2 WITH THE FLOWERS AND TREES 



flimsy rafts perhaps upheld by swimming Indians, 

 or where, accepting the challenge of the rock-ribbed 

 sierra, they conquered it by some heart-breaking 

 pass unknown till then; to read their comments 

 upon the strange plants and animals that they en- 

 countered, and to guess what their pioneerish names 

 stand for in the exact nomenclature of our own day 

 all this makes rare diversion for an indoor reader 

 with a taste for the open air. 



How the Virgin Flora Looked in ihe Padres' Days 



So far as any one knows, the first white men to 

 look upon this flowery land that we call California, 

 were the Portuguese navigator, Juan Rodriguez 

 Cabrillo and his mariners, sailing in Spain's service 

 for the purpose of discovery. The log of Cabrillo 

 is extant and from it we learn that in the autumn 

 of 1542 he landed at what is now San Diego and 

 upon some of the islands along the coast. There 

 is nothing, however, in this record to indicate that 

 the plant life of the country appeared to him note- 

 worthy, and probably at that dun season of the year 

 it did not. 



The next expedition to make a landing on Califor- 

 nia soil, appears to have been that celebrated one 

 of Sir Francis Drake, who in June and July, 1579, 

 stopped for a few weeks in a little harbor near the 



