ht thicket of vines, under a dome of
cottonwood-trees, drowsy and murmurous as a hive. Hereabouts are some
strips of tillage and the headgates that dam up the creek for the
village weirs; upstream you catch the growl of the arrastra. Wild vines
that begin among the willows lap over to the orchard rows, take the
trellis and roof-tree.

There is another town above Las Uvas that merits some attention, a town
of arches and airy crofts, full of linnets, blackbirds, fruit birds,
small sharp hawks, and mockingbirds that sing by night. They pour out
piercing, unendurably sweet cavatinas above the fragrance of bloom and
musky smell of fruit. Singing is in fact the business of the night
at Las Uvas as sleeping is for midday. When the moon comes over the
mountain wall new-washed from the sea, and the shadows lie like lace
on the stamped floors of the patios, from recess to recess of the vine
tangle runs the thrum of guitars and the voice of singing.

At Las Uvas they keep up all the good customs brought out of Old Mexico
or bred in a lotus-eating land; drink, and are merry and look out for
something to eat afterward; have children, nine or ten to a family, have
cock-fights, keep the siesta, smoke cigarettes and wait for the sun
to go down. And always they dance; at dusk on the smooth adobe floors,
afternoons under the trellises where the earth is damp and has a fruity
smell. A betrothal, a wedding, or a christening, or the mere proximity
of a guitar is sufficient occasion; and if the occasion lacks, send for
the guitar and dance anyway.

All this requires explanation. Antonio Sevadra, drifting this way from
Old Mexico with the flood that poured into the Tappan district after the
first notable strike, discovered La Golondrina. It was a generous lode
and Tony a good fellow; to work it he brought in all the Sevadras, even
to the twice-removed; all the Castros who were his wife's family,
all the Saises, Romeros, and Eschobars,--the relations of his
relations-in-law. There you have the beginning of a pretty considerable
town. To these accrued much of the Spanish California float swept out
of the southwest by eastern enterprise. They slacked away again when the
price of silver went down, and the ore dwindled in La Golondrina. All
the hot eddy of mining life swept away from that corner of the hills,
but there were always those too idle, too poor to move, or too easily
content with El Pueblo de Las Uvas.

Nobody comes nowadays to the