ceived the envoys from the different Missions and
examined the samples of everything submitted to
him, trusting little to his commissary. His leisure
he employed scouring the country or shooting deer
and quail in the company of his younger hosts. The
literal mind of Don Jose accepted him as an actual
son and embryonic California, and, his conscience
at peace, revelled in his society as a sign from
propitiated heaven; rejoicing in the virtue of his
years. The Governor, testily remarking that as
California was so well governed for the present he
would retire to Monterey and take a siesta, rode off
one morning, but not without an affectionate: "God
preserve the life of your excellency many years."

But although Rezanov saw the most sanguine
hopes that had brought him to California fulfilled,
and although he looked from the mountain ridges
of the east over the great low valleys watered by
rivers and shaded by oaks, where enough grain
could be raised to keep the blood red in a thousand
times the colonial population of Russia, although he
felt himself in more and more abundant health, more
and more in love with life, it is not to be supposed
for a moment that he was satisfied. Concha he
barely saw. She remained with the Moragas, and
although she came occasionally to the afternoon
dances at the Presidio, and he had dined once at
her cousin's house, where the formal betrothal had
taken place and the marriage contract had been