Sketches of the campaign in northern Mexico : in eighteen hundred forty-six and seven / by an officer of the First Regiment of Ohio volunteers.

THE EVENING AT SAN FRANCISCO. 137
as usual, of coffee, hard biscuit, and tough beef, (the stereotyped bill of fare, to which sometimes was added a kid or
chicken,) a friend and myself climbed upon the flat roof of
one of the village houses, to enjoy the view and evening
breeze from the mountains. The prospect was an agreeable
one, and amply compensated us for all the braises and
scratches attending the ascent, caused by thrusting the hands
and feet into the holes which Mexican masons leave in
the outer walls, as the only means of reaching the roofs of
such buildings. The surrounding country was flat and
uncultivated, slightly descending toward the Sierra Madre in
our front. We turned our eyes in that direction, hoping to
obtain a glimpse of Monterey, knowing its position between
the now prominent Saddle and Al-ter mountains~ —peaks
which had long been to our march, as the cloud to the path
of Israel. But the advancing shadows from the Sierra, and
the dense foliage of the shallow valley in which it is situated,
concealed it from view. In the gardens and streets of the
hamlet, and in the few green fields around it, lay our army,
just then busied with the last labors of the day. On one
side of us were the quiet and sytematic blue-clad soldiers of
the old line; on the other, the gay and rollicking volunteers,
diverse in their uniforms as their states. Many of these last
seemed unusually merry, and little thought or cared for the
* These lofty mountains, jutting friom the main range of the Sierra Madre, flank
the city on the east and west, and obtain their names from the very stronlg resemblance which their peaks respectively bear to the deep-seated Spanish saddle, and
a Bishop's miter. They are correctly and beautifully represented in the lithographed
views of Monterey, taken from pictures by that accomplished artist, Captain Whiting, of the 7th Infantry.