Passing Round Point Conception, And Steering Easterly, We Opened
The Islands That Form, With The Main-Land, The Canal Of Santa
Barbara.
There they are, Santa Cruz and Santa Rosa; and there is the
beautiful point, Santa Buenaventura; and there lies Santa Barbara
on its plain, with its amphitheatre of high hills and distant
mountains.
There is the old white Mission with its belfries,
and there the town, with its one-story adobe houses, with here
and there a two-story wooden house of later build; yet little is
it altered, - the same repose in the golden sunlight and glorious
climate, sheltered by its hills; and then, more remindful than
anything else, there roars and tumbles upon the beach the same
grand surf of the great Pacific as on the beautiful day when
the Pilgrim, after her five months' voyage, dropped her weary
anchors here; the same bright blue ocean, and the surf making
just the same monotonous, melancholy roar, and the same dreamy
town, and gleaming white Mission, as when we beached our boats
for the first time, riding over the breakers with shouting Kanakas,
the three small hide-traders lying at anchor in the offing. But now
we are the only vessel, and that an unromantic, sail-less, spar-less,
engine-driven hulk!
I landed in the surf, in the old style, but it was not high enough
to excite us, the only change being that I was somehow unaccountably
a passenger, and did not have to jump overboard and steady the boat,
and run her up by the gunwales.
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