The California Birthday Book | Page 2

and summits of other peaks and mountains rising from this inland sea, whose waters were of turquoise; yet, as we moved down the slope, the lake was always stealing on before. It was of the things dreams are made of, that has driven men mad and to despair, its bed a level floor of alkali and clay, covered with a dry, impalpable dust that the slightest wind tossed and whirled in air.
CHARLES FREDERICK HOLDER,?in Life in the Open.
JANUARY 3.
When the green waves come dashing,?With thunderous lashing,?Against the bold cliffs that defend the scarred earth,?He wheels through the roaring,?Where foam-flakes are pouring,?And flaps his broad wings in a transport of mirth.
JOSIAH KEEP,?in The Song of the Sea-Bird_, in _Shells and Sea-Life.
JANUARY 4.
A long jagged peninsula, where barren heights and cactus-clad mesas glow in the biting rays of an unobscured sun, where water holes are accorded locations on the maps, and where, under the fluttering shade of fluted palm boughs, life becomes a siesta dream. A land great in its past and lean in its present. A land where the rattlesnake and the sidewinder, the tarantula and the scorpion multiply, and where sickness is unknown and fivescore years no uncommon span of life. A land of strange contradictions! A peninsula which to the Spanish conquistadores was an island glistening in the azure web of romance; a land for which the padres gave their lives in fanatic devotion to the Cross; a land rich in history, when the timbers of the Mayflower were yet trees in the forest. Lower California, once sought and guarded for her ores and her jewels, now a veritable terra incognita, slumbering, unnoticed, at the feet of her courted child, the great State of California. Lower California, her romance nigh forgotten, her possibilities overlooked by enterprise and by the statesmen of the two republics.
ARTHUR W. NORTH,?in The Mother of California.
JANUARY 5.
Above me rise the snowy peaks?Where golden sunbeams gleam and quiver,?And far below, toward Golden Gate,?O'er golden sand flows Yuba River.?Through crystal air the mountain mist?Floats far beyond yon distant eagle,?And swift o'er crag and hill and vale?Steps morning, purple-robed and regal.
CLARENCE URMY,?in A Vintage of Verse.
JANUARY 6.
With the assistance of Indians and swinging a good axe himself, the worthy padre cut down a number of trees, and, having carried the logs to the Gulf Coast, he there constructed from them a small vessel which was solemnly christened El Triumfo de la Cruz.
Let Ugarte be remembered not only as a man of fine physique, the first ship-builder in the Californias, but as an ardent Christian, a wise old diplomat and a fearless explorer. He stands forth bold, shrewd and aggressive, one of the most heroic figures in early California history. * * *
At the same time that Ugarte was exploring the Gulf of California, Captain George Shevlock of England was cruising about California waters engaged in a little privateering enterprise. On his return to England, Shevlock set forth on the charts that California was an island. This assertion was not surprising, for at this time a controversy was raging between certain of the Episcopal authorities on the Spanish Main as to which bishopric las Islas Californias belonged! Guadalajara was finally awarded the "island."
ARTHUR W. NORTH,?in The Mother of California.
JANUARY 7.
CALIFORNIA.
A sleeping beauty, hammock-swung,?Beside the sunset sea,?And dowered with riches, wheat, and oil,?Vineyard and orange tree;?Her hand, her heart to that fair prince?Whose genius shall unfold?With rarest art her treasured tales?Of life and love and gold.
CLARENCE URMY,?in A Vintage of Verse.
JANUARY 8.
BACK TO CALIFORNIA.
To the Californian born, California is the only place to live. Why do men so love their native soil? It is perhaps a phase of the human love for the mother. For we are compact of the soil. Out of the crumbling granite eroded from the ribs of California's Sierras by California's mountain streams--out of the earth washed into California's great valleys by her mighty rivers--out of this the sons of California are made, brain, and muscle, and bone. Why then should they not love their mother, even as the mountaineers of Montenegro, of Switzerland, of Savoy, love their mountain birthplace? Why should not exiled Californians yearn to return? And we sons of California always do return; we are always brought back by the potent charm of our native land--back to the soil which gave us birth--and at the last back to Earth, the great mother, from whom we sprung, and on whose bosom we repose our tired bodies when our work is done.
JEROME A. HART,?in Argonaut Letters.
JANUARY 9.
GIVE ME CALIFORNY.
Blizzard back in York state?Sings its frosty tune,?Here the sun a-shinin',?Air as warm as June.?Snow in Pennsylvany,?Zero times down East,?Here the flowers bloomin',?A feller's eyes to feast.

Its every one his own way,?The place he'd like to be,?But give me Californy--?It's good enough for me.
JOHN S. MCGROARTY,?in Just