A Truthful Woman in Southern California

by Kate Sanborn

  And all along the way fine ranches are seen, where beans are seen growing alone, or planted between the long even rows of fruit trees. Mr. Thompson also owns a large hog ranch. But dear me! We are now skirting the beautiful ocean curve which leads to the “Channel City”—so near the beach that the waves almost touch the rails and the dash of the surf seems under the cars. See how fine a situation! The coast line taking a sudden and most fortunate turn, the trend of mountain range and plain land is east and west, instead of north and south. Sheltered by mountains and mesas, and nestled in the green foothills, with the ocean breeze tempered by a chain of islands, making a serene harbor, Santa Barbara has much to make it the rival of San Diego and Pasadena. Pork and beans must now give way to legend and romance, martyred virgin, holy monks, untutored “neophytes,” handsome Castilians, dashing Mexicans, energetic pioneers, the old Spanish, the imported Chinese, the eastern element now thoroughly at home, and the inevitable, ubiquitous invalid, globe-trotter, and hotel habitué—each type or stratum as distinctly marked as in a pousse café, or jelly cake. What a comparison! I ask Santa Barbara’s pardon, and beg not to be struck with lightning, or destroyed by gunpowder.—”Yes, to the Arlington.”

  CHAPTER XI.

  SANTA BARBARA.

  “Saints will aid if men will call, For the blue sky bends o’er all.”

  Sweet sixteen and an “awful dad.” Santa Barbara and Dioscurus. Such a cruel story, and so varied in version that the student of sacred legend gets decidedly puzzled. The fair-haired daughter was advised secretly by Origen, who sent a pupil disguised as a physician to instruct her in the Christian faith. She insisted on putting three windows instead of two into the bathroom of the tower to which her father sent her, either to prevent her from marrying or to imprison her until she would wed one of the many gay young suitors. These three windows showed her belief in the Trinity, which she could not have learned from Origen, as among Christians he was regarded as heretical, and his followers were Unitarians and Universalists combined, adding the cheerful theory of the “second opportunity” and that all punishment from sin would have an end, yet clinging to the old pagan mythology and believing that sun, moon, stars, and the ocean all had souls—a “Neo-Platonist.”

  Refusing to recant, Barbara was arraigned and condemned to death. Her energetic paternal evidently had heard the maxim, “If you want anything done, do it yourself.” His heavy blows fell soft as feathers. She seemed in sweet slumber. So he drew his sword, cut off her head, and was instantly killed by lightning from Heaven. Thus ends the history of two “Early Fathers.”

  But sweet St. Barbara will never be forgotten. She is the patroness of artillery soldiers, and protects from lightning and sudden death. In the many pictures where she appears she carries a feather, or the martyr’s sword and palm, or a book; and the three windows are often seen. She is the only Santa who bears the cup and wafer.

  The appreciative Spaniards honored her memory by bestowing her pretty name on the choicest spot of the coast, a belt of land seventy miles long and thirty-five wide, from Point Concepcion to Buena Ventura. No one can dare to doubt this tragic tale, for Barbara’s head may still be seen preserved as a relic in the temple of All Saints at Rome. I do not want to be too severe in my estimate of the Roman noble, Dioscurus. An old lady who never spoke ill of any one, when called upon to say something good of the devil, said, “We might all imitate his persistence;” and this impulsive demon was certainly a creature who, if he had an unpleasant duty confronting him, attended to it himself.

  The first navigator who landed on the coast of Santa Barbara, or on one of the four islands, was Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, in 1542. He is buried on San Miguel (pronounced Magell). The Indians (and the entire Indian population at that time amounted to 22,000) were exceedingly glad to welcome the strangers, much better behaved than those found at San Diego, who stripped the clothing from those too ill to defend themselves. Perhaps a reason for this superiority may be found in the fact that these tribes were entirely naked, and had no desire for any conventional covering. They serenaded their new friends so loudly that sleep or rest was impossible, and offered their most delicious food and free use of canoes. They ate seeds, fruit, fish, locusts; hunted rabbit, hare, and deer; dried the meat of the latter on trees; placed acorns in a sieve basket, rinsed and boiled them. As every race is unhappy without an intoxicating drink and something to chew or smoke, they extracted a bitter beverage from a certain seed, and used a root in place of tobacco.

  These Channel Indians let their hair grow so long that they could make braids and fasten them round the face with stone rings. The visitors spoke of the “Island of the Bearded People.” They had substantial brush huts, supported by pillars bearing inscriptions supposed to allude to their religion, and they enjoyed dancing to the music of bone flutes. For gifts, they most desired red calico and chocolate.

  Cabrillo’s men found a primitive temple on one of the islands, and in it an unknown god or idol. One of the eight original tribes had a form of worship strongly resembling a Turkish bath. The men sat round a hot fire until drenched in perspiration; then plunged into a pool of cold water. The women were not permitted to be devout in this “cleanliness next to godliness” manner. It was a luxury and prerogative the noble braves wanted entirely for themselves. (We see something similar in our own progressive, enlightened churches, where women are expected to provide and pack clothing for missionary boxes, attend unfailingly on the stated means of grace, visit and nurse the sick and poor members, deny themselves for charity, listen reverently to stupid discourses on the unknown, delivered with profound certainty that approaches omniscience, but are not allowed to “speak out in meetin’,” or to have the honor of being represented by women delegates at denominational conventions, or clubs and councils. They are to lead heavenward, but earthly pleasures and honors are strictly “reserved”! About the same, isn’t it?)

  When Father Junipero Sena reached Santa Barbara on his mission-starting pilgrimage, he sent for Mexican artisans, who taught his converts all the industrial arts. They were taught to support themselves, then a piece of ground was parcelled out to each, with a yoke of oxen and farming utensils. Serra formed eleven missions; ten were added later. He built the great aqueduct which is still used in Santa Barbara. All honor to his memory! “There lingers around Santa Barbara more of the aroma and romance of a bygone civilization, when the worthy Padres set an example of practical Christianity to the Indian aborigines that we would do well to emulate, than is found elsewhere in the State.”

  In the good old days a person could travel from San Diego to San Francisco and not expend one shilling. The Mission Fathers would furnish saddle, horse, or a comfortable bed, meals, and the Spanish host would leave in the guest-chamber a small heap of silver covered by a cloth, and the stranger, if needy, was expected to take some of it to supply his wants.

  Would you like to see a specimen of the Indian dialect used by the “Bearded People”? I can count to five in the Siujtu language—or, at least, I don’t care to go much further: paca, sco, masa, scu, itapaca; twenty is sco-quealisco; and to-morrow, huanahuit.

  The islands are now only occupied by flocks of sheep, sheared twice a year, and paying their owners a good profit; $100,000 one year from Santa Rosa alone. The wool gets full of seed, and it is not the finest quality, but this is counterbalanced by the quantity.

  Many large abalone shells are found on San Miguel. They are pried off with a crow-bar, the shells are polished for sale, made into buttons, etc., and the meat is dried and sent to China, where it is ground and made into soup. It has been used here, and pronounced by some to be equal to terrapin, and by others to closely resemble leather.

  These islands are always a delight to look upon. As the state of the atmosphere varies they seem near or far away, clearly defined, or with a hazy outline. But in sunlight or shadow, mist or mirage, they are ever beautiful. Within the peaceful channel ships are safe while a wind storm rages just beyond. The government
sends big war-ships here for a trial of speed. None of these islands are now desirable for residence. There is no natural supply of fresh water, and the sheep rely on the moisture left by the heavy fogs, and on a certain plant which holds water in its cup-like blossom. I hear that at Catalina the goats, deprived of their natural pabulum of hoop-skirts, tomato cans, and old shoes, feed on clover and drink the dew.

  That’s what this climate does for a goat. I do not dare to make many statements in regard to novelties in natural history since one poor woman poetized upon the coyote “howling” in the desert, and roused hundreds of critics to deny that coyotes ever howled. And a scientific student came to Santa Barbara not so long ago, and found on one of these islands a species of tailless fox, and hastened to communicate the interesting anomaly to the Smithsonian Institute. It seems that the otter hunters trapped these foxes for their tails, then let them go.

  If it were not for these blunders I would state that roosters seem to keep awake most of the night in Southern California, and can be heard crowing at most irregular hours. Considering the risks, I refrain.

  The islands were named by a pious priest, who made the map; and those we see in looking out from Santa Barbara are San Miguel, Santa Rosa, Santa Cruz, Ana, Capa. San Nicholas Island is interesting as having been the abode for sixteen years of a solitary Indian woman, a feminine Robinson Crusoe, without even a Friday, who was left by mistake when the rest of the Indians were carried away by order of the Mission Fathers. Two of the men who at last succeeded in finding her gave their testimony, which has been preserved; and one of them, Charlie Brown, is still alive, and likes to tell the strange story. It seems she had run back to get her child, and the ship went off without her. Nidever tells his story in this way:

  “We scattered off two or three hundred yards apart. She had a little house made of brush and had a fire; she was sitting by the fire with a little knife; she was working with it. She had a bone; all came up and looked at her; she had a heap of roots—that is what she lived on—and had little sacks to carry them in. As soon as we sat down she put a lump of them to roast on the fire. Finally we got ready to go, and we made signs for her to come with us. She understood the signs for her to come with us; she picked up her things to take them on board.”

  She had a dress made of duck skins, sewed together with the sinews of a seal, with needles made of bone—an eye drilled through. This dress the priests sent to Rome.

  The demijohn in which she carried water was made out of rushes and stopped with asphaltum. She was making one of these water bottles. She heated small round stones in the fire and put them in the asphaltum, and then lined the bottle, making it tight. She had no matches, of course, nor even a tinder-box, but started fire by rubbing two sticks together.

  She said her child was eaten up by wolves. None of the Indians understood her dialect; finally one woman was found who could talk to her a little, who had been raised on the same island. The woman was found in 1853. She seemed happy and contented, and would go round to different houses and dance the Indian dances. She was a great curiosity; twenty or thirty would go along with her. Many who were sailing by would stop just to see her.

  The other hunters had noticed small human tracks, but never could see any one. At last several men were scattered all over the island, and Charlie Brown was the first to discover her. He thought at first it was only a black crow sitting on a whalebone. I give his version, as his language is far more picturesque and vivid than my paraphrase would be. He says:

  “She had built a brush fence about two feet high to break the wind. The sun was coming in her face. She was skinning a seal. The dog when he noticed me he began to growl. I thought if she should run. I stepped right round her, and she bowed as if she knew me before, and when the Indians came up they all kneeled down, and when she saw there was some of her color, she held out some of her food and offered all some.

  “I took her by the shoulder, and I said, ‘Varmoose,’ and she understood at once. I took everything she had, and she took a big seal head in basket. We all had something to carry. Then she had a little brand of fire, and she took that away and wobbled along with a strange kind of a step like until we came to a watering-place about fifty feet down the bank, and they all went down there and she went too, and she sat down there and we watched to see what she would do, and she washed herself over; her hair was all rotting away, a kind of bleached by the sun, and we got to the vessel and she kneeled down, and we had a stove right on deck and she crawled to the stove and we gave her a piece of biscuit and she ate like a good fellow. It came on to blow; old man Nidever had some bed-ticking. I made her a dress, and gave her a man’s shirt. She was tickled to death. If I was where she was she would hold up her dress and point that I made it.”

  He was asked how she happened to be left, repeated Nidever’s story, and added: “She found they were all gone, and commenced to hollo. No answer, and hunted round and saw the tracks and found they went to lower part of the island. When she got there found the vessel going away, and she called, ‘Mancyavina,’ but it never came. She put her head on the ground and laid on the ground and cried, and they never came.

  “The priest here had all the Indians in Santa Barbara and Santa Inez to see if they understood her. They could understand some words, but not all. She got baptized, and they made her a Christian and everything. A steamer came up from below; the captain offered to take her up and show her, but old man Nidever would not agree. She died; they gave her green corn and melons, and they were too much for her. She made knives of bone and wood, and had pointed nails for catching fish. She had ropes nicely twisted with sinews, twisted as true as any rope-maker could make, and had bottles made of grass, and dishes of wood with handles; she put the feathers next her skin to keep warm.”

  I will only add that wild dogs were numerous, and she tamed them for friends. The priests called her Juana Maria, and I think the name of the island should be changed in her honor. I doubt if Santa Barbara herself could have done as well under similar circumstances.

  CHAPTER XII.

  HER CITY AND COUNTY.

  “Syrian apples, Othmanee quinces, Limes and citrons and apricots, And wines that are known to Eastern princes.”

  In walking through the streets of Santa Barbara you may still see the various types, but not so clearly defined as of old. Holy Fathers still intone the service within the massive mission walls; they still cultivate the large garden, from which woman is sedulously excluded. But the faces are German and Irish. At a street corner two men are talking earnestly, and as you pass you get a glance from Mexican eyes, dark and soft, but the hair shows Indian blood. A real old Mexican vaquero rides by in the genuine outfit, well worn and showing long use; next a carriage full of fashionable visitors; then a queerer combination than the Anglomaniac with his trousers legs turned up if the cable reports a rainy day in London. This is the American vaquero—usually a short, fat man with dumpy legs, who dons a flapping sombrero, buys a new Mexican saddle, wooden stirrups, and leather riata, sometimes adding a coil of rope at left side, wears the botas with a corduroy suit at dinner at hotel, and doesn’t know at all how comical an appearance he presents. The very next to pass is one of the pioneers, who, although worth a million or more, puts on no style, and surveys the mongrel in front with a twinkle in his eye. Every one should own a horse or pony or burro here, for the various drives are the greatest charm of the place. Through all Southern California the happy children ride to school, where the steeds, fastened to fence in front of building, wait patiently in line, like Mary’s lamb. But in Santa Barbara you see mere tots on horseback, who look as if it were no new accomplishment. I believe the mothers put them on gentle ponies to be cared for, or safe, as mothers in general use the cradle or high-chair. One of the old Mexican residents of Santa Barbara, when over eighty years of age, had the misfortune to break his leg. He lay in bed uneasily until a surgeon could be summoned and the fractured bones set and duly encased in plaster. He then insisted on being carri
ed out and placed upon his favorite horse, where he sat during each day with patient serenity until the damage was repaired by nature.

  The drives are all delightful. You cannot make a mistake; there are twenty-eight drives distinct and beautiful. Those best known are, to the Mission Cañon, to the Lighthouse, to Montecito and Carpenteria, Cooper’s Ranch, through the far-famed Ojai Valley, and the stage or coaching trip to San Luis Obispo, not forgetting La Vina Grande (the big grapevine), the trunk eighteen inches in diameter, foliage covering 10,000 square feet, producing in one year 12,000 pounds of grapes; and the Cathedral Oaks. I jotted down a few facts at the Lighthouse a la Jingle in Pickwick Papers: gleaming white tower, black lantern, rising from neat white cottage, green window-shutters, light 180 feet above sea-level, fine view from balcony, fields of young barley down to water’s edge, bluest blue in sea and sky, the lamp holds only one quart of oil, reflectors do big business, considering, throwing the light 417 miles.

  The keeper, a woman, has been there over thirty years, never goes away for a single night, trim, quaint, and decided, doesn’t want to be written up, will oblige her, don’t believe a woman ever did so much good with a quart of kerosene daily before. Been a widow a long time, heard of one woman, wife of lighthouse-keeper, he died, she too stout to be gotten out of the one room, next incumbent married her.

  Montecito, as Roe described it, is a village of charming gardens and green lawns, with a softer climate even than Santa Barbara—a most desirable situation for an elegant country retreat. I had the privilege of visiting the home of Mr. W. P. Gould, a former resident of Boston, who has one of the most perfect places I have ever seen. He has been experimenting this year with olive oil in one room of his large house for curing lemons, and has perfected a machine which expresses the “virgin oil” without cracking a single pit or stone. This is a great improvement, as one crushed stone will give an acrid taste to a quart of oil. There is a fashion in fruits as much as in bonnets or sleeves. Olive culture is just now the fad. Pears, prunes, almonds, walnuts, have each had their day, or their special boom. Pomona is headquarters for the olive industry. Nursery men there sold over 500,000 trees last year. The tree does not require the richest soil. Hon. Elwood Cooper’s olive oil is justly famous, but the machinery designed by Mr. Gould makes a much purer oil, pronounced by connoisseurs to be the finest in the world. The olives are sun-dried; the ponderous rollers and keen knives of the masher mash the fruit, and every after-process is the perfection of cleanliness and skill. There is a nutty sweetness about this oil, and a clear amber color, which makes it most desirable for the fastidious invalid.