greeted every morning by the same bright smile.
It is not a smile that flits over the countenance, and passes
away like a flake of moonlight over a marble tablet. It is the steady sunshine of the soul within. Generous, forbearing people of Monterey! There is more true hospitality in one throb of your heart than circulates for years through the courts of capitols and kings!” The kindness and charity of these people are thus pictured in an entry of December 7, 1847:
“Their hospital-
ity knows no bounds. They are always glad to see you, come when you may; take a pleasure in entertaining you while you remain; and only regret that your business calls you away. If you are sick, there is nothing that sympathy and care can devise or perform which is not done for you. . . No sister ever hung over the throbbing brain or fluttering pulse of a brother with more tenderness and fidelity. This is as true of the lady whose hand has only figured her embroidery or swept her guitar, as of the cottage girl wringing from her laundry the foam of the mountain stream; and all from the heart. If I must be cast in sickness or destitution on the care of the stranger, let it be in California.”
It should not be forgotten that these diary were written of people whose at war with the country of which the ficial representative. It is difficult
entries in Colton’s country was then writer was an offor the twentieth
century American to get a clear vision of a people and a time so diametric to the feverish and selfish hurry of today. The kind, happy and hospitable people that Com-
