decayed carriages. Two of them were pointed toward the planet Venus, and
the other two were depressed so that had they been loaded or fired the
balls would have startled the people on the other side of the
hemisphere." This condition was typical of those throughout the
so-called armed forts of California.

The picture thus presented is unjustly shaded, of course, for Spanish
California had its ideal, noble, and romantic side. In a final estimate
no one could say where the balance would be struck; but our purpose is
not to strike a final balance. We are here endeavoring to analyze the
reasons why the task of the American conquerors was so easy, and to
explain the facility with which the original population was thrust
aside.

It is a sometimes rather annoying anomaly of human nature that the races
and individuals about whom are woven the most indestructible mantles of
romance are generally those who, from the standpoint of economic
stability or solid moral quality, are the most variable. We staid and
sober citizens are inclined to throw an aura of picturesqueness about
such creatures as the Stuarts, the dissipated Virginian cavaliers, the
happy-go-lucky barren artists of the Latin Quarter, the fiery touchiness
of that so-called chivalry which was one of the least important features
of Southern life, and so on. We staid and sober citizens generally
object strenuously to living in actual contact with the unpunctuality,
unreliability, unreasonableness, shiftlessness, and general
irresponsibility that are the invariable concomitants of this
picturesqueness. At a safe distance we prove less critical. We even go
so far as to regard this unfamiliar life as a mental anodyne or
antidote to the rigid responsibility of our own everyday existence. We
use these historical accounts for moral relaxation, much as some