TRAVELS IN 
THE C A L I F 0 R N I A S. 
305 
the Colorado, six hundred miles, there are only two streams 
emptying into the Gulf. One of these is called San Josef del 
Cabo. It passes through the plantations of the Mission bear¬ 
ing the same name, and discharges itself into the bay of San 
Barnabas. The other is the Muleffe, which waters the Mission 
of Santa Rosalia, and enters the Gulf in Latitude 27° N. These 
are not navigable. The streams on the ocean coast, also, are 
few and small. Some of them are large enough to propel 
light machinery, or irrigate considerable tracts of land, but 
none of them are navigable. In the interior are several large 
springs, which send out abundant currents along the rocky 
beds of their upper courses ; but when they reach the loose 
sands and porous rocks of the lower country, they sink and 
enter the sea through subterranean channels. A great misfor¬ 
tune it is too, that the lands which border those portions of 
these streams which run above the ground, consist of barren 
rocks. Where springs, however, and arable land occur 
together, immense fertility is the consequence. There is 
some variety of climate on the coasts, which it may be well to 
mention. On the Pacific shore the temperature is rendered 
delightfully balmy by the sea breezes, and the humidity which 
they bring along with them, Fahrenheit’s thermometer ranges 
on this coast, during the summer, between fifty-eight and sev¬ 
enty-one degrees. In the winter months, while the rains are 
falling, it sinks as low as fifty degrees above zero. On the 
Gulf coast there is a still greater variation. While at the 
Cape, the mercury stands between sixty and seventy degrees; 
near the head of the Gulf it is down to the freezing point. 
These isolated facts, in regard to the great territory under 
consideration, will give the reader as perfect an idea of the 
surface and agricultural capacities of Lower California as will 
be here needed. In fact, this country has already been pretty 
clearly and fully described in my account of the Missionary 
operations of Padres Salva Tierra and Ugarte. 
The few fertile spots in Lower California were occupied at 
an early day, and planted with maizg, wheat, beans, peas, 
26 
