The
Catholics on shore have no trading and make no journeys on Sunday, but
the American has no national religion, and likes to show his
independence of priestcraft by doing as he chooses on the Lord's day.
Santa Barbara looked very much as it did when I left it five
months before: the long sand beach, with the heavy rollers, breaking
upon it in a continual roar, and the little town, imbedded on the
plain, girt by its amphitheatre of mountains. Day after day, the sun
shone clear and bright upon the wide bay and the red roofs of the
houses; everything being as still as death, the people really hardly
seeming to earn their sun-light. Daylight actually seemed thrown
away upon them. We had a few visitors, and collected about a hundred
hides, and every night, at sundown, the gig was sent ashore, to wait
for the captain, who spent his evenings in the town. We always took
our monkey-jackets with us, and flint and steel, and made a fire on
the beach with the driftwood and the bushes we pulled from the
neighboring thickets, and lay down by it, on the sand. Sometimes we
would stray up to the town, if the captain was likely to stay late,
and pass the time at some of the houses, in which we were almost
always well received by the inhabitants.
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