A Truthful Woman in Southern California

by Kate Sanborn

  Returning East via Panama in 1856, he proved himself a hero and a soldier during the terrible riot there. The natives, angry because they had lost the money they used to make in transporting passengers, attacked the foreigners, killing and plundering all who came in their way, the police turning traitors and aiding them. The hotel was attacked, and among all the passengers only three were armed. Mr. Horton and these two young men stood at the top of the stairs and shot all who tried to get nearer. When they fell back eight rioters were dead and others wounded. Then Mr. Horton formed the two hundred passengers in order and marched them off to a lighter, and put them aboard the steamer. About half this number wanted to go on to San Francisco, but had lost all their money and baggage. Mr. Ralston and Mr. Horton helped many to pay their passage, but not one person was ever heard of again, not one cent was returned, not even one word of gratitude or good intentions.

  Up to the period which is known as the boom of 1870-71, the history of San Diego was so interwoven and closely connected with the life of Mr. Horton that the story of one is inseparable from that of the other.

  When Mr. Horton came from San Francisco to see the wonderful harbor described by friends, there was nothing there but two old buildings, the barren hillsides, and the sheep pastures.

  His gifts to the city and to individuals amount to a present valuation of over a million of dollars. Of the nine hundred acres of land which he originally bought (a part of the Mexican grant) at twenty-seven cents an acre, he owns but little.

  But it is to his common sense, foresight, and business ability that the present city owes much of its success; and it is interesting to hear him tell of exciting adventures in “Poker Flat,” and other places which Bret Harte has worked up so successfully.

  Lieut. George H. Derby is amusingly associated with “Old Town,” the former San Diego, three miles from the present city. He had offended Jefferson Davis, then Secretary of War, by his irreverent wit, and was punished by exile to this then almost unknown region, which he called “Sandy Ague,” chiefly inhabited by the flea, the horned toad, and the rattlesnake. Mr. Ames, of the Herald, a democratic paper, asked Derby, a stanch whig, to occupy the editorial chair during a brief absence. He did so, changing its politics at once, and furnishing funny articles which later appeared as “Phoenixiana,” and ranked him with Artemus Ward as a genuine American humorist. Here is his closing paragraph after those preposterous somersaults and daring pranks as editor pro tem:

  “Very little news will be found in the Herald this week; the fact is, there never is much news in it, and it is very well that it is so; the climate here is so delightful that residents in the enjoyment of their dolce far niente care very little about what is going on elsewhere, and residents of other places care very little about what is going on in San Diego, so all parties are likely to be gratified with the little paper, ‘and long may it wave.’”

  The present city has eighteen thousand inhabitants, twenty-three church organizations, remarkably fine schools, a handsome opera-house, broad asphalt pavements, electric lights, electric and cable cars,—a compact, well-built city, from the fine homes on the Heights to the business portion near the water.

  In regard to society, I find that the “best society” is much the same all over the civilized world. Accomplished, cultured, well-bred men and women are found in every town and city in California. And distance from metropolitan privileges makes people more independent, better able to entertain themselves and their guests, more eagerly appreciative of the best in every direction.

  “O city reflecting thy might from the sea, There is grandeur and power in the future for thee, Whose flower-broidered garments the soft billows lave, Thy brow on the hillside, thy feet in the wave.”

  Many of San Diego’s guests have no idea of her at her best. The majority of winter tourists leave California just as Mother Nature braces up to do her best with wildflowers, blossoming orchards, and waving grain-fields. The summers are really more enjoyable than the winters. When the Nicaragua Canal is completed it will be a pleasant trip to San Diego from any Atlantic seaport. A railroad to Phoenix, Arizona, via Yuma, will allow the melting, panting, gasping inhabitants of New Mexico and Arizona an opportunity to get into a delightfully cool climate.

  THE INDIANS AND THE MISSION FATHERS.

  As for Indians, I have never seen such Indians as Helen Hunt Jackson depicts so lovingly. I have never seen any one who has seen one. They existed in her imagination only, as did Fenimore Cooper’s noble redmen of the forest solely in his fancy. Both have given us delightful novels, and we are grateful.

  The repulsive stolid creatures I have seen at stations, with sullen stare, long be-vermined locks, and filthy blankets full of fleas, are possibly not a fair representation of the remnants of the race. They have been unfairly dealt with. I am glad they can be educated and improved. They seem to need it. After reading “Ramona” and Mrs. Jackson’s touching article on the “Mission Indians in California,” and then looking over the opinions of honest writers of a previous generation regarding the Indians, it is more puzzling than ever. The following criticisms apply exclusively to the Southern Californian tribes.

  Mr. Robinson, after a twenty years’ residence among them, said: “The Indian of California is a species of monkey; he imitates and copies white men, but selects vice in preference to virtue. He is hypocritical and treacherous, never looks at any one in conversation, but has a wandering, malicious gaze. Truth is not in him.”

  And the next testimony is from an Indian curate: “The Indians lead a life of indolence rather than devote themselves to the enlightening of their souls with ideas of civilization and cultivation; it is repugnant to their feelings, which have become vitiated by the unrestricted customs among them. Their inclination to possess themselves of the property of others is unbounded. Their hypocrisy when they pray is as much to be feared as their insolence when in tumultuous disorder. They are never grateful for any benefit, nor do they pardon an injury, and they never proffer civilities, unless to accomplish some interested motive. They are ready to expose themselves to the greatest danger to satisfy their predominant passions. The future from them is ever veiled by the present. Their inconstancy and want of confidence deprives them of friends, and he who by deception holds them in subjection may reduce them to almost abject slavery.”

  Dana, speaking of the language of the Californian Indians, described it as “brutish” and “a complete slabber.”

  The missionary Fathers did their best to teach and convert them, and the missions must be spoken of. So we will go back a little.

  No one knows how California was so named. St. Diego was the patron saint of Spain. St. Francis, who founded the Franciscan order, was a gay young Italian, who after conversion led a life of mortification and extreme self-denial, tramped about like a beggar, scourged himself, slept on ground, rolled in snow to subdue the flesh, fasted, wept until he was almost blind, saw visions, like all other great religious leaders, received messages directly from Christ, and was at last rewarded with the stigmata (the marks of the crucifix on his body), and commemoration after death.

  Father Junipero, of this order, was appointed presiding missionary of California, and arrived July, 1769, erected a great cross on the coast, celebrated mass, and commenced his work. Like St. Francis, he was earnest, devout, pure, and self-sacrificing, blessed with wonderful magnetism. Once, while exhorting his hearers to repent, he scourged his own shoulders so unmercifully with a chain that his audience shuddered and wept; and one man, overcome by emotion, rushed to the pulpit, secured the chain, and, disrobing, flogged himself to death. This holy Father believed that he was especially protected by Heaven, and that once, when journeying on a desolate road, he was hospitably entertained by the Holy Family.

  He said, “I have placed my faith in God, and trust in His goodness to plant the standard of the holy cross not only at San Diego, but even as far as Monterey.”

  And this was done in less than ten years, but with many disco
uragements.

  The first Indian who was induced to bring his baby for baptism got frightened, and dashed away, taking, however, the handsome piece of cloth which had been wrapped around the child for the ceremony.

  Next there was an attack with arrows; in less than a month serious fighting followed; and later more than one thousand Indians joined in the attack. One priest was killed and all inhabitants of the mission more or less wounded, and the mission itself was burned. The present ruins are the “new” buildings on the site of the old, completed in 1784, the walls of adobe four feet thick, the doorways and windows of burnt tiles. These half-cylindrical plates of hard-burnt clay were used to protect the inmates from the sun and the burning arrows of the Indians, and are now greatly valued as relics.

  In front is the orchard of three hundred olive trees, more than a century old, still bearing a full crop, and likely to do so for centuries to come. As the Indians disliked work much, and church services more, they were encouraged in both matters by rather forcible means, as the Irishman “enticed” the pig into his pen with a pitchfork. We “tourists” who, dismounting from our carriages, view with sentimental reverence the picturesque ruins, the crumbling arches, the heavy bells now silent but mutely telling a wondrous story of the past, and tiptoe quietly through the damp interiors, gazing at pictures of saints and of hell and paradise, dropping our coins into the box at the door, and going out duly impressed to admire the architecture or the carving, or the general fine effect against the sky of fleckless blue—we picture these sable neophytes coming gladly, bowing in devout homage, delighted to learn of God and Duty, and cheerfully coöperating with the good priests who had come so far to teach them. In 1827 the San Diego mission had within its boundaries an Indian population of 1500, 10,000 head of cattle, 17,000 sheep, and more than 1000 horses. But Mr. Robinson tells us that the Indians were dragged to service, were punished and chained if they tried to escape, and that it was not unusual to see numbers of them driven along by a leader and forced with a whip-lash into the doors of the sanctuary.

  It is said that they were literally enslaved and scared into submission by dreadful pictures of hell and fear of everlasting torment. After church they would gamble, and they often lost everything, even wives and children. They were low, brutal, unintelligent, with an exceedingly limited vocabulary and an unbounded appetite. A man is as he eats, and, as some one says, “If a man eats peanuts he will think peanuts.”

  “There was nothing that could be swallowed and digested which the San Diego Indian would not eat. Snakes, half roasted and even raw, were toothsome dainties. The horned toad and the lizard had favorite places at each repast. Human parasites were not refused, and mice, gophers, bats, caterpillars, worms, entrails, and even carrion, were consumed with a greed that did not stop at pounds. Hittel says that twenty-four pounds of meat in a day was not too much for a Californian Indian, and Baegart mentions the case of one native who ate seventeen watermelons at a sitting. The smoking of wild tobacco was carried on to equal excess.”

  The saintly Fathers deserve unlimited praise for making them accomplish so much and behave as well as they did. Those New Englanders who criticise them as severe in discipline must remember that at the same period our ancestors were persecuting Quakers and burning witches. The beautiful hospitality of these early priests should also be mentioned.

  Alfred Robinson described a miracle play which he saw performed at San Diego at Christmas, in 1830, as akin to the miracle plays of mediæval Europe. The actors took the part of Gabriel, Lucifer, shepherds, a hermit, and Bartolo, a lazy vagabond who was the clown and furnished the element of comedy: the whole interspersed with songs and incidents better adapted to the stage than to the church.

  CHAPTER IV.

  EN ROUTE TO LOS ANGELES.

  “Bless me, this is pleasant, Riding on the rail!”

  On the Surf Line from San Diego to Los Angeles, a seventy-mile run along the coast, there is so much to see, admire, and think about, that the time passes rapidly without napping or nodding. Take a chair seat on the left of car—the ocean side—and enjoy the panoramic view from the window: the broad expanse of the Pacific, its long curling breakers, the seals and porpoises tumbling about in clumsy frolics, the graceful gulls circling above them, the picturesque cañons, and the flocks of birds starting from the ground, frightened by our approach. This we watch for more than an hour; then the scene changes, and, leaving the water, we have glimpses of wondrous carpets of wildflowers, the golden poppy predominant, miles of brilliant green on either hand, peeps at the three missions, the groves at Orange, the town of Santa Ana, and Anaheim, the parent colony, the first of all the irrigated settlements of Southern California, now a wealthy city.

  The missions are always interesting. San Juan Capistrano was seriously injured by an earthquake in 1812; the tower was shaken so severely that it toppled over during morning mass, killing thirty of the worshippers, the priests escaping through the sacristy. It was the latest and costliest of the missions. “Its broken olive mill and crumbling dove-cote, and the spacious weed-grown courts and corridors, are pathetic witnesses to the grandeur of the plans and purposes of the founders, and also of the rapidity with which nature effaces the noblest works of human hands.”

  But San Luis Rey is in good condition, having been restored to something of its original beauty, and recently re-dedicated. The walled enclosures once contained fifty-six acres, six being covered by the sacred edifice, its arched colonnades, and the cloisters, in which the Fathers lived, surrounded by three thousand baptized savages. Mrs. Jeanne C. Carr quotes a stage-driver with whom she talked on the box as saying: “Ye see, ma’am, what them old padders didn’t know ‘bout findin’ work for their subjicks and pervidin’ for the saints ‘n’ angels, not to say therselves, wa’n’t wuth knowin’. They carried on all kinds o’ bizness. Meat was plenty, keepin’ an’ vittles was to be had at all the missions an’ ranches too, jes’ by settin’ round. The pastures and hills was alive with horses and cattle, an’ hides an’ taller was their coin. They cured and stacked the hides, dug holes in stiff ground, an’ run the taller into ‘em; it kep’ sweet until a ship laid up to Capistrano, then that taller turned into gold. They could load up a big ship in a single day, they had so many Indians to help.” And he proceeded to tell of his own lucky find: “A lot of that holy taller was lost ‘n’ fergot, nobuddy knows how many years. One night I went up into the grass beyant the mission to stake out my hosses; an’ when I druv the fust stake it went way deawn, like ‘twas in soft mud. I jes’ yanked it up: half on ‘t was kivered with grease. The evening was cool, but the day had been brilin’, an’ now mebbe ye kin guess how I found my taller mine. ‘Twas a leetle mouldy on top, but the heft on ‘t was hard,—a reg’lar bonanzy fer a stage-driver.”

  It may seem irreverent to introduce this droll fellow in sharp contrast with the beautiful ruin, full of the most cherished memories of old Spain, but reality often gives romance a hard jar. It is pleasant to know that the expelled Franciscan order has just returned to California, and that San Luis Rey is now occupied. It is worth making the trip to San Juan to see the old bells struck, as in former times, by a rope attached to the clapper. They have different tones, and how eloquently they speak to us. These missions along the coast and a line farther inland are the only real ruins that we have in America, and must be preserved, whether as a matter of sentiment or money, and in some way protected from the vandals who think it jolly fun to lug off the old red tiles, or even the stone bowl for holy water—anything they can steal. At San Juan the plaster statues have been disgracefully mutilated by relic-hunters and thoughtless visitors. Eyes have been picked out, noses cut off, fingers carried away, and the altar-cloths everywhere have been slashed at the corners.

  A society has been formed to try to save them, and one learned and enthusiastic mission lover proposes to revive the old Camino del Rey, or King’s Highway. “What could not the drive from San Diego to Sonoma be made if the State once roused herself
to make it? Planted and watered and owned as an illustration of forestry, why should it not also as a route of pilgrimage rank with that to Canterbury or Cologne on the Rhine? The Franciscans have given to California a nomenclature which connects them and us permanently with what was great in their contemporary history, while we preserve daily upon our lips the names of the great chiefs of their own order.”

  But where am I? Those mouldering walls led me into a reverie. Speaking of “ruins” reminds me of a Frenchman who called on the poet Longfellow in his old age and explained his visit in this way: “Sare, you ‘ave no ruins in dis country, so I ‘ave come to see you.”

  The cactus hedge around each mission to keep the cattle in, and possibly the hostile Indians out, must have been effective. We see now and then a little that has survived. This makes me think of a curious bird I noticed in my drives at San Diego, the roadrunner, classed with the cuckoo. It has various names, the chaparral-cock, the ground-cuckoo, the prairie-cock, paisano, and worst of all, in classic nomenclature, the Geococcyx californianus.

  It keeps on the ground most of the time, and can run with such swiftness that it cannot be easily overtaken by horse and hounds. It has a tail longer than its body, which it bears erect. It kills beetles, toads, birds, and mice, but has a special dislike for the rattlesnake, and often meets him and beats him in fair combat. When it finds one sleeping or torpid it makes a circle of cactus thorns around him so he cannot escape—for “future reference,” as my driver said.

  This thorny circle is akin to the lariat made of horsehair, the ends sticking out roughly all around, with which the Indian used to encircle himself before going to sleep, as a protection from the rattlesnake, who could not cross it. But here we are at Los Angeles. Hear the bawling cabbies: “This way for The Westminster!” “Hollenbeck Hotel!”

  CHAPTER V.

  LOS ANGELES AND ROUND ABOUT.