PEOPLE GO TO EUROPE
to find ancient civilizations, when they can get them right here at home. There isn't anything in history more fascinating than the story of the conquest of this very region we are traveling through. There is a dramatic recital of Spanish occupancy reaching back 280 years beyond the Guadalupe-Hidalgo treaty of '46. The gold and silver hungry Madrid government was pretty nearly pushed out by the Indian outbreak of 1802, the Mexican revolution twenty years later, and the Apache uprising of 1827. The country became a wilderness almost until from 1845 to 1860, hardy settlers forced their way into the rich valleys, established homes and began developing again the resources of the country. Then our war came on, protection was withdrawn, the Apaches swooped down, and it took ten years to undo their work and begin again the building of a commonwealth. Now, here's an empire as large as the six New England States with New York thrown in. Its climate and scenery are so varied that they appeal to every interest. All the semi-tropical plants grow in the southern valleys, while the peaks of its northern mountains are clad in perpetual snow. Here is the awe-inspiring canon of the Colorado, the greatest and most marvelous cleft in the mountains of the world. You can see a petrified forest here, with the trees congealed into stone, rearing their rugged trunks fifty and seventy feet in the air. What else does man want than that which he can find in Arizona? It is rich in mines, in timber, grazing land, soil for fruit culture, the best climate to be found anywhere. The wealth of the territory is worth more than a hundred million dollars, and is increasing with wonderful rapidity as people are coming to know its limitless resources.
"It used to be that the consumptive had Phoenix all to himself. He went there and the climate gave him life and health, but of late years the agriculturist, the fruit raiser and bee keeper have crowded him pretty closely, so that now you find the thrifty modern city set down among groves of oranges, lemon, plum, apricot and peach trees that make a paradise out of all that beautiful valley, so that men find there not only health, but wealth. It is the center of some of the greatest irrigation schemes that have been undertaken in our age."
[Chapter II]
In Southern California; Plowing machine; In the oil country; San Francisco; The Union Ferry Depot; Fort Alkatras; Sausalito; Seal rocks; The Golden Gate; Sutro baths and museum; China Town; The United States Mint; James Lick; The Stanford University; The climate.
AFTER days of travel over the dreary desert waste, it was refreshing to look out in the early morning on the orchards of oranges, lemons, limes, and I know not how many other kinds of fruit. We are now