William Hepworth Dixon, White Conquest: Volume 1

[35] cypress sets you thinking of Seraglio Point, this cactus of the upper Nile, this prickly pear of Ramleh in the Sands. What artist would not like to sketch this mouldering wall and overhanging fruit? But while you make your sketch, the owner smokes and smirks, convinced that you admire his wall and fruit trees, not because they make a picture, but because they are his wall and fruit trees.

“A saintly and a regal city,” says Don Mariano with a flush of pride; “ San Carlos is our patron saint, Don Carlos is our founder king. A regal name is Monterey; rey de los montes-king of the mountains.”

Dons and caballeros sneer at San Francisco as an upstart city, built by nobody, not even by a viceroy, and peopled by the scum of New York, Sydney, and Hong-Kong. At Monterey they have a line of governors, and a second line of bishops, with the ruins of a castle and a gaudy Mexican church, as visible evidence of their temporal and spiritual sway. At Monterey, too, a gentleman has rights; not only those of a Spanish knight, but those of an Indian chief. He may be sharp of tongue and light of love. Nobody thinks of counting the number of his