University of Virginia Library

SQUIBOB IN SONOMA.

I arrived at this place some days since, but have been
so entirely occupied during the interval, in racing over the
adjacent hills in pursuit of unhappy partridges, wandering
along the banks of the beautiful creek, whipping its tranquil
surface for speckled trout, or cramming myself with grapes
at the vineyard, that I have not, until this moment, found
time to fulfil my promise of a continuation of my travelling
adventures. I left Benicia with satisfaction. Ungrateful
people! I had expected, after the very handsome manner in
which I had spoken of their city; the glowing description of
its magnitude, prosperity and resources that I had given, the
consequent rise in property that had taken place; the manifest
effect that my letter would produce upon the action of
Congress in making Benicia a port of entry; in view of all
these circumstances I had, indeed, expected some trifling
compliment—a public dinner, possibly, or peradventure a delicate
present of a lot or two—the deeds inclosed in a neat and

appropriate letter from the Town Council. But no!—the
name of Squibob remains unhonored and unsung, and, what is
far worse, unrecorded and untaxed in magnificent Benicia.
“How sharper than a serpent's thanks it is to have a toothless
child,” as Pope beautifully remarks in his Paradise Lost.
One individual characterized my letter as “a d—d burlesque.”
I pity that person, and forgive him.

For the last few days of my stay in Benicia, that city
was in a perfect whirl of excitement. The election was
rapidly approaching, and Herr Rossiter was exhibiting feats
of legerdemain at the California House. Individuals were
rushing about the streets proffering election tickets of all
shapes and sizes, and tickets for the exhibition were on sale
at all the principal hotels. One man conjured you to take a
ticket, while another asked you to take a ticket to see the
man conjured, so that what, with the wire-pulling by day,
and the slack wire performance by night, you stood an excellent
chance for getting slightly bewildered. Public meetings
were held, where multitudes of fifty excited individuals surrounded
the steps of the “El Dorado,” listening with breathless
interest to a speech in favor of McDaniels, and abusive to
Bradford, or in favor of somebody else and everlastingly condemnatory
of both. Election meetings, any where, are always
exciting and interesting spectacles, but the moral effect
produced by the last which I attended in Benicia, when (after
some little creature named Frisbie had made a speech, declaring
his readiness to wrap himself in the Star-spangled Banner,
fire off a pistol, and die like a son of—Liberty, for

the Union) Dr. Simple slowly unfolded himself to
his utmost height, and with one hand resting upon the
chimney of the “El Dorado,” and the other holding his
serape up to Heaven, denounced such sentiments, and declaring
that California had made him, and he should go his
length for California, right or wrong, union or disunion.
The moral effect, I say, produced, was something more than
exciting; it was sublime; it was tremendous! “That's a
right-down good speech,” said my fair companion; “but my!
how the General gave it to him! didn't he, Mr. Squibob?”
“He did so,” said I. The candidates were all Democrats, I
believe, and all but one entertained the same political sentiments.
This gentleman (a candidate for the Senate), however,
in the elucidation of his political principles, declared
that he “went in altogether for John C. Calhoun, and
nothing shorter.” Now I'm no politician, and have no wish
to engage in a controversy on the subject; but, God forgive
me if I am in error, I thought Calhoun had been dead for
some months. Well, I suppose some one is elected by this
time, and the waves of political excitement have become
calm, but Benicia was a stormy place during the election, I
assure you. I succeeded in borrowing one dollar at ten per
cent. a month (with security on a corner lot in Kearney
street, San Francisco), purchased a ticket, and went to see
Herr Rossiter. Gracious! how he balanced tobacco pipes,
and tossed knives in the air, and jumped on a wire, and sat
down on it, and rolled over it, and made it swing to and fro
while he threw little brass balls from one hand to the other
The applause was tremendous, and when, after a solo by the
orchestra (which consisted of one seedy violin, played by an
individual in such a state of hopeless inebriation that his
very fiddle seemed to hiccough), he threw a back-handed summerset,
and falling in a graceful attitude, informed the audience
that “he should appear again to-morrow evening with a
change of performance.” We enthusiastically cheered, and
my friend, the man in the red vest, who had sat during the
whole evening in a state of rapt admiration, observed with a
profound ejaculation, “that it went ahead of any thing he
had ever seen in his life, except the Falls of Niagara!” I
made many friends in Benicia. I don't like the place much,
but I do like the people; and among my acquaintances, from
Dr. Simple to my friend Mr. Sawyer, which two gentlemen
may be termed the long and short of the place;—I have
never met with more kindness, more genuine hospitality than
from the gentlemen of Benicia. The ladies are pretty, too;
but, to use an entirely original metaphor, which, I presume,
none of your readers ever heard before or will hear again:
they are “like angels' visits, few and far between.” There
isn't a more moral place on the face of the earth than
Benicia. Ephesus, where the stupid people, a few years
since, used to worship Diana, wasn't a circumstance to it.

Sonoma is twelve miles from Napa, and is—but I shall
defer my description until next week, for I have scarcely
made up my mind with regard to it, and my waning paper
warns me I have said enough at present. Yours for ever.