; and in the
absence of the English _w_, the compositors on _The Californian_ doubled
the Spanish _v_. The journal was printed half in English and half in
Spanish, on cigarette paper about the size of a sheet of fools-cap.
Terms, $3 per year in advance; single copies, 12-1/2 cents each. Semple
was a man just suited to the newspaper office he occupied; he stood six
feet eight inches in moccasins, was dressed in buckskin, and wore a
foxskin cap.

The first jury of the alcaldean court was empanelled in September,
1846. Justice flourished for about three years. In 1849 Bayard Taylor
wrote: "Monterey has the appearance of a deserted town: few people in
the streets, business suspended," etc. Rumors of gold had excited the
cupidity of the inhabitants, and the capital was deserted; elsewhere was
metal more attractive. The town never recovered from that shock. It
gradually declined until few, save Bohemian artists and Italian and
Chinese fishermen, took note of it. The settlement was obsolete in my
day; the survivors seemed to have lost their memories and their interest
in everything. Thrice in my early pilgrimages I asked where the Presidio
had stood; on these occasions did the oldest inhabitant and his
immediate juniors vaguely point me to three several quarters of the
town. I believe in my heart that the pasture in front of the old
church--then sacred to three cows and a calf--was the cradle of
civilization in the far West.

[Illustration: San Carlos de Carmelo]

The original custom-house--there was no mistaking it, for it was founded
on a rock--overhung the sea, while the waves broke gently at its base,
and rows of sea-gulls sat solemnly on the skeletons of stranded whales
scattered along the beach. A Captain Lambert dwelt on the first floor of
the building; a goat fed in the large hall--it bore the complexion of a
stable--where once the fashionable element tripped the light fantastic
toe. In those days the first theatre in the State was opened with
brilliant success, and the now long-forgotten Binghams appeared in that
long-forgotten drama, "Putnam, or the Lion Son of '76." The
never-to-be-discourteously-mentioned years of our pioneers, '49 and '50,
"were memorable eras in the Thespian records of Monterey," says the
guide-book. They were indeed; for Lieutenant Derby, known to the
literary world as "John Phoenix" and "Squibob," was one of the leading
spirits of the stage. But the Thespian records came to an untimely end,