[addressing the narrator, named Widge] I'm only going to see that he learns a lesson, said Nick innocently. Now then. Widge, is it? You know what a widge is where I come from? My throat felt too tight to speak. I shook my head. A horse. I think I'll call you Horse, although I think you look more like an ass to me. […]

[…] and it would seem, as if to atone for that deficiency in the eyes of a hero worshipper, that Macaulay had determined to monsterise him into an embodiment of inconsistency, deceit, and simulation.

The invasion of China offered Tulai, as it did his fellow officers, unprecedented opportunities for promotion and ennoblement. He had come to fame in the 1629 raid on Peking early in Hung Taiji's reign; for his valor in the first attack upon the Chinese capital he had been awarded minor hereditary rank. Later he distinguished himself in the battle at Lushunkou in 1643. where his elder brother Xagai died, and in the capture of Datong in 1644.

Souther California was 'perfect bliss on earth', an 'Earthly Eden unsurpassed', 'A Southern California Paradise'. Another old settlerist nerve struck by California boosters was the availability of a life as well as a living, leisure as well as wealth.