welcome an escape to warmer regions. Various springs and mountain resorts are popular in the summer because of their genial warmth. At no time, however, is the coast climate disease-breeding, except to invalids and weak people. The rugged enjoy it.

At times the rainy season becomes a little wearisome, but some of the loveliest days of the year are in the halcyon calms that follow the heavy southeastern winter rains, which usually find their origin in the storms, or "cyclones," as the weather observers designate them, from the far northwestern Pacific.

There is a deal of misapprehension in some quarters concerning the rainy season in California. Some people have been led to believe it is a period of disagreeable storms and almost perpetual floods; but it is more accurate to say that the rainy season is the only time of the year when there is any rain, the period when farmers rejoice and the masses are happy. By February spring is in full splendor, and often January days are as lifegiving as the budding springs of New England. The brown hills become green early in February, and soon nature is aglow. Royce well says: "A few golden weeks of absolute freedom from winds and rains, or warmth and sunshine, give place at last to the long sleep of the dry sea-as windless and dreary as the climate of Lotus Land."

The approach of winter is not heralded by fear; it is welcomed with joy. Summer wanes gradually, sometimes lingering until past the halycon days of September, or even until the soft brown tints of October tell that cool nights and rains are near. A wind springs from the southeast, rushing toward a climatic disturbance far out in the northwestern ocean, and soon a gentle shower begins-sometimes more like mist than rain. In a few hours, or possibly not until nightfall, it becomes steadier and the precipitation may increase until it seems as if the windows of the sky had been thrown open; but thunder and lightning are almost unknown. It is during these heavy rains that the farmers rejoice, though they are satisfied if the downfall continues gently for three or four days. Then the sun peeps forth from cirrus clouds, the air becomes clear, mountains loom into view through the lens of bright atmosphere, the birds sing, and often the most charming weeks of all the year follow these benign winter storms that are feared by those who have never been west of the Rockies.

CHAPTER III.

GLIMPSES OF EARLY HISTORY-CORTES AND HIS SUCCESSORS-THE GREAT INTEREST IN CALIFORNIA-XIMINES, CABRILLO, Drake-The Jesuits AND THE FRANCISCAN FATHERS-DISCOVERY OF SAN FRANCISCO BAY BY A LAND PARTY-THE FOUNDING OF SANTA CLARA-San Jose the FIRST TOWN ORGANIZED UNDER CIVIL GOVERNMENT-OTHER FACTS OF INTEREST, INCLUDING THE FIRST FOREIGN VISITORS.

Though the plan of this work deals with to-day rather than with the struggles of yesterday, there is an irresistible temptation to delve into the past sufficiently to get a clear idea of the "beginnings of things" historical. And when one looks backwards in California history he is carried to the stirring times of the old Spanish freebooters. The Genoese mariner had scarcely made his great discovery known to the world when bold adventurers began to quarrel over unknown lands and to partition the distant parts of the earth among themselves.

Winfield Davis, the able historian of the Sacramento Society of California Pioneers, has carefully traced the primary title to California to Spain, which held the first right to the country. To trace that early claim is to go back to the year 1454, when Pope Nicholas V issued a bull that gave the Portuguese wide rights of conquest. Many years later a controversy arose between Portugal and Spain, by reason of Portugal's attempt to claim the countries discovered by Columbus. The entire case was referred to Pope Alexander VI, and on May 3, 1493, he decided it by granting to Spain all countries. she might discover west of an imaginary line drawn like a mark of longitude one hundred leagues west of the Azores. By the terms of the same decision Portugal was to have all territory to the eastward of that line. The Treaty of the Partition of the Pacific Ocean, concluded at Tordesillas, Spain, June 7, 1494. between the governments of Spain and Portugal, was a slight modification of the boundary settled by Pope Alexander VI, and in accordance with that convention Spain, in later years, laid claim to California.

SOME EARLY VOYAGES.

It should be understood that after the conquest of Mexico by Cortes (1520-1521), many expeditions by sea were sent forth to discover new wonders on the Pacific coast of North America. It is impossible to escape the conclusion that early ideas of the geography of the coast were exceedingly crude and limited. Even so late as the year 1741 Laurence Echard published in the London Gazetteer that California was a large island of the South Seas. In the year 1794 "The Young Man's Book of Knowledge," published in London, described California as "sixteen hundred miles broad, and two thousand miles long." The climate and soil were said to be like paradise, and this remarkable sentence occurs: "It has rich mines of silver, and some of gold, which are worked more and more every day."

The account was no doubt wholly mythical, for the following declaration is made immediately after the statement regarding the mines: "The dew that falls in California and lights on the rose leaves, candies and becomes hard like manna." Other equally absurd stories prevailed in those days, not only about this state, but regarding all things and countries remote from the observation of the simple and superstitious people of early times.

It is well known that in the year 1524 Gonzalo de Sandoval took to Cortes many strange stories of California, and they were transmitted to Emperor Charles V. Though it is inconceivable that the wisest thinkers of that day could have done otherwise than reject most of the accounts that reached their ears, yet it is known that many of the descriptions bore the impress of truth. Some of the narratives of fabulous wealth and virgin resources produced a profound impression on men of restless spirit, and the dream of brave men was to conquer foreign lands.

Asia was still believed to lie within the very gates of the new country, and so conservative a historian as Hittell asserts that the wildest imaginable rumors actually led to the discovery and subsequent exploration of California. The generations that passed after the first discoveries, and before explorations had been carried far, but served to whet the appetite for adventure.

Disappointed as the early Spaniards were of discovering the particular forms of wealth they had long dreamt of unearthing, they did in fact plant their adventurous feet on the soil of the great western empire of America.