In the Santa Clara. * 265 



in a hopeless minority. Tlie San Francisco men have fixed up a fine pro- 

 gramme for us to be followed out on our return from the south, and many 

 incidental plans are made for our future comfort and delight. These things 

 are announced to us, and then we spend an hour in the halls of the board 

 inspecting some of the finest fruits and vegetables which this poor planet has 

 ever yet produced. 



So, tarrying a single day at San Francisco, the Society hurried on its 

 way to the place of its first formal meeting. In going to Sa,n Jose we passed 

 down the peninsula, beyond the bottom of the bay, and made our exit into 

 the valley of Santa Clara. The county of Santa Clara considers herself the 

 favored region of the Golden State. There are many grounds for such a 

 sentiment and belief. As we skim along the perfectly flat surface of the 

 country, almost on a level with the Pacific, we can but be astonished at the 

 evidences of fertility on every hand. Such a soil is, according to my judg- 

 ment, hard to parallel anywhere in the world. It is a black, damp loam in 

 the lower parts, with an element of sand and drier constituents at the higher 

 levels. Sometimes pebbles and small stones are scattered over the surface, 

 and, indeed, constitute a part of the body of the soil. The color of this earth 

 is not that blue-black hue which sometimes deceives as to its real fertility , 

 but it is the dead black peculiar to the richest loam or humus. It is evi- 

 dent, too, by the first glance, that this promise of fertility in the Santa Clara 

 valley is fully verified by the facts. It is fifty miles from San Francisco to 

 San Jose. We make the run on the afternoon of the 23d of January. In 

 going down the peninsula, we see on the right the foundations of what is to 

 be the great Lelard Stanford, Jr., University. I have made a careful study 

 of the charter of this instituticn, and say, deliberately, that I regard it as the 

 best organic form that has ever been devised for a university of learning. 



Here we are at the old town of Santa Clara. Everything in California 

 is either San or Santa. It is evident that in the prehistoric ages the saints 

 and saintesses were in the ascendant on this coast. The old Spanish padres 

 had the finest and best assorted lot of saints that were ever catalogued. They 

 did them honor, too, when they distributed their names on these mountains 

 and valleys and rivers of California; but whether it is an honor to a saint to 

 put his name to an old adobe mission house, or even to a town, is, at least, 

 questionable. Some of these saintly names are musical, and grateful to the 

 tongue and ear; but others, say San Buenaventura, for a specimen, are 

 tedious and drawling forms of speech that ought to be abbreviated or abol- 

 ished in the general interests of civilization. As for Santa Clara and San 

 Jose, their names are exquisite. It is three or four miles from the former 

 to the latter city. Toward evening we are at our destination. Great prep- 

 arations have been made for our reception and entertainment. Delegations 

 are in waiting at the station to receive us and conduct us to our places in 

 the city. Most of the members are taken to private homes. Beautiful 

 places they are, too, and rich in comfort. Others are lodged in hotels — the St. 

 James, the Lick, and others. The comic g of night finds everybody comfortably 



