There was nothing to disturb one in the land, after the musical mania, save the clang of the combers on the long, lonely beach; the cry of the sea-bird wheeling overhead, or the occasional bang of a rifle.  Even the narrow-gauge railway, that stopped discreetly just before reaching the village, broke the monotony of local life but twice in the twenty-four hours.  The whistle of the arriving and departing train, the signal of the occasional steamer—­ah! but for these, what a sweet, sad, silent spot were that!  I used to believe that possibly some day the unbroken stillness of the wilderness might again envelop it.  The policy of the people invited it.  Anything like energy or progress was discouraged in that latitude.  When it was discovered that the daily mail per Narrow Gauge was arriving regularly and usually on time, it began to look like indecent haste on the part of the governmental agents.  The beauty and the chivalry that congregated at the post-office seemed to find too speedy satisfaction at the general delivery window; and presently the mail-bag for Monterey was dropped at another village, and later carted twenty miles into town.  The happy uncertainty of the mail’s arrival caused the post-office to become a kind of forum, where all the grievances of the populace were turned loose and generally discussed.

Then it seemed possible that the Narrow Gauge might be frowned down altogether, and the locomotive warned to cease trespassing upon the green pastures of the ex-capital.  It even seemed possible that in course of time all aliens might require a passport and a recommendation from their last place before being permitted to enter in and enjoy the society of the authorities brooding over that slumberous village.

I have seen as many as six men and a boy standing upon one of the half-dozen street corners of the town, watching, with a surprise that bordered upon impertinence, a white pilgrim from San Francisco in an ulster, innocently taking his way through the otherwise deserted streets.  The ulster was perhaps the chief object of interest.  I have seen three or four citizens sitting in a row, on a fence, like so many rooks,—­and sitting there for hours, as if waiting for something.  For what, pray?  For the demented squaw, who revolved about the place, and slept out of doors in all weathers, and muttered to herself incessantly while she went to and fro, day after day, seeking the rest she could not hope for this side the grave?  Or for Murillo, the Indian, impudent though harmless, full of fancies and fire-water?  Or for the return of the whale-boats, with their beautiful lateen-sails?  Or for the gathering of the Neapolitan fishermen down under the old Custom House, where they sat at evening looking off upon the Bay, and perchance dreaming of Italy and all that enchanted coast?  Or for the rains that poured their sudden and swift rivulets down the wooded slopes and filled the gorges that gutted some of the streets?  Was it the love of nature, or a belief in fatalism, or sheer laziness, I wonder, that preserved to Monterey those washouts, from two to five feet in depth, that were sometimes in the very middle of the streets, and impassable save by an improvised bridge—­a single plank?