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.
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