Page:Mexico, California and Arizona - 1900.djvu/448

 428 anywhere. Above eighty years of age, with stocky figure, square head, and bright eyes, contrasting with his bronzed skin and close-cropped white hair and beard, he has a certain resemblance to Victor Hugo. He has a rather florid taste for jewelry. He carries himself about town, in his short overcoat with velvet collar and cuffs, with a bearing still erect and stately. It is strange to tell, but true, and



it is evidence of the conservatism and lack of adaptability of his race, that the old gentleman, though once Governor of the State, and a continuous resident of it, as an American citizen, since he surrendered it to Fremont and Stockton in 1847, does not yet speak a word of any other language than Spanish. The talk of this historic personage gave but a rude picture of the state of society in his youth. Was there anything in the world so remote as the California of the years 1810 to 1848?