Two of these windows opened upon a sandy street, beyond which was a tangled garden of cacti and hollyhock and sunflowers, with a great wall about it; but I could look over the wall and enjoy the privacy of that sweet haunt.  In that cloistered garden grew the obese roses of the far West, that fairly burst upon their stem.  Often did I exclaim:  “O, for a delicate blossom, whose exquisite breath savors not of the mold, and whose sensitive petals are wafted down the invisible currents of the wind like a fairy flotilla!” Beyond that garden, beyond the roofs of this town, stretched the yellow sand-dunes; and in the distance towered the mountains, painted with changeful lights.  My other window looked down the long, lonesome street to the blue Bay and the faint outline of the coast range beyond it.

Here I began to live; here I heard the harp-like tinkle of the first piano brought to the California coast; here also the guitar was touched skillfully by her grace the august lady of the house, who scorned the English tongue—­the more eloquent and rhythmical Spanish prevailed under her roof.  One of the members of the household was proud to recount the history of the once brilliant capital of the State, and I listened by the hour to a narrative that now reads to me like a fable.

In the year of Our Lord 1602, when Don Sebastian Viscaino—­dispatched by the Viceroy of Mexico, acting under instructions from Philip III. of Spain—­touched these shores, Mass was celebrated, the country taken possession of in the name of the Spanish King, and the spot christened Monterey in honor of Gaspar de Zuniga, Count of Monterey, Viceroy of Mexico.  In eighteen days Viscaino again set sail, and the silence of the forest and the sea fell upon that lonely shore.  That silence was unbroken by the voice of the stranger for one hundred and sixty-six years.  Then Gaspar de Portola, Governor of Lower California, re-discovered Monterey, erected a cross upon the shore, and went his way.

In May, 1770, the final settlement took place.  The packet San Antonio, commanded by Don Juan Perez, came to anchor in the port, “which”—­wrote the leader of the expedition to Padre Francisco Palou—­“is unadulterated in any degree from what it was when visited by the expedition of Don Sebastian Viscaino in 1602.  After this”—­the celebration of the Mass, the Salve to Our Lady, and a Te Deum,—­“the officers took possession of the country in the name of the King (Charles III.) our lord, whom God preserve.  We all dined together in a shady place on the beach; the whole ceremony being accompanied by many volleys and salutes by the troops and vessels.”

When the San Antonio returned to Mexico, it left at Monterey Padre Junipero Serra and five other priests, Lieutenant Pedro Fages and thirty soldiers.  The settlement was at once made capital of Alta California, and Portola appointed the first governor.  The Presidio (an enclosure about three hundred yards square, containing a chapel, store-houses, offices, residences, and a barracks) was the nucleus of the city; but the mission was soon removed to a beautiful valley about six miles distant, where there was more room, better shelter from the cold west winds, and an unrivalled prospect.  The valley is now known as Carmelo.