Text extracted from opening pages of book: CALIFORNIA COAST iTRAILS
A HORSEBACK rtRIDE FROM MEXICO TO OREGON BY J. SMEATON CHASE WITH
ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE AUTHOR BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY MDCCCCXIII THE COAST OF THE MONTARA
MOUNTAINS COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY J. SMEATON CHASE ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Published February rgr$ TO MY BROTHERS WHOSE LOT IT HAS BEEN TO
REMAIN IN THE OLD HOME LAND THIS VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED
yt TRAVELLER is a creature not always looking xlL at sights he
remembers ( how often !) the happy land of his birth he has, too,
his moments of humble enthusiasm about fire, and food about shade,
and drink; and if he gives to these feelings anything like the
prominence which really belonged to them at the time of his
travelling, he will not seem a very good teacher; once having
determined to write the sheer truth concerning the things which
chiefly have interested him, he must, and he will, sing a sadly
long strain about Self; he will talk for whole pages together about
his bivouac fire, and ruin the Ruins of Baalbec with eight or ten
cold lines. KINGLAKE: Eofhen. PREFACE THE little thread of land, so
puny, and yet so obstinate that it has almost the look of an
intentional provocation, which has kept the two great oceans of the
world asunder, is on the point of being severed, and the twin
Americas clipped apart. With that event there will open for Califor
nia an era of development as striking as that which followed upon
the great awakening in the middle of the last century. With
increase of commerce and population there will come important
physical changes and the obliteration of much of what is dis
tinctively Western in life andmanners. Especially for that reason
the writer hopes that this volume of impressions and experiences
gained during a leisurely horseback-journey recently made through
the coast regions of the State may be found timely, and not without
interest and value. The matters of principal concern to him in
making his trip were not, it is true, the practical ones of
commerce and its prospects and possibilities. Rather, the facts and
beauties in nature and the humane and historic elements in life
were his points of special attraction. Thus it occurs that neither
the cities passed on his route nor the industries of the coast
region are treated in particular detail. If apology x PREFACE be
needed for any dearth of what may be called practical information
In the volume, he feels that the lack has been, is being, and
increasingly will be supplied by the many capable pens always at
work on the categorical and statistical side. In describing the
features of the scenery no at tempt has been made to paint in high
colors. In deed, on a re-reading of the manuscript the im pression
is that, in the desire to avoid the flamboy ant at all hazards, the
balance may have been weighted a trifle on the conservative side.
But if a mistake has been made, it is In the right direction; and
the writer states here his plain belief that Cali fornia, with her
magnificent mountain range of the Sierra Nevada, her generally
diversified configura tion, a shore-line extending through nearly
ten de grees of latitude ( with the variety in climate and in
animal and vegetable life which that fact implies), and a history
tinged first with the half-pathetic ro mance of Spain and then by
the brief but lurid Epic of Gold, is by much themost beautiful,
Interesting, and attractive of all the States of the Union* It may
fairly be pointed out, further, that there is only one region of
the United States, and indeed there can be but few parts of the
world, where one may travel with enjoyment for half a year continu
ously, secure from climatic vagaries, and carrying on the animal
one rides everything needful for com fort by day and night. There
might well be organ* ized a Society of California Rovers, whose
annual PREFACE xi programme it would be to take to the road, trail,
or shore at, say, the first appear
General
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