CHAPTER XXV 



AROUND SANTA ROSA 



ROMANCE, tragedy, and pathos have been 

 enacted on many of the Channel Islands 

 lying off the shores of California. In the 

 early years they were all the rendezvous of freebooters 

 and adventurers. Reports of their riches in otter, 

 gold, silver, and hidden treasure were carried north. 

 The Russians came down from Alaska to prey upon 

 the Indians; freebooters came from the Philippines 

 and the East. In the early days the Spaniards turned 

 the attractive island of Santa Cruz into a penal settle- 

 ment, adding to the trials and tribulations of the 

 Mission Fathers, the glorious old adventurers and 

 Christianizers who came up the coast, walked, sailed, 

 and rode under the banner of the Spanish king. No 

 one who knows the coast from the islands to La Paz 

 and from Los Angeles to Corpus Christi, Texas, and 

 down through Sonora over the deserts, but must 

 accord these old padres the full meed of credit. Some 

 of us may differ with them, may object to the wiping 

 out of the American Indian, may point to the almost 

 utter extinction of the California Indians, as a protest 

 against forcible conversion, and see in it extinction; 

 yet as a great exploitation under the banner of the 

 Cross, with a good object in view, the advance of 

 Serra and his followers up the coast of California to 

 Mexico, and the estabhshment of the splendid Mis- 



282 



