Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1889-06-29
Sc REFS or LOWER CALIFORNIA.
A COUNTRY LITTLE KNOWN TO THE
OUTSIDE WORLD.
Here Every Traveller Must Be His Own
-Hardships En-
countered.


Special Correspondence of the RECORD UNION.
SAN TELMo IL. CD, 1889.
Until within the last year or two the
interior of this peninsula has never been
explored, except by wandering Indians
and an occasional prospector, who are not
given to making public their findings. We
have heard more or less of the main char
acteristics of the coast line-but nv pur-
pose is to ascertain what lies beyond those
chains of hills that guard the shores from
end to end. Their bleak and frowning
walls rise gradually to the mountains that
run down through the center of this long
and narrow tongue Of land but between
them are blooming valleys, mostly living
east and west-of whose people and pro-
ducts and possibilities the world knows
nothing.
And 1t is no wonder the world has not
heard OF them. Unless one possesses the
patience OF Job, the spinal column of a
camel and the determination OF. grim
death, he had better abandon all idea of
exploring this peninsula before he begins
the herculean task. Let no dilettante
tourist come down here, expecting to make
a picnic or pleasure party of disclosing
the secrets which this mysterious land has
kept lnvolate through all the centuries. in
spite Of greedy Spaniards and Jealous
priests and specializing Yankees. 1t is
easy enough to reach the edges-but the
heart of the peninsula is yet well-nigh
uncomfortable.
You journey pleasantly in a parlor car
to San Francisco or San Diego, and Won
der why your predecessors should talk of
hardships. From either of those points
you may sail all the way around the pc
ninsula, stopping at any of the more i'm
pdrtant sea pOrts-in a steamer by no
means palatial, as compared to the best
Atlantic vessels, but tolerably comfortable.
If any such thing as comfort can be found
on the bounding pillows" But in that
way you see nothing of the country. Your
troubles begin only when you leave the
conveniences of civilization and strike out
for yourself into the wilderness. Were
there any people, even savages, it would
not be so bad but
AN EMPTY COUNTRY,
a totally unoccupied space, in which Won
seem to be the only living soul, with nothing
to fight but rattlesnakes and starvation. is
disheartening, to say the least. There are
people, to be sure, collected at a few CEN
tiers, long distances apart, but between
those old settlements stretch hundreds of
miles of terra jncogRitd.
Land at any port you like, and attempt
to make it the base of your interior opera
&c ha I
you find yourself helpless as was the giant
whom the Lilliputians bound with tiny
threads. There are no railroads or stage
lines to where you want to go-hardly
highways or byways-in a country where
each traveller must be his own Columbus.
You are in the condition of the first man,
as Milton describes him, when :" the world
was all before him where to choose" and
the matter of choice is not so difficult as
that Of execution. Neither love nor lucre
can 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, bv
some chance, you are so fortunate as to fall
in with some party bent on a similar ex-
petition, your only alternative is to pur-
chase horses blankets and camping outfit.
and hire native assistance from point to
point, trusting to your lucky stars TO bring
you safely through and enable you to get
some of your money back by disposing of
the circus when the tour is completed.
Your correspondent has travelled enough
to cease looking for "downy beds of ease"
and to adapt herself pretty well to circum-
stances. In the most isolated and SEEM
ingly God-forsaken communities, if one
can speak the language Of the people, the
presentation of proper credentials and
judicious use of money without appear
ing to possess too much of it), with pre-
cisely the same department that one would
carry into church and society at home,
will generally win respectful attention and
every reasonable facility within command
of the natives. They will scare up some
kind Of escort or conveyance, and pass one
from village to village, from ranch to
ranch, committed to the care of distant
friends who, in their turn, help one on to
the others, often going many miles them
selves, if necessary to insure his safety.
LEAVING sANTo TOMAS.
With faces turned always towards the
south, a wagon-road winds up steep,
rough hill, then down again, into the next
.valley-the Chocolada-even smaller and
narrower than that just passed, being a
mere gorge, winding around the bases of
the mountains, in places nothing more
than sandy river-bed, which at certain
seasons must be filled with raging torrent.
Diverging canyons mark the way to La
Estapana, pretty and fertile valley of
probably six hundred acres, where reside
few families of American colonists. La
Estapana is almost continuous with the
Guadalupe valley the latter a much
larger tract, level as a plank floor. A
stream winds through the center of both,
which, however, runs upside down" dur
ing half the year-that is, becomes dry as
dust OH the surface, but water may be OBJ
tanned anywhere along its course by dig
ging down a couple of feet.
And so we go on through canyons and
gorges, between hills now bushy, now bar
rem, iiolting over rocks and sands and
flowers and cacti, to the celebrated valley
of San Vicente. The latter, cut by low
mountains into irregular shape, contains
nearly 1000 acres, and is traversed by the
San Vicente river, one of the largest on
the peninsula. One branch of it, the San
Jose, is nearly as large as the main stream,
and there are many other affiuents, max
ing for the basin a total drainage area of
over 100000 acres. A short distance be-
low the settlement this valley gives place
to canyon, which opens again, only two
miles from the ocean, upon the mesaS or
table lands of San Ysidro. In this canyon
are located those copper mines called Del
phina, about which so much has been said
THE MISSION OF SAN VICENTE FERRER
Was founded in 1880. Its buildings were
erected on bench of the hills overlook
ing the valley, and around their feet were
planted the olive and "prickly pear"
which have now become groves and
thickets, while the structures they were to
serve and adorn have crumbled under the
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