Page:History of California (Bancroft) volume 6.djvu/19



the California seaboard, from San Diego to San Francisco bays, had been explored by Europeans for three hundred years, and had been occupied by missionary and military bands, with a sprinkling of settlers, for three quarters of a century, the great valley of the interior, at the opening of the year 1848, remained practically undisturbed by civilization.

The whole of Alta California comprises a seaboard strip eight hundred miles in length by one or two hundred in width, marked off from the western earth's end of the temperate zone; it was the last to be occupied by civilized man, and, to say the least, as full of fair conditions as any along the belt. The whole area is rimmed on either side, the Coast Range rolling up in stony waves along the outer edge, and for