Part 29 (1/2)

[Ill.u.s.tration]

MONTEREY

CIUDAD DE AYER Y DE HOY

BY HAROLD BOLCE

To know the story of Monterey, one must go back for a moment to the southern coast of Europe. There, on an island a day's sail from the land that later cradled a prodigy destined to make dynasties his playthings, there was born, in 1713, a boy who by pacific conquests was to perform a part no less significant than Napoleon's in determining the history of nations.

While the infant Bonaparte was listening, perhaps impatiently, to Corsican lullabies, Junipero Serra, a mendicant friar from Majorca, discovered, or rediscovered, on the far sh.o.r.es of this continent the supposedly vanished harbor of Monterey, and thereby marked the genesis of the movement that was finally to give the American republic a western frontage on the sea.

[Ill.u.s.tration JUNiPERO SERRA, FOUNDER OF MONTEREY.]

But for this auspicious event and the stimulating effect on Spanish exploration it afterwards provoked, the great domain from San Diego to the Straits of Juan de Fuca would not to-day be rendering tribute to the Government at Was.h.i.+ngton. The western lines of the Louisiana Purchase would mark our farthermost frontier; the incredible h.o.a.rd of California's roaring camps would be minted into sovereigns, s.h.i.+llings, rubles, imperials, or francs; no Pacific Squadron would have carried our flag to the gates of the East; and we would to-day be a hemmed-in nation, disputing our land boundaries with encroaching colonies of Europe, instead of a world power projecting ca.n.a.ls to sever continents in the interest of our trade, and sailing our s.h.i.+ps east and west across the seven seas.

The average tourist, viewing the adobe ruins of the Monterey presidio and recalling the futile guns of that crumbled fortress, does not dream of the place Monterey filled in the march of international events. Nor will the guide enlighten him as he takes him over the seagirt drive to Carmel and the cliffs of Point Lobos, for that profane, though picturesque historian omits even to say that Robert Louis Stevenson furnished the plan for this famous highway.

Some gleams of Monterey's immortal past illumine the reverent traveller who climbs the stone steps of Junipero's Mission at Carmel. He knows, then, vaguely, that he is exploring the venerable tomb of one of the great men of the world. And the irreverent guide, if asked, will indicate indifferently the spot on the gospel side of the sanctuary where rest the bones of this prophet and builder of empire, but before the hurrying train-catcher has returned to the Golden Gate he has ceased to reflect upon the incalculable debt America owes to this mendicant seer and colonizer who, in the name of G.o.d, St. Francis, and the King, added half a continent to the Crown of Spain, and, building better than he knew, established the western foundations of the republic that was to rise above Spanish and Mexican decay.

[Ill.u.s.tration CARMEL MISSION (RESTORED).]

Monterey was an old name on the crude maps of the Mexican frontier.

Eighteen years before the _Mayflower_ landed at Plymouth Rock, Don Sebastian Vizcaino had rounded the pine-edged promontory that hides the harbor of Monterey, and, anchoring in the bay, went ash.o.r.e and with sacred rites named the port in honor of Count de Monterey, the reigning Viceroy.

For more than a century and a half the spot was not revisited save by savage hunters. Efforts to relocate the harbor were without success.

[Ill.u.s.tration TWILIGHT--MONTEREY BAY.]

Back of the concealing peninsula the bay of Monterey sweeps in a great crescent to Santa Cruz, thirty miles away, and to exploring navigators, shunning possible shoals, the coast presented a seemingly unbroken line. It came to be the scientific belief that some geologic upheaval had altered the contour of the coast. Mariners were mystified. Efforts to rediscover Monterey a.s.sumed the nature of crusades. No less a personage than Gaspar de Portala, with a retinue of sixty-five persons, set out overland from Loreto in 1769 to find the vanished harbor. Without identifying the haven he sought, he camped on its tree-rimmed beaches and erected a cross under the ancient oak in whose shade Vizcaino had partaken of the sacrament.

A year later came the seer and scholar Junipero. Long before, in his college in Majorca where he graced with distinction the chair of philosophy, he had read and treasured the description Vizcaino had given.

Now he recognized the surviving oak and the neighboring springs, and, turning, he saw unrolled before him the bay which, in its vastness, had to other eyes seemed only a part of the open sea.

Inspecting Portala's wooden cross, Junipero saw that at the base were votive offerings of birds, sh.e.l.ls, strings of fish newly caught, and in a beaver-skin quiver a cl.u.s.ter of arrows tipped with obsidian. Here were signs and portents which to Junipero were ever a source of inspiration. In after years he learned that the Eslenes, or Monterey Indians, had for ages handed down a tradition that some day a messiah would come to them; and that just before the advent of Junipero, the cross which Portala had reared seemed to rise in the sky at night until its splendor filled the heavens; and that then the tribes, believing their deliverer was at hand, came with gifts of food and trinkets to this unaccustomed altar and, in token of the peace they felt, tied a quiver of arrows to the cross.

[Ill.u.s.tration SAN CARLOS CHURCH.]

In the fertile valley of Carmel just over the pine-clad cordillera that conceals the bay, on a slope above the thundering surf, Junipero dedicated the Mission that was to be named San Carlos in honor of the King. Hanging his bells on a cypress branch, he chimed the tidings of the gospel he was to preach.

”Why sound this call?” protested his companions; ”there are no heathen here.”

”Would that these bells might be heard around the world!” replied Junipero.

Few events in Spanish history since the expulsion of the Moors three centuries before had occasioned the joy that greeted the news of the rediscovery of Monterey. In the Mexican capital cathedral bells pealed throughout the night, rockets flared in the sky, and guns in the forts kept up a cannonade. Later, in Madrid the rejoicing was even more tumultuous.

Royal salutes were added to the acclaim and the King declared a public holiday. A sandalled monk, seeking neither gain nor temporal glory, the leader of a handful of Franciscan pioneers, had restored a fabled harbor to the world.

The discovery of the bay of San Francisco, reported at the same time, was ignored as a trivial and miscellaneous item.

The celebration in honor of Junipero's discovery gave new impetus to his plans of Christian conquest, and Monterey was declared the capital of the colonial empire.

For a time it appeared that nothing more would be needed to stimulate Spain to hold the western coast of America against the world. But Castilian enthusiasm was short-lived. The mystery of Monterey having been cleared away and the event deliriously lauded, Spain lapsed into an indefinite programme concerning the Californian coast. Both Madrid and Mexico all but forgot Monterey and the activities of wandering friars who, radiating thence, were unconsciously preparing the way for a national destiny as glorious as Spain's, even at the height of her circ.u.mstance and pomp.