SAN FRANCISCO TO LOS ANGELOS.
We left San Francisco, Feb. 9th, on the good ship _Orizaba_, for
southern California and Arizona. She was a first-class side-wheel
steamer, with good accommodations, and belonged to the California
Steam Navigation Company--a corporation that then monopolized or
controlled all the navigable waters of California, besides running
coast-wise lines North and South. She was one of a line, that ran
semi-monthly to San Diego and return, touching at Santa Barbara and
San Pedro, and seemed to be paying very well. We might have gone
southward from San Francisco to San Josè by railroad, and thence by
stage to Los Angelos and Fort Yuma; but our long stage-rides, from
the Missouri to Salt Lake and thence to the Columbia, had worn the
romance off of stage-coaching, and we infinitely preferred to proceed
by steamer. It was a superb day, with sea and sky both "darkly,
deeply, beautifully blue"--a day of the kind Californians always
mean, when they brag about their climate--as we flung off our lines
at San Francisco, and steamed down the harbor broadside with the
Golden Age _en route_ for Panama. We passed by Alcatraz and through
the Golden Gate neck and neck, with the decks of both vessels crowded
with excited passengers; but once across the bar, the _Orizaba_ drew
steadily ahead, and long before sunset we left the _Golden_ _Age_
hull down astern. I don't say this was a race, indeed. Perhaps their
leaving together was quite accidental. But the _Orizaba_ soon showed
her mettle, all hands were eager and excited, and her officers were
in ecstasies at the results.
Once fairly at sea, our steamer turned her prow sharply south, and
all the way down followed the coast from headland to headland.
Usually we steamed along some five or six miles off shore, with
the land itself always in view, and the ocean everywhere like a
millpond. From the Columbia to the Golden Gate in December, we had
found the Pacific to belie its name; but now steaming farther south,
we saw it in its calmness and beauty, and felt like christening it
anew. Most of the way, the sky was magnificently clear, the weather
moderate, the air bracing and stimulating, while the whole Coast was
a shifting panorama of beauty and grandeur. The ocean too smooth for
sea-sickness, we strolled about the deck by twos and fours, or lolled
for hours on the settees, inhaling life and vigor at every breath,
until we almost seemed to be navigating fabled seas or voyaging into
paradise. The Coast itself, never out of sight, rose generally in
abrupt hills or mountains, and these were now green and gold to their
summits. In places, whole hillsides seemed alive with wild-flowers of
every hue, while here and there flocks and herds dotted the landscape
far and near. Now and then an adobe house gleamed out of some
sheltered nook; but, as a rule, houses were infrequent, and trees
and shrubbery very scarce. A few stunted oaks and cedars fringed the
ravines here and there, but as a forest they were nothing to speak
of. The Coast Mountains lifted themselves everywhere, smooth to the
summit as if shaven, with no glory of trees to shelter or crown them;
and in summer, when their verdure dries up and blows away, they must
seem very bald and desolate.
At Santa Barbara, some three hundred miles down the Coast, we touched
for an hour or two, and put ashore several passengers, and some
thirty tons of freight. While discharging the latter, we sauntered up
into the town, and found it to be a pleasant place of some fifteen
hundred inhabitants--county-seat to a county of the same name. The
buildings were mostly adobe, of course, and all quite old; but the
town had an appearance of comfort and respectability, if not of
thrift, and the few Americans we met were sanguine of its future.
The Santa Barbara plains, just back of the town, consist of a broad
and beautiful valley, enclosed by two imposing mountain ranges, that
here jut obliquely into the ocean, and they have a climate that is
no doubt seldom equalled even on the Pacific Coast. As a sanatarium,
Santa Barbara was already being much resorted to by invalids, and
doubtless will become more so when better known. With great evenness
of temperature the year round,[18] without either snow or frost, or
intense heat, the grape, fig, orange, peach, pomegranate, olive, all
nourish here in the open air; and Nature seems so prodigal of her
gifts, the Santa Barbarans appear exempted from the primal curse,
"In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, etc." Mountain
streams from the neighboring ranges, they had, however, trained into
irrigating ditches, and by these cultivated a considerable breadth
of land. They said, they had water sufficient to irrigate thousands
of acres more, and needed only capital and population to build up
a prosperous and thriving community. In old times--"before the
flood," as a Forty-Niner would say--the Jesuit Fathers had one of
their most flourishing Missions here, and their old Mission Church
on a plateau back of the town was still standing, though now used
chiefly as a school. Dr. O. formerly of the Army, but now married
to a señorita and settled at Santa Barbara, escorted us through the
town, and afterwards regaled us with wine from his own vineyard, of
an excellent brand. He pronounced Santa Barbara, with its fruits and
its flowers, a second paradise, the only place fit to live in--where
one would about never die--and half persuaded some of us to the
same way of thinking. The petroleum wells near there, as yet, had
produced but little; but there seemed no doubt of the petroleum being
there in large quantities. We had noticed it floating on the sea for
miles before reaching Santa Barbara; and, if it issues beneath the
sea sufficient for this purpose, it ought to be struck somewhere
in that vicinity in paying quantities. The Santa Barbarans by no
means despaired of doing this yet, and thus hoped to add another
item to their already large and growing products. . At San Pedro,
the seaport of Los Angelos, a hundred miles or so farther down the
Coast, we put off some four hundred tons of freight, and parted with
the bulk of our passengers. Of this place, more hereafter. Thence,
past Anaheim, a settlement of German wine-growers, we steamed on down
a hundred miles farther, and halted at last at San Diego. A stiff
breeze, freshening into a gale, and a rough swell, followed us into
San Diego; but once inside the jaws of the harbor, we found the bay
almost unruffled, while all outside was wild and threatening. The
harbor, indeed, is quite land-locked, and after San Francisco is the
finest on the Pacific Coast, below Puget Sound. But a few hundred
yards in width at the entrance, it soon spreads out into a broad
and handsome bay, one or two miles wide by ten or twelve long, and
with a depth of water close in shore sufficient to float the largest
vessels. A bold promontory running obliquely into the sea, as all
the headlands on this coast do, shelters the harbor perfectly from
all north and northwest winds, and contributes much to make San
Diego what it is. In the old Mexican times, before the days of '49,
San Diego was a leading Mission on the Coast, and the chief seaport
of California, whence she shipped wool, hides, etc., and where she
received supplies. San Francisco, gushing young metropolis now, was
then only sterile Yerba Buena, and practically nowhere.[19] When
the rush of miners to California came in '49, San Diego still held
her own for awhile, quite courageously. The Panama steamers then
touched here in going and coming. A large city was projected, and
built--on paper, with "water-fronts," "corner-lots," and the like,
quite _in extenso_. But there was no sufficient back country--no
mines or agricultural resources to speak of--to support a town, and
so in the end San Diego incontinently collapsed. Poor Derby of the
engineers, immortal as John Phœnix, flourished here in those days,
and afterwards used to say in his own inimitable style, he "Thanked
heaven his lot was not cast in San Diego; it _had_ been, but was
sold for taxes!" We anchored off the old wharf, then fallen to
decay, where in other days the Panama steamers had floated proudly,
and after rowing well in were carried ashore on the shoulders of
Mexican peons. The U. S. barracks and corral, now empty and without
a watchman even, and a score or so of other buildings, were grouped
near the landing, constituting New San Diego; but the main town,
or Old San Diego, was three miles off up the bay. A rickety old
ambulance, once U. S. property, but long since condemned and sold,
carried us up to the town, where we spent several hours. Formerly
numbering two or three thousand inhabitants, and a pretty stirring
place, it now had only about two or three hundred, and was a good
illustration of some of California's changes. Its buildings, of
course, were all one-story adobe, but partly inhabited, and these
were grouped about a squalid, Plaza, that reminded one of Mexico
or Spain, rather than the United States. Being the county-seat, of
course, it had a court-house and a jail--the one, a tumble-down
adobe--the other, literally a cage, made of boiler-iron, six or seven
feet square at the farthest. The day we were there three men were
brought in, arrested for horse-stealing, or something of the sort;
but as the jail would accommodate only two--crowded at that--the
judge discharged the third, with an appropriate reprimand. At least,
we supposed it "appropriate;" but as it was in Californicè, and
the judge a native, we could make nothing of it. In hot weather,
this iron jail-cage must be a miniature tophet; but, no doubt, it
remains generally empty. On a hill just back of the town, commanding
it and the harbor, were the remains of Fort Stockton, which our
Jersey commodore of that name built and garrisoned with his gallant
Jack-Tars, during the Mexican war, and held against all comers.
Beyond it still, were the ruins of the old Mexican Presidio, with
palm and olive trees scattered here and there, but all now desolate
and forsaken. The general broken-down, dilapidated, "played out"
appearance of the town, was certainly most forlorn. And yet, the
San Diegoans, like all good Californians, had still a profound
faith in their future, and swore by their handsome bay as stoutly
as ever. They knew San Diego would yet be the western terminus of
the Southern Pacific Railroad, whenever this got itself built; and
with this, they fondly believed, would come population, prosperity,
power (the three great _p's_ of modern civilization), and come to
stay. With the exception of a handful of Americans and Jews, engaged
chiefly in merchandizing, the inhabitants consisted mainly of native
Californians, in all stages of impecuniosity. Being steamer-day,
several Americans--most of them ex-army officers--had galloped in
from their neighboring ranches, some coming ten and twenty miles
for this purpose, and all were as hospitable and warm-hearted, as
men leading such a life usually are. They laughed and chatted over
their California experiences, predicted great things for San Diego
yet, and offered a hundred acres or more from their leagues-square
ranches, to any American who would come and settle among them. All
united in pronouncing the climate simply perfect, though a little
warm in summer; and, I must say, it really seemed so, when we were
there. They declared the thermometer never varied more than twenty
degrees the year round, and maintained people never died there,
except from the knife or bullet. When reminded of a Mr. S. who had
died that morning, they replied, he came there too late--a confirmed
consumptive; otherwise, he would have got well, and in the end have
shrivelled up and evaporated, like the rest of their aged people.
As to business, the town really seemed to have none, except a little
merchandizing and whiskey-drinking, and these only gave signs of life,
because it was "steamer-day." The country immediately about the town
was dull and barren, from want of water to irrigate and cultivate it.
The great ranches were at a distance, and these depended on streams
from the Coast Range, that mostly disappeared before reaching the
harbor. Here horses, cattle, and sheep were raised in considerable
numbers; but the breadth of valuable land was not considered large, and
the population of the section seemed to be on the stand-still, if not
decrease. A railroad from the Atlantic States, and another north to San
Francisco, would of course soon change all this; but these were yet
in the future. The splendid harbor, however, is there--the second as
I have said, on the California Coast--and it will be passing strange,
if the future does not evolve something, that will give it vitality
and importance. Its noble waters, surely, cannot lie idle forever.
With its superb anchorage and far-stretching shores, it seemed already
the prophecy of great things to come, and I sincerely trust the San
Diegoans may speedily realize them.[20]
Down by the mouth of the harbor, were several fishermen's huts, whose
owners, it was said, gained a precarious living by whaling. Off the
harbor, for miles up and down the coast, we noticed a heavy growth
of kelp or sea-weed, and this we were told the whales frequented in
certain seasons of the year, as a feeding ground. We kept a sharp
lookout for them, both coming down and returning; but were rewarded
by seeing only a single dead one, which had been harpooned and left
floating near shore, with a buoy attached. Capt. Thorne, of the
_Orizaba_, reported these whales as quite numerous off the coast
sometimes, and thought this business might readily be made much more
lucrative, than it was.
Here at San Diego, we were about five hundred miles south of San
Francisco, and less than one hundred and fifty from Fort Yuma. We had
expected to find a stage thence to Fort Yuma; but the line had recently
been withdrawn,[21] from want of business, and we were compelled to
return again up the coast to San Pedro and Los Angelos. On the evening
of Feb. 14th, we accordingly bade good-bye to San Diego, and the next
morning, when we came on deck, found the Orizaba at anchor again off
San Pedro. This, as I have before said, is the old seaport or landing
for Los Angelos, and all the country about there, whence supplies
were then wagoned into Arizona, Southern Nevada, and even Utah. The
Salt Lake merchants, then barred from the East in winter by the heavy
snows on the Rocky Mountains, were in the habit of eking out their
stocks by purchases in San Francisco, which they shipped 400 miles
down the coast to San Pedro, and from here wagoned them _via_ San
Bernardino and Cajon Pass, through Southern Nevada, 800 miles more to
Great Salt Lake. Of course, the completion of the Pacific Railroad has
changed all this. San Pedro itself, unfortunately, has no harbor, but
is a mere open roadstead, where vessels may ride at anchor in fine
weather, but when storms come must slip to sea. From here a slough
or gut of the sea sets up to Wilmington, some six miles through a
tide-water marsh, where we found a Mr. Phineas Banning doing his "level
best"--and it was a big "best"--to build up a nascent city. Formerly,
everything was lightered ashore at San Pedro; but recently, Mr. Banning
had introduced steam-tugs, and with these at high tide he carried
everything to Wilmington, where he had wharves, store-houses, shops,
stages, wagon-trains, and about everything else, on a large scale. He
was an enterprising Delawarean, but without much regard for "the eyes
of Delaware;" had failed two or three times, but was still wide-awake
and keen for business; had come to California a common stage-driver,
but now ran lines of stages and freight-wagons of his own all over
southern California and Arizona, for eight hundred and a thousand
miles; had married a native señorita, with several leagues of land, and
made her a good husband; was now state senator on the Republican side,
and talked of for governor; and, in short, was a good second edition of
Mr. Ben Holliday, yet without his bad politics. His town of Wilmington
consisted of a hundred or two frame buildings, in true border style,
with perhaps five hundred inhabitants, all more or less in his service,
or employed at Drum Barracks, the U. S. military post there. A man of
large and liberal ideas, with great native force of character and power
of endurance, he was invaluable to Southern California and Arizona,
and both of these sections owe him a debt of gratitude, which they
never can repay. His "latch-string" was always out to all strangers
in that latitude; there was no public interest with which he was not
prominently identified; and from San Pedro to Tucson, and back again,
_via_ Prescott and Fort Mojave, through some fifteen hundred miles of
border travel, there was scarcely a day in which we did not see his
teams or stages, or touch his enterprises somewhere.
Here at Wilmington, in the village barber, we found another good
illustration of the adaptativeness of the average American.
Originally from Independence, Mo., he had emigrated thence to Oregon,
thence to San Francisco, and thence to Wilmington. In Missouri,
he was a farmer by occupation; in Oregon, a cattle-drover; in San
Francisco, a teamster; in Wilmington, he was now regularly a barber,
but occasionally cobbled shoes, or worked as a blacksmith, and on
a pinch also practiced medicine. He had not preached, or edited a
newspaper yet; but doubtless would have had no objection to trying
his hand at either or both of these, should opportunity offer or
necessity occur! But such men, after all, are our Representative
Americans--real pioneers of empire and champions of civilization--and
history will not forget to recognize and respect them accordingly.
Back of Wilmington, some thirty miles wide by seventy-five long, from
the Pacific to the Mountains, stretch the great Los Angelos plains,
than which there are few finer sights on the Coast, at the proper
season. Just now they were green with herbage and gemmed with wild
flowers in all directions, from the Mountains to the ocean, a perfect
sea of verdure, with flocks and herds roaming over them at will, under
the guidance of native rancheros. The latter, mounted on gamey little
horses, full-blooded mustangs, with saddles that nearly covered their
steeds, and tinkling spurs that almost swept the ground, galloped
hither and yon as occasion needed, or lolled for hours on the ground,
basking in the sun, while their cattle and sheep fed peacefully about
them. The landscape one day, when Gen. Banning drove us over to Los
Angelos, to see the vineyards and orange-groves there, with the Pacific
rolling in the distance, the Mountains towering before us, and the
Plains stretching all about us, in green and purple and gold, was a
perfect idyllic scene, which lingers in my memory yet, as one of the
fairest recollections of a life-time. Just then, the marshes about
Wilmington, and the Plains beyond, were a halting place for vast flocks
of wild-geese, on their annual migration north, and they thronged the
country in countless thousands. Off on the Plains, where they were
feeding on the young and succulent grass, they whitened the ground
sometimes for acres, and were so careless of danger, you might knock
them over with a club. Gen. Banning said, they were even more numerous
in former years, but even as they were, we had never seen anything to
equal them. As we drove along, they rose up by the roadside in flocks
of thousands, and fairly deafened the air with their multitudinous
konkings. Further on, we found the grass rank and luxuriant, and it
seemed impossible to believe, that when summer came, all this wealth
of vegetation would wither up, and substantially blow away. Yet this
seemed to be the fact--these broad and beautiful Plains, beneath
their then rainless sky, becoming everywhere a barren desert, save
where _acequias_ (Mexican for "water-ditches") regularly irrigate and
vitalize them.
We struck the acequias several miles out from Los Angelos, and
followed them into the town, our road winding about among and
crossing them several times. They are simply water-ditches, four
or five feet wide by one deep, the same as those at Salt Lake, but
most of them far older. They were begun a century ago, by the old
Spanish Jesuits, who formerly had one of their largest and most
flourishing Missions here, and are kept in repair and regulated by
the city corporation--the water being farmed out, at fixed rates.
Their source of supply is the Los Angelos river, a little stream
that issues from the Coast Range some miles away, and sinks again, I
believe, before reaching the ocean. If husbanded properly, with the
same care exercised at Salt Lake, it might be made to irrigate many
times the present breadth of land, it would seem; but as it is, it
suffices to vitalize hundreds, if not thousands, of acres about the
town, where they grow wheat, barley, oats, the grape, the orange,
the lemon, citron, olive, peach, pear, and almost everything else,
in great profusion and of the finest character. Along the road, and
skirting all the main acequias, willows have been planted, and these
growing rapidly serve for both fencing and fuel. Here and there wild
flowers also have been planted, or have sprung up naturally among the
hedges, and these shower their wealth of bloom and fragrance almost
the year round. The robin, the blue-bird, the oriole, abounded here;
and the whole air seemed vocal with song, as we whirled along through
the suburbs, and up into the town.
Los Angelos itself proved to be a brisk and thriving town. It is
the county-seat of a large county of the same name, and probably
contained then some five thousand inhabitants--about one-third
Americans and Europeans, and the balance native Californians
and Indians. The Americans seemed to own most of the houses and
lands, the Europeans--chiefly Jews--to do the business, the native
Californians to do the loafing, and the Indians to perform the
labor. It had mail communication with San Francisco twice a week by
stage, and twice a month by steamer _via_ San Pedro, and telegraphic
communication _via_ San Francisco with the whole coast and country.
It boasted two or three very fair hotels, a fine old Spanish church,
and quite a number of brick and frame residences, that would have
been called creditable anywhere. The town seemed steadily increasing
in wealth and population, as more and more of the surrounding Plains
were brought under cultivation, and already had a substantial basis
for prosperity in its vineyards and fruit-orchards, aside from its
flocks and herds. It was also doing a considerable business with
Utah, Arizona, and Southern California, for all which regions it
was then largely a mart and entrepot. Its climate was mild and
equable, reminding one more of Italy and the Levant, than America,
and already it was quite a resort for invalids from all parts of the
Coast. Then in February, and again in May, when we returned there
from Arizona, the air really seemed like the elixir of life, and
quickened every sense into new life and power of enjoyment. As in
all Spanish American towns, however, Sunday seemed to be the chief
day for business and pleasure. A few stores and shops were closed;
but the majority kept open, the same as any other day. The native
Californian and Indian population of the surrounding country flocked
into town that day, in holiday attire and, after a brief service at
the old church (dedicated "To the Queen of the Angels,") assembled in
the Plaza, to witness their customary cock-fights. There were several
of these, which men and women, priests and people--alike eager and
excited--all seemed to enjoy; but to us, Eastern-bred, they seemed
cruel and barbarous. The poor fowls pecked away at each other, until
some fell dead, and others dropped exhausted, when the survivors were
borne away in triumph.
A ride across the breezy Plains, ten miles to the south, brought us
to the ranch and vineyard of Mr. Ben. D. Wilson, noted over all
the Coast for his excellent fruits and wines. "Don Benito" Wilson,
he is called out there, and the name is a good one. Without much
urban polish, he is nevertheless one of nature's noblemen, and a
fine Representative Californian. A Tennessean by birth, long before
the acquisition of California, he had hunted and trapped across the
continent, living for years among the Utes and Apaches, and finally
marrying a California señorita, with three leagues square of land,
had settled down here. His noble ranch lies at the foot of the Coast
Range of mountains, with their snow-clad summits towering above, the
Los Angelos plains in front stretching away to the ocean, while an
intervening roll of hills shuts out the raw winds and fogs of the
summer and autumn. Two or three dashing rivulets, that issue from the
mountains like threads of silver, have been caught up and carried by
_acequias_ all along the slopes, whence they are distributed wherever
the thirsty soil in summer needs them. Here he has orange, lemon,
peach, olive, almond, and English walnut groves, by the many acres,
while beyond are his vineyards by the hundred acres--part planted
by himself, but many a half century ago by the Jesuit Fathers. Just
now, his vineyards, trimmed closely as they were, looked for all the
world like a Delaware or Jersey field of old peach-trees, with the
tops sawn off, as we sometimes see them here. Without trellis or
support of any kind, these aged vines stood stiff and gnarled, in
rows five or six feet apart, themselves about as many inches thick;
but in summer, they throw out runners, that form a leafy wilderness,
loaded down with the purpling clusters. In addition, he had great
herds of horses, and cattle, and flocks of sheep by the thousand,
that roamed over his outlying broad acres and the Los Angelos plains
at will. In sauntering through his orange-groves, he showed us trees,
from which he had gathered twenty-five dollars' worth of the golden
fruit each, that season, and one that yielded him forty dollars'
worth. A few of his oranges, dead ripe, were still gleaming amid the
rich, deep green of their peculiar foliage, and we had some of these
fresh and luscious on the table each meal we took with him. In his
wine-cellars, back of the mansion, he showed us two hundred thousand
gallons of wine, the product of that year's vintage alone, and it
hadn't been much of a year for wine either. This he reported to be
worth only fifty cents a gallon then, but as increasing in price,
of course, with age. He made both white and red wine, of a superior
brand, and had branch houses in San Francisco and New York, that
disposed of the bulk of it at fair figures. It all had the peculiar
sharpness and alcoholic qualities of the California wines generally;
but, he thought, with more careful culture, and increasing age, their
wines would improve in this respect. He computed the wine-product of
California then, at not less than three millions of gallons annually,
and rapidly increasing. The Mission grape was the one mostly grown,
as yet; but he thought some foreign varieties, of a finer quality,
would gradually supplant this. The white wines were the pure juice
of the grape; the red the same, but with the color of the skins
added. Farther North, the Sonoma and Sacramento wines were lighter
and milder, resembling claret and hock; but these Los Angelos wines
were heavy and strong, with a body like those of Spain, whence no
doubt the Mission vines originally came. The expressed juice was
first put into large casks, holding a hundred and forty gallons or
more each, whence after due fermentation it was bottled and sent to
market. He said at the end of a year and a half, the wine usually
became clear and less alcoholic; but it continued to mellow and
soften with age for twenty years, when its delicacy of flavor and
oiliness of consistency culminated. Brandy was made from indifferent
or miscellaneous grapes, skins and all, and from what we saw of
its effects, was as fierce and fiery a liquid, surely, as Jersey
lightning, or Nebraska needle-gun.
Mr. Wilson lived rather plainly, in anything but a palatial mansion;
but he had a fine library, well-selected, and took most of the
leading magazines and newspapers, from San Francisco to Boston. We
were really surprised at the extent and variety of his periodical
literature. He said he had been intending for years to build himself
a new house, on a grander scale; but the old one was very roomy and
comfortable, and he had never found time to pull it down. We found
him a very bright and intelligent old gentleman, well versed in the
world's affairs, with an eye keenly alive to passing events both at
home and abroad, notwithstanding his seclusion. He was a warm friend
of Gen. Banning's; for they naturally comprehended, and appreciated
each other, to the full.
Land just about Los Angelos, and adjacent to the acequias, was held
at a good figure; but a few miles from the town, it was selling at
only five and ten dollars per acre, and a great stock or fruit ranch,
it would seem, could be built up here, at small expense, in a few
years. The soil and climate are certainly all anybody could desire;
the chief drawbacks seemed to be the absence of good schools and
churches. These, however, will come with time and sufficient Yankees;
and it is not too much to say, that the Plains and City of the Angels
will yet become widely known, and well-peopled. California, rich in
so many things, may yet well be vain of them.
FOOTNOTES:
[18] See Appendix
[19] In those days, it appears, the Jesuits had over a score
of Missions in California, and some thirty thousand half
civilized-Indians living in their communities. Their horned cattle
numbered four hundred and twenty-four thousand; their horses, mules,
and asses, besides the wild ones that scoured the plains in troops,
sixty-two thousand five hundred; their sheep, goats, and swine, three
hundred and twenty-one thousand; and the wheat, barley, maize, and
other grains they raised measured one hundred and twenty-two thousand
five hundred bushels annually. The richest in cattle and horses, and
the greatest grain-producer, was San Gabriel, now a modest hamlet.
Next to it in everything else, and ahead of it in sheep, was San Luis
Rey, now even modester, which also had the most Indians. The Mission
Dolores, now San Francisco, stood low on the list, with its five
hundred Indians shivering in the wind and fog, five thousand horned
cattle, sixteen hundred horses and mules, four thousand sheep and
swine, and other things in proportion.
[20] Since the above was written, I believe, the Panama steamers have
resumed their calls at San Diego, and doubtless the town is again
looking up. So, also, the Arizona trade and travel now start mainly
from here, and a railroad to the Colorado at least seems inevitable.
[21] See foot-note page 329.