II
CALIFORNIA
First comes the name of California herself, the sin par (peerless one), as Don Quixote says of his Dulcinea. This name, strange to say, was a matter of confusion and conjecture for many years, until, in 1862, Edward Everett Hale accidentally hit upon the explanation since accepted by historians.
Several theories, all more or less fanciful and far-fetched, were based upon the supposed construction of the word from the Latin calida fornax (hot oven), in reference either to the hot, dry climate of Lower California, or to the “sweathouses” in use among the Indians. Such theories not only presuppose a knowledge of Latin not likely to exist among the hardy men who first landed upon our western shores but also indicate a labored method of naming places quite contrary to their custom of seizing upon some direct and obvious circumstance upon which to base their choice. In all the length and breadth of California few, if any, instances exist where the Spaniards invented a name produced from the Latin or Greek in this far-fetched way. They saw a big bird, so they named the river where they saw it El Río del Pájaro (the River of the Bird), or they suffered from starvation in a certain canyon, so they called it La Cañada del Hambre (the Canyon of Hunger), or they reached a place on a certain saint’s day, and so they named it for that saint. They were practical men and their methods were simple.
In any case, since Mr. Hale has provided us with a more reasonable explanation, all such theories may be passed over as unworthy of consideration. While engaged in the study of Spanish literature, he was fortunate enough to run across a copy of an old novel, published in Toledo sometime between 1510 and 1521, in which the word California occurred as the name of a fabulous island, rich in minerals and precious stones, and said to be the home of a tribe of Amazons. This novel, entitled Las Sergas de Esplandián (The Adventures of Esplandián), was written by the author, García Ordonez de Montalvo, as a sequel to the famous novel of chivalry, Amadís of Gaul, of which he was the translator. The two works were printed in the same volume. Montalvo’s romance, although of small literary value, had a considerable vogue among Spanish readers of the day, and that its pages were probably familiar to the early explorers in America is proved by the fact that Bernal Díaz, one of the companions of Cortés, often mentions the Amadís, to which the story of Esplandián was attached. The passage containing the name that has since become famous in all the high-ways and by-ways of the world runs as follows: “Know that on the right hand of the Indies there is an island called California, very near to the terrestrial paradise, which was peopled by black women, without any men among them, for they were accustomed to live after the manner of Amazons. They were of strong and hardened bodies, of ardent courage and of great force. The island was the strongest in the world, from its steep rocks and great cliffs. Their arms were all of gold and so were the caparisons of the wild beasts they rode.”