Enter a name, company, place or keywords to search across this item. Then click "Search" (or hit Enter).
A Sojourn With Royalty (October 26, 1865) (13 pages)
Go to the Archive Home
Go to Thumbnail View of this Item
Go to Single Page View of this Item
Download the Page Image
Copy the Page Text to the Clipboard
Don't highlight the search terms on the Image
Show the Page Image
Show the Image Page Text
Reset View and Center Image
Zoom Out
Zoom In
Rotate Left
Rotate Right
Toggle Full Page View
Flip Image Horizontally
More Information About this Image
Get a Citation for Page or Image - Copy to the Clipboard
Go to the Previous Page (or Left Arrow key)
Go to the Next Page (or Right Arrow key)
Page: of 13
Sometimes he gave social parties upon great. occasions, which I have often attended,
an invited and honored guest. His courtiers, like some of the fairer portions of our
highly civilized and refined people, had an idea of improving the beauty which nature
gave them, and painted, not only their faces, but their whole bodies, in brilliant,
fanciful and variegated stripes, appearing like angels or devils, according to different
ideas of what constitutes beauty in relative society, and which may, in course of time,
be adopted by our own refined and appreciative fashionable aristocracy.
In his kingdom there were no grumbling husbands for expensive wives; no loves of
bonnets to tempt an extravagant wife; -no Lodges to draw devoted husbands from their
homes and families’ seven evenings in a week, to wind up with champagne suppers and
oyster stews ; no books in the store to require them to examine till one o'clock in the
morning, with Squarza's punch and brilliant black eyes and dimpled cheeks to quicken
perception ; no ladies' saloons, to tempt an affectionate wife for recreation and ice
cream with a friendly neighboring wife's husband ; to splendid livery stables for young
men to patronize on Sundays with charming sweethearts, at their employers' expense ;
in short, the word Sheriff or Justice of the Peace was unknown in Weimer's dominions.
I wonder if the advocates of California aristocracy would establish such a system of
government ?
It was a happy kingdom, and, like the Valley of Rasselas, the wants of its people-did
not extend beyond their own territories. They settled all quarrels by fighting among
themselves, kindly consenting to let other nations manage their own affairs, and so long
as the acorn crop was good and grasshoppers plenty, they employed no French cooks or
cosmopolitan waiters.
I had the happiness to enjoy the friendship of the King, the great Weimer, and was
upon intimate terms with him. Had there been an order of knighthood in his gift, I have
no doubt that I should have gained the honor of being’ created " Sir Chip of the Old
Block," but as it was I was content with his appellation of "'Hugh! muchee Bueno
Capitan”—equal, perhaps, to Hugh Capet or Hugh de Chattilon, or hugh de do de diddle
de dum, However, men are but men, and Napolean is but human. So is his wife.
It was the Summer of 1853 that. S. P. Storms an old [21 years old!] Indian trader and
myself planned a visit, to the summit of the Sierras. In that early day, there were no