He Spoke English Very Well, And Was Suspected
Of Being Favorably Inclined To Foreigners.
We sailed down this magnificent bay with a light wind, the tide,
which was running out, carrying us at the rate of four or five
knots.
It was a fine day; the first of entire sunshine we had
had for more than a month. We passed directly under the high
cliff on which the Presidio is built, and stood into the middle
of the bay, from whence we could see small bays, making up into
the interior, on every side; large and beautifully-wooded islands;
and the mouths of several small rivers. If California ever becomes
a prosperous country, this bay will be the centre of its prosperity.
The abundance of wood and water, the extreme fertility of its shores,
the excellence of its climate, which is as near to being perfect as
any in the world, and its facilities for navigation, affording the
best anchoring-grounds in the whole western coast of America,
all fit it for a place of great importance; and, indeed, it has
attracted much attention, for the settlement of "Yerba Buena,"
where we lay at anchor, made chiefly by Americans and English,
and which bids fair to become the most important trading place on
the coast, at this time began to supply traders, Russian ships,
and whalers, with their stores of wheat and frijoles.
The tide leaving us, we came to anchor near the mouth of the bay,
under a high and beautifully sloping hill, upon which herds of
hundreds and hundreds of red deer, and the stag, with his high
branching antlers, were bounding about, looking at us for a moment,
and then starting off, affrighted at the noises which we made for
the purpose of seeing the variety of their beautiful attitudes
and motions.
At midnight, the tide having turned, we hove up our anchor and
stood out of the bay, with a fine starry heaven above us, - the
first we had seen for weeks and weeks. Before the light northerly
winds, which blow here with the regularity of trades, we worked
slowly along, and made Point Año Nuevo, the northerly point of
the Bay of Monterey, on Monday afternoon. We spoke, going in,
the brig Diana, of the Sandwich Islands, from the North-west Coast,
last from Asitka. She was off the point at the same time with us,
but did not get in to the anchoring-ground until an hour or two
after us. It was ten o'clock on Tuesday morning when we came
to anchor. The town looked just as it did when I saw it last,
which was eleven months before, in the brig Pilgrim. The pretty
lawn on which it stands, as green as sun and rain could make it;
the pine wood on the south; the small river on the north side;
the houses, with their white plastered sides and red-tiled roofs,
dotted about on the green; the low, white presidio, with its soiled,
tri-colored flag flying, and the discordant din of drums and trumpets
for the noon parade; all brought up the scene we had witnessed here
with so much pleasure nearly a year before, when coming from a
long voyage, and our unprepossessing reception at Santa Barbara.
It seemed almost like coming to a home.
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