PACIFIC AND BEERING'S STRAIT. 55 



padre Arroyo was a grammarian, and said that he had 

 written a vocabulary and grammar of the Indian lan- 

 guages, but he could not be prevailed upon to show 

 them : such works, were they in existence, would, I 

 believe, be the only ones of the kind ; and it is a pity 

 that they should not be given to the world as a matter 

 of curiosity, though I cannot think they would be of 

 much use to a traveller, as the languages of the tribes 

 differ so materially, and in such short spaces, that in 

 one mission there were eleven totally different dialects. 

 I cannot omit to mention padre Arroyo's disquisition 

 on the etymology of the name of the Peninsula of 

 California. I shall observe first, that it was never 

 known why Cortes gave to the bay* which he first 

 discovered, a name which appears to be composed of 

 the Latin words calida and foniai., signifying heat 

 and furnace, and which was afterwards transferred to 

 the peninsula. Miguel Venegas supposed it arose 

 from some Indian words which Cortes misunderstood, 

 and Burney, in his history of voyages in the Pacific,-}- 

 observes, that some have conjectured the name to have 

 been given on account of the heat of the weather, 

 and says, it has been remarked that it was the only 

 name given by Cortes which was immediately derived 

 from the Latin language. Without entering into a 

 discussion of the subject, which is not of any moment, 

 I shall observe, that it was thought in Monterey to 

 have arisen in consequence of a custom which prevails 

 throughout California, of the Indians shutting them- 

 selves in ovens until they perspire profusely, as I have 

 already described in speaking of the Temeschal. It is 



* Bernal Diaz de Castillo, in his " Conquest of Mexico," calls 

 California a bay. 



t Vol. I. p. 178, 410. 



