There they are, Santa Cruz and Santa Rosa; and there is
the beautiful point, Santa Buenaventura; and there lies Santa
Barbara on its plain, with its amphitheatre of high hills and
distant mountains. There is the old white Mission with its
belfries, and there the town, with its one-story adobe houses,
with here and there a two-story wooden house of later build; yet
little is it altered,-- the same repose in the golden sunlight and
glorious climate, sheltered by its hills; and then, more remindful
than anything else, there roars and tumbles upon the beach the
same grand surf of the great Pacific as on the beautiful day when
the Pilgrim, after her five months' voyage, dropped her weary
anchors here; the same bright blue ocean, and the surf making just
the same monotonous, melancholy roar, and the same dreamy town,
and gleaming white Mission, as when we beached our boats for the
first time, riding over the breakers with shouting Kanakas, the
three small hide-traders lying at anchor in the offing. But now we
are the only vessel, and that an unromantic, sail-less, spar-less,
engine-driven hulk!
I landed in the surf, in the old style, but it was not high enough
to excite us, the only change being that I was somehow
unaccountably a passenger, and did not have to jump overboard and
steady the boat, and run her up by the gunwales.
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