The West American Scientist. 



Vol. II. June, 1886. No. 16. 



NORTHERN LOWER CALIFORNIA, 



Proceeding southward from San Diego we cross the boundary line between Alta 

 and Baja California in the Tijuana valley, some fourteen miles away. Near by 

 is the spacious adobe custom house of the Mexican government, with flat roof and 

 whitewashed walls, surrounded with numerous wretched hovels and shanties, which 

 show conclusively that we have left the land of Yankee energy and enterprise be- 

 hind, even before it is out of sight. Three miles further takes us to the hot sul- 

 phur springs, which boil up out of the sands of the river bank, bathing in which is 

 said to be so beneficial to rheumatism, and other ills to which flesh is heir. 



Driving eastward to the further end of the valley two or three leagues, we 

 reach the old Wildcat station of the San Diego and Fort Yuma stage road of former 

 days, then over hills and through the pretty Carysito valley (where we leave the old 

 stage road) to Valle de los Palmas, or palm valley, where in a few side canyons may 

 be found the most northern of the Californian fan palms growing west of the sierras. 

 The valley is broad, open and sandy, with a fair growth of grass in some seasons and 

 numerous mesquite and cottonwood trees, the latter growing along the river, a 

 branch of the Tijuana. 



Following this river we enter a long and rugged canyon with precipitous walls 

 of rock upon the one hand and scarcely less steep hills upon the other. Crossing 

 the clear runiybig stream time after time, through little valleys opening out of the 

 canyon and over rolling hills, the road at last leads us to the fertile and grassy 

 plains of Vallecito, where the present governor of the northern municipality of 

 Lower California, an American by birth, now resides, and where the droves of 

 horses and cattle, and the waving fields of wheat — soon to be ground into flour by a 

 mill on the ranch for the local and Mazatlan markets— showed unfailing signs of 

 present and future prosperity. 



Another fifteen miles, aero s the valley and up and down a coui)le of little can- 

 yons lined with live oak trees, brings us to the G-uadaloupe ranch — one of the 

 largest and probably the best ranch in the peninsula — where the proverbial hospi- 

 tality of Messrs. Flower — three brothers from Michigan — awaits the stranger. Wm. 

 M. Gabb, in his report on the peninsula of Lower California to J. Ross Browne, 



