USA > California > A history of the new California, its resources and people; Vol I > Part 3
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Despite the luring and palpable facts of every-day life in California, it is strange that a large proportion of the oldest inhabitants, even those of ample means, know little of its scenic wonders, its grandeur of sea and shore. But this fact has its counterpart the world over. Close to Niagara the writer was surprised, many years ago, to come upon intelligent men that had never heard its sublime diapason, the most wonderful manifesta- tion on the globe of the power of gravitation. Its beautiful rainbows, its cave of winds, and other secret wonders awoke no curiosity in their minds. On the island of Maui, as well as on Oahu, in later years, the same indif- ference was noted. At the Hawaiian metropolis he saw old men and women that cared nothing for the volcanic fires of Kilauea, though at times its aspect was that of a burning mountain. The sublime spectacle of the Pal- ace of the Sun ( Haleakala), most marvelous of extinct craters, had never aroused the curiosity of the phlegmatic. So, in California there are thou- sands that have never seen or cared to see the glories of Yosemite, the inspiring peaks of Shasta, or the snowy crests of the high Sierras. Like the peasants that wandered away from the diamonds of Golconda, which
Photo by Taber.
LOGGING SCENE IN THE REDWOODS
.
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they thought were common pebbles, many of our people fail to realize that nature spreads treasures at their feet in almost every part of the state.
The author of "A Lemon Home in California" struck the truth when he said that the scent of woods and flowers, the inspiring glimpses of moun- tain and sea, and the smell of lemon groves from afar tell the story of a mild climate and a varied soil.
The picture of an earthly paradise has not lost its charm, even in an era of commercialism; and actually or ideally the search for a Garden of Eden is the "dream of youth and the most serious occupation of man- hood." The ancient fables of Guatauma to the effect that the first men of India found the earth delicious when they ate of it, are not wholly wrong-for the very soil of some countries holds men with a charm so great that there is magic in the very touch of the ground. California has ever been a name to conjure with, a country for the working out of des- tiny. The name is a symbol of gold mines, ancient forests, fields of yellow grain, orange groves, and an empire of wealth.
Over wide areas of the state June is never far away. The humidity of summer is so slight that there are no sunstrokes during the heated term, and the nights of winter are not so cold as autumn in the east.
Conditions will be understood more intelligently when it is explained that the ocean frontage of the state is not far from nine hundred miles, and the state comprises a domain as extensive in latitude as that stretch of terri- tory extending from Plymouth Bay, Massachusetts, to Savannah, Georgia. It will doubtless astonish many readers to learn that the New England states New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and Ohio combined do not make an area as large as that of California .*
Northern California begins where the San Joaquin river basin ends, and that basin alone is two hundred and fifty miles long and sixty miles wide. The northern part of the state has generous winter rains, fertile soil, and a dry and healthful summer climate. It should be remembered that the great Japan current equalizes the climate of California in such a way that
*Note .- California is the thirty-first state admitted into the Union. The coast line of the commonwealth is 1097 miles, her greatest width is 270 miles; her area is 158,360 square miles. The state has 120 peaks exceeding 8,000 feet in height; 41 exceeding 10,000, and II exceeding 13,000. The snow line of the Sierra Nevada is about thirty miles in width, and these mountains are from fifty to one hundred miles back of the coast .- Lummis.
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altitudes are more important factors than latitudes in the production of climate.
In "A Lemon Home in California" the present writer has described the climate of northern California, and has said that its equalizing factor is the great Japan current, that warm river of the sea which gives the western coast of America its balmy climate, like mildest Italy, its skies of Egypt, and here and there the luxuriance of the valleys of the Amazon. That current of the ocean is a wonderful phenomenon for contemplation. Starting on its marvelous journey beneath the fierce and ever-shining suns of the equator, in a latitude soutliwest of Mexico, this remarkable ocean current plows its way through the unbroken solitudes of the Pacific, gathering increased heat in every mile of its course through latitudes of equatorial summer. After flowing ten thousand miles through earth's hottest climates this current strikes the eastern coast of Asia, turns northward, then forces its way through the waters of the northern Pacific, sweeps the shores of northern California, then flows southward and bathes the entire state with the breath of welcome heat and life. Large areas of northern California feel the good effects of this climate-making ocean stream, which is one of the factors that enable high latitudes to produce lemons and oranges as generously as in San Diego and the south.
William H. Mills, a well-known Californian, has thus fitly described some of the effects of the climate that gives California one of its perennial charms :
"Under our summer suns the fruits of the tropics ripen, unaccompa- nied by the discomforts of the torrid zone. Here the brown of our summer hills and the golden stubble of the after-harvest are the only winter that we know. Here a spring-like verdure is the harbinger of coming autumn, and autumn is attended by no forewarning of the bleak rigors of winter. Here winter is the season when the warm, brown earth is turned by the plow for seed time, and spring, with its flowers and ripening grain, is opulent with the prophecy of hopeful industry. Nor are these all the features which chal- lenge our love of country. Here nature has wrought her best enchantments in the sublimity of mountain heights, the bold grandeur of cliffs, the pensive peacefulness of lovely valleys, and the expansive splendor of fertile plains."
It is not strange that such a land has ever appealed to men like Bayard
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Taylor and Horace Greeley, and they have always beheld the vision of a glorious future for the millions destined to till the fertile acres of these Pa- cific shores. Humboldt's vision of one of the largest cities of the world at the Golden Gate comes closer to realization each year.
Dr. P. C. Remondino, one of the great climatologists of the United States, has aptly said that climate is a wonderful factor in civilization, for it makes morality and creeds-the mysteries of Eluesis, the festivals of the Roman Flora, or the orgies of Dionysius and Bacchus, which would never have occurred except in certain regions of the globe. Climate determines the diet, the occupations, the diseases which we shall suffer and die of, as well as the average life we shall live.
Under fifty years of American occupation, as well as under centuries of native life, California has yielded a rich harvest of years to those for- tunate enough to dwell beneath her benign skies. Subject to none of the dev- astating storms of other countries, free from violent changes, and ever equable and healthful, it is not strange that life has been prolonged to ex- tremes of old age throughout the state.
CHARACTER OF THE LAND.
This history deals with northern California only, except in so far as the peninsula of Lower California and various points in the southern part of the present state contribute events that shed light on the early occupation by the Spaniards, the work of the Jesuits, and the colonization by the Franciscan fathers.
The upper part of the San Joaquin valley, the country adjacent to the coast, including many small and fertile valleys, as well as the rich expanse immediately back of the ocean here and there, form an empire in extent and fertility. Counties are as large as some states, and townships are as large as counties of other states. The foothills and the picturesque Coast Range, shielded and backed by the high Sierras, have much to do in determining the climate. Though the Japan current, heretofore described, is a strong factor in giving the coast moderate summers and mild winters, the mountain background prevents currents of air of extreme temperatures from disturbing the isolation of our uniform climate.
In the vicinity of San Francisco, in Santa Cruz, and as far north as
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Eureka, often in summer time there are high fogs and boisterous winds. The fogs are frequently mistaken for clouds by visitors from the east, and it is not unusual to see "tenderfeet" with parasols and umbrellas during the summer months, which Californians know are free from rains.
Everywhere the foothills are picturesque, and at times their blue peaks seem very close to the shore, though generally some miles distant. It is common knowledge that the high Sierras are famous in romance and in song. Yosemite rivals the Alps, and the diversities of climate of the state are the most marvelous in the world. From orange groves and strawberry fields it is but a few hours' ride to the snow belt of the beautiful moun- tains.
Far to the north is glorious old Shasta, one of the famous peaks of the world. It stands unique in its noble masonry, rising skyward 14,442 feet. Its grandeur impresses the visitor as do few spots in the wide world. Trav- elers from afar have said that the globe nowhere else presents a view more impressive than the silhouette of sovereign Shasta, rising sublimely into heights of everlasting snow. It lifts its hoary summit into the bluest of summer skies; and is visible from such great distances that its deep canons and expansive fields of snow, its thousands of acres of rugged pinnacles, and its broad expane of ice blend in one imposing mass, at once the despair of painters and the inspiration of poets.
The Coast Range is broken through at the entrance of the Golden Gate, and legend says that an upheaval in times so far remote that the oldest native Indians knew of the occurrence only by tradition, shook down the mountain walls and allowed the tides of old ocean to plow through the narrow chan- nel into the Golden Gate.
The coast region has a distinct summer climate, particularly in the territory extending from Santa Cruz to the far north. High fogs and brac- ing winds predominate during the dry summer months, and the winds, like great sanitary fans, have doubtless saved San Francisco from plagues and fierce heat during the long days of summer.
Outings from the regions adjacent to the sea, during July and August in particular, are not to escape from the heat, but to find it. Mr. Louis Whitcomb, of the San Francisco Chronicle, discovered after long observa- tion that eastern people find the climate a cold one during summer, and they
Photo by Taber
MT. SHASTA, 14,442 FEET, FROM THE SCOTT MOUNTAINS, SHASTA CO., CALIFORNIA.
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welcome an escape to warmer regions. Various springs and mountain re- sorts are popular in the summer because of their genial warmth. At no time, however, is the coast climate disease-breeding, except to invalids and weak people. The rugged enjoy it.
At times the rainy season becomes a little wearisome, but some of tlie loveliest days of the year are in the halcyon calms that follow the heavy southeastern winter rains, which usually find their origin in the storms, or "cyclones," as the weather observers designate them, from the far north- western Pacific.
There is a deal of misapprehension in some quarters concerning the rainy season in California. Some people have been led to believe it is a period of disagreeable storms and almost perpetual floods; but it is more accurate to say that the rainy season is the only time of the year when there is any rain, the period when farmers rejoice and the masses are happy. By February spring is in full splendor, and often January days are as life- giving as the budding springs of New England. The brown hills become green early in February, and soon nature is aglow. Royce well says: "A few golden weeks of absolute freedom from winds and rains, or warmth and sunshine, give place at last to the long sleep of the dry sea-as windless and dreary as the climate of Lotus Land."
The approach of winter is not heralded by fear; it is welcomed with joy. Summer wanes gradually, sometimes lingering until past the halycon days of September, or even until the soft brown tints of October tell that cool nights and rains are near. A wind springs from the southeast, rushing toward a climatic disturbance far out in the northwestern ocean, and soon a gentle shower begins-sometimes more like mist than rain. In a few hours, or possibly not until nightfall, it becomes steadier and the precipita- tion may increase until it seems as if the windows of the sky had been thrown open; but thunder and lightning are almost unknown. It is during these heavy rains that the farmers rejoice, though they are satisfied if the downfall continues gently for three or four days. Then the sun peeps forth from cirrus clouds, the air becomes clear, mountains loom into view through the lens of bright atmosphere, the birds sing, and often the most charming weeks of all the year follow these benign winter storms that are feared by those who have never been west of the Rockies.
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CHAFTER III.
GLIMPSES OF EARLY HISTORY-CORTES AND HIS SUCCESSORS-THE GREAT INTEREST IN CALIFORNIA-XIMINES, CABRILLO, DRAKE-THE JESUITS AND THE FRANCISCAN FATHERS-DISCOVERY OF SAN FRANCISCO BAY BY A LAND PARTY-THE FOUNDING OF SANTA CLARA-SAN JOSE THE FIRST TOWN ORGANIZED U'NDER CIVIL GOVERNMENT-OTHER FACTS OF INTEREST, INCLUDING THE FIRST FOREIGN VISITORS.
Though the plan of this work deals with to-day rather than with the struggles of yesterday, there is an irresistible temptation to delve into the past sufficiently to get a clear idea ci the "beginnings of things" historical. And when one looks backwards in California history he is carried to the stir- ring times of the old Spanish freebooters. The Genoese mariner had scarcely made his great discovery known to the world when bold adventurers began to quarrel over unknown lands and to partition the distant parts of the earth among themselves.
Winfield Davis, the able historian of the Sacramento Society of Cali- fornia Pioneers, has carefully traced the primary title to California to Spain, which held the first right to the country. To trace that early claim is to go back to the year 1454, when Pope Nicholas V issued a bull that gave the Portuguese wide rights of conquest. Many years later a controversy arose between Portugal and Spain, by reason of Portugal's attempt to claim the countries discovered by Columbus. The entire case was referred to Pope Alex- ander VL and on May 3. 1493. he decided it by granting to Spain all countries she might discover west of an imaginary line drawn like a mark of longitude one hundred leagues west of the Azores. By the terms of the same decision Portugal was to have all territory to the eastward of that line. The Treaty of the Partition of the Pacific Ocean, concluded at Tordesillas, Spain, June 7. 1-94 between the governments of Spain and Portugal, was a slight modifi- cation ni the boundary settled by Pope Alexander VI. and in accordance with that convention Spain, in later years, laid claim to California.
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HISTORY OF THE NEW CALIFORNIA.
SOME EARLY VOYAGES.
It should be understood that after the conquest of Mexico by Cortes (1520-1521), many expeditions by sea were sent forth to discover new wonders on the Pacific coast of North America. It is impossible to escape the conclu- sion that early ideas of the geography of the coast were exceedingly crude and limited. Even so late as the year 1741 Laurence Echard published in the Lon- don Gazetteer that California was a large island of the South Seas. In the year 1794 "The Young Man's Book of Knowledge," published in London, described California as "sixteen hundred miles broad, and two thousand miles long." The climate and soil were said to be like paradise, and this remark- able sentence occurs : "It has rich mines of silver, and some of gold, which are worked more and more every day."
The account was no doubt wholly mythical, for the following declara- tion is made immediately after the statement regarding the mines: "The dew that falls in California and lights on the rose leaves, candies and be- comes hard like manna." Other equally absurd stories prevailed in those days, not only about this state, but regarding all things and countries remote from the observation of the simple and superstitious people of early times.
It is well known that in the year 1524 Gonzalo de Sandoval took to Cortes many strange stories of California, and they were transmitted to Em- peror Charles V. Though it is inconceivable that the wisest thinkers of that day could have done otherwise than reject most of the accounts that reached their ears, yet it is known that many of the descriptions bore the impress of truth. Some of the narratives of fabulous wealth and virgin resources pro- duced a profound impression on men of restless spirit, and the dream of brave men was to conquer foreign lands.
Asia was still believed to lie within the very gates of the new country, and so conservative a historian as Hittell asserts that the wildest imaginable rumors actually led to the discovery and subsequent exploration of California. The generations that passed after the first discoveries, and before explorations bad been carried far, but served to whet the appetite for adventure.
Disappointed as the early Spaniards were of discovering the particular forms of wealth they had long dreamt of unearthing, they did in fact plant their adventurous feet on the soil of the great western empire of America.
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HISTORY OF THE NEW CALIFORNIA.
XIMINES WAS THE DISCOVERER.
In 1522 Cortes, having made himself thorough master of Mexico, began to look ambitiously to the northward. His fortunes moved and varied in such a manner, however, that it was left for Fortuno Ximines to discover the Peninsula of California, now known as Lower California, in the year 1534. He sailed in La Conception, a ship owned by the powerful Cortes, and but for the aid of Cortes, Ximines could not have made the discovery .* The ambition of Cortes flamed high after he heard of the explorations of his subordinate, and he himself reached the promontory of San Felipe, on May 3, 1535, and took possession of the country in the name of the sovereign. He gave the name of Santa Cruz to the bay that surrounded him. La Paz, just north of Cape San Lucas, is supposed to have been the exact spot where the old explorer landed. The country was so bleak and forbidding that Cortes put to sea, and temporarily abandoned the attempt to settle the country by the Spanish.
By the year 1537 new rumors of the vast wealth of the country were in circulation throughout Mexico. Various expeditions failed, until Cortes dis- patched one under Francisco de Ulloa, and to Ulloa largely belongs the credit for the early exploration of Lower California.
By 1540 Cortes, who was really on a freebooting expedition during all his western voyages, returned to Spain and abandoned California.
Liglit is shed on the conditions that existed in early times by some perti- nent observations of John W. Dwinelle's, in an able address on the acquisition of California, delivered before the California Pioneer Society, in San Fran- cisco, on September 10, 1866. He gave these facts :
"It was only by accident, after all, that Columbus discovered the vast region of continents and islands which are now called America. He was not in quest of new continents, nor of the golden-fruited gardens of the Hesper- ides. Believing, from inductive reasoning, that the earth was round, but with
*Note .- Ximines was a pilot under Becerra, and Becerra, one of the favorites of Cortes, was sent out in charge of an expedition that tried to learn the fate of a missing vessel of a previous expedition. Ximines and the crew mutinied. They really discovered Lower . California, but Ximines and twenty of his men were murdered by the Indians. Ximines, or Ximenez, as he was often called. was under Becerra, whom he killed. After compelling the dead leader's friend to go ashore at a barren spot Ximenez sailed away from the scene of his crime. They at last discovered what was supposed to be an island, though it was in fact Lower California. Ximenez and his companions disembarked on the supposed island, and he and twenty companions were killed by Indians.
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HISTORY OF THE NEW CALIFORNIA.
very imperfect notions of its magnitude, he was firmly persuaded that by sailing in a westerly direction from the coast of Spain, he would in due time arrive on the coast of China, which was then classed as a portion of the Indies ; and when he discovered the first American islands, believing that he had already reached the Indies, he gave to the natives the name of Indians, which inaccurate classification they have ever since retained. Looking over the books and maps of the old geographers, it is curious and wonderful to ob- serve how much they did know, and how much they did not know, of the geography of the northwestern coast of America for more than two hundred years after the discoveries made by Columbus. Although Cortes, when he fell into that inevitable disgrace with which the kings of Spain have always rewarded their greatest benefactors, sent out various expeditions from Mexico for the exploration of the northwestern coast, and even accompanied some of them as far as La Paz, in Lower California, and although the viceroys who succeeded him sent out various expeditions within fifty years after the conquest of Mexico, both by sea and by land, which must have penetrated as far north as the 42d degree of latitude, yet the physical geography of that re- gion remained in the most mythical condition, and the very existence of the bay of San Francisco was contested as fabulous by the Spanish viceroys of New Spain less than a hundred years ago. There is in the possession of the Odd Fellows' library of this city an engraved map of the world, published at Venice in the year 1546, which is remarkable for its general accuracy and for the beauty of its execution, but on this map, at the latitude of San Francisco, the American continent is represented as sweeping around in a large circle, and forming a junction with that of Asia, while the Colorado, the largest river in the world, rising in the mountains of Thibet, and meandering through a course of 15,000 or 20,000 miles, pours its vast volume of waters into the Gulf of California. In the year 1588, a Spanish captain of marine, named Lorenzo Ferrer Maldonado, published an account of a voyage which he pre- tended to have made from the Atlantic Ocean, through the Northern sea, to the Pacific, and thence to China, giving all its geographical details and personal incidents. This apocryphal voyage proved a delusion and a stumbling-block to historians and voyagers for more than two hundred years, and it was not until the year 1791 that two Spanish frigates, sent out for that purpose by authority of the king of Spain, by a thorough exploration of the extreme
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HISTORY OF THE NEW CALIFORNIA.
northwestern coast, established the fact that a passage through the North Sea did not exist, and that the pretensions of Maldonado were utterly false. It is only within a comparatively recent period that the fact has been generally received in modern geography that California was connected with the main continent, and was not an island. In Ogilvie's 'America, being the latest and most accurate account of the New World,' a most elegant and luxurious folio, published in London in 1671, California is laid down as an island, ex- tending from Cape St. Lucas, in the tropic of Cancer, to the 45th degree of latitude, and including the famous New Albion of Sir Francis Drake. The same map is reproduced by Captain Shelvocke, of the royal navy, in his ac- count of his 'Voyage Around the World by way of the South Sea,' in his Majesty's ship of war, published in London in 1726; and in a geographical work published in London in the same year, by Daniel Coxe, Esq., an ac- count is given of 'a new and curious discovery and relation betwixt the river Meschachebe (Mississippi) and the South Sea, which separates Ameri- ca from China by means of several large rivers and lakes, with a descrip- tion of the coast of the said sea to the Straits of Uries, as also of a rich and considerable trade to be carried on from thence to China, Japan and Tartary.' I can not ascertain that California was relieved of its insular character among geographers until the publication of a map by Father Begert, a missionary of the Society of Jesus, in an account of Lower Cali- fornia which he printed at Mannheim in 1771, on his return to Germany after his order had been expelled, in 1769, by order of the king of Spain, from the missions which they had successfully established among the In- diians of Lower California. Even after it was admitted that California was not an island, but a part of the main land, the most indefinite notions pre- vailed as to the extent to which the Gulf of California penetrated toward the north; and to the very last of the Spanish and Mexican dominion, when any specific description was given to California in official documents, it was spoken of as a peninsula."
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