Text extracted from opening pages of book: C A L i F O R N I A THE WONDERFUL HER ROMANTIC HISTORY, HER PiciuiiEsauE PEOPLE, HKR WIMJ SHORES, HER DESERT MYSTERY., HKR VAIJJKY LOVJGXXHKSS, HER MOUNTAIN GLORY, INCLUDING Him VAIHED UESOUHCEB, HER COMMERCIAL GREATKESS, HER IKTEILKCXUAI, ACIHEVEMKNT.% HER EXPANDXNG HOPES, WITH GTJMPSES OF ORKGON AND WASHINGTON, llm, NORTHERN NEIGHBORS. BY EDWIN MARKHAM AtTTHOA Of ** TIXE MAN WIW TttlB WOK, AN0 OTHEtt POKM8, ETC. ILLUITUATBD ** Whar tidei of graw break Into foaxn of flowers, And wliera the wind’s feet ibine along the sea, HEARST’S INTERNATIONAL LIBRARY CO; NEW YOB'l Copyright, 1914, by HEABST’S INTKBNATIONAL LXXUURY Co, , INC. All fights returned, including thft tr& ndation into foreign i including/ t TMI OUINN * WBIN 00, HAHWAY, N, J, TO ANNA CATHERINE MARKHAM A DAUOIITRE AND LOVBE OF WHOSE PATIENT AND ABTLK ASSISTANCE HAS MADE Tins Vofcu& cft POSSIBLE OPENING AVOWALS CALIFORNIA is well-nigh as familiar to me as my garden paths: I spent forty years and more within her boundaries. I was there as a barefoot boy, picking wild strawberries in the fields near Vacaville, herding sheep on the Suisun Hills, plowing the little valleys between the ridges for wheat and barley, and following the thrashing ma chine in the time of the harvesting* There also I made my way through school and college, and spent my after years in the service of education and litera ture. My traditions are all of the Far West. In April, 1847, my parents, with all their worldly goods loaded on an ox-team, crept out of Michigan, headed for Independence, Missouri, where they joined an ox-train that was going overland to Oregon. Alter many adventures in the wilderness, theytrailed down the Columbia River in October, and found their way into the Willamette Valley. My first home was in Oregon City, in a huge brown house under the great bluff, My eye has a keen memory of the white rush of the Falls, and my ear has a clear memory of their eternal thunder. I have also an early and vivid recollection of having been lifted up in the sanctuary of a church in that city and of looking down on the dead face of the fatoous Dr, John McLoughlin, ** the Father of Oregon. I can never forget the hush and the solemn pomp: it was my first sense of the dark mystery of death. As an eager lad I soon after journeyed with my mother down into California, where she made her home on a farm and cattle range in little Lagoon Valley* among the picturesque mountains not far Til viii OPENING AVOWALS from the great sea. Why did she pitch her taber nacle among the Suisun Hills? Perhaps she was drawn thither by the rosy account of that region found on the pages of Fremont’s Report, a volume which well-nigh every Oregonian kept on his Bible shelf. Here in the little valley, and on the breezy summits that surround it, I spent all the days and nights of my restless boyhood. Afterward I wandered over California, explor ing her mountain glory and her valley loveliness, re joicing in the romance of her history, tasting the friendship of her people, and feeling the pulse and passion of her great cities. Yes, I have visited all the expanses of California, the land that stretches from redwood to cactus, Haunch in the cloud-rack, paw in the purring sea*‘* I have mused with many of the old pioneers. I used to join in the rodeo with Sefior Pena, the’ cattle man, whose Spanish grant reached afar intothe sur rounding hills. Later I spent many hours talking to James W. Marshall, in his cabin on the hillside above Coloma, near the mill-race where he discovered the gold that stirred the imagination of the world. I still have his gift of a strange old volume on the archeology of the Bible. I knew many of the other men who helped to build the great State-As a boy I had the happy fortune to be the pupil of Samuel D. Woods, after ward a member of Congress, He is still a dear and honored friend. Frequently, in my boyhood, I saw Joseph MeKenna, then my townsman, but now a c