Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 4.djvu/768

694 to their ships after heavy loss Not long after they con cluded a peace with Prince Zamorin or Tarnuri, and were allowed to build a fortified factory in the town. An Eng lish factory was founded in 1616. The town was taken in 1765 by Hyder Ali, who expelled all the merchants and factors, and destroyed the cocoa-nut trees, sandal-wood, and pepper vines, that the country, reduced to ruin, might pre sent no temptation to the cupidity of Europeans. In 1782 the troops of Hyder were driven from Calicut by the British; but in 1789 it was taken and destroyed by his son Tippoo, who carried off the inhabitants to Beypore, and treated them with great cruelty. In the latter part of 1790 the country was occupied by the British; and under the treaty concluded in 1792, whereby Tippoo was de prived of half his dominions, Calicut fell to the British. After this event the inhabitants returned and rebuilt the town, which in 1800 consisted of 5000 houses. The present population is upwards of 25,000, composed largely of Moplahs, but including about 4000 or 5000 Portuguese, besides Parsees, English, &c.        CALIFORNIA, the name originally given to a portion of the region of western North America bordering on the Pacific Ocean, and apparently taken from a Spanish romance (Las /Sergus de Esplandian], in which the author speaks of &quot; the great island of California, where a great abundance of gold and precious stones is found.&quot; This romance was published in 1510, and, becoming quite popular, the name of California probably struck the fancy of some one of the officers or companions of Cortez, and was applied by them to the newly-discovered country, perhaps on account of its association with a region fabu lously rich in gold, the early Spanish discoverers in America always expecting to find an El Dorado in every new region they entered As at first xised, the name of California was applied to tae coast and the territory at a little distance from it, nortn of Mexico ; gradually it was extended over what we now call the &quot; Great Basin,&quot; and with no well-defined limits to the north, At the present time, the name California means only the State of California, one of the United States of America, and the peninsula is called Lower California. To the Spanish Americans these natural divisions of the country were and still are known as Upper and Lower California (Alta and Baja California), and the two were called &quot; Las Calif ornias &quot; the Californias. The first discovery of the coast of Lower California was made in 1534, by an expedition sent out by Cortez, and consisting of two ships, commanded by Bezerra de Mendoza, and Hernando de Grijalva ; and later, the gulf now known as the Gulf of California was discovered and navigated by Cortez himself ; after whom it was for a time called El Mar de Cortez, and later El Mar Vermejo (the Red or Vermilion Sea), in consequence of the red colour which it has at times, and which is probably due to the multitudes of small animalculas (crustaceans ?) inhabiting its waters. In 1540 the mouth of the Colorado River was discovered by Alarcon. in command of a fleet sent out by Mendoza for geographical exploration In 1542 the coast of California proper was explored by Cabrillo as far north as Cape Mendocino, in latitude 44 In 1578 Sir Francis Drake entered the Pacific, and coasted along the shores of the American continent, reaching a point as far north as 48. Whether he discovered the bay and harbour of San Francisco has been and still is a matter of dispute. By some he is supposed to have tarried and refitted his ships at what is now known as Sir Francis Drake s Bay ; by others he is believed to have done this in the Bay of San Francisco itself. The evidence seems to decidedly preponderate in favour of the first of these suppositions. In 1602 the bays of San Diego and Monterey were discovered by Viscaino ; but more than a hundred and fifty years elapsed before the latter was visited again, and before settlements began to be made on the coast of Upper California. The peninsula (Lower California) was entered by Jesuit missionaries in 1697, and a permanent mission established at Loreto ; where, and at other points, the Jesuits maintained them selves, on the whole successfully, until 1767, when they were expelled from the country by order of Charles III. of Spain, and all their property turned over to the Franciscan monks. Later, the Dominicans obtained exclusive posses sion of the peninsula; and the Franciscans, not unwill ingly, withdrew to Upper California, where they established themselves, built numerous missions, and throve remarkably until Mexico became independent of Spain in 1822 ; this event was a death-blow to the establishments of the Franciscans, which from that time forward lost ground from year to year, and finally were broken up altogether in 1840. The treatment by the fathers of the natives of the country was successful so far as the accumulation of material wealth was concerned, but not in the slightest degree conducive to their intellectual advancement or development, as the so-called converts were simply the slaves of the &quot; good fathers.&quot; The whole number of the mission establishments was twenty-one, the first founded in 1769, the last in 1820. They were all on or near the coast or bay of San Francisco, and the fathers displayed most excellent judgment in selecting for their sites the very garden-spots of the country. The number of the aboriginal inhabitants of California has rapidly decreased within the past forty or fifty years. The various authorities agree in fixing their number at over 100,000 in 1823. In 1863, according to the census made by the Indian Depart ment, there were only 29,000 ; the census of 1870 gave about the same results, namoly, 29,025, 5784 being actually enumerated, and the remainder merely an estimate. It is certain that the decrease in the Indian population was at one time exceedingly rapid ; it would appear, however, that at present it is much less so. The few that are left are mostly a degraded, miserable set of beings. During the time of the flourishing of the missions of California, the connection of the country with Spain through Mexico was a very loose one. Gradually a trade of some importance sprang up between the Atlantic and Pacific sides of the continent. Boston had for a number of years an entire monopoly of this business, which con sisted chiefly of an exchange of groceries and cotton goods for furs and hides. The voyage usually lasted two years or more, and the profits were large. A few Englishmen and Americans wandered into California from different parts of the world between 1810 and 1830; and some adventurous and daring men found their way across the continent, in the pursuit of the dangerous and exciting business of hunting and trapping. It is estimated that there were, in 1830, as many as 500 foreigners on the west side of the Sierra Nevada. Of all these early pioneers, John A. Sutter is the one who is best known, from the fact that the first effective discovery of gold, by the Americans, was made by men in his employ ; and also on account of the generous hospitality with which he welcomed the first comers into Calfornia, notably Fremont and his party. In 1842 Commodore Jones of the American navy captured the fort of Monterey, raised the stars and stripes, and took 