Everything was unchanged,
except that a stranded boat lay upon the sands, and in its stern sheets
a sleeping child.
I.
The 10th of August, 1852, brought little change to the dull monotony of
wind, fog, and treeless coast line. Only the sea was occasionally
flecked with racing sails that outstripped the old, slow-creeping
trader, or was at times streaked and blurred with the trailing smoke of
a steamer. There were a few strange footprints on those virgin sands,
and a fresh track, that led from the beach over the rounded hills,
dropped into the bosky recesses of a hidden valley beyond the coast
range.
It was here that the refectory windows of the Mission of San Carmel had
for years looked upon the reverse of that monotonous picture presented
to the sea. It was here that the trade winds, shorn of their fury and
strength in the heated, oven-like air that rose from the valley, lost
their weary way in the tangled recesses of the wooded slopes, and
breathed their last at the foot of the stone cross before the Mission.
It was on the crest of those slopes that the fog halted and walled in
the sun-illumined plain below; it was in this plain that limitless
fields of grain clothed the flat adobe soil; here the Mission garden
smiled over its hedges of fruitful vines, and through the leaves of fig
and gnarled pear trees; and it was here that Father Pedro had lived for
fifty years, found the prospect good, and had smiled also.
Pages:
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346