The San Francisco call., 1906-09-09
By Harry H. Dunn.

~ OHEAIIA is not dead: the happy
TX days Of the troubadours are not
gone; the minnesingers and the
meistersingers stiIl live, and in
their land the loves and hopes. the
fears and trials OF all the very happy
go on just as of old they went on be-
meath the greenwood tree.
Gone from the country of the Morse
men are the wandering. singers and
their sagas; gone from the hills Of
bonny Scotland are the minstrels with
their harps OF yew and elm from far
st. Fillian's sprin; no more through the
south Of France wander the trouba-
1ours and their gleemen-and yet, they
live again. live with guitars in place
Of harps. with mandolins in lieu Of
zithers. They live and make music for
the many; they sing their Songs to as
light-hearted bands of lads and lassies
as did ever those famed singers of
Europe in the feudal days.
And they to whom they sing and
with whom they make merry2 They
are OF another class. Dark haired
dark-eyed sons and daughters of the
land OF the sun are they. transplanted
70 what was once New Spain, and taxi
ing hold on the country to which they
have come. yet cIinging tenaciously to
those ceremonials, those happy melo-
dies, those light dances they so long
were taught to love in a world beyond
the seas.
1t was the spanish-Americans who
made the missions, who trailed for the
first time over the Kings highway. and
generation who are making Bohemia
the like Of which the world has never
seen in the Southwest today.
In this land of altruism, in this mir
vana of rest and simple pleasure. there
Is no serpent-not even the moth OF
haste intrudes 10 wear away the It's
sues OF life in bit Of the world which
was never intended to be a place TO
work in, but merely a place to live sn.
to wear out the days in watching the
clouds, in sleeping beneath oyerbur-
dened fig trees, in pressing the juice
from the grapes purpling on every hill
side, and in dreaming Of some stately
oon, some dark-eyed senorita as tile
hours pass.
And it is such a life as this that
the Spanish-Americans Of California
those of the better class. that is-are
wont TO live. It may be well that thai
Is the reason why the gringos possess
the land into which the Spaniards
came, but what does ii matter, they
say. The sunshine and the air and
the flowers blooming on a thousand
hills are still free; the olives still ripsn
On many a mile of green trees and
the wine flows as red from the Cali
fornian hills as ever it did from the
slopes OF old CASTLE. What more could
they wish2 What more could you
wish, II you knew exactly what IL
meant to live as DO these California
Bohemians in their happy land or Ar
cady?
One hears a great deal OF tho
Bohemia Of the world Of art: OF the
Quarter Latin Of Paris; OF Old Heidel-
berg; Of the ateliers OF Rome Some
times. II one is lucky, one sees some
OF these things; sometimes one gets as
FAR south as the Nile and stands for
a moment alone before the sphinx, al
the altar Of Memnon, the empty col
onnades Of Karnak-and sometimes
one turns away and says. What's the
use2"
Here Is Bohemia Untouched.
But here there is a very real use
Here. in the very heart of the New
World there is a people whom all its
hustle and rustic cannot touch: a peo-
pie to whom it is al OF life merely %
have lived; 10 have played mandolin
or guitar well; to have danced bit