PREFACE. XIX 



out as conquistador es as long as they lived ; and it appears to me that 

 we pioneers accomplished a work, different in many respects from that 

 of Cortez, but not altogether unlike in the spirit in which it was under- 

 taken and the importance which it assumed. "We did not subdue and 

 plunder the great empire, but we founded a new one, which already, in 

 twenty years, occupies a more important place in commerce and industry 

 than Mexico, with three centuries of civilization and eight millions of 

 people. The exploits of the Mexican conqutstadores did not find an ap- 

 propriate and immortal record till Prescott wrote in our own time ; the 

 adventures and labors of the Californian pioneers may go as long before 

 they are told in a history that will charm men to the remotest age. If 

 I were a poet and felt myself capable of maintaining the epic flight, I 

 think I could find in the great Californian gold discovery and its results, 

 a subject more congenial to the taste of this age, richer in impressive 

 suggestions, in strange and romantic incidents, and generally in the 

 material for a great poem, than the conquest of Troy or Jerusalem, the 

 adventures of Ulysses or Eneas. 



Much we have seen, more we shall see. Our State is the Italy of the 

 New World, possessing a dower of beauty not inferior to that of Hie 

 Latin Peninsula ; but, unlike that, not destined to be fatal in its at- 

 traction. The descendants of the Goth, the Vandal, and the Hun, who 

 crushed the ancient civilization of Italy under their fierce barbarism, 

 of the German, the Frank, and the Spaniard, whose favorite battle-fields 

 for centuries were the plains of Lombardy and Naples, will come not to 

 contend with us in arms, but to compete with us in arts. We shall 

 gain victories and celebrate triumphs more numerous and more glorious 

 than those of Republican and Imperial Rome, but our triumphs will be 

 those of good will the triumphs of the architect, the road builder, the 

 engineer, the inventor, the farmer, the miner, the scientist, the author, 

 the painter, the musician, the orator. They will be celebrated not by 

 processions, with generals riding in gilded cars, dragging captive kings 

 in chains, but by intellectual gatherings, art exhibitions, and industrial 

 fairs. The highest civilization will make one of its chief centers here. 

 The coast valleys from Mendocino to San Diego, on account of the mild- 

 negs and equability of their climate, surpassing even that of Naples, will 



