As We Swept
Round It In The Early Morning, There, Before Us, Lay The Little
Harbor Of San Diego, Its
Low spit of sand, where the water runs
so deep; the opposite flats, where the Alert grounded in starting
for
Home; the low hills, without trees, and almost without brush;
the quiet little beach; - but the chief objects, the hide houses,
my eye looked for in vain. They were gone, all, and left no mark
behind.
I wished to be alone, so I let the other passengers go up to the
town, and was quietly pulled ashore in a boat, and left to myself.
The recollections and the emotions all were sad, and only sad.
Fugit, interea fugit irreparabile tempus.
The past was real. The present, all about me, was unreal,
unnatural, repellant. I saw the big ships lying in the stream,
the Alert, the California, the Rosa, with her Italians; then the
handsome Ayacucho, my favorite; the poor, dear old Pilgrim, the
home of hardship and hopelessness; the boats passing to and fro;
the cries of the sailors at the capstan or falls; the peopled
beach; the large hide-houses with their gangs of men; and the
Kanakas interspersed everywhere. All, all were gone! not a
vestige to mark where one hide-house stood. The oven, too,
was gone. I searched for its site, and found, where I thought
it should be, a few broken bricks and bits of mortar. I alone
was left of all, and how strangely was I here! What changes to
me! Where were they all? Why should I care for them, - poor
Kanakas and sailors, the refuse of civilization, the outlaws
and beach-combers of the Pacific! Time and death seemed to
transfigure them. Doubtless nearly all were dead; but how had
they died, and where? In hospitals, in fever-climes, in dens
of vice, or falling from the mast, or dropping exhausted from
the wreck, -
"When for a moment, like a drop of rain,
He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan,
Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown."
The light-hearted boys are now hardened middle-aged men, if the
seas, rocks, fevers, and the deadlier enemies that beset a sailor's
life on shore have spared them; and the then strong men have bowed
themselves, and the earth or sea has covered them.
Even the animals are gone, - the colony of dogs, the broods of
poultry, the useful horses; but the coyotes bark still in the
woods, for they belong not to man, and are not touched by his
changes.
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. The buildings are unused and
ruinous, and the large gardens show now only wild cactuses, willows,
and a few olive-trees. A fast run brings me back in time to take
leave of the few I knew and who knew me, and to reach the steamer
before she sails.
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