DAWN AND THE DONS 127
wealth and beauty of California in that wonderful time when every face wore a friendly smile, and no one looked beyond a joyous present, filled with a sense of leisure, of plenty, and of gladness. Here were seen the brilliancy and gold lace of the military; proud, smiling, aristocratic Sefiores, who bore the stamp of chivalrous
courage; coquettish, dark-eyed Senoritas, peeping from behind vine-draped windows at dashing cavaliers and their attendant vaqueros from the ranchos, as they galloped through the town; gray-frocked friars, who moved noiselessly over the trails, mission-ward;
and solemn-
faced Indian children, who added dusky splatches to the colorful picture. Many elements entered into the community life of Spanish Monterey. There was always a military force to be reckoned with, that made up in glitter what it lacked in numbers. Though rarely exceeding eighty men, including officers, its Commandante was always a person of vast importance. Presidial architecture displayed itself in quadrangular barracks, and in the walls of certain outlying defenses. The enclosed square, an area of about seventy-five hundred square feet, was situated a gun-shot from the water’s edge. One small cannon at each of the four corners, with the seven that guarded the bay, constituted the entire artillery defense. The special pride of the garrison was a gun mounted on the brow of the rise edging the beach. It is said that four hundred pounds of silver were molded into its massive frame, and the voice
