IN THE OLD WEST 251 



try on account of his political opinions, which 

 were stanchlj- Carlist, and had found his way — 

 how, he himself scarcely knew — from Mexico to 

 San Francisco in Upper California, where, hav- 

 ing a most perfect contempt for everything Mexi- 

 can, and hearing that in the Mission of San Fer- 

 nando, far away, were a couple of Spanish padres 

 of sangre regular, he had started into the wilder- 

 ness to ferret them out ; and having escaped all 

 dangers on the route (which, however, were hardly 

 dangers to the Don, who could not realize the idea 

 of scalp-taking savages), had arrived with a 

 whole skin at the Mission. There he was received 

 with open arms by his countryman Fray Augus- 

 tin, who made him welcome to all the place af- 

 forded, and there he hannlessly smoked away his 

 time ; his heart far away on the banks of the 

 Genii and in the grape-bearing vegas of his be- 

 loved Andalusia, his withered cuerpo in the sier- 

 ras of Upper California. Don Antonio was the 

 walking essence of a Spaniard of the ancien 

 regime. His family dated from the Flood, and 

 with the exception of sundry refreshing jets of 

 Moorish blood, injected into the Truebas during 

 the Moorish epoch, no strange shoot was ever 

 engrafted on their genealogical tree. The mar- 

 riages of the family were ever confined to the fam- 

 ily itself — never looking to fresh blood in a sta- 

 tion immediately below it, which was not hidal- 

 gueno ; nor above, since anything higher in rank 



