I Walked Slowly Up The Hill, Finding My Way Among The Few Bushes,
For The Path Was Long Grown Over, And Sat Down Where We Used To
Rest In Carrying Our Burdens Of Wood, And To Look Out For Vessels
That Might, Though So Seldom, Be Coming Down From The Windward.
To rally myself by calling to mind my own better fortune and nobler
lot, and cherished surroundings at home, was impossible.
Borne down
by depression, the day being yet at its noon, and the sun over the
old point - it is four miles to the town, the Presidio, - I have walked
it often, and can do it once more, - I passed the familiar objects,
and it seemed to me that I remembered them better than those of any
other place I had ever been in; - the opening to the little cave;
the low hills where we cut wood and killed rattlesnakes, and where
our dogs chased the coyotes; and the black ground where so many
of the ship's crew and beach-combers used to bring up on their
return at the end of a liberty day, and spend the night sub Jove.
The little town of San Diego has undergone no change whatever that
I can see. It certainly has not grown. It is still, like Santa
Barbara, a Mexican town. The four principal houses of the gente
de razon - of the Bandinis, Estudillos, Argüellos, and Picos - are
the chief houses now; but all the gentlemen - and their families,
too, I believe - are gone. The big vulgar shop-keeper and trader,
Fitch, is long since dead; Tom Wrightington, who kept the rival
pulpería, fell from his horse when drunk, and was found nearly
eaten up by coyotes; and I can scarce find a person whom I remember.
I went into a familiar one-story adobe house, with its piazza and
earthen floor, inhabited by a respectable lower-class family by
the name of Muchado, and inquired if any of the family remained,
when a bright-eyed middle-aged woman recognized me, for she had
heard I was on board the steamer, and told me she had married a
shipmate of mine, Jack Stewart, who went out as second mate the next
voyage, but left the ship and married and settled here. She said he
wished very much to see me. In a few minutes he came in, and his
sincere pleasure in meeting me was extremely grateful. We talked
over old times as long as I could afford to. I was glad to hear
that he was sober and doing well. Doña Tomasa Pico I found and
talked with. She was the only person of the old upper class that
remained on the spot, if I rightly recollect. I found an American
family here, with whom I dined, - Doyle and his wife, nice young
people, Doyle agent for the great line of coaches to run to the
frontier of the old States.
I must complete my acts of pious remembrance, so I take a horse
and make a run out to the old Mission, where Ben Stimson and I
went the first liberty day we had after we left Boston (ante,
p. 115). All has gone to decay.
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