The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1889-06-23
ALAND SANS PEOPLE.
Fanny B. Wards Success as an
Inland Explorer.
AT SAN RAFAEL AND SAN TELMO.
Heaven Pity the People Upon Whom Nature
Has Smiled so GraciOusly"-HOw
Pulque and Mescal are Made.

BAJA CALIFORNIA, Mexico. June g. 1889.
Special Cores ~ndence Of THE HER
AID. Until within the last few years the
interior of this peninsula has never been
explored, except by wandering Indians and
an occasional prospectOr, who are not
prone to giving their findings to the pub
lie. OF the main characteristics of the
coast line, we have heard more or less; my
purpose is to find out what lies between
THOSE TWO CHAINS OF HILLS
that guard either shore from end to end.
Their bleak and frowning walls rise grad
ually to the mountains that run down
through the central portion of the long and
and narrow tongue of land; but between
them are blooming valleys-mostly lying
east and w1st-of whose people and pro-
ducts and possibilities the world knows
nothing.
1t is no wonder people have not heard of
theml Unless one possess the patience of
a job, the spinal column of camel, and
the determination of grim DEATH he might
as well give up all idea of exploring them.
Let no dilettante tourist come down here
expecting to make
A PICNIC OR A PLEAsURE-PARTY
of disclosing the secrets of this mysterious
land which has preserved them inviolate
through all the centuries, in spite of greedy
Spaniards and Jealous priests and specu
lating Yankees 1t is easy enough to get
to the edges-but the heart of the PENN
sula is still well nigh not-come at-able.
You Journey pleasantly in parlOr car, to
San Francisco or San DiegO-and wonder
why your predecessors should pirate of
hardships. From either of those points
you may sail to Ensenada, or all the way
down around the peninsula, stopping at the
more important ports, in a steamer by no
means palatial as compared to the best At
lantic vessels, but tOlerably comfortable
if there can be such thing as comfort on
the bounding pillows" But in that way
you see nothing of the country; your
troubles begin when you leave the con-
veniences of civilization and strike out into
the Wilderness. 1t would not be so bad if
there were any people-even savageS; but
an empty cOuntry-a totally unOccupied
space in which you seem to be the only
living soul, like Adam before Eve was
created, or like CrusOe on his desert island
with nothing to fight but rattlesnakes and
starvation, is disheartening, to say the
least. There are people, to be sure, gath
cred at a few centers, long distances apart;
but between those old settlements stretch
hundreds of miles Of terra incOgnitG-the
section you burn to explore. Land at any
port you lille-even at Ensenada the head
quarters Of
AMERICAN AND ENGLISH ENTERPRISE
and attempt to make it the base of your
inland operations; it is the same story
everywhere-you find yourself as helpless
as was the giant whom the Liliputians
bound with tiny threads. There are no
railroads or stage lines to where you want
to go, nor highways nor byways. You are
in the condition OF that first man, as Milton
describes him, when 1.-THE world was all
before him where to chOose;n and the mat
ter of choice is not so difficult as that of ex-
eGution. Love or lucre cannot procure
horses and carriages where such things do
not exist, and you cannot well strike off
alone across the country without guides or
supplies. Unless, by mere chance, you are
so fortunate as to fall in with some party
bent on a similar expedition, your only
alternative is to purchase horses, blankets
and camping outfit, and hire native assist
ance from point to point, trusting to Prov
idence and your lucky stars to bring YOU
safely through and enable you TO dispose
of the circus when the outfit is completed
Your scribe has Travelled enough not to
look for ''dowuy beds of ease" and has
learned to adapt herself pretty well to cir
cumstances In most places
HOWEVER ISOLATED AND SEEMINGLY GOD
FoRsAEEN,
,if one can speak the language, the pres
entation of proper CREDENTIALS, judicious
use of money, (without appearing to pos
sess too much of it,, and precisely the
same department that one would carry |
into church and society at home, will |
generally win respectful attention and |
every reasonable facility within the com
mand of the people. They will scare up |
some kind of conveyance or escort and |
pass one from village to village, or from |
rancho to rancho, commended to the care of
their friends; and these, in turn will pass
one on to others, going themselves long
distances, if need be, to ensure safety.
Leaving Santa Tomas, with faces turned
always toward the south, we follow
wagon-road up very high, steep hill, then
down again, into the next Valley-the |
Chocolada, even smaller and narrower than |
that we have just left, being mere gorge
winding around the bases of the hills, in
places nothing more than sandy river-bed, |
which at certain seasons Of the year must |
be flooded with a raging torrent. Diverging |
caflons mark the way to La Estappana-a |
pretty and fertile valley of probably six |
hundred acres, where the International |
company has a few colonists. The Catles |
i almost continuous with the Guadalupe |
vailey-a tract as level as plank floor, re
sembling Estappana, though considerably |
larger. A stream winds through the cen |
ter of both, which, however,
FLOWS UPSIDE DOWN.
toward the end of the summer-that is, be-
comes dry on the surface, but water may
be found by digging down couple of feet.
And so on, through canons and gorges, be
tween hills now bushy, now barren, we
Jolt over rocks and sands and flowers and
cacti, to the celebrated valley of San
Vicente.
The latter is of irregular shape, cut by
low hills and mesas, containing nearly /
seven thousand acres and traversed by the
San Vicente river, one of the largest on
the peninsula. The San Jose, a branch of
il. is nearly as large as the main stream,
enters Just above the settlement; and many
other aflluents flow in. making a total
drainage area for the basin of over three
million acres. Two miles below the settle
nent this valley gives place to canon
which opens again, only two miles from the
ocean, upon the mesas. or table lands Of
San Ysidro. In this canon are located the
Delphina copper mines.
THE mission of San Vicente Fcrrer was
founded in 1880, its buildings being placed
IN a shelf of the hills overlooking the val ]
ey, and around their feet were painted the
olive and prickley pear, which have now
become groves and thicllets, while the
structures they were to serve and adorn
lave crumbled to dust heaps. {
South from San Vicente extend
SERIES oF Low HILLS Il
md table lands, composed of gravelly loan
which takes on a decided tinge of red, like
1 ! II