A MEXICAN LAND OF CANAAN 



329 



Utah, and embracing perhaps a quarter 

 of a million acres. If pioneering and 

 settlement proceeds at the same rate for 

 the next ten years as in the past decade, 

 this part of Mexico will become the rich- 

 est and most productive in the whole 

 republic. 



NO PERMANENT JAPANESE SETTLEMENT 

 IN LOWER CALIFORNIA 



Japanese immigrants, numbering eight 

 or nine hundred and mostly of the coolie 

 class, have settled here in the past five 

 years. Nearly all of these Japanese, as 

 well as some 2,000 Chinese, work in the 

 cotton fields about Mexicali. A few of 

 both races have leased various small 

 tracts of land and are growing cotton and 

 other crops on their own account ; but 

 not an acre of land in all Lower Cali- 

 fornia is knozvn to have been purchased 

 by either a Japanese or a Chinaman. 



Contrary to common report, too, only 

 a very few Japanese — not over 50 at any 

 one time — are operating around Magda- 

 lena or Turtle Bay, on the Pacific coast 

 of the peninsula. Most of these are em- 

 ployed by the Masahara Kondo Company, 

 a Japanese concern that supplies fresh 

 Mexican fish to California markets and 

 ships dried abalone meat to Japan. 



The Kondo Company has a concession 

 from the Mexican Government for taking 

 sea foods and whales, building drying 

 sheds, wharves, etc., covering practically 

 the whole west coast of Mexico ; but so 

 far it has operated on a very small scale, 

 using only a few power boats built or 

 bought at San Diego, Calif., and erecting 

 drying trays at Turtle Bay. 



There is no permanent Japanese settle- 

 ment anywhere on either coast of the 

 peninsula. 



A MINING TOWN OWNED BY HOLLAND'S 



QUEEN 



From hot, lonely, isolate Santa Ro- 

 salia, where Queen Wilhelmina of Hol- 

 land and the Paris Rothschilds own the 

 famous Boleo Mine, millions of dollars 

 in copper matte are shipped each year. 

 (Next to cotton, copper is Lower Cali- 

 fornia's chief export.) 



Rosalia is an odd, privately-owned, 

 made- to- order city of some 12,000 



troubled souls. Life there is depressing. 

 As men are needed in the mines in larger 

 or smaller numbers, they are imported or 

 exported at the will of the French com- 

 pany on its own steamers. 



The company owns everything, includ- 

 ing the houses, stores, schools, play- 

 grounds, markets, movie shows, the mil- 

 lion-dollar breakwater, and all. Even the 

 steel church was made to order in France, 

 shipped around the Horn like a piece of 

 knock-down Michigan furniture, and set 

 up at Rosalia. 



The country for miles about is treeless, 

 empty, and hot. Every necessity of life, 

 except fish, is imported. Were it not for 

 the rich copper in the blistering, hostile 

 hills, no sane human being would linger 

 long on this inhospitable coast. 



THE MAGNIFICENT HARBOR OE 

 MAGDALEN A BAY 



Magdalena Bay, although the finest 

 harbor between Panama and the Golden 

 Gate, is a lonely and empty spot. Save 

 for a few petty customs officials quar- 

 tered in a small group of weather-beaten 

 wooden houses on the margin of the bay, 

 the region hereabout is practically unin- 

 habited. Some forty years ago an ill-ad- 

 vised colonizing boom brought a few 

 hundred misguided American settlers to 

 the Magdalena Bay country ; but the en- 

 terprise failed because of scarcity of 

 fresh water, and the settlers escaped only 

 through the aid of one of our navy ves- 

 sels. The region has certain possibilities, 

 but it is no place for a tenderfoot. 



From San Xavier and ruined Tumaca- 

 ciri, in Arizona, all the way down to 

 Guadalajara there marches a line of 

 stately old churches, which marked the 

 northern advance of the cross. Signifi- 

 cantly, too, these padres always chose to 

 build near ample water and rich soil. 

 Traces of their old irrigation ditches, 

 showing that they grew their own grain 

 and fruit, are plainly discernible. There 

 were cisterns, also, and loop-holed com- 

 pounds for Indian defense in the days of 

 the Church Militant. 



Even as late as 1870 Apaches attacked 

 the town of Tmuris, in Sonora, and some 

 of the people took refuge in the old 

 church of San Ignacio, near there. Its 



