If California ever becomes a prosperous country,
this bay will be the centre of its prosperity. The abundance of
wood and water; the extreme fertility of its shores; the
excellence of its climate, which is as near to being perfect as
any in the world; and its facilities for navigation, affording the
best anchoring-grounds in the whole western coast of America,--
all fit it for a place of great importance.
The tide leaving us, we came to anchor near the mouth of the bay,
under a high and beautifully sloping hill, upon which herds of
hundreds and hundreds of red deer, and the stag, with his high
branching antlers, were bounding about, looking at us for a
moment, and then starting off, affrighted at the noises which we
made for the purpose of seeing the variety of their beautiful
attitudes and motions.
At midnight, the tide having turned, we hove up our anchor and
stood out of the bay, with a fine starry heaven above us,-- the
first we had seen for many weeks. Before the light northerly
winds, which blow here with the regularity of trades, we worked
slowly along, and made Point Ano Nuevo, the northerly point of the
Bay of Monterey, on Monday afternoon. We spoke, going in, the brig
Diana, of the Sandwich Islands, from the Northwest Coast, last
from Sitka.
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