It is noted for its transparent beauty. Here the overhanging mountains, trees and foliage are all mirrored in the water below as clear and life-like as they stand upon the banks.

California is eminently a land of flowers and if the invasion of civilization has broken the natural beauty of the valleys and rolling hills by the uniformity of wheat fields, vineyards, orange groves and flower gardens, it has introduced scientific industry, refinement and happy homes where the domestic comforts are in marked contrast with the pastored, semi-barbarous lives of the early Spanish settlers of the country, and where the perpetual bloom of the rose, heliotrope, geranium, honey-suckle and lily, so abundant every month in the year, will compensate for the partial loss of the wild flowers of the valleys. While its people are destined to engage extensively in commercial enterprises, its population will, to a very large extent, pursue rural industries, supplying the world's constantly increasing demands for the products of its grain fields, its semitropic and deciduous fruit orchards, which have already gained for California great fame.

Mr. John H. Mills, one of the best known and tried friends of the State, justifies the universal love for California among its citizens in the following eloquent passage: "The love of Californians for their State, which is proverbial, is not devoid of justification. What other country presents such inspirations of love and devotion? In what other country is there broader freedom of thought and action? In what other country are the alluring prophecies which attend young life more certain of fulfillment? In what country do the higher

blessings of peace and plenty minister to the comforts of age? Are there other countries in which honest industry achieves higher respect or in which labor earns a higher meed of profit and honor? Under our summer suns the fruits of the tropics ripen, unaccompanied by the discomforts of the torrid zone. Here the brown of our summer hills and the golden stubble of the after-harvest are the only winters that we know. Here a spring-like verdure is the harbinger of the coming autumn, and the autumn is attended by no forewarning of the bleak rigors of winter. Here winter is the season when the warm, brown earth is turned by the plow for seed time, and spring with its flowers and ripening grain is opulent with the prophecy of hopeful industry. Nor are these all the features which. challenge our love of country. Here nature has wrought her best enchantments in the sublimity of mountain heights, the bold grandeur of cliffs, the pensive peacefulness of lovely valleys and the expansive splendor of fertile hills. Looking backward we see a history founded on the romance of adventure. In the present we are laying the foundations of a noble commonwealth by the establishment of permanent industries. If, therefore, the manifestation of love for our State may sometimes appear boastful or provincial, let it find apology in the consideration that provincialism is an expression of local patriotism, and that with the people of California it is the inspiration of high endeavor, which, when duly chastened, will ripen for our beloved State its growing harvest of hope.”

*CHAPTER XXIV.

REMARKABLE ADVENTURES AND HEROISM OF CALIFORNIA PIONEERS, A. QUARTER OF A CENTURY BEFORE

THE DISCOVERY OF GOLD.

J. S. Smith was one of the most celebrated of American trappers, and was the first American who, by the overland route, ever set foot within the borders of California. Smith was a large-seized, fine looking man, with black hair and blue eyes, and was a native of Virginia or Kentucky. He was a man of the most unbounded courage, and added to his bravery a cool judgment and a ready wit. He was a man for emergencies, and his adventures, like those of another of the Smith family, Captain John Smith, of Virginia, trench closely upon the marvelous.

Living in almost hourly peril, he was one of the few trappers who perished at the hands of the Indians. Leaving his camp on the plains, he started for the Cimmaron river, to search for water for his comrades, and this hero of twice a hundred battles was waylaid by the savages and murdered. Trapping along the headwaters of the Missouri river, Smith crossed over

"From the Alleghanies to the Pacific. The Era of Colonization."

He

the mountains in the spring of 1824, and with a small party made his way, the succeeding spring, into California. He camped on the American river, and in July, 1825, built a post a few miles above the point subsequently selected by General Sutter for his fort, and not far distant from the post, established a few years later by the Waldoes, near the present site of the town of Folsom. Here he followed his pursuit of hunting and trapping vigorously, for several months. In October, of the same year, Smith left his men at this post and, undeterred by the imminent perils of his journey, started East to inform his partners-then on Green river of his new location. made many narrow escapes on this journey; had his horse stolen by seven Indians, and marched boldly into their camp and retook it before their faces, they not daring to attack him, so great was their fear of the celebrated trapper. Before crossing the mountains, Smith had been a prime favorite of Blackbird,. the great Omaha chief. This was one of the shrewdest Indians that ever lived, and with a wisdom greater than that of Tecumseh, or Pontiac, he realized at once the futility of a struggle against the whites, and by a peaceful policy, determined to reap the greatest benefit possible from this knowledge. By his arts of statecraft, backed by a fearless courage and an indomitable will, Blackbird obtained such a supremicy among his people, as has seldom fallen to the lot of a self-appointed ruler. His power was absolute. From some of the traders he had learned the use of arsenic, in destroying life, and with a full supply of this deadly poison, he obtained a great reputation as

a medicine man. Whoever opposed his measures or his wishes, was sure to perish. A few days before administering the fatal dose, he would announce that such a chief would die; it had been revealed to him by the Great Spirit. The prophecy never failed. When traders came to the village, Blackbird had their packs brought to their lodge, and there, for the first time, they were opened; no one being admitted to the lodge but the trader and himself. He then selected such articles as he fancied, often taking half of the goods, but to remunerate the white man, he forced the tribe to buy the rest at a double valuation. In this way he remained on the best terms with all of the traders; benefiting them and enriching himself at the expense of his followers, somewhat after the manner of more modern princes. Remorse seemed never to trouble his adaptable conscience, except upon a single occasion. His favorite squaw offended him in some way, and with a single blow of his knife he streched her dead at his feet. In an instant he realized what the violence of his temper had caused him to do. Seating himself in his lodge, he covered his head with. his blanket, and in his solitude gave way to the agony of his grief. For three days and nights he remained thus, deaf to the prayers and entreaties of his people, and never moved, until at last, one of the squaws brought in the little child of the dead woman, and raising the leg of the chief, placed the child beneath it, with the foot of the chief upon its neck, and then left the lodge. Roused by the weeping of the infant, Blackbird arose, bathed and went forth, to the great delight of the tribe.