Among The Songs I Recognized The Favorite
"O Pescator Dell' Onda." It Brought Back To My Mind Pianofortes,
Drawing-Rooms,
Young ladies singing, and a thousand other things
which as little befitted me, in my situation, to be thinking upon.
Supposing that the whole day would be too long a time to spend
ashore, as there was no place to which we could take a ride,
we remained quietly on board until after dinner. We were then
pulled ashore in the stern of the boat, and, with orders to be on
the beach at sundown, we took our way for the town. There,
everything wore the appearance of a holyday. The people were
all dressed in their best; the men riding about on horseback among
the houses, and the women sitting on carpets before the doors.
Under the piazza of a "pulperia," two men were seated, decked out
with knots of ribbons and bouquets, and playing the violin and
the Spanish guitar. These are the only instruments, with the
exception of the drums and trumpets at Monterey that I ever heard in
California; and I suspect they play upon no others, for at a great
fandango at which I was afterwards present, and where they mustered
all the music they could find, there were three violins and two
guitars, and no other instrument. As it was now too near the middle
of the day to see any dancing and hearing that a bull was expected
down from the country, to be baited in the presidio square, in the
course of an hour or two we took a stroll among the houses.
Inquiring for an American who, we had been told, had married in the
place, and kept a shop, we were directed to a long, low building,
at the end of which was a door, with a sign over it, in Spanish.
Entering the shop, we found no one in it, and the whole had an
empty, deserted appearance.
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