i8 ELDORADO 



their campfires of buffalo chips and sage brush and 

 tossed in uneasy dreams at night with their guns for 

 pillows. The reveille that awoke them was often the 

 crack of rifles in the hands of savages. For days, 

 weeks and months they thirsted and hungered amid 

 the alkali deserts and the rocky canyons, and when 

 they reached this land of promise there was little left 

 them but that dower of splendid manhood, brains and 

 brawn. No better, braver, truer men ever went up 

 against double-shotted guns in battle than were most 

 of the gallant, hardy young men who peopled Cali- 

 fornia fifty years ago, and the wealth they dug from 

 the earth and washed from the auriferous streams was 

 but the fair reward of valor. The State these men 

 founded has been developed by their sons until in the 

 bright galaxy of stars on the nation's flag there gleams 

 no brighter emblem than that of California. 



"Beautiful California, the sunny land of giant 

 woods and giant mountains, and valleys that are fat 

 with plenty ! California, the brilliant and beautiful 

 land of handsome and charming women, who have 

 helped to make the whole world brighter and better. 

 California, whose golden gardens reek with the odors 

 of the orange blooms, and whose flowers garland with 

 magnificence the vales from foothill to seacoast." 



Though leaving home with all its endearments, on 

 a journey that could not occupy less than two years in 

 time, to encounter the dangers incident to such an un- 

 dertaking, encountering sickness with no kind and 

 loving hand to. administer to their wants, all these 

 considerations were overborne by that wild enthusiasm 

 that found utterance in such extravagant song as that 

 of which the following: is a well-remembered stanza : 



