CALIFORNIA'S NAME AND EARLY HISTORY


A Spanish story written four hundred years ago speaks of California as
an island rich in pearls and gold. Only black women lived there, the
story says, and they had golden spears, and collars and harness of
gold for the wild beasts which they had tamed to ride upon. This
island was said to be at a ten days' journey from Mexico, and was
supposed to lie near Asia and the East Indies.

Among those who believed such fairy tales about this wonderful island
of California was Cortes, a Spanish soldier and traveller. He had
conquered Mexico in 1521 and had made Montezuma, the Mexican emperor,
give him a fortune in gold and precious stones. Then Cortes wished
to find another rich country to capture, and California, he thought,
would be the very place. He wrote home to Spain promising to bring
back gold from the island, and also silks, spices, and diamonds from
Asia. For he was sure that the two countries were near together, and
that both might be found in the Pacific Ocean, or South Sea, as he
called it, by sailing northwest.

So for years Cortes built ships in New Spain (or Mexico), and sent out
men to hunt for this golden island. They found the Gulf of California,
and at last Cortes himself sailed up and down its waters. He explored
the land on both sides, and saw only poor, naked Indians who had a few
pearls but no gold. Cortes never found the golden island. We should
remember, however, that his ships first sailed on the North Pacific
and explored Lower California, and that he first used the name
California for the peninsula.