Chapter 10

Of course our plans had all miscarried. Our Bachelors' Hall fell with a dull thud when we heard that the chief bachelor had turned benedict three days before. But he was present with his bride, and he knew of a haunt that would compensate us for all loss or disappointment. We crossed the desert nursing a faint hope. We threaded one or two wide, weedy, silent streets; not a soul was visible, though it was but nine in the evening,--which was not to be wondered at, since the town was divided against itself: the one half slept, the other half still sat upon the pier, making a night of it; for old Monterey had but one shock that betrayed it into some show of human weakness. The cause was the Steam Navigation Co. The effect was a fatal fondness for tendering a public reception to all steamers arriving from foreign ports, after their sometimes tempestuous passages of from eight to ten hours. This insured the inhabitants a more or less festive night about once every week or ten days.

With rioutous laughter, which sounded harsh, yea, sacrilegious, in the sublime silence of that exceptional town, we were piloted into an abysmal nook sacred to a cluster of rookeries haggard in the extreme. We approached it by an improvised bridge two spans in breadth. The place was buried under layers of mystery. It was silent, it was dark with the blackness of darkness; it was like an unholy sepulchre that gave forth no sound, though we beat upon its sodden door with its rusted knocker until a dog howled dismally on the hillside afar off.

Some one admitted us at the last moment, and left us standing in the pitch-dark entrance while he went in search of candles, that apparently fled at his approach. The great room was thrown open in due season and with solemnity. It may have been the star-chamber in the days when Monterey was the capital of the youngest and most promising State in the Union; but it was somewhat out of date when we were ushered into it. A bargain was hastily struck, and we repaired to damp chambers, where every sound was shared in common, and nothing whatever was in the least degree private or confidential. We slept at intervals, but in turn; so that at least one good night's rest was shared by our company.

At nine o' the clock next morning we were still enveloped in mist, but the sun was struggling with it; and from my window I inspected Spanish or Mexican, or Spanish-Mexican, California interiors, sprinkled with empty tin cans, but redeemed by the more picturesque _débris_ of the early California settlement--dingy tiles, forlorn cypresses, and a rosebush of gigantic body and prolific bloom.

We breakfasted at Simoneau's, in the inner room, with its frescos done in beer and shoeblacking by a brace of hungry Bohemians, who used to frequent the place and thus settle their bill. Five of us sat at that uninviting board and awaited our turn, while Simoneau hovered over a stove that was by no means equal to the occasion. It was a breakfast such as one is reduced to in a mountain camp, but which spoils the moment it is removed from the charmed circle of ravenous foresters. We paid three prices for it, but that was no consolation; and it was long before we again entered the doors of one of the chief restaurants of old Monterey.

Before the thick fog lifted that morning we had scoured the town in quest of lodgings. The hotels were uninviting. At the Washington the rooms were not so large as the demands of the landlord. At the St. Charles'--a summer-house without windows, save the one set in the door of each chamber--we located for a brief season, and exchanged the liveliest compliments with the lodgers at the extreme ends of the building. A sneeze in the dead of night aroused the house; and during one of the panics which were likely to follow, I peremptorily departed, and found shelter at last in the large square chamber of an adobe dwelling, the hospitable abode of one of the first families of Monterey. Broad verandas surrounded us on four sides; the windows sunk in the thick walls had seats deep enough to hold me and my lap tablet full in the sunshine--whenever it leaked through the fog.

Two of these windows opened upon a sandy street, beyond which was a tangled garden of cacti and hollyhock and sunflowers, with a great wall about it; but I could look over the wall and enjoy the privacy of that sweet haunt. In that cloistered garden grew the obese roses of the far West, that fairly burst upon their stem. Often did I exclaim: "O, for a delicate blossom, whose exquisite breath savors not of the mold, and whose sensitive petals are wafted down the invisible currents of the wind like a fairy flotilla!" Beyond that garden, beyond the roofs of this town, stretched the yellow sand-dunes; and in the distance towered the mountains, painted with changeful lights. My other window looked down the long, lonesome street to the blue Bay and the faint outline of the coast range beyond it.

Here I began to live; here I heard the harp-like tinkle of the first piano brought to the California coast; here also the guitar was touched skillfully by her grace the august lady of the house, who scorned the English tongue--the more eloquent and rhythmical Spanish prevailed under her roof. One of the members of the household was proud to recount the history of the once brilliant capital of the State, and I listened by the hour to a narrative that now reads to me like a fable.

In the year of Our Lord 1602, when Don Sebastian Viscaino--dispatched by the Viceroy of Mexico, acting under instructions from Philip III. of Spain--touched these shores, Mass was celebrated, the country taken possession of in the name of the Spanish King, and the spot christened Monterey in honor of Gaspar de Zuniga, Count of Monterey, Viceroy of Mexico. In eighteen days Viscaino again set sail, and the silence of the forest and the sea fell upon that lonely shore. That silence was unbroken by the voice of the stranger for one hundred and sixty-six years. Then Gaspar de Portola, Governor of Lower California, re-discovered Monterey, erected a cross upon the shore, and went his way.

In May, 1770, the final settlement took place. The packet _San Antonio_, commanded by Don Juan Perez, came to anchor in the port, "which"--wrote the leader of the expedition to Padre Francisco Palou--"is unadulterated in any degree from what it was when visited by the expedition of Don Sebastian Viscaino in 1602. After this"--the celebration of the Mass, the _Salve_ to Our Lady, and a _Te Deum,_--"the officers took possession of the country in the name of the King (Charles III.) our lord, whom God preserve. We all dined together in a shady place on the beach; the whole ceremony being accompanied by many volleys and salutes by the troops and vessels."

When the _San Antonio_ returned to Mexico, it left at Monterey Padre Junipero Serra and five other priests, Lieutenant Pedro Fages and thirty soldiers. The settlement was at once made capital of Alta California, and Portola appointed the first governor. The Presidio (an enclosure about three hundred yards square, containing a chapel, store-houses, offices, residences, and a barracks) was the nucleus of the city; but the mission was soon removed to a beautiful valley about six miles distant, where there was more room, better shelter from the cold west winds, and an unrivalled prospect. The valley is now known as Carmelo.

A fort was built upon a little hill commanding the settlement, and life began in good earnest. What followed? Mexico threw off the Spanish yoke; California was hence forth subject to Mexico alone. The news spread; vessels gathered in the harbor, and enormous profits were realized on the sale and shipment of the hides of wild cattle lately roaming upon a thousand hills.

Then came gradual changes in the government; they culminated in 1846 when Captain Mervin, at the head of two hundred and fifty men, raised the Stars and Stripes over Monterey, and a proclamation was read declaring California a portion of the United States.

The Rev. Walter Colton, once chaplain of the United States frigate _Congress_, was appointed first alcalde; and the result was the erection of a stone courthouse, which was long the chief ornament of the town; and, somewhat later, the publication of Alcalde Colton's highly interesting volume, entitled "Three Years in California."

II.

In 1829 Captain Robinson, the author of "Life in California" in the good old mission days, wrote thus of his first sight of Monterey: "The sun had just risen, and, glittering through the lofty pines that crowned the summit of the eastern hills, threw its light upon the lawn beneath. On our left was the Presidio, with its chapel dome and towering flag-staff in conspicuous elevation. On the right, upon a rising ground, was seen the _castillo_, or fort, surmounted by some ten or a dozen cannon. The intervening space between these two points was enlivened by the hundred scattered dwellings that form the town, and here and there groups of cattle grazing.

"After breakfast G. and myself went on shore, on a visit to the Commandant, Don Marian Estrada, whose residence stood in the central part of the town, in the usual route from the beach to the Presidio. In external appearance, notwithstanding it was built of adobe--brick made by the mixture of soft mud and straw, moulded and dried in the sun,--it was not displeasing; for the outer walls had been plastered and whitewashed, giving it a cheerful and inviting aspect. Like all dwellings in the warm countries of America, it was but one story in height, covered with tiles, and occupied, in its entire premises, an extensive square.

"Our Don was standing at his door; and as we approached, he sallied forth to meet us with true Castilian courtesy; embraced G., shook me cordially by the hand, then bowed us ceremoniously into the _sala_. Here we seated ourselves upon a sofa at his right. During conversation _cigarritos_ passed freely; and, although thus early in the day, a proffer was made of refreshments."

In 1835 R.H. Dana, Jr., the author of "Two Years before the Mast," found Monterey but little changed; some of the cannon were unmounted, but the Presidio was still the centre of life on the Pacific coast, and the town was apparently thriving. Day after day the small boats plied between ship and shore, and the population gave themselves up to the delights of shopping. Shopping was done on shipboard; each ship was a storehouse of attractive and desirable merchandise, and the little boats were kept busy all day long bearing customers to and fro.

In 1846 prices were ruinously high, as the alcalde was free to confess--he being a citizen of the United States and a clergyman into the bargain. Unbleached cottons, worth 6 cents per yard in New York, brought 50 cents, 60 cents, 75 cents in old Monterey. Cowhide shoes were $10 per pair; the most ordinary knives and forks, $10 per dozen; poor tea, $3 per pound; truck-wheels, $75 per pair. The revenue of these enormous imposts passed into the hands of private individuals, who had placed themselves by violence or fraud at the head of the Government.

In those days a "blooded" horse and a pack of cards were thought to be among the necessaries of life. One of the luxuries was a _rancho_ sixty miles in length, owned by Captain Sutter in the valley of the Sacramento. Native prisoners, arrested for robbery and confined in the adobe jail at Monterey, clamored for their guitars, and the nights were filled with music until the rascals swung at half-mast.

In August, 1846, _The Californian_, the first newspaper established on the coast, was issued by Colton & Semple. The type and press were once the property of the Franciscan friars, and used by them; and in the absence of the English _w_, the compositors on _The Californian_ doubled the Spanish _v_. The journal was printed half in English and half in Spanish, on cigarette paper about the size of a sheet of fools-cap. Terms, $3 per year in advance; single copies, 12-1/2 cents each. Semple was a man just suited to the newspaper office he occupied; he stood six feet eight inches in moccasins, was dressed in buckskin, and wore a foxskin cap.

The first jury of the alcaldean court was empanelled in September, 1846. Justice flourished for about three years. In 1849 Bayard Taylor wrote: "Monterey has the appearance of a deserted town: few people in the streets, business suspended," etc. Rumors of gold had excited the cupidity of the inhabitants, and the capital was deserted; elsewhere was metal more attractive. The town never recovered from that shock. It gradually declined until few, save Bohemian artists and Italian and Chinese fishermen, took note of it. The settlement was obsolete in my day; the survivors seemed to have lost their memories and their interest in everything. Thrice in my early pilgrimages I asked where the Presidio had stood; on these occasions did the oldest inhabitant and his immediate juniors vaguely point me to three several quarters of the town. I believe in my heart that the pasture in front of the old church--then sacred to three cows and a calf--was the cradle of civilization in the far West.

The original custom-house--there was no mistaking it, for it was founded on a rock--overhung the sea, while the waves broke gently at its base, and rows of sea-gulls sat solemnly on the skeletons of stranded whales scattered along the beach. A Captain Lambert dwelt on the first floor of the building; a goat fed in the large hall--it bore the complexion of a stable--where once the fashionable element tripped the light fantastic toe. In those days the first theatre in the State was opened with brilliant success, and the now long-forgotten Binghams appeared in that long-forgotten drama, "Putnam, or the Lion Son of '76." The never-to-be-discourteously-mentioned years of our pioneers, '49 and '50, "were memorable eras in the Thespian records of Monterey," says the guide-book. They were indeed; for Lieutenant Derby, known to the literary world as "John Phoenix" and "Squibob," was one of the leading spirits of the stage. But the Thespian records came to an untimely end, and it must be confessed that Monterey no longer tempts the widely strolling player.

I saw her in decay, the once flourishing capital. The old convent was windowless, and its halls half filled with hay; the barracks and the calaboose, inglorious ruins; the Block House and the Fort, mere shadows of their former selves. As for Colton Hall--the town-hall, named in honor of its builder, the first alcalde,--it is a modern-looking structure, that scarcely harmonizes with the picturesque adobes that surround it. Colton said of it: "It has been erected out of the slender proceeds of town lots, the labor of the convicts, taxes on liquor shops, and fines on gamblers. The scheme was regarded with incredulity by many; but the building is finished, and the citizens have assembled in it, and christened it after my name, which will go down to posterity with the odor of gamblers, convicts and tipplers." Bless his heart! he need not have worried himself. No one seems to know or care how the building was constructed; and as for the name it bears, it is as savory as any.

The church was built in 1794, and dedicated as the parish church in 1834, when the missions were secularized and Carmelo abandoned. It is the most interesting structure in the town. Much of the furniture of the old mission is preserved here: the holy vessels beaten out of solid silver; rude but not unattractive paintings by nameless artists--perhaps by the friars themselves,--landmarks of a crusade that was gloriously successful, but the records of which are fading from the face of the earth.

Doubtless the natives who had flourished under the nourishing care of the mission in its palmy days, wagged their heads wittingly when the brig _Natalia_ met her fate. Tradition says Napoleon I. made his escape from Elba on that brig. It was by the _Natalia_ that Hijar, Director of Colonization, arrived for the purpose of secularizing the missions; and his scheme was soon accomplished. But the winds blew, and the waves rose and beat upon the little brig, and laid her bones in the sands of Monterey. It is whispered that when the sea is still and the water clear, and the tide very, very low, one may catch faint glimpses of the skeleton of the _Natalia_ swathed in its shroud of weeds.

There are two attractions in the vicinity, without which I fear Monterey would have ultimately passed from the memory of man. These are the mission at Carmelo, and the Druid grove at Cypress Point. In the edge of the town there is a cross which marks the spot where Padre Junipero Serra sang his first Mass at Monterey. It was a desolate picture when I last saw it. It stood but a few yards from the sea, in a lonely hollow. It was a favorite subject with the artists who found their way thither, and who were wont to paint it upon the sea-shells that lay almost within reach. Now a marble statue of Junipero Serra, erected by Mrs. Leland Stanford, marks the spot.

Six miles away, beyond the hills, above the shallow river, in sight of the sparkling sea, is the ruin of Carmelo. From the cross by the shore to the church beyond the hills, one reads the sacred history of the coast from _alpha_ to _omega_. This, the most famous, if not the most beautiful, of all the Franciscan missions, has suffered the common fate. In my day the roof was wanting; the stone arches were crumbling one after another; the walls were tufted with sun-dried grass; everywhere the hand of Vandalism had scrawled his initials or his name. The nave of the church was crowded with neglected graves. Fifteen governors of the territory mingle their dust with that consecrated earth, but there was never so much as a pebble to mark the spot where they lie. Even the saintly Padre Junipero, who founded the mission, and whose death was grimly heroic, lay until recent years in an unknown tomb. Thanks to the pious efforts of the late Father Cassanova, the precious remains of Junipero Serra, together with those of three other friars of the mission, were discovered, identified, and honorably reentombed.

From 1770 to 1784 Padre Junipero Serra entered upon the parish record all baptisms, marriages, and deaths. These ancient volumes are carefully preserved, and are substantially bound in leather; the writing is bold and legible, and each entry is signed "Fray Junipero Serra," with an odd little flourish of the pen beneath. The last entry is dated July 30, 1784; then Fray Francesco Palou, an old schoolmate of Junipero Serra, and a brother friar, records the death of his famous predecessor, and with it a brief recital of his life work, and the circumstances at the close of it.

Junipero Serra took the habit of the order of St. Francis at the age of seventeen; filled distinguished positions in Spain and Mexico before going to California; refused many tempting and flattering honors; was made president of the fifteen missions of Lower California--long since abandoned; lived to see his last mission thrive mightily, and died at the age of seventy--long before the fall of the crowning work of his life.

Feeling the approach of death, Junipero Serra confessed himself to Fray Palou; went through the Church offices for the dying; joined in the hymn _Tantum Ergo_ "with elevated and sonorous tones," saith the chronicle,--the congregation, hearing him intone his death chaunt, were awed into silence, so that the dying man's voice alone finished the hymn; then he repaired to his cell, where he passed the night in prayer. The following morning he received the captain and chaplain of a Spanish vessel lying in the harbor, and said, cheerfully, he thanked God that these visitors, who had traversed so much of sea and land, had come to throw a little earth upon his body. Anon he asked for a cup of broth, which he drank at the table in the refectory; was then assisted to his bed, where he had scarcely touched the pillow when, without a murmur, he expired.

In anticipation of his death, he had ordered his own coffin to be made by the mission carpenter; and his remains were at once deposited in it. So precious was the memory of this man in his own day that it was with the utmost difficulty his coffin was preserved from destruction; for the populace, venerating even the wooden case that held the remains of their spiritual Father, clamored for the smallest fragment; and, though a strong body-guard watched over it until the interment, a portion of his vestment was abstracted during the night. One thinks of this and of the overwhelming sorrow that swept through the land when this saintly pioneer fell at the head of his legion.

The California mission reached the height of its prosperity forty years later, when it owned 87,600 head of cattle, 60,000 sheep, 2,300 calves, 1,800 horses, 365 yoke of oxen, much merchandise, and $40,000 in specie. Tradition hints that this money was buried when a certain piratical-looking craft was seen hovering about the coast.

This wealth is all gone now--scattered among the people who have allowed the dear old mission to fall into sad decay. What a beautiful church it must have been, with its quaint carvings, its star-window that seems to have been blown out of shape in some wintry wind, and all its lines hardened again in the sunshine of the long, long summer; with its Saracenic door!--what memories the _Padres_ must have brought with them of Spain and the Moorish seal that is set upon it! Here we have evidence of it painfully wrought out by the hands of rude Indian artisans. The ancient bells have been carried away into unknown parts; the owl hoots in the belfry; the hills are shown of their conventual tenements; while the wind and the rain and a whole heartless company of iconoclasts have it all their own way.

Once in the year, on San Carlos' Day, Mass is sung in the only habitable corner of the ruin; the Indians and the natives gather from all quarters, and light candles among the graves, and mourn and mourn and make a strange picture of the place; then they go their way, and the owl returns, and the weeds grow ranker, and every hour there is a straining among the weakened joists, and a creaking and a crumbling in many a nook and corner; and so the finest historical relic in the land is suffered to fall into decay. Or, perhaps I should say, that was the sorry state of Carmelo in my day. I am assured that every effort is now being made to restore and preserve beautiful Carmelo.

III.

She was a dear old stupid town in my day. She boasted but half a dozen thinly populated streets. One might pass through these streets almost any day, at almost any hour of the day, footing it all the way from the dismantled fort on the seaside to the ancient cemetery, grown to seed, at the other extremity of the settlement, and not meet half a score of people.

Geese fed in the gutters, and hissed as I passed by; cows grazing by the wayside eyed me in grave surprise; overhead, the snow-white sea-gulls wheeled and cried peevishly; and on the heights that shelter the ex-capital the pine-trees moaned and moaned, and often caught and held the sea-fog among their branches, when the little town was basking in the sunshine and dreaming its endless dream.