early California is the poem which tells of this pathetic love story.

Count Rezanof was so pleased with the beauty and fertility of California
that his letters interested the Czar, who decided to found a colony on
the coast. An exploring expedition was sent out, and the territory about
Russian River in Sonoma County was purchased of the Indians for three
blankets, three pairs of trousers, two axes, three hoes, and some beads.
Fort Ross was the main settlement, and was the home of the governor, his
officers and their families, all accomplished, intelligent men and
women. Besides the soldiers there were a number of mechanics and a
company of natives from the Aleutian Islands, who were employed by the
Russians to hunt the otter. Up and down the coast roamed these wild sea
hunters, even collecting their furry game in San Francisco Bay and
defying the comandante of the presidio, who had no boats with which to
pursue them, and so could do nothing but fume and write letters of
remonstrance to the governor of Fort Ross. Spain, and later Mexico,
looked with disfavor and suspicion upon the Russian settlement, but the
people of California were always ready for secret trade with their
northern neighbors.

In 1816 Otto von Kotzebue, captain of the Russian ship Rurik, visited
San Francisco and was entertained by the comandante, Lieutenant Luis
Arguello. With Captain Kotzebue was the German poet, Albert von
Chamisso.

The Russian captain, with brighter faith and keener insight than any
other of the early visitors to the coast, says of the country: "It has
hitherto been the fate of these regions to remain unnoticed; but
posterity will do them justice; towns and cities will flourish where all
is now desert; the waters over which scarcely a solitary boat is yet