them a frigate, the Warren, condemned as unseaworthy; the second, a merchantman ; and the third, a brigantine which had been taken from the Mexicans at the commencen1ent of the war, for smuggling arms and amn1unition. There were likewise several Indians, clad in dirty blankets, who by their gestures, as they stood on the beach, evidently regarded our |