We were followed in a moment by the governor, adjusting his collar
and smoothing his hair. As he reached the door-way at the front of the
house he was greeted with a shout from assembled Monterey. The plaza
was gay with beaming faces and bright attire. The men, women, and
children of the people were on foot, a mass of color on the opposite
side of the plaza: the women in gaudy cotton frocks girt with silken
sashes, tawdry jewels, and spotless camisas, the coquettish reboso
draping with equal grace faces old and brown, faces round and olive;
the men in glazed sombreros, short calico jackets and trousers;
Indians wound up in gala blankets. In the foreground, on prancing
silver-trapped horses, were caballeros and doñas, laughing and
coquetting, looking down in triumph upon the dueñas and parents who
rode older and milder mustangs and shook brown knotted fingers at
heedless youth. The young men had ribbons twisted in their long black
hair, and silver eagles on their soft gray sombreros. Their velvet
serapes were embroidered with gold; the velvet knee-breeches were
laced with gold or silver cord over fine white linen; long deer-skin
botas were gartered with vivid ribbon; flaunting sashes bound their
slender waists, knotted over the hip. The girls and young married
women wore black or white mantillas, the silken lace of Spain,
regardless of the sun which might darken their Castilian fairness.
Their gowns were of flowered silk or red or yellow satin, the waist
long and pointed, the skirt full; jeweled buckles of tiny slippers
flashed beneath the hem. The old people were in rich dress of sober
color. A few Americans were there in the ugly garb of their country, a
blot on the picture.

At the door, just in front of the cavalcade, stood General Vallejo's
carriage, the only one in California, sent from Sonoma for the