Page:History of California (Bancroft) volume 6.djvu/20

2 background the lofty Sierra, upheaved in crumpled folds from primeval ocean. The intervening space is somewhere overspread with hills and vales, but for the most part comprises an oblong plain, the Valley of California, the northern portion being called the Sacramento Valley, and the southern the San Joaquin Valley, from the names of the streams that water the respective parts. The prospect thus presented opens toward the setting sun.

Humanity here is varied. There is already round San Francisco Bay raw material enough of divers types to develop a new race, howsoever inferior the quality might be. It is a kind of refuse lot, blown in partly from the ocean, and in part having percolated through the mountains; yet there is amidst the chaff good seed that time and events might winnow. But time and events are destined here to be employed for higher purpose, in the fashioning of nobler metal.

Of the condition of the aborigines I have spoken elsewhere, and shall presently speak again. So far the withering influence of a strange civilization upon the true proprietors of the soil had emanated from Mexican incomers. Now a stronger phase of it is appearing in another influx, which is to overwhelm both of the existing races, and which, like the original invasion of Mexico, of America, is to consist of a fair-hued people from toward the rising sun. They come not as their predecessors came, slowly, in the shadow of the cross, or aggressively, with sword and firelock. Quietly, with deferential air, they drop in asking hospitality; first as way-worn stragglers from trapping expeditions, or as deserting sailors from vessels prowling along the coast in quest of trade and secrets. Then compact bands of restless frontier settlers slip over the border, followed by the firmer tread of determined pioneers, who wait for strength and opportunity. Not being as yet formally ceded, the land remains under a mingled military-civil government, wherein Hispano-Californians still control local