approach.

A few days succeeding our arrival, the ships were busily employed
watering. In the southern arm of the bay is a small cove, partially
sheltered from heavy surf by a jutting reef of rocks, where, during the
rainy season, is the mouth of a mountain-torrent; then, the stream was
not visible, but on digging a little way below the sandy bed, pure
delightful water bubbled up, filtered through miles of coarse gravel.
The large boats anchored a few yards from the strand, and the men amused
themselves by swimming the casks off when filled. Nearly the whole
population of the Mission assembled there at daylight, offering fruit,
vegetables, and other articles for traffic. Lots of girls and women were
there, all far better dressed, and more comely than those we had been
gazing upon so long in Upper California. I devoted my time to an old
lady and two daughters, who had pitched a tent near by, and opened a
shop for the sale of milk and eggs. Of the two damsels my adoration was
the younger--Eugenia--a charming little brunette, who shared my dinner,
and, by way of a frolic, cunningly squeezed lime-juice in my month when
asleep. This style of existence quite enchanted us; and what with
sucking oranges, dozing in the welcome shade, and bathing half the time
in the water,--we fancied it somewhat resembled the pleasant life in the
South Sea Islands.

One of the roads, from the watering ravine to San Jose, had much the
appearance of an alley through a flower-garden: the foliage blazing in
bloom, with a plentiful display of blossoming aloes and cactus, shooting
up into the air like Grecian columns; many of the latter twenty inches
in diameter. The town stands in a pretty valley, with red, sterile
mountains toppling around it. One broad street courses between two rows
of cane and mud-built dwellings, thatched with straw, having shady
verandahs in front, constructed of frameworks of canes and leaves,
answering very well to screen the burning rays of the sun, which sheds
light and heat, with the force of a compound blow-pipe. At the upper end
of the avenue, standing on a slight, though abrupt, elevation from the
valley behind, was the _cuartel_, a small building, which at a later
period was the scene of a gallant stand and siege, where a mere handful
of our sailors and marines bravely repulsed twenty times their number of
Mexicans.

Within sight of the village is a shallow, rapid brook, which serves to
irrigate many well-tilled p