Among the names of the old Spanish land grants are many that hold a suggestion of interesting and sometimes tragic tales, now lost in the dim shadows of the past. Of such is Carne Humana (human flesh), the name of a grant in Napa County, near St. Helena. This spot may have been the scene of one of those horrible acts of cannibalism to which the Indians of the entire Southwest were quite generally addicted. Captain Fages, in his diary of one of the expeditions to San Francisco Bay, mentions that this practice prevailed among the Indians of that region to a certain extent, but seems to have been confined to the eating of the bodies of enemies slain in battle, and only the relatives of the slayer were permitted to take part in the abhorrent feast.
SANTA ROSA
Santa Rosa (St. Rose), the county-seat of Sonoma County, is fifty-seven miles northwest of San Francisco.
An interesting story is told of Santa Rosa de Lima, said to be the only canonized female saint of the New World. She was born at Lima, in Peru, and was distinguished for her hatred of vanity, and her great austerity, carrying these characteristics to such an extreme that she destroyed her beautiful complexion with a compound of pepper and quicklime. When her mother commanded her to wear a wreath of roses, she so arranged it that it was in truth a crown of thorns. Her food consisted principally of bitter herbs, and she maintained her parents by her labor, working all day in her garden and all night with her needle. The legend relates that when Pope Clement X was asked to canonize her, he refused, exclaiming: “India y Santa! Asi como llueven rosas!” (An Indian woman a saint! That may happen when it rains roses!) Instantly a shower of roses began to fall in the Vatican, and did not cease until the Pope was convinced of his error. This saint is the patroness of America, and is represented as wearing a thorny crown, and holding in her hand the figure of the infant Jesus, which rests on full-blown roses.—(Stories of the Saints.)
MENDOCINO COUNTY
Mendocino County, in the northwestern part of the state, is distinguished for its extensive forests of redwoods. The main belt of these trees extends through this county, and they may here be seen in their highest development. They vary in height from 100 to 340 feet, and reach a diameter of from two to sixteen feet, having a red, fibrous bark sometimes a foot in thickness. Notwithstanding their great size, the delicacy of their foliage, which takes the form of flat sprays, gives them a graceful, fern-like appearance. The age of mature redwoods is said to range from 500 to 1300 years. The special characteristics of the wood of these trees are, its durability when buried in the soil, and its resistance to fire. Commercially it is valuable for many purposes, being preferred to steel for water supply conduits, and, in the form of saw-dust, found to be better than cork for packing fresh grapes.—(Notes from The Trees of California, by Professor Willis Linn Jepsen, of the University of California.)
Probably the first written mention of these trees occurs in the diary of Gaspar de Portolá, the discoverer of San Francisco Bay, whose attention was attracted to them while on his way up the coast, and from whom they received the name of palo colorado (redwood). Altogether, the credit of their discovery seems to belong to Portolá, although it has been given by some persons to Archibald Menzies, who wrote a description of the trees in 1795.
The village of Mendocino is on the coast, about 130 miles northwest of San Francisco. The name was first applied to the cape, which was discovered by Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, in 1542, and named by him for Don Antonio de Mendoza, first viceroy of New Spain.