IN CALIFORNIA 7 



ing to the tops of trees, swung their purple clusters 

 of fruit in mid-air. In places was profusion of wild 

 tuna cactus, which, says the Father, "has not failed 

 us in all our journey from Lower California." One 

 wonders at this mild reference to the spiny plant 

 which modern Californians anathematize for a pest ; 

 until it is remembered that the purple "pears" 

 borne by the sort he refers to, have always been an 

 important article of food to Indians and Mexicans. 

 But of all the native plants that caught the Span- 

 iards ' eyes, there was none that so enraptured them 

 as the wild roses. These Crespi always calls roses 

 of Castile, and he seems to register the presence 

 of every thicket of them from San Diego to San 

 Francisco! "Both sides of our way," he records 

 with delight of a certain day, "were lined with the 

 rose bushes of Castile, from which I broke one bunch 

 with six roses opened and about twelve in bud." 



As the cavalcade advanced, crushing in its prog- 

 ress a multitude of minty shrubs whose perfume 

 companions every saunterer to-day over the untrav- 

 eled ways of California, little valleys would now 

 and then open up in the semblance of cultivated 

 fields by reason of the trim, creeping vines of the 

 wild gourd. Now there was descent into pleasant 

 arroyos where sycamores, "corpulent" of body, cast 

 grateful shade; now hills were skirted, their sides 



