iig men
Such is the detail of the picture which I wish to present of central and northern California in Jan- uary 1848. I will complete it with some generalities of physical features and population, thus giving as a whole the inhabitants and their environment.
It is the dawn of history in these parts, presently to be followed by a golden sunlight flooding the whole western world. All along the centuries Cali- fornia had lain slumbering, wrapt in obscurity, and lulled by the monotone of ocean. The flrst fitful dreams of explorers in search of an ever-eluding strait, of cities stored with treasures, had subsided into pastoral scenes, with converts and settlers clus- tering round white-walled missions in the shadow of the cross. Then came the awakening, impelled by a ruder invasion of soldiers and land-greedy backwoods- men, the premonitory ripple of international interest and world-absorbing excitement.
Strewn lavishly about is what men most covet, those portions of nature's handiwork called wealth and wealth-making material, the acquisition of which is the great burden progressive men conventionally lay upon themselves as the price of their civilization. These resources reveal themselves in the long snow-clad uplands of the Sierra, with their timber and metals, in the nbrthern foothills, revelling in perennial spring, and in the semi-tropic vegetation of the central and southern valleys. The extremes of heat and cold, of desert aridity and unhealthy rankness, are rare and of small extent, serving rather to illustrate as rem- nants the method and means of nature in producing one of her masterpieces. Such are the unsightly marshes in different localities; the Colorado desert bordering the river of that name, and its link along the eastern declivity of the Sierra Nevada with the great basin of the interior, which in the south is marked by a dismal stretch of bare ridges and inter- vening valleys of sand and volcanic scoria, with occa- sional muddy salt pools and cracked surfaces frosted
