It
is to give a constitution and laws to the embryo State.
Hardy men from the West and South are taking up lands. Cool traders
are buying great tracts. Temporary officials have eager eyes fixed
on the Mexican grants. At all the landings and along the new roads,
once trails, little settlements are springing up, for your unlucky
argonaut turns to the nearest avocation; inns, stables, lodging-houses
and trading-tents are waited on by men of every calling and
profession. Each wanderer turns to the easiest way of amassing
wealth. The settlers must devise all their own institutions. The
Mexicans idly wrap their serapes around them, and they avoid all
contact with the hated foreigner. Beyond watching their flocks and
herds, they take no part in the energetic development. Cigarito in
mouth, card playing or watching the sports of the mounted cavaliers
are their occupations. Dismounted in future years, these queer
equestrian natures have never learned to fight the battle of life
on foot. The law of absorption has taken their sad, swarthy visages
out of the social arena.
The cavalcade of Southerners sweeps over the alamedas. They dash
across the Salinas and up to wooded Monterey. There the first
constitutional convention assembles.
Pages:
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129