Santa Clara

“ Most unwonted drought had laid a withering hand on fertile Santa Clara valley that year. March had come and no vast stretches of wild oats measured the way from foothill to bay; no juicy grazing for cattle and horses on the rich bottom lands. The plain-brown color-tone of autumn prevailed, not that of spring, in triumphant green and promise of rich harvest. ”

“ If one is in a lazy mood one rather enjoys Santa Clara, though a hurried mortal would probably curse its leisurely ways, its languid style of shopping, for instance, with chairs for customers, and the invariably male clerks thinking nothing of pausing in the midst of a purchase to discuss the latest cock-fight with a friendly lounger. We voted the place picturesque, yet when we took to wondering what made it so we could specify little more than the crowds of guajiros astride their horses, their produce in saddle-sacks beneath their elevated legs, who jogged silently through the muddy streets. ”

“ Hollyhocks are seneschals by the little buff-walled houses.
Over grassy swale and alley have you ever seen it so—
Up the Santa Clara Valley, riding on the Great Plateau?
Past the ladder-walled Pueblos, past the orchards, pear and quince,
Where the trenchèd waters’ ebb flows, miles and miles the valley glints,
Shining backwards, singing downwards towards horizons blue and bay.
All the haunts the bluffs ensconce so breathe of visions far away,
As you ride near Ildefonso back again to Santa Fé. ”

“ We ride on through oaks and fields of wild mustard until we reach the Mission of Santa Clara within three miles of the city. It is a pretty place, a church built in the old Spanish style with most grim looking saints pictured on the walls and some very nice adobe houses, with a sprinkling of Yankee cottages. Groups of Mexicans and Indians are lounging about basking in the sunshine; the only moving active thing is our little party as we canter gaily through the village. But I fear this long ride will weary you, so we will make haste to Pueblo. ”

“ The rugged little island of Santa Clara is midway between the rocky points of the crescent-harbour; it lies to the right hand as we enter the shallow and dangerous waters. On the headland beyond stands a lighthouse, now turned into a fortress. We could see in the distance little dark figures moving about this tower like mites on a cheese, and swarming up to the top, probably to look at us. "Those are Carlists," said my friend. How I strained my eyes to see them! Real, living enemies—men pledged to slay us with shot and steel—in fight or in calm vengeance! ”

“ Through the clean aisles, between the green rows, run the channels for the precious water that has traveled from the mountains to the plains to turn tens of thousands of acres into a fair and fruitful garden.
The Santa Clara Valley is one of the loveliest valleys of all California, and indeed of all the world. Set amid its orchards are tasteful houses and bungalows, commodious and architecturally pleasing; very different from the box-like farmhouses of the Middle West and the East. On either side rise high green hills. It is a picture of beauty wherever one looks. ”

“ Señora Valentino rode slowly along the way leading from Santa Clara to Pueblo San José. Willow trees lined the edge of the road, lifting their featherly foliage in greeting to the morning sun. Yellow light filtered through and marked the interlacing plumes with myriad fairy figures in golden tints. The branches nodded and undulated in low-toned rhythm. Tempered breezes from the bay, sweet with the breath of virgin meadow, hung light-winged over this shaded alameda. Peons, men and women, worked in the vegetable gardens by the wayside, singing as they labored. ”

“ Above us gleams the long white building of Santa Clara, and zigzagging up the steep hill lies the path, shrines at each turn of the way inviting to devotion and to rest. The sun beats fiercely on the steep white road, but the view from the summit upon the esplanade that faces the convent church repays the trouble of the climb. Opposite, across the river, the city is piled up upon its grand amphitheatre of hills, the huge, square bulk of the university and the Sé Nova topping it all ”

“ Favoured both by wind and tide, we sailed eastward past many charming islands and promontories, to the mission of Santa Clara, which lay at a distance of five-and-twenty miles, in a straight line from the ship. The country presented on all sides a picture of beauty and fertility: the shores are of a moderate elevation, and covered with a brilliant verdure; the hills, towards the interior, swell gently into an amphitheatre, and the background is formed by high thick woods. ”

“ After this delightful visit we took the horse car to Santa Clara, and certainly the world cannot boast of a public route so redolent with beauty as this. Both sides of the road are shaded with trees of almost a century's growth; for this "Alameda" was planted by the Jesuit Fathers in 1799. These left the vines and olives of their native Spain, and planted upon the soil of their new home this grove, which was, doubtless, intended as a sacred haunt, never dreaming that its sanctity would be invaded by the sacrilegious sounds of modern civilization, and, above all, by the rumble of the horse car. ”

“ To the northward is the prolific fruit region, the Santa Clara Valley, where Mission Santa Clara was founded in 1777. The city of this valley is San José, with twenty thousand people, distantly surrounded by mountains, and, like all these places, a popular resort. The Calaveras Mountains are to the eastward, and here, on Mount Hamilton, twenty-six miles southeast, is the Lick Observatory, at forty-two hundred feet elevation. ”

“ Lounging one afternoon along the Alameda, a leafy avenue set out by the early Mission Fathers between the village of San Jose and the convent of Santa Clara, he saw a double file of young girls from the convent approaching, on their usual promenade. A view of this procession being the fondest ambition of the San Jose collegian, and especially interdicted and circumvented by the good Fathers attending the college excursions, Clarence felt for it the profound indifference of a boy who, in the intermediate temperate zone of fifteen years, thinks that he is no longer young and romantic! ”

“ Quaint foreign interiors are disclosed through the open doors of the dark humble abodes that line the way, and poor little home industries are carried on coram populo; half-way up the ladder-like ascent there is a ruined church, and by-and-by on the right we skirt the great battlemented wall of the vast disestablished monastery of Santa Clara. At a turn in the wall the corner of the grim old edifice itself appears, fortress-like and looming here as built for defence in the fierce times of long ago. ”

“ Each of the Provinces of Cuba has its own characteristic charms of scenery; among which it would be rash to attempt to choose. Santa Clara boasts the great falls of the Hanebanilla River, a scene of majestic splendor. This is one of numerous cataracts on the rivers of Cuba, enriching the scenic attractions of the island, and at the same time suggesting immense value as sources of industrial power.
Lopez now endeavored to reach a plain near San Cristobal, but his men were worn out, their clothes torn, their flesh bruised and bleeding, and their feet lacerated so that they could hardly walk. ”

“ Everything savors of neglect; only a few dwellings are outwardly new, but within the habitations are comparatively clean; while the population, through frequent mixture with wandering Indians—the Utes, Apaches, and Navajos—are taller and more slenderly built, if not stronger, than the ordinary pueblo Indians of New Mexico.
Santa Clara is situated on a sandy prominence{290} which overlooks the course of the Rio Grande del Norte from a height of about fifty feet. The village is not more than five hundred paces in a straight line from the river-bank. ”

“ Never by word or act shall I acknowledge your authority in this valley of Santa Clara."
Señor Mendoza smiled. His equanimity was not easily upset.
"Good reverend padre, hear me. Your fathers did, indeed, redeem this country and its savage tribes. A mighty work surely has been done. But, because of freeing the natives from paganism, should you hold this vast province in fee simple? Is it right that a score of monks should own the land from San Diego to Yerba Buena? ”

“ When the Spaniards passed through this valley, they were not slow to recognize in it one of those favored spots on the earth’s surface where climate and soil unite to produce the highest results. So here they founded two missions, one at Santa Clara, and one at San José.
Santa Clara (St. Clara) , stands in one of the most fertile valleys in California, which is equivalent to saying in the whole world, and is about forty-six miles south-southeast of San Francisco. The mission was founded by Padres Peña and Murguia, January 12, 1777. ”

“ Clara where there were no Portuguese and no unfriendly natives and where he could build a fort on shore to land the sick men and cure them of their scurvy with fresh herbs. The expedition remained on Santa Clara for three weeks. Gradually the strength of the men returned, but they were still very weak, and it was now necessary that they should get plenty of exercise in the open air. Therefore the admiral ordered the kitchens to be built at a short distance from the fort. Those men who walked out to the kitchen got more dinner than those who demanded that their food be brought to them. ”

“ The birds in California do not build nests. They build ranches.
Most of the way along the Santa Clara Valley our tires glided upon an arrow-straight, unbelievably smooth stretch of magnificent automobile road, which—when it is completed—will extend without a break from the Oregon line to the Mexican line, and will be the finest, costliest, best thoroughfare to be found within the boundaries of any state of the Union, that being the scale upon which they work out their public-utility plans in the West. ”

“ She hardly touches the ground when we find ourselves gazing at an orchard of California figs, zip, the woman picks herself up, gazes comically at the audience for a laugh and receiving none, hops with phenomenal agility up astride of the hood of the auto, piff, a yard of Santa Rosa hens, ping, the husband throws his wife up to the roof of a skyscraper, the commuters gaze solemnly, biff, a scene from Santa Clara, clang, the gates are opened. ”

“ Through Santa Clara Valley. — Arrival at San José. — Old Friends. — Semi-tropical Climate. — An Excursion to the Stars. — The Lick Observatory. — Our Journey There. — Sunset on the Summit. — With the Great Telescope. — The Tomb of James Lick. — The Midnight Ride Down the Mountain.
After leaving Palo Alto, our journey revealed to us an ideal Californian landscape. We passed through the lovely Santa Clara Valley. Rich cultivation met our eye on every side, interspersed with fine forest trees, all hemmed in by the ranges of the surrounding mountains. ”

“ La Cruces (Santa Clara) is a railway junction and was at one time actively engaged in shipping horses, cattle, and sugar. The people are active and energetic, and have been complimented with the name of the “Yankees of Cuba.”
La Isabela (Santa Clara) , called also Concha and La Boca, is the seaport of Sagua la Grande, and has five thousand people. It is the shore terminus of the railway to Sagua and is of considerable commercial importance, with a cosmopolitan people. ”

“ Meeting the intelligent priests who had officiated in Santa Clara, they directed me to a house where a lodging was procurable. Crossing the deserted plaza, I entered a large ill-constructed adobie dwelling, where I was received by a filthy young Gascon, who appeared to be mayor domo, in the midst of a houseful of girls and women. I lost no time in doing the amiable to my agreeable hostesses, who in turn prepared a supper of dirty junks of beef, and still worse tortillas. ”

“ Velasquez, enthusiastic over the locality of his newly founded city, Trinidad, despatched at once one of his caravels to La Espanola in Santo Domingo, with orders to bring back cattle, mares and other material necessary to further the interests of the new settlement. And so it came to pass that this section of southern Santa Clara, with its fertile lands, beautiful scenery and promise of gold, played an important part in the early colonization of the Island. ”

“ At midnight we went to the church of Santa Clara, to attend what is called the Misa del Gallo, the Cock's Mass; which is private,—only respectable persons being admitted by a private entrance; for midnight mass in Mexico takes place with shut doors, as all nightly reunions are dreaded. Santa Clara being attached to the convent of that name, we remained after mass to see the white-robed sisters receive the sacrament from the hands of a priest, by the small side-door that opens from the convent to the church. The church was lighted, but the convent was in darkness ”

“ But Serra calmly went on with his work. He confirmed the neophytes at San Luis Obispo and San Antonio, and went to help dedicate the new church recently built at Santa Clara, and also to San Francisco. Called back to Santa Clara by the sickness of Padre Murguia, he was saddened by the death of that noble and good man, and felt he ought to prepare himself for death. But he found strength to return to San Carlos at Monterey, and there, on Saturday, August 28, 1784, he passed to his eternal reward, at the ripe age of seventy years, nine months and four days. ”

“ We occupy San Diego, Santa Barbara, Monterey, and San Francisco, the missions of San Juan Capistrano, Los Angeles, San Luis Obispo and Santa Clara, and help to control the Indians, but these home troubles have stopped their useful growth. ”