ABSTRACT
The Bay of Monterey has been compared by no less a person than General Sher-man to a bent fishing-hook; and the comparison, if less important than the march through Georgia, still shows the eye of a soldier for topography. In shore, a tract of sand-hills borders on the beach. Here and there a lagoon, more or less brackish, attracts the birds and hunters. The woods and the Pacific rule between them the climate of this seaboard region. To visit the woods while they are languidly burning, is a strange piece of experience. The history of Monterey has yet to be written. There was no activity but in and around the saloons, where people sat almost all day long playing cards. The town, then, was essentially and wholly Mexican; and yet almost all the land in the neighbourhood was held by Americans, and it was from the same class, numerically so small, that the principal officials were selected.
