ld be pleasant to
portray the romantic life of those pastoral days. Arcadian conditions
were then more nearly attained than perhaps at any other time in the
world's history. The picturesque, easy, idle, pleasant, fiery,
aristocratic life has been elsewhere so well depicted that it has taken
on the quality of rosy legend. Nobody did any more work than it pleased
him to do; everybody was well-fed and happy; the women were beautiful
and chaste; the men were bold, fiery, spirited, gracefully idle; life
was a succession of picturesque merrymakings, lovemakings, intrigues,
visits, lavish hospitalities, harmless politics, and revolutions. To be
sure, there were but few signs of progressive spirit. People traveled on
horseback because roads did not exist. They wore silks and diamonds,
lace and satin, but their houses were crude, and conveniences were
simple or entirely lacking. Their very vehicles, with wooden axles and
wheels made of the cross-section of a tree, were such as an East African
savage would be ashamed of. But who cared? And since no one wished
improvements, why worry about them?

Certainly, judged by the standards of a truly progressive race, the
Spanish occupation had many shortcomings. Agriculture was so little
known that at times the country nearly starved. Contemporary travelers
mention this fact with wonder. "There is," says Ryan, "very little land
under cultivation in the vicinity of Monterey. That which strikes the
foreigner most is the utter neglect in which the soil is left and the
indifference with which the most charming sites are regarded. In the
hands of the English and Americans, Monterey would be a beautiful town
adorned with gardens and orchards and surrounded with picturesque walks
and drives. The natives are, unfortunately, too ignorant to appreciate
and too indolent even to attempt such improvement." And Captain Charles
Wilkes asserts that "notwithstanding the immense number of domestic
animals in the country, the Californians were too lazy to make butter or
cheese, and even milk was rare. If there was a little good soap and
leather occasionally found, the people were too indolent to make them in
any quantity. The earth was simply scratched a few inches by a mean and
ill-contrived plow. When the ground had been turned up by repeated
scratching, it was hoed down and the clods broken by dragging over it
huge branches of trees. Threshing was performed by spreading the cut
grain on a spot of hard gr