To the south, several hundred miles distant, stretches the long Sea of Cortez, as the conquerors of ancient Mexico once called the Gulf of California. Beyond the Sea of Cortez is the long and rock-bound reach of the west coast of Mexico. Then a group of little Central American republics; then Colombia, Peru and so on, till at last Patagonia points away like a huge giant’s finger straight toward the South Pole.
But I must bear in mind that I set out in this story to tell you about “The Bear-Slayer of San Diego,” and the South Pole is a long way from the subject in hand.
I have spoken of San Diego as one of the great new cities, and great it is, but altogether new it certainly is not, for it was founded by a Spanish missionary, known as Father Junipero, more than one hundred years ago.
These old Spanish missionaries were great men in their day; brave, patient and very self-sacrificing in their attempts to settle the wild countries and civilize the Indians.
This Father Junipero walked all the way from the City of Mexico to San Diego, although he was more than fifty years old; and finally, after he had spent nearly a quarter of a century in founding missions up and down the coast of California, he walked all the way back to Mexico, where he died.
When it is added that he was a lame man, that he was more than threescore and ten years of age, and that he traveled all the distance on this last journey on foot and alone, with neither arms nor provisions, trusting himself entirely to Providence, one can hardly fail to remember his name and speak it with respect.
This new city, San Diego, with its most salubrious clime, is set all over and about with waving green palms, with golden oranges, red pomegranates, great heavy bunches of green and golden bananas, and silver-laden olive orchards. The leaf of the olive is of the same soft gray as the breast of the dove. As if the dove and the olive branch had in some sort kept companionship ever since the days of the deluge.
San Diego is nearly ten miles broad, with its base resting against the warm, still waters of the Pacific Ocean. The most populous part of the city is to the south, toward Mexico. Then comes the middle part of San Diego City. This is called “the old town,” and here it was that Father Junipero planted some palm trees that stand to this day—so tall that they almost seem to be dusting the stars with their splendid plumes.
Here also you see a great many old adobe houses in ruins, old forts, churches, fortresses, barracks, built by the Mexicans nearly a century ago, when Spain possessed California, and her gaudy banner floated from Oregon to the Isthmus of Darien.
The first old mission is a little farther on up the coast, and the new college, known as the San Diego College of Letters, is still farther on up the warm sea bank. San Francisco lies several hundred miles on up the coast beyond Los Angeles. Then comes Oregon, then Washington, one of the newest States, and then Canada, then Alaska, and at last the North Pole, which, by the way, is almost as far as the South Pole from my subject: The Bear-Slayer of San Diego.