Usually, these and other shrubs cover the hillsides with a thick, matted tangle of stems and branches almost impossible to get through. This chaparral, as the Spanish called it, clothes the foot-hills and mountain sides with a close growth through which deer and bears alone can travel and make trails or runways. Great stretches of buckthorn in the north, and of sage-brush in the south, cover the wild lands, while in the sandy desert tall, prickly cactus, yucca, and mesquite grow with the sage-brush in the blazing sun.

Only a few of California's wild plants and flowers have been now called to your notice. But children have sharp eyes, and you will find many more to inquire about in your vacation days. Then the blackberries and thimble-berries will be ripe, and the pink salmon-berry in the redwoods. Perhaps you will look for and dig up the soaproot, that onion-like bulb of one of the lily family with which the Indians make a soapy lather to wash their clothes. Let us hope you will know and keep away from the "poison-oak," the low bush with pretty red leaves, for its leaves are apt to make your skin swell up and blister wherever they touch you.

What a long and pleasant story might be told you of our state's real gardens! Perhaps your teacher will give you an hour to talk about your home gardens, and to see how much you can tell about them. You may have flowers the year round, if you live on the coast, or in the warm valleys where no Jack Frost comes with his icy breath to kill the tender plants. In such genial climates roses and geraniums bloom all year, and only rest when the gardener cuts them back; and most of the shrubs and trees in parks and gardens are always fresh and green.

Florists who raise flowers to sell find that here they can grow the choicest and finest carnations, roses, and all the garden blossoms you know so well. Many of these florists deal only in flower-seeds, and bulbs or roots of the lilies to send to the Eastern states or abroad, where people greatly prize California flowers.

Plants and trees from all parts of the world thrive here, also. You have seen the palms, the tall sword-palm with its great spike of snowy bloom in the spring, the fan-palm whose dried and trimmed leaves are really used for fans, and, perhaps, the date-palm. This tree was planted round the Missions by the Padres, and some, more than a hundred years old, are still standing at the San Gabriel Mission. These, and the magnolia with its large creamy blossoms, as well as the graceful pepper-tree, are natives of warm, southern lands, while the eucalyptus, or gum-tree, was brought here from Australia.

Look round, children, as you walk to and from school, or in the park, and try to know and name the green things growing there, the flowers and plants sent to make our world a pleasant place to live in.



THE BIG TREES AND LUMBERING

The largest trees in the world are those forest giants of California which grow on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevadas, and nowhere else on the globe. People carelessly call these grand trees "redwoods" or "big trees," but their family name is Sequoia, an Indian chief's name. When the trees were first discovered, in 1853, accounts of their height and size were sent to England. Supposing this giant to be a new tree, it was there christened Wellingtonia, and also gigantea for its immense measurements. While Americans were trying to have it called Washingtonia, a famous Frenchman who knew all about trees decided that the specimen sent him was certainly a sequoia, as named by a German professor some six years before this time. So the tree was called sequoia gigantea and quietly went on growing, unmindful of the four nations who had quarrelled over its christening. Why, indeed, should it bother its lofty head with the chatter of people whose countries were unknown when this mighty tree was full grown? For these sequoias are the oldest of living objects and have probably been growing for four thousand years. How do we know this? Well, when a fallen trunk is sawed across, one can see rings in the wood, and it is thought that each ring is a year's growth. John Muir counted over four thousand of these annual rings on the stump of one of the Kings River trees.

These fine old trees grow in groves, and of the nine or ten groves the Calaveras and Mariposa are the best known. The Calaveras group of nearly a hundred mighty trees was the first one discovered, and four trees here are over three hundred feet high. The fallen "Father of the Forest" must have been much higher, for it measures a hundred feet round its trunk at the root end. A man can ride on horseback for two hundred feet through its hollow trunk as it lies on the ground. Many of the standing trees hollowed out by fires are large enough, used as cabins, to live in.

The Mariposa grove of Big Trees, being not far from Yosemite Valley, is the best known, as thousands of tourists visit both places. There is a big tree at Mariposa for every day in the year, and two very wonderful ones, the Grizzly Giant and Wawona. Stage-coaches drive into the grove through the tree Wawona, which was bored and burned out so as to make an opening ten by twelve feet. A wall of wood ten feet thick on each side of this opening supports the living tree. The great Grizzly Giant towers a hundred feet without a branch, and twice that height above the first immense branches that are six feet through. This was, no doubt, an old tree when Columbus discovered America, yet it is alive and green and still growing.

The largest tree in the world is the General Sherman, in Sequoia National Park, and it is thirty-five feet in diameter. This means that the stump of the tree, if smoothed off, would make a floor on which thirty people might dance, or your whole class be seated. You can scarcely imagine what a mighty column such a tree is, with its rich red-brown bark, fluted like a column, too, and with its crown of feathery green branches and foliage. The bark is a foot or two thick. The trees are evergreens, and conifers, or cone-bearers. Sequoia cones are two or three inches long and full of small seeds. The Douglas squirrel gets most of these seeds, but there are still seedlings and saplings or young trees enough to keep the race alive in most of the groves.

These groves of wonderful and rare trees are protected as National Parks in the Sequoia and Grant groves, and Mariposa belongs to the state. It is against the law to cut the trees in those groves. Their worst enemy is fire, and a troop of cavalry is sent every year to guard them, and to keep out the sheep-herders, whose flocks would destroy the underbrush and young trees. But, unfortunately, lumbermen have put up mills near the Fresno and Kings River groups, and, wasting more than they use, are destroying magnificent trees thousands of years old in order to make shingles. When nature has taken such good care of this rare and wonderful tree, the Sierra Giant, men should try to preserve the groves unharmed in all their beauty.

Another sequoia grows in great forests along the Coast Range from Santa Cruz to the northern state-line, and beyond into Oregon. This is the sequoia sempervirens, the Latin name meaning always green. Redwood is its common name, and the lumber for our frame or wooden houses is cut from this tree. Millions of feet of this redwood lumber are shipped from the northern counties of the state every year, up to Alaska or down to Central and South America. It is also sent far across the Pacific to the Hawaiian and Philippine islands and to China and Australia.

While the sequoia gigantea delights in a clear sky and hot sunshine, its brother, the sempervirens, prefers a cool sea-coast climate, offering frequent baths of fog. There is also a difference in the size of these trees; the redwood is often three hundred feet high, but is less in girth than its relative in the Sierras. There is not much underbrush and little sunshine in the cool, green redwood forests, each tree rising tall and stately for a hundred feet without branches, while the green tops seem almost to touch the sky as one looks up. Through the woods one hears the blue jay scream and chatter, and the tap, tap of the woodpecker as he drills holes in the bark to fill with acorns for his winter store.

When the lumberman looks at these beautiful forests, he sees only many logs containing many thousand feet of lumber, which he must get out the easiest and cheapest way. He only chooses the finest and largest trunks, and there is great waste in cutting these. The men begin to saw the tree some eight or ten feet from the ground, and soon it trembles and falls with a mighty crash, often snapping off other trees in its way to the ground. After all the selected trees have fallen, fires are started to burn off the branches and underbrush so that the men can work easier. This fire only chars the outside bark of the big, green logs, but it kills all the young saplings, and leaves the once beautiful forest a waste of blackened logs and gray ashes. When the fire burns itself out, the logs are usually sawed with a cross-cut saw into sixteen-foot lengths, since in that form they are easy to handle. Then oxen or horses haul them out; or sometimes a wire cable is fastened to them by iron "dogs," or stakes, and a little stationary engine pulls them away to the siding at the railroad track. Here they are rolled on flat-cars, fastened with a big iron chain around the four or six logs on the car, and taken on the logging train to the mill-pond. They lie soaking in the water until drawn up to the keen saws of the sawmill that cut and slice the wood like cheese. The bark and outside is carved off as you would cut the crust off bread, and then sharp, circular saws cut boards and planks till the log is used up, and the log-carriage lifts another to its place. As the shining steel bites into the wood the noise almost deafens you and the mill shakes with the thunder of log-carriage and feeders. Useless ends, slabs, and refuse are burnt in the sawdust pit, where the fires never go out. Very much of the tree is wasted and all the limbs. The redwood tree has so much life and strength, however, that it sends up bright green sprouts around the burnt stump, and standing trees charred outside to the tops will have new branches the next season. In the older forests tall young trees are often seen growing in a ring round an empty spot, the long-dead stump having rotted away.



Near Santa Cruz is a grove of large and beautiful redwoods, many of the trees being over three hundred feet high and from forty to sixty-five feet around the base of the trunk. The Giant is the largest, and three other immense ones are named for Generals Grant, Sherman, and Fremont. In 1846 General Fremont found this grove, and camped, on a rainy winter night, in the hollow trunk of the tree bearing his name. Here is also seen a group of eleven very tall trees growing in a circle around an old stump.

In the Sierras, both in the sequoia groves and forests above the Big-Tree region, are very large sugar-pines, red firs, and yellow-pine trees, all of which make excellent lumber. Great forests of these trees, with cedars almost as large as the redwoods, are in the northern counties also. You may have seen sugar-pine cones which are over a foot long, the largest of all found, while redwood cones are the smallest. Another great tree is the Douglas spruce, the king of spruce trees, growing in both Sierra Nevada and Coast ranges.

The California laurel, or bay tree, with its beautiful, shining green leaves, and the madrono, the slender, red-barked tree on the hillsides you must have noticed in your trips to the country, as well as our fine valley and mountain oaks. Try to learn the kinds of trees and study their leaves, blossoms, and fruit, and you will find every one a friend well worth knowing. Then you will wish to save them from fire and the lumberman's axe, especially the rare and old sequoias.



OUR BIRDS

More than three hundred kinds of these dear feathered friends and visitors live in California. Along the sea-shore, in the great valleys and the mountain-forests and meadows, even in the dry, hot desert, the birds, our shy and merry neighbors, are at home. In many parts of the state they find sunshine and green trees the year round, and food always at hand. Yet sparrows, robins, and woodpeckers will stay in the snowed-in groves of the Sierras all winter, contentedly chirping or singing in spite of the bitter cold.

If you know these wanderers of wood and field, these birds of sea and shore, and their interesting habits, you will wish to protect them from stone or gun, and their nests from the egg collector. You will listen to the lark and linnet, and be glad that the happy songster trilling such sweet notes is free to fly where he wishes, and is not pining in a cage. And you, little girl, will not encourage the destruction of these pretty creatures by wearing a sea-gull or part of some dead bird on your hat.

To become better acquainted with birds, let us call them before us by classes, beginning with our sea-birds and those round the bays and on the coast. Some of these not only swim but dive in the salt waters, and to this class of divers belong the grebe, loon, murre, and puffin. They dive at the flash of a gun, and after what seems a long time, come up far away from the spot the hunter aimed at. These birds usually nest on bare, rocky cliffs near the ocean, or on islands like the Farallones, and their large green eggs hatch out nestlings that are ugly and awkward and helpless on land. But they ride the great ocean-breakers, or dive into their clear depths easily and gracefully; and as they live upon fish or small sea-creatures, the divers only seek land to roost at night and to raise their young.

Next come the gulls, who belong to a class known as "long-winged swimmers." They have strong wings and fly great distances, and with their webbed feet swim well, too. Most of the sea-gulls are white with a gray coat on their backs, but they look snowy-white as they fly. You may see them walking about the wharves, or perching on roofs and piles watching for food, and seeming very tame as they pick up bits of bread or the refuse floating in the water. They follow steamers for miles, scarcely moving their wings as they float in the air; and if you throw a cracker from the deck, some gull will make a swift swoop and snatch it before the cracker reaches the water.

Far out on the Pacific the albatross sails proudly on his broad wings, and cares nothing for high winds or storms. He rests and sleeps on the billows at night with his little companions, the stormy petrels. He is the largest and strongest of our birds of flight, the very king of the sea. The stormy petrels are not much larger than a swallow. Sailors call them. "Mother Carey's chickens," and are sure a storm is coming up when petrels follow the ship. The albatross, petrel, and a gull-like bird called a shearwater belong to the "tube-nosed swimmers," on account of their curious long beaks.

Along the coast, and wading in the shallow waters around the bays, are some strange birds known as pelicans and shags. They are good fishers, and drive the darting, finny fellows before them as they wade in the water till they can see and gobble them up. Most waders have under their beaks a skin-pocket deep enough to hold a fish while carrying it to their nestlings, or making ready to swallow it. All of these sea-birds raise their young as far from the shore and from hunters as possible. Great flocks of them roost on islands fifteen or twenty miles out in the ocean, and fly into the bays every morning.

Wild ducks, geese, the herons, mud-hens, sandpipers, and curlews are marsh and shore birds that feed and wade in the shallow salt water, and nest on the banks or, like the heron, in trees near the bay. The heron is a frog-catcher, and he will stand very still on his long legs and patiently wait till the frog, thinking him gone, swims near. Then one dart of the long bill captures froggy, and the heron waits for another. You know the red-head, green mallard, canvas-back, and small teal ducks, no doubt, and have seen the flocks of wild geese flying and calling in the sky, or standing like patches of snow as they feed in the marshes or grain-fields.

Down on the mud-flats at low tide you see birds called rails, and also "kill-dee" plovers. The shoveller ducks are there, too fishing up with broad, flat beaks little crabs and such creatures as are in the mud, straining out mud and water, but swallowing the rest. All these birds are "waders" and delight in mud and cold salt water. They are usually quiet, or make only strange, shrill cries.

In the sunny fields and woods we shall find many of the land-birds, and first comes a family whose habits are so like those of chickens that they are called "scratchers." These birds depend for food upon seeds and bugs or worms they scratch out of the ground. Up in the Sierra sugar-pines and fir-woods lives the largest of these "scratchers," the brown grouse. He is a shy creature, rising out of his feeding-ground with a great whirring of wings and out of sight before the hunter can fire at him. His peculiar cry, or "drumming," as it is called, sounds through the woods like tapping hard on a hollow log. His equally shy neighbor is the mountain-quail, while through the farming lands and all along the hillsides the valley—quail are plenty. Perhaps you have seen a happy family of these speckled brown birds. Papa quail has a black crest on his head, and he calls "Look right here" from the wrong side of the road to fool you, while Mamma and her little, cunning chicks scatter like flying brown leaves in the brush. After the danger is past, you hear her low call to bring them round her again. In the desert and sage-brush part of the state the sage-hen, another "scratcher," runs swiftly through the thickets, but many are caught and brought in by the Indians.

Our birds of prey are eagles, vultures, hawks, owls, and the turkey-buzzards, those big black scavengers that hang in the air. In circles high above woods and fields some of these birds of prey sweep on broad wings, searching with keen sight for their food in some dead animal far below. The California condor, a great black vulture-like bird, is almost extinct, and is only found in the highest mountains. It is very large of wing, and strong enough, it is said, to carry off a sheep. Both golden and bald eagles nest in tall trees in the wildest parts of the state. The chicken-hawk, whose swift sailing over the poultry-yard calls out loud squawking from the frightened hens, you have often seen, and the wise-looking brown owls, too. A small burrowing owl lives in the squirrel holes, and you may catch him easily in the daytime, when he cannot see.

The road-runner is of the cuckoo family of birds. It seldom flies, but runs swiftly along the roads, or in the desert, and is said to kill rattlesnakes by placing a ring of thorny cactus leaves around the snake as it lies asleep. The rattler is then pecked to death, since it cannot get out of its prickly cage. This fowl is like a slender brown hen in size.

In the redwoods you hear the tap, tap, of the "carpenter" woodpecker, with his black coat and gay red cap. He drills holes in the bark of a tree with his strong beak and then fits an acorn neatly into each safe little storehouse. It is thought that worms and grubs fatten while living in these acorns, so that the woodpecker always has a meal ready in the winter when the ground is wet, or the squirrels have carried off the acorns under the trees.

Humming-birds, or "hummers," as the boys call them, are plenty in city and country and so fearless that they will take a bath in the spray of the garden-hose, or dart their long bills in the fuchsias almost within your reach. The bill shields a double tongue, which gets not only honey, but small insects from the flower or off the leaves. The humming-bird's tiny nest is a soft, round basket, not much bigger than half a walnut-shell, and holding two eggs, which are like small-white beans. Bits of moss and gray cobwebs are woven in this nest till it looks like the branch itself; and here the little mother in her plain brown dress hatches out and feeds the baby "hummers." Her husband has glistening ruby feathers at his throat and green spots on his head and back that glow in the sun like jewels.

The highest class of birds is the "perchers," and many friends of yours belong to this. There are two families, however, of perchers, those that call and the song-birds. Calling over and over their peculiar note, the pewees, flycatchers, and king-birds, fly through the forests. The crow and blue jay belong to the singers, you will be surprised to hear. And what a crowd of these song-birds there are trilling and warbling in the sunshine! Have you ever watched the meadow-lark singing as he sits on guard on the fence, while the rest of his brown-coated yellow-vested flock run along the field picking up seeds and insects?

Then there are the linnets, or "redheads," who sing their sweet, merry tunes all summer, and if they do take a cherry or two the farmer should not grumble. They destroy many bugs and caterpillars and eat weed-seeds that might trouble the fruit-grower more than the missing cherries. The yellow warbler, sometimes called the wild canary, flits through bush and tree and trills its gay notes in town and country. Song-sparrows, thrushes, and bluebirds warble far and near, while the red-winged blackbird makes music in wet, swampy places. The robin, who comes to city gardens in the winter, has a summer home in the mountains or redwoods. There, too, the saucy jay screams and chatters, and flashes his blue wings as he flies, scolding all the time.

In Southern California, among the orange groves or in gardens, the mocking-bird trills in sweet, liquid notes his wonderful song. He mimics, too, many sounds he hears, and sometimes when caged will whistle tunes or say words. The mocker can crow or cackle like the chickens, or mew like the cat. Then he will whistle clear and loud till dogs or boys answer his call. When they find themselves fooled, it is said, he mimics a laugh.

From April to July the birds are busy, nesting, feeding their families, or teaching them to fly. Many eggs never hatch, and some are destroyed by wild animals. Boys often rob a whole nest to have one little blown egg in their collections. Then again the mother is killed and her brood starves to death. When the parent birds are teaching the nestlings to fly, cats also catch the little ones. So you see the poor feathered things have many enemies.

Let us try to protect the birds, and to let them live happy lives in freedom. Each one will thank you, either with sweet songs or with being a beautiful thing to see on land or ocean.



OUR WILD ANIMALS

Once upon a time, when the Spanish owned this state and called it their province of Alta California, there were great herds of antelope feeding on the grassy plains, and at every little stream elk and deer and big grizzly bears came down to drink. No fences had been built, and the wild animals had never heard a rifle-shot. Free and fearless they ranged valley and hillside, or made their dens in the thick brush, or "chaparral," as the Spanish called it.

Indian hunters watched the paths over which these wild creatures travelled to water, and killed deer and antelope with their arrows. But these hunters were afraid of grizzly bears, for an arrow in Mr. Bear's thick hide only made him cross, and with one hug, or even a light blow from his paw, he could cripple the poor Indian. So in those early days the old bears came year after year, and carried off sheep and cattle. The simple folks did not even try to kill them. Indeed, many of the red men believed that very bad Indians were punished by being turned into grizzly bears when they died, and they would not hurt their brothers, they said.

When Father Serra's Mission people were starving at Monterey, the Padre learned that at a place called Bear Valley near by, there were many grizzlies which the Indians would not kill. He sent Spanish soldiers there, and they shot so many bears that the hungry Mission family had meat enough to last till a ship came from Mexico with supplies.

Of all flesh-eating animals this grizzly bear is the largest and strongest. He can knock down a bull with his great paws, or kill and carry off a horse. He can live on wild berries and acorns with grass and roots he digs out of the ground, yet fresh meat suits him best, and he prefers a calf, which he holds as a cat does a mouse.

Nothing but stock was raised in California in those days so long ago, and cattle were counted by the thousands and sheep by tens of thousands. Then the grizzly and cinnamon, or brown, bear feasted all the time on stray calves and yearlings. Every spring and fall the cattle, which had roamed almost wild in the pastures, were "rounded up" by the cowboys, or vaqueros. After the work of picking out each ranchero's stock and branding the young cattle was over, the vaqueros thought it fine fun to lasso a bear,—some old fellow, perhaps, who had been helping himself to the calves. It is told that one big cinnamon bear, while quietly feeding on acorns, looked up to find three or four cow-boys on their ponies in a circle around him. They spurred the trembling ponies as close to him as they dared, and yelled at the tops of their voices. The great brute sat up on his haunches and faced them, growling and snarling. One vaquero sent his rope flying through the air, and the loop settled over a big, hairy fore paw. Then the bear dropped on all fours and made a jump at the pony, which got out of his reach. Another Mexican threw a lasso and caught the bear's hind foot; and as he sat up again a third noose dropped over the other fore paw. Then the poor trapped creature, growling, snarling, and rolling over and over, began a tug of war with the lariats and the ponies. Once a rope broke, and horse and rider tumbled in front of the bear. He made a quick, savage jump, but was pulled back by the other ropes. Then Mr. Bear sat up straight and tugged so hard that another lariat broke and sent the saddle and rider over the pony's head. With one sweep of his paw the bear smashed the saddle, but the cow-boy saved himself by running to an oak tree. At last Mr. Bear was getting the best of the fight so plainly, and had pulled the frightened ponies so near him, that the man who was thrown off ended the poor animal's struggles with a rifle-ball.

A Chinese sheep-herder tells this funny story about a bear: "Me lun out, see what matta; me see sheep all bely much scared, bely much lun, bely much jump. Big black bear jump over fence, come light for me. Me so flighten me know nothin', then me scleam e-e-e-e so loud, and lun at bear till bear get scared too and lun away."

A few grizzlies are still found in the Sierras, and black and brown bears are often seen with their playful little cubs. The small fellows are easily tamed and may be taught many tricks. They will live contentedly in a bear-pit, or even if chained up, and as most of you know, they like peanuts and pop-corn well enough to beg for them.

The panther, or mountain-lion, is another large flesh-eating animal which makes his home in the thick woods conveniently neighboring the farmers' corrals and pastures. Not long ago a boy in Marin County, who was sent to look after some ponies, saw a big yellow dog, as he thought, "worrying" one of the colts. When he came nearer he found it was a wicked-looking, catlike creature, and knew it must be a California lion. He had nothing with him but a heavy whip. The panther left the wounded colt and crouched ready to spring at the boy, but he was on the alert and struck it a terrible blow across the eyes with his whip, and then another and another. Half-blinded and whining with pain, the panther turned tail and ran away, while the boy's pony, trembling and snorting with fright, galloped home with his brave rider.

In one of the mountain counties a woman, hearing her chickens squawking one day at noon, ran out to find what seemed a big dog among them with a hen in his mouth. She rushed straight at him with a broom, when the animal turned. She found it was a great panther, who snarled and made ready to spring at her. As she screamed and started to run away, her foot slipped on a steep and muddy place, and she slid down the little hill right into the panther's face. He was so frightened that he jumped the fence and hurried to the woods.

This great yellow cat is both savage and cowardly, and he has been known to follow a man walking through the woods, all day, yet he sneaked out of sight at every loud call the man gave. He chases deer and gets many small and helpless fawns, hunters say.

Fur-hunting was once a profitable business for the Indians, who were clothed in bear and panther skins when the first white men came to California, and had many furs to trade or sell. The Indians trapped otters, beavers, and minks, and the squaws tanned the deer-hides to make buckskin shirts or leggings. Hunters and trappers still bring in these wild animals' furry coats after trips to the high mountains or untravelled woods, where the shy creatures try to live and be safe from their enemies.

In early days herds of a very large deer, called elk, fed on the wild oats and grass. These elk had wide, branching horns measuring three or four feet from tip to tip. Only a few of them now survive in the redwood forests in the northern counties. There were plenty of them once where San Francisco now stands. Dana in his book called "Two Years Before the Mast," tells us that when his ship dropped anchor off the little village of Yerba Buena about sixty-seven years ago, he saw hundreds of red deer and elk with their branching antlers. They were running about on the hills, or standing still to look at the ship until the noise frightened them off. At that time the whole country was covered with thick trees and bushes where the wolf and coyote prowled, and the grizzly bear's track was seen everywhere.



There are plenty of deer in the redwoods now, and in the high Sierras are black-tailed and large mule-deer. In the woods round Mount Tamalpais timid red deer live, too. In winter, when it is cold and snowy in the northern counties of our state, these deer often come into the farmer's barnyard to nibble at the hay.

There are still left in the mountains among the pines and snowy cliffs many mountain-sheep. These curious big-horned animals resemble both the elk and the sheep, and it is said they can jump from a high rock and land far below on their feet or heavy, twisted horns without being hurt in the least.

Of all the great herds of graceful, fast-running antelope, once the most plentiful of our wild animals, only a very few can now be found on the eastern slopes of the Sierras.

But Master Coyote, who might well be spared, so cruel and cowardly is he, still sneaks up and down the whole state, and his quick sharp bark gives notice that the rascal is ready to steal a chicken or a lamb if it is not protected. With his bushy tail and large head he is half fox and half wolf in appearance, and mean enough in habits to be both. He can outrun a dog and even a deer, and though he catches jack-rabbits and the Molly Cottontail usually for food, he would help his brother, the wolf, to kill a poor harmless sheep.

This gray wolf is a savage creature and hides in the thick forests by day, slinking out at night to the nearest sheep corral or turkey-pen if he can find one unwatched by some faithful dog. His friend and neighbor, the fox, likes fat geese and chickens as well as birds, squirrels, and wood-rats. The queer raccoon lives in the redwoods and is often caught and kept in a cage or chained for a pet.

Wildcats, both gray and yellow, are found in the thickly timbered parts of California, and the badger makes his home in the mountain canons or pine woods. There, too, the curious porcupine dwells. He is covered with grayish white quills, which bristle out when he is angry or frightened. No old dog will touch this animal, for he knows better than to get a mouthful of sharp toothpicks by biting Mr. Porcupine, who is like a round pincushion with the pins pointing out. A dog who has never seen this prickly ball will dab at it, and have a sore paw to nurse for weeks after.

Two or three kinds of tree-squirrels live in the pines and redwoods, the Douglas squirrel being well known in the mountains. The ground squirrel, or chipmunk, digs holes in the ground, where he hides his winter's store of grain and nuts.

Three of our smaller wild animals are very common and very troublesome to the farmer. The skunk, which looks like a pretty black and white kitten with a bushy tail, and also the weasel, destroy all the chickens and eggs they can reach, and they are so cunning that it is hard to keep them out of the hen-house. That little pest, the gopher, we are all well acquainted with, since he gnaws the pinks and roses off at their roots in your city garden while his large family of brothers and sisters kill the farmer's fruit-trees and vines. The gopher digs long tunnels under ground, making storerooms here and there in these passages, which he fills with grass, roots, and seeds. In each cheek he has a pouch, or pocket, large enough to hold nearly a handful of grain, so the little rascal carries his stores very easily. The traps and poison by which the farmer is always trying to make way with him, he is sly enough to let alone. His greatest foe is the cat, which watches patiently at the hole where the destructive little fellow is digging and usually catches him. A mother cat will sometimes bring in two or three gophers a day to her kittens.



IN SALT WATER AND FRESH

Tom and Retta Ransom were two of the happiest children in the state, I believe, when told that their summer vacation was to be spent at Catalina Island. To see the wonderful fish that swim in those warm, Southern waters, to watch them through the glass-bottomed boat, to dip out funny sea-flowers with a net, or catch the pretty kingfish and perhaps a "yellowtail,"—why, they could talk of nothing else!

How they skipped and danced and chattered about the trip! At last Mamma said, "Well, everything is packed and ready, and we go to-morrow." Then what fun it was to stand on the steamer's deck and sail "right out through the Golden Gate," as Retta said. The big green billows of the Pacific Ocean caught the boat as she crossed the outside bar and tossed salt spray almost into their faces. Little the children cared for the drops of water, for they were so glad to be off on their trip and to say good-by to San Francisco's summer fog and cold winds for a time.

And there on Seal Rocks, near the Cliff House, were the seals, or rather sea-lions, clumsy creatures like black rubber sacks with fins, or flippers, and a head. Some were lying in the sun and others crawling up the steep, wet rocks. Those highest up were asleep and quiet, but most of them kept barking or growling as they tried to find a sunny place to bask in. Sometimes when frightened these sea-lions will pitch headlong from high rocks into the ocean and dive out of sight at once. Mrs. Ransom said she remembered seeing one that was kept for years in a salt-water tank, and that, although they seem so clumsy, this sea-lion jumped so quick that he caught a fish thrown to him before it touched the water. Once fur-seals were in great numbers off our coast, and lived on the rocks as these sea-lions now do. But Indians, or later on white hunters, killed them, or drove them up north where the crack of the rifle is not heard.

On to the south the steamer sailed through the foaming waters, and as Tom stood watching the white-capped waves go dancing by, he saw, two or three times, a black fin come up, and then another. At last a man said, "Look at the porpoises playing." Tom screamed with delight as they jumped and chased each other till their black, shiny backs were clear out of water. These fish are sometimes called sea-hogs and are five or six feet long. Either to get their food of small fish, or in play, they keep swimming and diving near the tops of the breakers. Fishermen catch them with a strong hook and use the thick, leathery skin for straps or strings, while they try oil out of their blubber or fat.

All that day and night the boat kept steadily on her way, and the next morning they were in Santa Barbara Channel. It was so pleasant sailing on this summer sea in the soft, warm sunshine that even the sea-sick ladies felt better and came on deck. Mamma agreed with the children that the steamer trip was much nicer than the hot, dusty cars. Just then some one called, "See the whale," and looking quick Tom and Retta saw what seemed a fountain of water rising high in the air about half a mile away. Soon another went up, and two or three more, for the gray hump-backed whales like this stretch of smooth bay. They are warm-blooded animals and not fish at all, so they must come to the top of the waves for air to breathe. The air and water spout out through "blow-holes" on top of the whale's head, and rise like steam in the colder air. The children's mother told them that the whale is the largest of all animals, and that it lives on little jellyfish. It swims with its great mouth wide open and catches all the tiny sea creatures in its path. A fringe of whalebone hangs down from the roof of the whale's mouth, and he strains the water out through this and swallows the fish. As the boat went on, the children said, "There she blows," as the sailors do when they see whales spouting in the distance.



Late that night the steamer got to San Pedro, and you may be sure Tom and Retta were up early the next morning. As they came off the boat, there was a crowd of people on the wharf who were pulling in "yellow-tail" as fast as they dropped their lines. This fine fish is a little like a big salmon, but with golden-yellow fins and tail. Its body is greenish gray, with spots of the prettiest rainbow colors, which grow brighter as the fish dies. These fish bite easily, but as soon as caught begin to rush back and forth, fighting and trying to snap the line.

The children here took a smaller steamer for the twenty-mile trip across to Catalina Island, and on the way over they saw a whole "school" of whales and a flight of flying-fishes. Yes, really and truly, these little fish fly or sail through the air, for their fins balance them like a parachute. They skim along ten or twelve feet above the waves, and then drop in the water to rest, taking another flight whenever their enemies, the porpoises, chase them.

How happy the children were to land at the little town of Avalon, and to know that they were to have a month at this beautiful place! They hurried down to the beach and their first choice of amusements was the glass-bottomed boat. These boats have "water-telescopes," which are only clear glass set in boxed-in places. The glass seems to make the ripples still, so that you can look down, down to the bottom of the ocean, twenty or thirty feet below you.

The boatman rowed the children out in the bay, where the water, now green, now blue, was always clear as crystal. On the rocks and sand at the bottom starfish and crabs crawled slowly along or clung to some stone. The purple sea-urchins, queer round-shelled creatures covered with thorny spines, crowded together, and the ugly toad-fish hid in the green and brown seaweeds. Blue, purple, and rainbow-colored jellyfish floated on top of the waters, while gold perch with red and green sunfish swam through the seaweed "like parrots in some hot country's woods," Retta thought. In the shallow places on the rocks those curious sea-flowers, the anemones, looked like pink or green cactus blossoms. The children never tired of the water-telescope in all their stay at the island.

At night the warm ocean waters seemed on fire, since they are full of very tiny, soft-bodied creatures, each of which gives out a faint, glowing light. Every day the fishermen brought in new and strange fishes. The black sea-bass, heavier than the fisherman himself and longer than he was tall, were wonderful, and they could hardly believe that such big fish were caught with a rod and line.

But the leaping tuna pleased Tom the most, since he thought it such fun to watch them jump into the air like silver arrows after the flying-fish. Not so large as the black bass, the tunas are strong enough to tow a boat along when running with a hook. One will drag a heavy launch through the water as if a tug had hold of it, and will fight for hours, rushing and plunging till tired out. Then the fisherman pulls him up to the boat and ends his struggles.

Tom and Retta were fond of watching the curious fish and sea-plants in the glass aquarium tanks on shore also, but their happiest time was when they gathered shells on the beach. They never found out the names of more than those of the limpet, turban, and scallop, though they picked up baskets full of tiny pink and white beauties, all frail and of many kinds. These shells were once the homes of sea mollusks, as such soft, fleshy creatures are called. But to Tom and Retta the shells were only pretty playthings, to be doll's dishes, or cups, or pincushions, perhaps.

One morning some fishermen saw a shark, and no one dared to go in bathing for a few days. This great, savage, "man-eater" shark does not often come north of the Gulf of California. Sometimes small ones are caught with a hook and line off Catalina Island, and Tom was always glad to see such sea-tigers destroyed.

Of course the children did not want to go home, till at last Mrs. Ransom explained to them that in the ocean and bay near San Francisco there were odd fish and strange animals too. And so it turned out, for in a day's fishing over at Sausalito Tom caught many silver smelt and tomcod, with flat, ugly flounders, and a red, big-eyed rock-cod. The frightened boy almost fell out of the boat, too, when he pulled in a large sting-ray, or "stingaree," as the boatman called it. This queer three-sided fish, with a sharp, bony sting in its back, flopped round till the man cut the hook out, knocked its head till it was no longer able to bite, and threw it overboard. These rays have to be fenced out of the oyster-beds along the bay, since they have big mouths full of such strong teeth that they crush an oyster, shell and all, and destroy every one they can reach.

Oysters are grown in great quantities in the oyster-beds along the bay shore. The largest size, which are called "transplanted," are brought from the East as very small or baby oysters and dropped into shallow water, where they cling to rocks or brush-piles till grown.

Tom also caught a perch, and clinging to it as he drew in his line was a large, hard-shelled, long-clawed crab. Tom put the crab in the basket, knowing well what delicious white meat was in the fellow's legs and back.

Clams that burrow deep in the mud and may be found at low tide, by digging where their tell-tale bubble of air arises, and the odd shrimps, so good to eat, the children already knew about. Chinese fishermen catch shrimps in nets, dry them on the hillsides, and send both dry meat and shells to China. They dry the meat of the abalone also, and use the beautiful shells, which you have no doubt seen, for carving into curios, or making into jewellery.

A salt-water creature very destructive to shipping and the wharves is the teredo, or ship-worm. This brown inch-long worm lives in wood that is always under water, such as the bottoms of ships and the round piles you see at the wharves. He hollows or bores out winding tunnels in the wood with the sharp edge of his shell until the piles crumble to pieces. This small animal would finally destroy the largest wooden ship if sheets of copper were not put on the sides and keel to protect it.

When Retta saw Tom's basket of fish she said, "Well, I think the fresh-water fishes much prettier. I am sure the rainbow and Dolly Varden trout with their bright-colored spots, which we saw up in the Truckee River and the mountain lakes last summer, were better to look at and to eat than these sea monsters." Tom laughed and said, "Oh, that was because you helped to catch some of those. Do you remember the big black-spotted trout we saw in Lake Tahoe? And the little speckled fellows we caught in that clear creek in the redwoods, and how we wrapped them in wet paper and cooked them at our camp-fire? I wish we could go up to the McCloud River, though, and see the baby trout in the fish hatchery there."

So their mother told them that the tiny trout eggs were kept in troughs with clear, cold water running over them till they hatched out. Then the little things, not half as long as a pin, were placed in large tin cans and sent to stock brooks and lakes, and in a year or so they grew big enough to catch.

The most valuable of our food-fishes is the salmon, a large silvery-sided salt-water fish that takes fresh-water journeys too. For they swim up the rivers every year to lay their eggs in the clear, cold streams, knowing, perhaps, that the salmon-fry, as the young are called, will have fewer enemies away from the ocean. The salmon go over a hundred miles up to the McCloud River to spawn, and will jump or leap up small falls or rapids in their way. Indians spear many of them, but a number go back to the ocean again. Thousands and thousands of ocean salmon are caught along the northern coast and taken to the canneries. There the fish are put into cans and cooked, and when sealed up are sent all over the world. California salmon is eaten from Iceland to India, and its preparation and sale give employment to many people.



ABOUT CALIFORNIA'S INDIANS

When the Spanish and English first landed on this part of the New World's coast, they found the Indians who dwelt inland almost naked, and living like wild animals on roots and seeds and acorns. The tribes along the seashore, however, were good hunters and fishermen, and those Indians along the Santa Barbara Channel and the islands near by were a tall, fine-looking people, and the most intelligent of the race. They had large houses and canoes, and clothed themselves in sealskins.

The Indians Drake saw near Point Reyes had fur coats, or cloaks, but no other clothes. They brought him presents of shell money or wampum, and of feather head-dresses and baskets. With their bows and arrows they killed fish or deer or squirrels, and being very strong ran swiftly after game. They seemed gentle and peaceable with the white men and each other, and were sorry to have Drake sail away.

In later years the Indians who lived here when the Mission Padres came were stupid and brutish, because they knew nothing better. They were lazy, dirty, and at first would not work. But the patient Padres taught them to raise grain and fruit, to build their fine churches, to weave cloth and blankets, and to tan leather for shoes, saddles, or harness. But although the Indians learned to be good workmen, they liked idleness, dancing, and feasting much better, and when the Missions were given up the Indians soon went back to their former habits.

There were no distinct tribes among these Indians, and they had no laws. Nor was there a king or chief over many natives. They lived in small villages or rancherias, each having a name and ruled by a captain. Each rancheria had its special place to hunt or fish, and had to fight its own battles with the other families of Indians.

The men did nothing but hunt and fish, or make bows, stone arrow-heads, nets and traps for game. The women not only had to gather grass seeds, acorns, and nuts or berries, but they had to do all the field-work and carry the heavy burdens, usually with a baby strapped in its basket above the load. In preparing food for cooking, these mahalas, or squaws, put seed or acorns in a stone mortar and pounded them to coarse meal or paste. Sometimes a grass-woven basket was filled with water, and hot stones were thrown in till the water began to boil. Then acorn or seed meal was put in and cooked into mush. This meal, or that from wild oats, was also mixed into a dough and baked on hot stones into bread. Game or fish was eaten raw, or broiled a little on the coals of the camp-fire.

The Indians got many deer, and one way of hunting them was to put the head and hide of a deer over the hunter's head. The make-believe then crept along in the high grass till near enough to the quietly feeding animals to put an arrow through one or more. All the streams were full of fish then, and salmon swarmed in rivers that ran to the ocean. These salmon the Indians speared or shot with arrows. They also built runways or fish-weirs and made them so that the fish would become crowded into a narrow passage, and could easily be dipped out with nets or baskets.

When the Americans came here they called these Indians "Diggers," because they lived on what they could dig or root out of the ground. They were very fond of grasshoppers, and ate them either dried or raw, or made into a soup with acorn or nut-meal. Fat grubworms and the flesh of any animal found dead was a great treat. If a whale or sea-lion was washed ashore on the beach, the Indians gathered round it for a feast, and soon left only the bones.



But they had no idea of saving food, so they fattened when there was plenty, and starved when dry years made the acorns or nuts scarce. Having no salt, they did not try to dry or smoke the meat of deer or other wild animals. Nor did they at first lay up nuts and seeds, as even the squirrels or woodpeckers do, for winter use. But wandering from place to place, they camped in the summer along the rivers, where fish was plenty and the wild oats gave them grain. In the fall they hunted pine-nuts and berries in the mountains, till snow drove them down into the valleys.

Each Indian town, or rancheria, had a name, and many of these names are still in use. At the north lived the Klamaths, Siskiyous, Shastas, and the savage Modocs, whose months of fighting in the lava beds caused the death of General Canby and many soldiers. The Porno tribes of Lake county, Yrekas, Hoopas, and Ukiahs, are well known at the present day. Tehama, Colusa, Tuolumne, Yosemite, and other places recall the Indians who gave each its name. The San Diego Indians are still known as Dieguenos and live on a reserve, or lands set aside for them.

Almost all the natives had Indian money, called wampum, which they made from abalone or clam-shells by cutting out round pieces like buttons or small, hollow beads. Little shells were also used, and the wampum was strung on grass or on deer sinews. The Pomos still make thousands of pieces of this money, and so many strings of it will buy whatever the buck, or Indian man, and his mahala, or squaw, wish to get.

General Bidwell, who came to California in 1841 and surveyed the land for many ranches, says of the Indians at that time:—

"They were almost as wild as deer, and wore no clothes at all except the women, who had tule aprons fastened to a belt round their waists. In the rough work of surveying among brush and briars I gave the men shoes, pantaloons, and shirts, which they would take off when work was done, carry home in their hands, and put on in time to go to work again. But they soon learned to sleep in their new things to save trouble, and would wear them day and night till a suit dropped to pieces. They were quick to do as the whites did, and when paid in calico and cloth Saturday night, by Monday they had on their new skirts or shirts all made up like ours. Yet every Indian would choose beads for his wages, and go almost naked and hungry till the next pay-day."

General Bidwell treated the Indians honestly and kindly, and in return they were his friends and helped him much to his advantage. In 1847 he settled on the great Rancho Chico, and part of his land he gave to the Mechoopdas, as the Indian rancheria there was called. They worked to plant orchards and at all his farm-work, and he treated them so fairly that old men are still living on this ranch who as boys helped the general in his tree-planting and road-building. A whole village of these Mechoopdas live on the Bidwell place owning their houses, while Mrs. Bidwell is their best friend and helps them in sickness and trouble. The men work in the hop fields and fruit orchards, and the women make baskets.

All the California Indians are basket-makers, and their work is so well done and so beautiful that it is much prized. The Pomos of Lake and Mendocino counties make especially fine baskets for every purpose. Indeed, the Indian papoose, or baby, is cradled in a basket on his mother's back; he drinks and eats from cup or bowl-shaped baskets, and the whole family sleep under a great wicker tent basket thatched with grass or tules. All Pomo baskets are woven on a frame of willow shoots, and in and out through this the mahala draws tough grasses or fine tree roots dyed in different colors, and after the pattern she chooses. Sometimes she works into the baskets the quail's crest, small red or yellow feathers from the woodpecker, green from the head of the mallard duck, or beads. She also hangs wampum or bits of abalone shell on the finest ones. The storage baskets are four or five feet high to hold grain or acorns, and the baskets to fit the back and carry a load are like half a cone in shape, with straps to hold the burden in place. Their smaller berry baskets hold just a quart. Some are water-tight and are used to cook mush in. Fish-traps and long narrow basket-traps for quail are also made out of this willow-work.

On the Bidwell ranch is an old Indian "temescal," or sweat-house. It is an underground hut, or cave dug out of a hillside, with a hole in the top for smoke to reach the air. The Indians used to build a big fire in this cave and then lie round it till dripping with sweat. A cold plunge into the creek near by finished the bath,—Turkish, we call it. Nowadays the Indians use this place for a meeting-room and for dances.

The older Indians still dance and rig out in all their finery of feathers and beads, though the young people are ashamed of their tribal customs and wish to be like the white folks. Some of their dances are named for a bird or animal, and the Indians must imitate by their dress and cries the animal chosen. In the bear dance the dancer crawls about the fire on all fours with a bear's skin about him. He wears a chain of oak-balls round his neck, and as he shakes his head these rattle like a bear's teeth snapping shut, while all the time he growls savagely. The feather-dancer, with a skirt and cap of eagles' feathers, will whirl on his toes like a top for hours, while the other Indians sing and the master of the dance shakes a large rattle.

The California Indians are slowly passing away, and though all over the state there are still rancherias, the land that was once their very own will soon know them no more.



THE STORY OF SAN FRANCISCO

The Mission and Presidio of San Francisco were founded in 1776 by Father Palou, and two little settlements grew up around the fort and at the church. The Presidio was built where it is now, and ships used to anchor in the bay in front of it, though the whalers usually went to Sausalito to get wood from the hills and to fill their water-casks at a large spring. From early Mission times the Spanish name of Yerba Buena was given to that part of San Francisco's peninsula between Black Point and Rincon Point. Ship-captains and sailors soon found out that the cove or bay east of Yerba Buena was the best and least windy place to anchor their vessels, and later on hundreds of ships found a safe harbor there. The name Yerba Buena, or good herb, was given on account of a little creeping vine with sweet-smelling leaves which covered the ground and is still found on the sand-dunes and Presidio hills.

For many years the small settlements made no progress, and the rest of the peninsula was covered with thick woods, where the grizzly bear, wolf, and coyote roamed, while deer were plenty at the Presidio. Then in 1835 Governor Figueroa, the Mexican ruler of California, directed that a new town should be started at Yerba Buena cove. The first street, called the "foundation-street," was laid out from Pine and Kearny streets, as they are called to-day, to North Beach. The first house was built by Captain Richardson on what is now Dupont Street, between Clay and Washington. The next year a trader named Jacob Leese built a store. It was finished on the Fourth of July, and in honor of the day he gave a feast and a fandango, or dance, at which the company danced that night and all the next day. This was the first Fourth celebrated in the place.

Two or three years later a new survey laid out streets between Broadway and California, Montgomery and Powell. A fresh-water lagoon, or lake, was near the present corner of Montgomery and Sacramento, and an Indian temescal, or sweat-house, beside it. The bay came up to Montgomery Street then, with five feet of water at Sansome, and mudflats to the east. During the gold excitement of '49, when hundreds of ships dropped anchor in the bay, many sailors deserted to go to the mines, and some of the old vessels were hauled in on these mud-flats and made into storehouses. All that part of the city east of Montgomery Street is filled or made ground, and when new buildings are to be started wooden piles or cement piers must go down to get a firm foundation.

Until 1846 only about thirty families lived at Yerba Buena. Then a shipload of Mormon emigrants arrived and pitched their tents in the sand-hills. Samuel Brannan, their leader, printed the first newspaper, The California Star, in '47. That year also the first alcalde, or mayor, of the new town, Lieutenant Bartlett, appointed an engineer named O'Farrell to lay out more streets. He surveyed Market Street and mapped down blocks as far west on the sand-dunes as Taylor Street and to Rincon Point or South Beach. He gave the names of such well-known men as Kearny, Stockton, Larkin, Guerrero, and Geary to these streets. Mission Street was the road to the Mission Dolores, and about this time Bartlett ordered that the Presidio, the Mission, and Yerba Buena should be one town and should be called San Francisco.

Then came the gold fever, and nearly every one left town to go to the mines. Many people sold all they had to get money to buy mining tools and food enough to live on till they struck gold. Men started for the mines, leaving their houses and stores alone with no one to care for goods or furniture.

But news of the finding of gold had reached other places, and soon ships from the Atlantic coast, Mexico, and all over the world began sailing into San Francisco Bay. In '49 the first steamer, the California, arrived from New York, and soon five thousand people were in San Francisco, where most of the supplies for the gold-fields had to be bought. Many of the newcomers lived in canvas tents or brush-covered shanties scattered about in the high sand-hills or in the thick chaparral. Some houses were built of adobe bricks, and the two-story frame Parker House was thought to be so fine that it rented for fifteen thousand dollars a month. Some wooden houses were brought out from the East in numbered pieces, like children's blocks, to be put together here, and others thought to be fireproof were of iron plates made in the East.

The first public school was opened in '48 and in the same building church services were held Sundays. The first post-office was in a store at the corner of Washington and Montgomery streets in '49. By 1850 the city had five square miles of land that had been cut down from sand-hills or filled in on the mud-flats. The houses along the city-front were built on piles, and the tide ebbed and flowed under them. Long wharves for the unloading of ships ran out into deep water. At Jackson and Battery streets a ship was used for a storehouse, and after the earth was filled in this stranded vessel was left standing among the houses. On Clay and Sansome streets the old hulk Niantic had a hotel upon her decks, and the first city prison was in the hold of the brig Euphemia.



While most of the miners were steady, hard-working men, honest, and very kind and generous to each other, some drank and gambled their hard-earned gold-dust away with a get of men who were ready to do any wrong thing for money. The gamblers and bad characters grew so troublesome by '51 that the police could do little or nothing with them. Every day some one was robbed, or murdered, and thieves often set fire to houses that they might plunder. As the judges and police could not control these criminals, nearly two hundred good citizens formed a "vigilance committee." It was agreed that bad characters should be told to leave town, and that robbers and murderers should be punished by the committee. Not long after, the vigilance committee hanged four men, and roughs and law-breakers left town for the mines. Men soon learned to keep the laws and do right.

Since almost all the houses in San Francisco were light frames of wood covered with cloth or paper, and since there was no fire department, there were six great fires, each of which nearly burnt up the town. The only way to stop the flames was to pull down houses or to blow them up with gunpowder. But almost before the ashes of one fire had cooled, wooden, cloth and paper buildings would cover whole blocks, to be burned again before long. The fifth great fire, in '51, destroyed a thousand houses and ten million dollars' worth of property in a night. One warehouse containing many barrels of vinegar was saved by covering the roof with blankets dipped in the vinegar, as no water could be had. The iron houses that had been thought fire-proof were of no use. Men who stayed in them found too late that the iron doors swelled with the heat and could not be opened, so that those within were smothered to death.

Then people began to guard against such fires by building new houses of stone or of brick. The sixth great fire destroyed most of the wooden buildings in the business part of the city. After that, with two or three fire companies and engines and better houses, people no longer dreaded the fire-bell. Water was piped into the city from Mountain Lake, and there was plenty for all purposes.



So the city grew larger, until in '53 there were fifty thousand people of all races and countries who called San Francisco home. Chinese and Japanese, the Mexican, African, Pacific Islander, Greek, or Turk, or Malay elbowed crowds of Americans, English, French, and Germans. It was said that any foreigner could find in the city those who spoke his language, and that gold was a word all knew.

The largest yield of gold from the mines was in '53, and the next year was a poor year for the miners. They bought fewer goods in San Francisco, and the storekeepers found business falling off. Too many houses had been built, so rents went down and times were hard for a year or two. In '55 there were many bank failures, and business troubles of all kinds made the people restless, and roughs and murderers carried a strong hand. Then the "law and order party," as the vigilance committee was at that time called, began once more the task of punishing those who robbed or killed. A list of criminal offenders was made out, and such were sent away from the state. One excellent result of the vigilance committee's labors was that a "people's party," as it was called, chose the best men to govern the city, and for years after peace and order were in San Francisco.

In '54 the city was lighted with gas for the first time, at a cost of fifteen dollars a thousand feet. In that year also the mint began to coin money from gold-dust, making five, ten and twenty-dollar pieces. Lone Mountain Cemetery was laid out about this time, and the old Yerba Buena graveyard, where the City Hall now stands, was closed.

San Francisco had, for some years, trouble about titles to property, owing to false or defective land-grants given by the Mexicans. Men tried to take possession of lots they had no real claim to by building a shanty on the ground and squatting there, and the "squatter troubles" between such land thieves and the rightful owners caused lawsuits and shooting affairs. A land commission finally settled these disputes, throwing out all the false claims and giving titles to the proper persons.



The little village of Yerba Buena has now grown to be the largest city on the Pacific coast and one that is known the world over. It is widely and justly celebrated as the centre of great manufacturing and shipping interests, for its fine buildings, its climate, and its beautiful surroundings. San Francisco Bay, the harbor the Franciscans named for their patron saint, is noted for its picturesque scenery. Golden Gate Park, with its thousand acres of trees and lawn and flowers stretching out to the Pacific Ocean, the famous Cliff House, and the Golden Gate, through which so many Argonauts sailed into California, are the most attractive and best known places.



MEN CALIFORNIA REMEMBERS

Many pages of this book might be filled with California's roll of honor,—with that long list of men whose names are remembered whenever the state's history is recalled.

Explorers, Mission-builders, Argonauts, and pioneers were the men who helped to make California the fair state you know and live in. From the first day of the Spanish discoveries on this shore of the Pacific Ocean, we find brave and great men who gave their best efforts, and sometimes their lives, for California.

Let us head our brief list with Cortes, the name-giver, who dreamed long years of the golden land he was never to see. Then Cabrillo, the sea-king whom San Diego people honor every year because he found their bay and first set foot on California's ground. Next comes the bold Englishman, Sir Admiral Francis Drake, who intended that his queen, Elizabeth, should have this Indian kingdom, as he believed it to be. The stone Prayer-book Cross, in Golden Gate Park, was put up to commemorate the service of prayer and psalms, offered at Drake's Bay by Fletcher, the minister on the Admiral's ship.

Good Father Serra, the founder of the Missions, his friend and brother-priest Father Palou of San Francisco, and their fellow-laborers Crespi and Lasuen, helped in the work of building churches and teaching the Indians. Governor Portola, the first Spanish ruler of Alta California, assisted the Padres, and also found San Francisco Bay. Lieutenant Ayala, however, sailed the first ship, the San Carlos, through the Golden Gate. Another governor, de Neve, founded San Jose and Los Angeles, and wrote a set of laws for the two Californias of his time. That wise ruler, Governor Borica, ordered schools opened and tried to get the Indians to farm their lands and to raise hemp and flax.

Many of the old Spanish settlers and explorers have left us their names, though they are themselves forgotten, as Martinez, Amador, Castro, Bodega, and countless others plainly show. The Englishmen Livermore, Gilroy and Mark West, those early settlers, Temple and Rice at Los Angeles, Yount and Pope of Napa Valley, Don Timoteo Murphy of San Rafael, and Lassen the Dane, for whom Lassen's Peak was named, were among those who came here before 1830.

Governor Figueroa, called the "benefactor of Alta California" ordered the Missions to be given up to the Indians. By directing that the town of Yerba Buena should be laid out, he also is remembered as the founder of San Francisco. Richardson, who carried out the governor's orders, was the first settler and Leese built the first frame-house of San Francisco.

In Governor Alvarado's time many Americans came to the new country, although Alvarado and General Vallejo tried hard to keep them out. Vallejo was then the military commander, and had headquarters at Sonoma, where he had an adobe fort and a few soldiers to protect the Mission of Solano. Here General Vallejo was living with his Indian and Californian settlers when the place was taken by Ide, the leader of the "bear-flag party." Vallejo, set free when the short-lived "bear-flag republic" went to pieces, lived many years at Sonoma. He was afterwards a member of the first legislature. He tried hard in 1851 to have the state capital at Vallejo; but he failed, for he did not keep his agreement to put up buildings for government use.

A man well known in the early days was John Sutter, a Swiss, who built a fort and settled where Sacramento now stands. He called his colony New Helvetia, and soon had about three hundred Indians at work for him. Some of the men were carpenters, blacksmiths, and farmers, while the women wove blankets or a coarse cloth. His fort enclosed about an acre of ground, with an adobe wall twenty feet high. A large gate was shut every night to keep safe those inside this walled fort. You have read that Marshall, who found gold, was building a sawmill for Sutter when he picked up the precious yellow nuggets. Sutter and Marshall quarrelled at last about the ownership of the mill at Coloma, where the pieces of gold were picked up. Marshall died a poor man, unhappy and neglected by the state, which has since put a costly bronze statue over his grave.

Sutter was very active in the Micheltorena war, when Governor Micheltorena was defeated and put out of office by Alvarado and Castro.

The last of the Mexican governors, Pio Pico, tried his best to prevent the rush of Americans into his country, but though Castro, the military commander, helped him, the Americans came and stayed. And both Pico and Castro with their soldiers were driven out of California at last by Fremont and Stockton.

General Fremont, the "path-finder," who could easily find the best way through a wilderness and could make maps or roads for others to follow him, is a striking figure in California history. He made three exploring trips to this coast, Kit Carson, the famous hunter and trapper, being his guide and scout. From the Oregon line to San Diego, Fremont knew the country. He was a brave Indian fighter and helped to capture California from Mexico. Fremont was appointed governor of the new territory by Stockton, and was the first senator from California representing the state in Congress. In 1848 Fremont sent a map of the country to Congress, and on it named the strait at the entrance to San Francisco Bay the Golden Gate. He was, therefore, the first to use this beautiful name now known the world over. His wife, Jessie Benton Fremont, is still living in Los Angeles.

Commodore Sloat, who raised the American flag at Monterey, and Commodore Stockton were United States naval officers who helped to conquer the Mexican and Indian forces with the aid of Fremont and General Kearny. These four men won the land of gold for the Union.

General John Bidwell, another "path-finder," who in 1841 led the first party of white men over the Sierras, lived to be over eighty years of age. He saw the state, once a wilderness where naked Digger Indians chased elk and antelope, grow to a pleasant land of orchards and vineyards, of great cities full of people. General Bidwell was for a time in Sutter's employ, and surveyed nearly all the large ranches and the roads in early days. All his life he planted trees and built roads, and at his great Rancho Chico is one of the largest orchards in the state. Part of his life-work was to help a tribe of savage Indians to be good American citizens, and as one of the fathers of California he should always be remembered.

Many notable names appear in the days when the finding of gold brought this shore of the Pacific Ocean before the eyes of the world. Among these are Gwin, who was chosen senator with Fremont; Larkin, widely known as the first and last American Consul to California and for his accounts of the gold discovery; and Halleck, first secretary of the state and afterward General Halleck.

The streets of San Francisco honor some of the citizens of 1848 and 1849: Geary, the first postmaster; Leavenworth and Hyde, the first alcaldes or mayors; Van Ness, Broderick, Turk, and McAllister, recalling prominent men of those days. Spanish families like Sanchez, Castro, Noe, Bernal, and Guerrero had also a place on the city map. Indeed, every town has some native Californian names in and around it.

Don Victor Castro, said to be the first white child born in San Francisco, died lately at San Pablo in the house he had built sixty years ago. He was called the last of the Spanish grandees, those dons who, before the Gringos came, had estates that stretched miles away on every hand, and thousands of cattle with many Indian servants. Don Victor built and ran the first ferry across San Francisco Bay.

Sacramento was laid out as a town for Sutter by three lieutenants of the U.S. army: Warner, who was afterwards killed by Indians; Ord, who was a general in the Civil War, while the third, in after years "marched through Georgia" as General Sherman. Marysville was also laid out by Sutter, and Stockton by Weber, who owned all the land around it.

In 1849 Doctor Gregg and his party found Humboldt Bay. In 1851 Yosemite Valley was discovered by Major Savage and a company of soldiers, who were out hunting hostile Indians. This band of Indians was called the Yosemites, and their old chief's name was Tenaya, for whom the beautiful lake is named.

Those who came to California before 1850 were called pioneers, and many of them built up great fortunes. Among them were Coleman, the president of the vigilance committee, Sharon, Flood, Fair, O'Brien, Tevis, Phelan, and James Lick. Lick was a remarkable man, who gave away an immense fortune; building the Lick Observatory, a school of mechanical arts, free public baths, an old ladies' home, and giving a million to the Academy of Science and the Society of California Pioneers.

In later days the names crowd thickly upon each other. Among editors and literary men the fearless and ill-fated James King of the Evening Bulletin, J. Ross Browne, the reporter of the first convention and a most interesting writer, Derby the humorist, "Caxton" or W.H. Rhodes, Mark Twain, Bret Harte, the historians Hittell and Bancroft, and the poet Joaquin Miller may be noted.

The governors of the state have been men remarkable as brilliant speakers or lawyers and as wise rulers. In 1875, during the time of Pacheco, the first native-born governor, the order of "Native Sons of the Golden West" was formed, which now numbers over ten thousand young California men. The "Native Daughters," a sister society, follows also the idea of keeping the love of California warm in the hearts of her children.



OUR GLORIOUS CLIMATE

Not only a glorious but in many ways a wonderful climate is enjoyed by the people of California's sea-coast and mountains, her valleys and foot-hills. In no other state can one find so many kinds of weather in such short distances. For instance, in Southern California you may pick flowers and oranges in almost tropical gardens, and in an hour find winter and throw snowballs on the high mountains overlooking the roses and orange groves you so lately left.

Only in the mountains, along that granite backbone of the state known as the Sierra Nevadas, are there four seasons, the spring, summer, autumn, and winter common to most of the United States. So the Sierras have a distinct climate of their own. The Sacramento and San Joaquin river valleys have another climate peculiar to themselves, while south of latitude 35 degrees the coast has less rain and is warmer than the coast counties north of that line.

In the greater part of the state the year is divided into a dry summer and a wet winter. The rains begin in October, and the first showers fall on dry, brown hills and dusty fields baked hard by steady sunshine since May. After these showers the grass springs up, and the fields are green almost as quickly as if some fairy godmother had waved her wand. An army of wild flowers, whose seeds were hidden in the brown earth, wakes when the rain-drops patter, and the plants get ready to bloom in a month or so. For this season, from November to February, with little frost and no ice nor snow, is winter in name only. Roses and violets bloom in the gardens and yellow poppies on the hills.

People expect and hope for much rain in this so-called winter, since a wet year assures good crops to the state. But the amount of rain that falls is very uncertain. It does not rain every day, nor all day, as a rule, and each storm seems different. Sometimes a "southeaster" blows up from the Japan Current, or Black Stream, as the Japanese call the warm, dark-blue waters that pour out of the China Sea. This current of the Pacific Ocean flows along our coast in a mighty river a thousand miles wide, and gives California its peculiar climate of cool summers and moist, warm winters. The southeasterly wind ruffles the bay with white-capped waves and dashes sheets of rain against window and roof. Then the wind changes, and all the clouds go flying to north or east, while from the clear blue sky brilliant sunshine pours down to make the grass and flowers grow. During the winter months the sun is strong and warm enough to make out-door life delightful.

The farmer depends greatly upon the rainfall. In a wet winter the moisture sinks far into the ground, but not so deep that the thirsty little roots cannot find it in the summer. Early rains are needed to soften the ground for November ploughing, and young grain and crops of all kinds need rain through April. In the northern part of the state the wet season begins earlier and lasts longer than in the south, while the southeastern corner is an almost rainless desert.

In San Francisco the thermometer seldom falls below 45 in the winter, the average for the season being 51. Perhaps in January or February the sidewalks may be white with frost in the mornings, or hail may fall during some cold rain-storm. Once in five years or so, enough snow falls to make children go wild with delight over a few snowballs which are very soon melted. People can be comfortable the year round without fires, and the clear, bright winter days with soft air and warm sunshine are always pleasant enough to spend outdoors. This ocean climate, due to the warm sea air, is enjoyed by the counties facing the coast and San Francisco Bay. In the valleys of the interior white frosts are frequent, and thin ice forms on the wayside puddles. Once in a while killing frosts destroy fruit blossoms and cut down the garden flowers and vegetables, but seldom do more damage.



In mountain regions, above five or six thousand feet, the very cold winter lasts six or seven months. Snow falls almost constantly and drifts to a great depth. Small lakes are frozen and buried in snow, and the trees are bent and weighed down with ice and sleet. Many of the wild animals come down to the foot-hills below the snow-line to spend the winter; but the bear curls himself up in his warm cave and sleeps through the cold months. In this snowy zone of the Sierras, about thirty miles wide, winter lasts from the first snowfall, about the end of October, to the late spring of June. Then July and August are months of glorious weather, with clear, dry air and a cloudless sky. During the day the temperature of about 80 degrees melts much snow, and the rivers carry it away in rushing torrents and falls of icy water. In September the frost turns the leaves of all but the evergreen trees beautiful colors of red and yellow. Indian summer comes during September and October, when the days are sunny and warm, and then the long winter sets in again. Peaks above eight thousand feet are snow-clad on their crests and along their sides by deep drifts the year round.

Along the Pacific coast in summer cool sea-winds, called trade-winds, blow in from the ocean, and 60 degrees is the average temperature. The farther you go inland from the coast, the hotter it gets, and the heat is very great in the interior of the state. In the San Joaquin and Sacramento valleys it is often over 100 degrees in the shade, though this dry heat is not hard to bear, and the nights are always cool enough for one to sleep in comfort.

Summer fogs are usual in the coast counties. The mornings are pleasant and sunny till about eleven o'clock. At this time the sun's rays grow stronger in the interior valleys, and the hot air rises while trade-winds rush in from the cold ocean and fog settles down like a thick, gray cloud over the bay and hills. July and August are cold and foggy along the coastline, with strong west winds almost every day. In September the winds die away, and sometimes a shower or two falls.

The rainless desert, or southeastern corner of our state, is the hottest region of all. Here the sun glares down till sand and rocks seem heated by a fiery furnace. Every living creature gasps and pants for breath in the scorching heat. There are no trees, but only cactus, that queer, prickly, thorny plant, often fifteen or twenty feet high in these wastes of sand, and low greasewood bushes. Under this vegetation snakes, lizards, and horned toads bask all day and search for food at night. If travellers wander from the road in crossing the desert, they are easily lost, and sometimes they die or go mad in the terrible heat. There are no springs, and water stations are a long way apart, so that lost people usually die of thirst. As the heat of the sun's rays quivers over the burning sands, a curious sight called a mirage is often produced. A cool, glassy lake or flowing river bordered with green trees seems pictured in the air, and the hot and weary traveller can scarcely believe that only sand and rocks are before him.

Can you tell which season you like the best? You will find the one you choose in some part of this favored state. It is always summer in the south, and you may slide on the ice or throw snowballs all year in the high Sierras.



SOME WONDERFUL SIGHTS

California is a wonderland where snowy mountains, mighty and ancient forests, glaciers and geysers, lakes and waterfalls, foaming rivers and the cliffs and rolling surf down her long sea-coast give new and beautiful pictures at every place.

Through the whole state stretches the granite backbone of the Sierra Nevadas with its highest crest or ridge at the head-waters of the Kings and Kern rivers near Fresno. Here Mount Whitney and a dozen other great peaks of the High Sierras or California Alps lift their heads over thirteen thousand feet in the air. Here are to be seen most magnificent panoramas of lofty peaks, deep canons, towering domes, and snow-clad summits. The finest forests, too, in the world grow on the slopes of the Sierras, the immense pines and giant sequoias of the General Grant and other National Parks in this section being the largest and oldest of all. Kings River Canon is a rugged gorge half a mile deep with the river rushing through it in thundering rapids and cascades.

The well-known Yosemite Valley is the gorge of the Merced River and, though only eight miles long and half a mile wide, holds the grandest of all our mountain scenery. The mighty rock El Capitan, over three thousand feet in height, stands at the entrance to the valley, and across from it is Bridal Veil Fall, a snowy cascade so thin you can see the face of the mountain through the falling waters. There are many waterfalls, but the Yosemite is chief of them all. Here the river takes a plunge of sixteen hundred feet, the water falling like snowy rockets bursting into spray from that great height.

Then, for six hundred feet more, the torrent leaps and foams through a trench it has cut out of the solid rock to the cliff, from which it takes a second plunge. This Lower Yosemite fall is four hundred feet high, the rushing waters turning into clouds of spray, which the wind tosses from side to side. At Nevada Fall the Merced River leaps six hundred feet at a bound, strikes a mass of rocks halfway down, and breaks into white foam upon which rainbows play when the sun shines through the misty veil.

Besides the grand Sentinel Rock, Eagle Peak, Clouds' Rest, and other high mountains in the Yosemite Valley, many domes or round-topped peaks like the heads of buried giants loom up, the most famous being South Dome, Washington Column, Liberty Cap, and Mount Broderick.

But no one can picture this wonderful valley with pen or brush or camera and give its real charm. You must see it yourself to know and understand the beauty of great mountains and falling waters, of Mirror Lake with its fine reflections of the surrounding scenery, and of the rushing torrent of the Merced River in its swift coursing through this mighty canon of the Yosemite. Thousands of tourists and sightseers visit the valley from May to October. Then snow begins to fall and winter sets in, as it does everywhere in the high Sierras. Very deep snow-drifts cover the ground, lakes and rivers freeze, and the great falls are fringed with icicles, while a large ice cone forms at the foot of the falling water. Many beautiful pictures may be found in the valley in winter when Jack Frost is ruler of all the snow-clad, ice-bound canon.

Scattered throughout the Sierras are other valleys almost as fine as the Yosemite. These are not often reached by the army of summer sight-seers, but true mountaineers find them. One valley which has fine scenery is the Grand Canon of the Tuolumne, the gorge being twenty-five miles long, with walls so high and steep that once entered one must go through to the end. The Tuolumne River rushes, with terrible force and speed, in cascades and rapids down the granite stairway which is the floor of this canon. The walls of the gorge rise so high that the traveller only sees a tiny strip of blue sky far above him, and the great pine trees on top of these cliff walls seem only the length of one's finger.

It is supposed that all these valleys have been formed by glaciers, which during the ice age, thousands of years ago, filled the canons and swept over the mountains. These masses of ice, moving very slowly, ground and tore up the rocks under and around them till deep gorges and steep, high cliffs were left in their tracks. Most of the glaciers melted long ago, but on Mount Lyell, on Shasta, and a few of the Sierra summits may still be found those ever-living ice-rivers, the one on Mount Lyell being the source of the Tuolumne River.

California is rich in lakes, especially in the mountains where the melting snows gather in every hollow and form lakelets in chains or groups, or in one large body of water like Tahoe, Donner, or Tenaya lakes.

One of the most beautiful lakes in the world is Lake Tahoe. It is six thousand feet above sea-level, and the mountains around it rise four thousand feet higher. On these peaks snow-drifts lie the year round above the "snow-line," as a height over eight or nine thousand feet is called. Nevada, treeless and barren, is on the eastern side of Lake Tahoe, while the western or California side is green and thickly wooded with beautiful pines. But the first thing one would notice, perhaps, is the wonderful clearness of the lake water. As one stands on the wharf the steamer Tahoe seems to be hanging in the clear green depths with her keel and twin propellers in plain sight. The fish dart under her and all about as in some large aquarium. There a big lake-trout shoots by like a silver streak of light, or here is a school of hundreds of little fingerlings. Every stick or stone shows on the bottom as one starts out on the steamer, and as one sails along where the water is sixty or seventy feet deep. In the middle the lake's depth is fifteen hundred feet and the water is a dark indigo-blue. At the edge and along shallow places the color is bright green, as at Emerald Bay, a beautiful inlet three miles long. Lake Tahoe is twenty miles in length and about five wide, and its icy cold waters are of crystal clearness and very pure.

Fallen Leaf Lake is a smaller Tahoe, and Donner Lake, not far from Truckee, and now the camping-place of many a summer visitor, is the place where years ago the Donner overland party spent a terrible winter in the Sierra snows.

Clear Lake and the Blue Lakes in Lake County are delightful places to visit, and in this county, too, are the geysers. Some wonderful curiosities are seen here. You will find springs that spout up a stream of hot water every few minutes, mineral springs from which you can have a drink of soda water, and an acid spring that flows lemonade. Alum, iron, or sulphur waters, either hot or cold, bubble up out of the ground at every turn. At one spring you may boil an egg. Other springs are used for steam baths and also hot mud-baths. In Geyser Canon is the strange place every sight-seer hurries to at once. Such rumblings and thunderings, such hot vapors and gases come from the cracks in the ground, that the Indians thought this was the workshop where the bad spirit which white people call the devil used to live and work. The deeper one goes into this canon, the hotter and noisier it gets. All round are signs telling where it is dangerous to step, while the ground is hot, and boiling water runs by in little streams. Steam rises from many pools, and the sulphur smell almost chokes one. Another curious spring, called the devil's inkstand, seems full of ink. Mount St. Helena, near here, is a dead or extinct volcano, and probably there are fires in the earth under this region which keep up these steam and sulphur springs.



Many of the Sierra summits are capped with volcanic rock, and Lassen's Peak and Mount Shasta are extinct volcanoes. There are hot springs and cracks from which steam and sulphur rise on both of these mountains, and as earthquakes often shake the earth in different parts of the state we know that underground fires are still at work. A great piece of land on Mount San Jacinto in Southern California lately sank down about a hundred feet, and cracks both deep and wide show that some force from below gave a thorough shaking-up to that part of the state.

Mono, Owen's, and several other large lakes are the "sinks" into which rivers flow and lose themselves in the sandy or marshy shores. These lakes have soda or salt in their waters, and great stretches of dry alkali lands around them. The famous Death Valley is a dry lake of this kind where the sun beats down on the white alkali plain till it is almost certain death to try to cross it without a guide. The Salton Sea is a dry lake where almost pure salt is dug out, and great quantities of borax and of soda are found in other beds, of dried-up streams and lakes.

But to tell of all the curious things nature has to show us in California,—of the forests of petrified trees, of the caverns cut out of the ocean cliffs by restless waves, or of those in the mountains or the Modoc lava-beds,—well, you will see most of them, let us hope, in your vacations. A large book might be given to the wonderful sights of this great state, and it may be your fortune to visit and so always remember a few we have named.



PRONOUNCING VOCABULARY

Alta (ael'-ta). Amador (am'-a-dore). Alvarado (al-va-rae'-do). Ayala (ae-yae'-la). Bernal (ber-nal'). Bodega (bo-dā'-ga). Cabrillo (ka-breel'-yo). Calaveras (kal-a-vā'-ras). Carmel (kar'-mel). Castro (kas'-tro). Cortes (kor'-tez). Coloma (ko-lo'-ma). Diegueno (de-ā-gwān'-yo). Farallones (făr'-a-lones). Figueroa (fi-gwa-ro'-a). Franciscan (fran-cis'-can). Galvez (gal'-ves). Gringos (gring'-gos). Guerrero (gur-rā'-ro). Junipero Serra (hū-nip'-er-o ser'-ra). Klamath (klam'-eth). Los Angeles (los an'-ga-lees). Marin (ma-rin'). Mariposa (mar-e-po'-sa). Martinez (mar-tee'-nes). Mechoopdas (me-choop'-das). Mission Dolores (mis'-sion do-lōr'-es). Modocs (mo'-docs). Monterey (mon-ta-ray'). Noe (no'-a). Ortega (or-tā'-ga). Pacheco (pae-chā'-ko). Padres (pa'-drays). Palou (pa'-loo). Pio Pico (pe'-o pe'-ko). Placerville (plăs'-er-vil). Point Reyes (rays). Pomos (po'-mos). Portola (por-to'-la). San Antonio (san an-tō-ni-ō). Sanchez (san'-ches). San Carlos (san kar'-lōs). San Diego (san de-ā'-go). San Fernando (san fer-nan'-do). San Francisco (san fran-cis'-co). San Gabriel (san ga-brell'). San Jacinto (san ha-sin'-to). San Joaquin (san waw-keen'). San Jose (san ho-say'). San Juan Bautista (san wawn ba-tis'-ta). San Juan Capistrano (san wawn kap-is-tra'-no). San Luis Obispo (san loo-is o-bis'-po). San Miguel (san mig-gell'). Santa Barbara (san'-ta bar'-ba-ra). Santa Catalina (san'-ta kat-a-lee'-na). Santa Cruz (san'-ta krooz). Santa Lucia (san'-ta loo-she'-a). Santa Ysabel (san'-ta ē'-sa-bel). Santa Ynez (san'-ta e'-nes). Sausalito (saw-sa-lee'-to). Sierras (see-er'-ras). Siskiyous (sis'-ke-yous). Sonoma (so-no'-ma). Sutter (sŭt'-ter). Tahoe (tae'-ho). Tamalpais (tarm'-el-pies). Tenaya (te-ni'-ya). Tulare (too-lar'-ee). Tuolumne (too-ol'-um-ee). Ukiah (u-ki'-ah). Vallejo (vael-yā'-ho). Viscaino (vees-kae-e'-no). Wawona (wa-wo'-na). Yerba Buena (yer'-ba bwā'-na). Yosemite (yo sem'-e-tee).

abalone (ab-a-lo'-nee). adobe (a-do'-bee). alcalde (al-kal'-day). arrastra (ar-ras'-tra). burro (boo'-ro). canon (can'-yon). carne seca (kar'-nā sā'-ka). cascarone (kas-ka-ro'-na). chaparral (shap-per-ral'). coyote (ki-o'-tee). corral (kor-ral'). debris (day-bree'). el toro (el to'-ro). fandango (fan-dang'-go). frijoles (free-yo'-lays). galleon (gal'-le-on). madrono (ma-dron'-yo). manzanita (man-zan-ee'-ta). mantilla (man-tee'-ya). mahala (ma-ha'-la). mesa (mā'-sa). mustangs (mus'-tangs), presidio (prā-se'-de-o). pueblos (pū-ā'-blos), ranche (ransh). rancheria (ran-sha-ree'-a). rodeos (ro-da'-os). senora (sān-yo'-ra). senoritas (sān-yor-ee'-tas). sombrero (som-brā'-ro). sequoias (see-kwoy'-as). serape (ser-ae'-pay). teredo (te-rē'-do). temescal (tem-es-kal'). tortillas (tor-tee'-yas). tule (too'-lee). vaqueros (vae-ka'-ros).

THE END