Santa Cruz

“ The high, rugged mountains of Santa Clara and Santa Cruz, robed in deep-green chemisal and crowned with feathery redwoods, bounded the view on the south, and made a fitting frame for the glorious picture before us. What wonder that we gazed noon the enchanting scene, fairly reveling in the feast of beauty and sublimity nature had spread before us with such a lavish hand, until the gathering shadows of night admonished us that it was time to remount our impatient steeds and descend once more to the valley! ”

“ The first sight of Santa Cruz (where we arrived next morning) is disappointing. When you see it from the deck of your ship, looking from right to left, you see a red, brown, and yellow coast, barren grey mountains, and ravines. The mountains, being exposed to much wind, present the most curious, harsh, and fantastic outline against the sky. These are called Passo Alto (a child would guess their volcanic origin) ; they are wide irregular masses of rock, as desolate and savage as can be imagined. Close to the water is a flat, whitewashed town, which always looks in a white heat. ”

“ It is in these haggard, unpeopled plateaus of the interior that one begins to believe that the population of the peninsula is to-day barely one-third what it was in the prosperous years of Abd er-Rahman.
At length, across a valley that was like a lake of heat waves, appeared Santa Cruz, a hard, colorless town where I was forced to be content with the usual bread, cheese and wine, the former as ossified as the surrounding countryside. In the further outskirts of the place I found a potter at work in a large open hovel and halted to pass the most heated hour with him. ”

“ At the base of this, upon a tongue of rock projecting into the channel, is the strong and massively built fortress of Santa Cruz, against whose Cyclopean foundations the swell from the open sea beats heavily. Its white walls and embattled parapets, pharos lantern and telegraph fixtures, with the imperial flag of green and gold flaunting in the breeze, are the first features of civilization meeting the eye: all else along the coast looks as primitive and untamed as on the day it was first discovered. ”

“ This Spain had her abode there on the summit of Murjajo, and she died and is buried there in the lowering sarcophagus of Santa Cruz, while beside it France smiles gaily and enticingly to the sea and to the neighboring Arab hamlets, to the whole world, laughing from the whiteness and brilliance of her silvery town with its colored crowds, its green, inviting lawns and its lovely parks and squares.
France does not care for the eternal walls and towers of Santa Cruz. She seeks only to assure to the coming generations a happy life in this sunny land ”

“ Santa Cruz is a tolerably good looking town, and is said to contain, with the surrounding settlements, about 5,000 inhabitants. The San Pedro creek runs by the town; it is a clear mountain stream, that comes from the western mountains about 100 miles west of Santa Cruz, and takes a semicircular turn from southeast to northwest, through the plain, till it falls, some distance below San Pablo, into the Conchos. Cotton trees grow along its borders. ”

“ Then northward of the province of Leon came the towering mountain ranges and plateaus of Santa Cruz, arid, and scorched, and dusty, rising almost precipitously from the forests of Leon, and falling again in terrific ridges and chasms into the northern province of San Juan, the eastern slopes falling into the sea as we had seen at Los Angelos. The mineral wealth—copper, gold, and silver—of the Republic was in these mountains, and they absolutely cut off the southern province of Leon from any communication with the northern province of San Juan. ”

“ Clarke and El Sourdo, and shortly after it cleared up, and the remainder of our party, all loaded with meat, arrived. Thus supplied, we turned our faces homewards, and arrived at Santa Cruz a little before sundown, where a steaming kettle of coffee soon dispelled our cold and put us into good spirits.
Mr. Darwin and Admiral Fitzroy have thoroughly described the configuration of the Valley of Santa Cruz and its surroundings, so that a lengthened attempt to portray it is not necessary. ”

“ We could only hang about on deck with our telescopes and watch the little insurgents pouring out of Los Angelos, and crowding along that road, up the mountain-side, towards Santa Cruz. A long way up, at a place where it curved sharply, the yellow and green flag was still flying, and we could make out trenches and could see the wheels of some field-guns half hidden among the trees. The trenches were continued up the mountain-side, and it looked, from where we were, as if a hundred brave men, behind them, could stop a thousand. ”

“ Before I left Santa Cruz, the Lord had graciously raised up many friends in that place. Time and again it has been my pleasure to return there, always to be warmly welcomed in many homes, and especially entertained by Sisters Green, Mary Perkins, Van Ness, and Brother Westlake and wife. The latter were traveling in gospel-tent work when first I met them. It was when making my home in Redding, where occurred the rescue of little Rosa. ”

“ All Spain was clamouring at Santa Cruz's inaction. Philip wrote to stir the old admiral to energy. He must not allow himself to be defied by a squadron of insolent rovers. He must chase them off the coast or destroy them. Santa Cruz needed no stirring. Santa Cruz, the hero of a hundred fights, was chafing at his own impotence; but he was obliged to tell his master that if he wished to have service out of his galleons he must provide crews to handle them, and they must rot at their anchors till he did. ”

“ I ought to have said that the houses of Santa Cruz are of several stories, with the verandahs one above another, looking into the interior courts, in which grow not only bananas, but all sorts of tropical shrubs, and fruit, and flower-bearing plants, in the most luxurious manner. ”

“ At half-past ten we were at the top, and got our first glimpse of Santa Cruz spread out in a hollow beneath us, with mountain ridges all round it. Our mules roused themselves into a trot, and we slung along at a good rate, kicking up a cloud of dust. The Hercules mids. had been gradually drawing closer, and now they came along at a gallop, and would have passed us, singing out rude remarks, but the Angel seized the whip and beat our poor brutes into a gallop too, and the teams simply tore along, side by side, the drivers having all they could do to keep on the road. ”

“ In the year 1693, the mission of Santa Cruz was established at a place called Gumpat, near a visita of Malaveg, called Santa Cruz, whence the mission took its name. It was founded by father Fray Joseph Galfaroso,20 or de la Santissima Trinidad, son of the convent of Pamplona, a man most zealous for the welfare of souls. While vicar of Malaveg, he, not being satisfied with the administration of the said village, made various entrances through the neighboring mountains in search of the heathens who lived in them, in order to lure them to the bosom of our holy faith. ”

“ He learnt from the Marquis, that as soon as he was taken from the Val del Uzeda, a reserve guard had forcibly seized Lorenzo; and borne away him also, to prison.
Soon after imparting the latter information, Santa Cruz rose to retire; promising to use his endeavours for the enlargement of the servant, as well as the master: and, bearing with him many respectful acknowledgements to the Marchioness, he embraced the grateful son of Ripperda, and bade him adieu. ”

“ Santa Cruz has a population of about 10,000 souls. Many of its inhabitants are said to be opulent. The church is handsome; the roads in the neighbourhood broad and in good repair. There is much game in the adjacent forests, but there is not much devotion to the chase. Almost every variety of tropical produce grows in the vicinity. Wild honey is collected by the natives of the interior, and stuffs of cotton and abacá are woven for domestic use. ”

“ The City of Santa Cruz, the principal city and county seat of the county, lies between the Pacific ocean and the northern side of Monterey bay, about eighty miles south of San Francisco. It nestles among the foot-hills of the Santa Cruz mountains, and its outskirts are bathed by the sea. The city proper has a population of six thousand five hundred, and if East Santa Cruz is included, the population is about nine thousand. The city is growing rapidly. New business houses are constantly going up, capital is coming from the East, and everywhere are evidences of a steady, healthy increase. ”

“ Many of the Indians, especially the Santa Cruz, are at great pains to conceal the whereabouts of their villages. Along the main roads only a few scattered groups of huts will be seen, while the larger villages are approached by tracks so inconspicuous that they may easily be missed. The villages themselves are surrounded by a maze of narrow tortuous paths, in which a stranger may wander about for some time before finding his way in. The Santa Cruz are said sometimes to cut the tongues from their cocks in order to prevent them crowing and so betraying the situation of the village. ”

“ There is a strange dichotomy on Santa Cruz: those who have settled at sea level and those who live on the mountain. Only a narrow, rugged trail, impassable in the rainy season, connects the two settlements, and it takes four hours of hard climbing to reach the first of the houses “on the hill.”
The people here live a very isolated and completely agricultural life. They grow vegetables and raise cattle, trading their produce for sea-food products, or for a little cash, with the colony along the shore. ”

“ The bay of Santa Cruz is deep and the island hilly, therefore the harbour is perpetually liable either to be in a dead calm, or to be swept by the violent gusts of wind off the land. These natural obstacles made entrance difficult for a fleet. And Santa Cruz was in addition very powerfully fortified. So strong, in fact, had art and nature made the harbour, that the Spaniards considered a successful attack impossible, and Blake's contemporaries looked upon his triumph as an unheard-of achievement of daring. ”

“ As usual, I was not leaving unaccompanied, so that instead of passing through San Jose, as I had expected, I chaperoned a young girl to the home, remaining there over night and reaching Santa Cruz the next evening.
CHAPTER XXXV. SANTA CRUZ—REBA'S LETTER—THE EARTHQUAKE. "The Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly." ”

“ The island of Santa Cruz is a little paradise, and is now connected with the industrial Vianna by an imposing bridge. It has been laid out as a large park, and upon it are beautiful houses which its owner has built for the members of his family. These houses are in the American colonial style, luxuriously appointed, and lacking in no comfort which the furnishing world can supply. From the windows and balconies magnificent views of the expansive bay are obtained, while the surrounding grounds are filled with many varieties of exotic shrubs and trees. ”

“ Santa Cruz may be called the frontier town of the Spanish race, who have swept over the country from the Pacific. The bay of Arica bears due west from Santa Cruz. As the coast of South America bends at Arica, so the Spanish have pressed far in towards the centre of the continent, placing those on the eastern border of Bolivia nearer to the Atlantic than the people of Peru; although they seem to be farthest from the markets of the world, they are the nearest, and are best prepared for entering into commercial relations with the United States of the North. ”

“ They were not prepared to set out before noon, until which time they strolled about the town of Santa Cruz, the inhabitants of which are Tagalogs. There are only two old Spaniards in the place. The province in which Santa Cruz is situated contains about five thousand inhabitants, of whom eighteen hundred pay tribute.
The people have the character of being orderly, and govern themselves without the aid of the military. The principal article of culture is the coconut tree, which is seen in large groves. ”

“ From Santa Cruz, northerly, the road runs through the Santa 34 Cruz mountains, a region of country homes and farms, famed for their table grapes, for their prunes and apricots and apples. The big redwood trees (sequoia sempervirens) of these mountains invariably attract the stranger. One can see many of these close by the train, but if the traveler has the time, the trip to Big Basin Park, a preserve set apart by the state, will show a forest display never to be forgotten. ”

“ The little brown men were rushing like a pack of hounds after the retreating regulars, and Gerald's officers were trying to stop them. They did manage to bring some back, but couldn't stop the rest, who went careering along towards Santa Cruz, till fifty or sixty regulars, braver than the others, or perhaps unable to run any farther, faced round, formed up across the road, and began firing at them, when back they came grinning and smiling like spaniels who have been ranging too far ahead and know they deserve a hiding. ”

“ Well, that was the end of La Buena Presidente and the end to all the hopes of the insurgents. The Santa Cruz fleet could come and go where and when it pleased, land another army, and drive Gerald and the Provisional Government into the forest again, beyond the reach of their guns, and there was not the slightest chance either, whilst the fleet controlled the coast, of joining forces with the insurgents in the north and of attacking Santa Cruz itself. ”