TRAVELS IN THE CALIFORNIAS. 
87 
“ Hail Columbia !” I wish my readers could conceive 
something of the stirring might of those words sung by 
parched lips within the prisons of California ! Dying Amer¬ 
icans sang them ! The unconquerable sons of the Repub¬ 
lic sang them, though strength was sinking and the blood 
flowed feebly through her children’s veins ! 
“ Rule Britannia!” The battle anthem of the fatherland ! 
Sturdy Britons were there to sing. Their voices seemed weak 
when they began it; but as their feelings seized more per¬ 
fectly the inspiration of poetry and music, the floating walls 
of the Island Empire seemed to heave in view. u Rule Bri¬ 
tannia !” It came ringing through the grates during the lat¬ 
ter part of the evening with a broken, wild shout, as if the 
breath of those who uttered it came fresh from Trafalgar! 
Pinto, the captain of the guard, inquired the purport of 
their songs, and was told by a Scotchman at the grates that 
they were u the war-cries of Britain and America, and that 
the Californians, Mexicans, and the rest of the Spanish 
creation, had better vote themselves asses and devils before 
those nations forced the idea into them from the muzzles of 
their rifles !” 
This Pinto was a small pattern even of a coward, but what 
there was of him one could not doubt was the genuine article. 
He had a small narrow head, very black stiff hair, along thin 
nose with a sharp pendant point; small snakish eyes, very 
near neighbors, and always peering out at the corners of the 
sockets ; a very slender sharp chin, with a villanous tuft of 
bristles on the under lip; a dark swarthy complexion burnish¬ 
ed with the grin of an idiotic hyena. Who would not expect 
such an animal to be frightened at the carnage songs of the 
parent of nations and her firstborn child ! He did fear, the 
miniature scoundrel! He had been one of the principle in¬ 
stigators of this barbarity, and if he believed in the recupe 
rative energies of prostrated justice he had reason to tremble. 
In his trepidation he sought the quarters of Jose Castro. 
This man was his monster superior. With the general out- 
14 
