Walter Colton

“ For this, a California horse will leave the best bin of oats that ever waved in the harvest-moon. The first copious shower, which usually occurs in November, destroys it, but around its ruins another grass springs, to throw its green velvet, inwrought with millions of flowers, on the charmed eye. It is no wonder the birds here sing through the year, and forego those migrations to which they are subjected in other climes. The lay of the robin, the whistle of the quail, and the tender notes of the curlew, are always piping in the grove, or filling with melody the garden-tree. ”

“ We have a stiff wind to-day from the southeast, and we are running, close hauled, under reefed topsails. The sea is high, and every now and then a huge wave throws its curling crest through some half-closed port, as a wolf pounces into a sheep-fold, or as the arch adversary o’erleaped the green wall of Eden. Though we are any thing but Eden, with its beauty and its bliss: our first parent would have had but little cause of regret, if, in resigning Eden, he had relinquished only the habitudes of a sea-life. ”

“ It is near ten o’clock of the day before the rays of the sun strike its depths; but when they do reach you, it is with a power that drives you at once into the shade. It is twilight in the glen, while the cliffs above still blaze in the radiance of the descending orb. As darkness comes on, the camp-fires of the diggers, kindled along the ravine, throw their light into every recess, where forms are seen, gathered in groups, or glancing about, while every now and then some merry tale or apt joke explodes in a roar of laughter. ”

“ The sunset clouds on which we had gazed, the towering crags where morn first broke, and the brilliant constellations which faith had peopled with the spirits of the pure and meek, all went down in dying pomp over the dim horizon. What now to us Niagara’s thunder, or the rush of the Alpine avalanche! Even the polar star, that has poured its steady light for ages on the ruins of pyramids, the wrecks of temples, and the graves of empires, has left its watch-tower in darkness,—all are lost in the shoreless ocean of night. ”

“ They are the miner’s home—his winter quarters—his metropolis, to which he goes for society, recreation, repose, frolic, and fun. Through the livelong night the rafters ring with resounding mirth, while the storm unheeded raves without. Of all the sites for a hamlet which I have met with in the mining region, I should prefer the one at the head of a ravine near the sources of the Stanislaus. It is a natural amphitheatre, throwing on the eye its sweeping wall of wild cliffs and waving shade. From the green bosom of its arena swells a slight elevation, covered with beautiful evergreen trees. ”

“ It is a great comfort to me to find among the crew here and there one of earnest piety. His example flashes out like a star from a sky of cloud and storm. God grant these lights may be multiplied till our whole horizon shall be lit with their steady splendors.
Mrs. Ten Eyke, the wife of our consul on board, whose health has been for some time delicate, is gradually sinking. How cold the grave to one so young, to whom the earth seems so fair, and life so full of joyous pulses! O death! to thy unbreathing realm glide silently away the beautiful and the beloved. ”

“ The circle of engaging objects in a community, just emerging into the refinements of civilization, is never broad; but every phase in the great change going on possesses an intense individuality, and leaves its ineffaceable impression, like a ship sweeping a solitary sea, or a bird scaling a sunset cloud. California will be no more what she has been: the events of a few years have carried her through the progressive changes of a century. ”

“ We have the wind directly aft. Our fore studding-sails are out like the wings of a bird on the breast of a gale. We have run within the last two days four hundred and forty miles. This is good sailing considering we have six months’ provision on board, and lie consequently too deep for the greatest speed. The air is balmy, and the songs of our sailors, at sunset, rose exultingly into its blue depths. A sailor always sings with heart. His music rolls out like a dashing stream from its mountain source. It is never gay; it always has a deep vein of melancholy. ”

“ Shall these permanent shapes, into which society is to be cast, take their plastic features from the impress of blind accident and skeptical apathy, or the moulding hand of religion? These primal forms must remain and wear for ages the traces of their deformity or beauty, their guilty insignificance or moral grandeur. Through them circulates your own life-blood; in them is bound up the hopes of an empire. Not only the destiny of California is suspended on the issue, but the fate of all the republics which cheer the shores of the Pacific. ”

“ The architecture of man here is so inferior to that of nature, it ought to make an apology whenever it shows itself. It is like the tent of an Arab throwing up its dirty cone beneath the magnificent umbrage of the palm. It is said the genius of a people is in harmony with the scenery in the midst of which they have been reared; but here is scenery that might almost throw sunbows over the dreams of the dead, and architecture sombre enough to send even a Quaker to sleep. Such is the aspect of the city as seen from our frigate, swinging at her anchors in front of the imperial palace. ”

“ I can now comprehend why it is the hunter clings to his wild life, and prefers the precarious subsistence of his rifle to teeming stalls. He lives out of himself; his sympathies are with nature; his sensations roll through boundless space. It is for his eye the violet blooms, and the early cloud catches the blush of morn; it is for his ear the bird sings from its green covert, and the torrent shouts from its cliff; it is to cheer his footsteps that the twilight lingers, and the star blazes in the coronet of night: all the changes of the varied year are for him ”

“ It is now blowing a gale, and we have all sails furled except our close-reefed main-top and storm try-sails. The sea is running high, and the huge combers, shaking the foam from their crests, are rushing down upon us like a host of cavalry frothing at the bit. The sun is sinking in cold dim light, and seems to abandon the ocean to the lashing tempest.
Such is the life of the sailor: one hour is full of sunshine, the next of storms. He lives between hope and disappointment: they alternate through his whole existence. ”

“ There the juice of the native grape, and the cool wave of the gushing rock, sparkle in the flowing goblet. These were discussed, and the festive board was relinquished to the children, who were too full of glee to note if aught more than the fruit and confectionery remained. The ripe berry sought in vain to add color to their lips, or rival the bloom which lent its rosy hue to the round cheek. Golden locks floated around eyes which sparkled with light and love, and the accents of gladness rung out in joyous peals, like the song of birds when the storm-cloud has passed. ”

“ At Rio we were melted down with the heat; off Cape Horn our fingers were stiffened with the cold; and now the most grateful gift in the world would be a glass of ice-water. Such extremes of temperature are the more felt in the exposures inseparable from a sea-life. We have on board ship no forests into which we can rush from the heat; no glowing grates, around which we can gather from the cold. We must take the elements, whatever they may be, in their full force. They shatter the constitution; and sink a grave in the sailor’s path, over which he rarely passes to a green old age. ”

“ When night invests the heaven, when the soft pleiads in their storm-rocked cradle sleep, and the sentinel stars on their watch-towers wane dim, her vigil flame still pours its faithful beam, still struggles with the encroaching darkness till the day-spring and the shadows flee away. Of all these sources of solace and hope multitudes in California are now bereft; but the ties of kindred, the quick-winged ship, and the steed of flame, on his iron-paved track, will soon secure them these priceless gifts. ”

“ How dependent is a ship on the elements! Let the winds refuse to visit us, and this noble frigate would never move from her present position; she would rot down piece-meal where she is now lying, with the bleaching bones of five hundred men on her decks. But the winds are at the bidding of Him whose pavilion is in the clouds, and whose mandates are nature’s resistless law. May we ever live in humble submission to His will, and rejoice that He reigns; feeling fully assured that His measures are dictated by infinite wisdom, and by an unerring regard to the happiness of His creatures. ”

“ No treasured ship at sea was ever environed by deeper perils; storms lower in thick darkness above, and breakers thunder below, and no pharos throws its friendly ray from the shrouded cliff. The only light they have to guide them is in their own tempest-tost bark, and the lamp in the binnacle is dim. The merchant who should send his ship to sea without compass or rudder, would not be more frantic and foolish than the parent who sends his son out upon the world without any religion in his soul. These youths in these glens are to shape the destinies of California ”

“ Our standing rigging has been tarred; our masts, yards, booms, and hull have received a fresh coat of paint. Our guns are beginning to throw back the sun-light from their polished surface. You would hardly suspect such volleyed thunder could sleep in their recesses. Our cutlasses have been furbished, our boarding-pikes sharpened, and our carbines made true to their trust. We bear the olive-branch and the sword.
Our albatrosses have left us. They followed us to the verge of the summer’s clime, and then, wheeling on their bold, arching wings, sped back to their wintry domain. ”

“ The Independence and Lexington are brilliantly dressed; the flags of all nations stream over them in a gorgeous arch. A salute of twenty-eight guns from the Independence has expressed the homage of each state to the occasion. Even here, and among the native population, Washington is known, and his virtues are revered. People speak of him as a being exempted from the weaknesses of our nature—as one commissioned of Heaven for a great and glorious purpose, and endowed with the amazing powers requisite for its accomplishment. It is the character of Washington that will never die. ”