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great havoc among the flocks and herds of all parts of the peninsula, and injured the prospects of the northern districts on the ocean particularly.

THE NATIVE AND INTRODUCED FRUITS, GRAINS, AND VEGETABLES-FORESTTREES NO HISTORY OF ITS BOTANY KNOWN.

All kinds and varieties of the cactus or prickly-pear family, amounting to some 50 distinct species, abound in every part of Baja California, and yield the most delicious and healthy quality of fruits in the greatest abundance. The family of the agaves (mercals, magueys, or century plants) are extremely abundant and varied, and it is likely in the future will make an important article of commerce for the manufacture of spirits from the roots, and of rope, bagging, and paper fibre, from the leaves or pencas, which often weigh 50 pounds. It is certain that the fibre of the agaves could be furnished easily and in the greatest abundance, in any quantities, and within short distances of ship-anchorage. For rope and bagging it exceeds every fibre we have seen in strength, length of fibre, and durability. The family of acacia-trees, called mesquites, algarrobas, and locusts, abound in every part of the country. Two kinds of native palms, bearing edible fruit, are very abundant, and several kinds of cone-bearing trees, as pines, cedars, etc. Oaks, wild plums, cottonwoods, sycamores, willows, and elder, are also met with in mountain and valley.

The missionaries, after 1730, introduced the Arabian date-palm, which succeeds admirably, and yields abundantly, and also oranges, lemons, and all the species of the citrine family, pine-apples, bananas, plantains, and the most of the valuable and curious fruits produced in Mexico, below the level of 3,000 feet. They also planted the vine, olive, fig, pomegranate, almond, peach, quince, and even plums, apples, pears, melons, watermelons, and such like, in more elevated and cooler districts; the vine, fig, olive, currant-grape, almond, quince, and peach, are much more luscious, and grow much quicker, and with less labor and expense, than in Alta California, and in many special localities are unsurpassed in the world for luxuriance, sweetness, and flavor. The fig and grape are much sweeter than in our State, and the grape ripens better and quicker, from hotter and drier suns, and makes much richer wine, brandy, raisins, and currants. Before 1849 the Lower Californians sent up annually to Monterey large quantities of dried figs, currants, grapes, dates, and peaches, and cheese also, which were sold at reasonable rates and good profits. The cultivation of all the fruits named, and of many others of Asia and Oceanica, could be indefinitely extended, with sufficient population and a stable government.

Wheat, barley, oats, maize, or corn, and all the cereals of Europe or Asia, which have been tried, succeed well, according to localities and temperature, as well as such vegetables as sweet potatoes, okra, peas, beans, cabbages, and pumpkins, onions, egg-fruit, and the native vegetables used for the table in Mexico and Peru. The sugar cane has been cultivated for more than a century, and yields a sugar as strong and sweet as that of Peru, and very abundant in juice. Coffee has also been tried, and its quality is excellent, as the valleys of Lower California, where sheltered from heavy winds, resemble in climate and soil the elevated country near Mocha in Arabia. If there is plenty of such land in the peninsula, coffee can be easily made to become a profitable business, but it must be always grown under the line of heavy frosts, or it bears no fruit.

The date-palm, in all its varieties, such as are found in Egypt, Morocco, and Arabia, is capable of being cultivated to an indefinite extent in Baja California, as it grows in upland and lowland vigorously, and bears the finest quality of fruits. The same may be said of the cocoa-nut palm, which could be made to flourish by the million; indeed, there would be no difficulty in growing any species of palm, except those peculiar to moist districts.

No botanist has ever consecutively explored the peninsula in detail, and the

history of its botany, or flora, like that of its animals, or fauna,is yet to be written. What is known of it is only of partial districts.

THE COUNTRY ON THE PACIFIC COAST BETWEEN VISCAINO BAY AND SAN DIEGO -AN AMERICAN FUR-TRAPPER'S ACCOUNT OF IT IN 1827.

One of the best portions of the peninsula, in soil, fertility, climate, salubrity, and abundant fisheries, is that settled by the Dominican friars between 1774 and 1800. The best map of this portion of old California (as we are informed by Captain Kimberly, who has frequently visited it as trader and otter-hunter) is Payot's map of 1863. There is much good land in the vicinity of the esteros, or lagoons, and also near the missions of Rosario, San Vicente, Šanto Domingo, and Santo Tomas; several permanent streams and a number of coast lagoons furnish abundance of excellent water for animals, irrigation, and ship supplies, and turtle and fish are exceedingly abundant and easily taken. The orange, lemon, banana, date-palm, grape, fig, olive, almond, peach, pomegranate, quince, and plum, do much better there than to the north of San Diego, and are not only sweeter, but are cultivated with much less difficulty than with us, and arrive at maturity much earlier. The climate, from its proximity to the sea, is not only extremely salubrious, the people enjoying uncommonly good health, and being long livers, but the atmosphere is extremely fine, pleasant, and invigorating, and seldom troubled with cold summer fogs and winds; these facts are well known since 1770, the testimony of travellers and seamen being uniform. Many good harbors and ports are found, with every requisite of wood and sweet water for the use of ships; and all that is wanted to make a prosperous country is population and a stable government: there is said to be sufficient good land and other requisites to maintain and build up a large city.

The first American who visited this section of the peninsula from the East, or indeed the first white man, was James O. Pattie, as long ago as March, 1827. He was taken with his father and a party of distressed beaver-hunters by a squad of soldiers at the mission of Santa Catalina, from whence they travelled to San Vicente, and then up the coast to Santo Tomas, San Miguel, and San Diego, at which place they were all put in prison by General Echeandia, the first Mexican governor of the two Californias. In his book, Pattie says this part of the coast contains large quantities of fertile land, and the padres had excellent vineyards, gardens, and orchards of all kinds of fruit, grains, and vege tables, and feasted the travellers on good wines, fruits, and viands. Some 4,000 Indians were seen in Santa Catalina, San Vicente, Santo Tomas, and San Miguel, and they had then many thousand head of horses and mules; the valleys and plains were covered with bands of cattle by the thousand, and in Santo Tomas alone they had 30,000 sheep. As he did not travel below San Vicente, it is fair to estimate that the five coast and vicinous mountain missions to the south of San Vicente, and as far as Viscaino Bay, must have had equally as many Indians, and been quite as rich in cattle, horses, and sheep, and had as luxuriant gardens, orchards, vineyards, and cultivated fields.

Since 1851 all this part of the coast has been infested by runaway rascals and vagabonds from Alta California and Mexico, who have greatly injured the prospects of the respectable people settled in that section of Lower California. This got to such a pass that between 1856 and 1861 several of these desperadoes had to be shot, and their less guilty companions run out of the country. If it were well protected and governed, this section would rapidly increase in wealth and population, as it has, besides the above-mentioned advantages, excellent mines of copper, silver, lead, coal, and other valuable minerals. The opposite parallels on the gulf, which are entirely unsettled, are also said to contain much good land and timber, with sufficient good water for large settlements. In speaking of these northern sections it is proper to bear in mind, that the

great drought of 1863-'64, which was so severely felt in the two Californias, was experienced in Mexico, Buenos Ayres, Chili, and Australia, and all over the Mississippi and Missouri countries.

WALKER'S EXPEDITION TO LOWER CALIFORNIA.

This summary would not be complete without some mention of the crude, childish, and ill-advised invasion of the peninsula by some 250 to 300 filibusters under General William Walker, so well known in the State of California, and whose name afterward became famous in connection with the civil wars of Nicaragua and Central America between 1856 and 1860, and who soon after lost his life by military execution near Omoa or Truxillo, on the Atlantic coast of Honduras, through the interference of a British man-of-war.

On the 15th of October, 1853, the bark Caroline, having on board General Walker, with a large number of armed men, and a regular cut-and-dried staff of secretaries of war, navy, state, etc., etc., after the ancient Texas plan, sailed from San Francisco, and arrived at La Paz on the 3d of November, where Walker, having seized the public archives and captured Robellero and Espinosa, the chief officers of the government, passed through several small_skirmishes, hauled down the Mexican flag and hoisted a new one, declaring Lower California a separate republic. Walker was proclaimed president, and a regular staff of civil and military offices defined and laid down. On the 18th January, 1854, all this was changed, and Lower California and Sonora declared an integral government and nation under the style and title of The Republic of Sonora. In the mean time the bark Annita, with some 100 more armed men under Colonel Watkins, completed their arrangements on the sly, and slipped out of San Francisco on 7th December, 1853, arriving at an agreed-upon place on the coast a few leagues below San Diego, where Walker soon joined the party, and commenced dating his orders and decrees in March and April, 1854, from Santo Tomas, La Tia Juana, La Grulla, La Enseñada, and San Vicente, shortly after in the filibustering style of the magnifico order of fire-eating words. Meeting here much unexpected opposition and coming out of an expedition to the Colorado to capture Sonora, made in person and resulting very disastrously to his command and his prospects, on his return to Santo Tomas, being hard pressed by the comandante Melendez and his Mexican soldiers, Walker "evacuated Lower California" and retired across the frontier line, where Captain Burton and Major McKinstry, United States military officers at San Diego, received his surrender on the 6th May, 1854. Walker gave his parole to these officers to take his trial for a breach of the neutrality laws of the United States, when reporting to General Wool at San Francisco, and the invasion then came to an abrupt end by the dispersion of the party at San Diego. The trial of himself. and some of his officers was held shortly after at San Francisco, but, nothing being proved, the whole affair ended in smoke, and Walker went on editing California newspapers for one or two years longer, when he accepted the Nicaragua proposals, which all know terminated so disastrously to some 5,000 men.

THE HIGHEST ELEVATIONS OF THE PENINSULA-MOUNTAIN LAKE AND THE SNOW

PEAKS.

As the vicinities of the bay of Viscaino are reached, and after passing the parallel of 28°, the mountain system begins to rapidly rise from 4,000 feet to the elevation of perpetual snow, which it appears to attain opposite the mission of San Fernando, which from several accounts it seems to carry until near the mission of Santa Catalina. These snowy peaks (for it is only on the highest peaks snow is seen) must be over 12,000 feet high, as they are reported to be covered with snow in the spring and early summer, by Kino in

1702, Link in 1765, and by Pattie in 1827; but these nevadas have never been laid down geographically correct in the two or three old maps of the Jesuits; indeed, they are not laid down on any we have seen dated after 1830. In their vicinities is stated to be a large mountain lake which feeds the various small streams north of Viscaino Bay.

It is the melting of the snows on this range which makes the northern part of the peninsula so much better watered and more fertile than the southern districts, or even better than our sections between San Diego and San Bernardino, and in consequence several permanent but small streams are found between Santa Catalina and the latitude of Cedros Island. After passing to the north of Catalina the land gradually lowers to 3,000 and 4,000 feet, and going south from Cedros Island it falls down by degrees, till it reaches the ocean level at Cape San Lucas.

THE PIOUS FUND OF CALIFORNIA-DRIED UP IN 1867-A CALIFORNIA BISHOPRIC ESTABLISHED IN 1836-THE NEW BISHOP ARRIVES AT SAN DIEGO IN 1841-A LAND GRANT IN ALTA CALIFORNIA TO ENDOW A COLLEGE FOR THE TWO CALIFORNIAS.

During the period of the Jesuit occupation of the peninsula from 1700 to 1767, a large amount was collected by them in Mexico from various devout men and women, which they invested in large haciendas with herds, flocks, and cultivations, and in house property, principally in Mexico City. At the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1767, this funded property had acquired a legal and religious status under the style of "El Fondo Piadoso de California," worth about $1,000,000, and yielded sufficient income to give to each priest in the California missions from 400 to 500 dollars annually, together with assisting the mission expenses generally; no faithful and exact account, however, of these matters, to our knowledge, has ever been given to the world. On the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1767, the fund was placed under the care of the king's treasurer in Mexico, who portioned it off yearly to each Dominican or Franciscan mission and priest in the two Californias, in about the same amounts as formerly paid to the Jesuits. This system was faithfully carried out until about the year 1806, when, Spain being in trouble and money scarce, the king's fiscal agent in Mexico appropriated some $200,000 of it, and, from the heavy load of war and family troubles then accumulating in Spain, it was soon evident this nice little amount would be retained permanently. The confusion of Mexican affairs and the poverty of Spain after 1810 prevented any salaries or expenses being paid out of the fund for some twelve years more, when the viceroy's government dried up (1822), giving no account to the representatives of the California friars in Mexico City of what had become of long lapsed receipts. The republican government kept things in this way until between 1840-'44 (having nominally given the new bishopric of the Californias, instituted about 1836, the use of the rents of the fund, from which some driblets were obtained), when Santa Anna by a government decree put it under the charge of General Valencia as administrator, reporting to Santa Anna for his approval. After this brilliant cast the whole effects, lands, houses, loose moneys, etc., etc., of the fund evaporated as seems forever from the government of the Catholic Church authorities, either in the Californias or in Mexico. When Archbishop Alemany, of San Francisco, visited Mexico about 1854, with intent to probe all these matters, every thing was gone; not even a fragment remained, it is said, to hold a nail to. After 1810 the priests in the two Californias, until the American flag was raised in 1846, were entirely dependent on the incomes from their herds, cultivations, vineyards, and orchards, for the maintenance of their Indians, the care of the churches and the missions, and for their own personal expenses. The Lower California missions being very poor, except those on the coast

between San Diego and Rosario, felt this loss very severely, and these establishments began rapidly to decline and run to seedy ruin, a state of things completed by the retirement of the Spanish priests after 1829, and the secularization of the missions in 1833.

A CALIFORNIA BISHOPRIC FOR THE TWO CALIFORNIAS MADE IN 1836-THE NEW BISHOP ARRIVES IN 1841-A LAND GRANT IN ALTA CALIFORNIA TO ENDOW A COLLEGE FOR THE BISHOPRIC ISSUED IN 1844.

On the 13th September, 1836, the Mexican Congress passed an act erecting the territories of the two Californias into an episcopal jurisdiction, under the title of the Bishopric of California, which was charged with the direction of the Pious Fund properties; the bishop was to have $6,000 per annum, and $3,000 for an outfit. On the 8th February, 1842, the Government, by a public decree, took back the charge of the Pious Fund, against which the bishop protested, without avail, however. Previous to this, in the year 1840, Fria Francisco Garcia Diego, a Mexican Franciscan, who had served several years previously in the Alta California missions, was nominated by the Government to the bishopric, and afterward confirmed by Pope Gregory XVI. at Rome. On the 16th December, 1841, Bishop Garcia arrived at San Diego from San Blas in an English vessel, accompanied by several priests and school-teachers, San Diego having been appointed as his residence, where and elsewhere throughout Alta California he was received with every respect, but he never visited Lower California. The bishop's residence was afterward removed to Santa Bárbara, at which place he died early in 1846, before the American flag was raised, and was buried at the mission of Santa Bárbara. In 1850 Father Joseph S. Alemany was made bishop of Monterey, which included the jurisdiction of the State of California, that of Lower California being in abeyance, as belonging to Mexico. In 1853 Father Alemany was made Archbishop of San Francisco, and the country north above the line of Santa Cruz town, and south to the Mexican boundary, retained under the name of the bishopric of Monterey and Los Angeles, to which was appointed as bishop, in 1854, Gather Tadeo Amat, whose residence is at Los Angeles.

After Father Amat was appointed, the Mexican Government, about 1856, desired to make Lower California into a bishopric, and, it is said, requested Father José M. Gonzalez, of Santa Bárbara, to take charge of the diocese, but Father Gonzalez, being well in years, and having resided since 1833 in Alta California, declined the appointment as not proper at his time of life and at such a distance from his residence. In 1861 the country above Sacramento was divided off again by the formation of an intermediary bishopric, with its centre at Marysville, and Father Eugene O'Connell as vicar apostolic. After 1850, when Father Alemany was made first bishop of Monterey and second bishop of California, or successor of Bishop Garcia Diego, Lower California was assumed to retire under the charge of the bishop of Sonora, whose residence was at the city of Culiacan, and under whose jurisdiction all the missions of the two Californias had been placed since about the year 1774, and up to the year 1840, when Garcia Diego was confirmed.

Under the government of Micheltoreno, a grant of eight leagues of land, or about 35,000 acres, was made in the year 1844 to the bishopric of California, as dowry to establish and sustain an institution of learning for the youth of the two territories. This grant was located near the mission of Santa Ynez in the present county of Santa Bárbara, and to this day goes under the name of the Rancho del Colegio, or College Ranch, and is valued at about $20,000. Under the terms of the grant the "College of Our Lady of Guadelupe" was instituted at Santa Ynez by Bishop Diego Garcia, and, after going through many reverses, still exists as an institution, under the charge of Franciscan teachers, with some 20 pupils.

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