in failure of which they will be arrested and under the government placed at labor for life, or until they select masters under prescribed rules of the captain-general and a board of directors.

Numbers of French and Spanish vessels are engaged in carrying coolies from Macao and other Chinese ports to the port of Mariel, a few miles west of Havana, and after quarantine they are sent to their masters and landed at the city of Havana, their destination. All not contracted for are sent to a guard-house until disposed of, and those held under indenture are taken charge of or sold, their term of servitude being eight years, and transferred to the new master by a Spanish official. All those arriving in ill health or disabled are auctioned off to the highest bidders, who place them in hospital until restored to health, when they are set at work or sold again at great profit to the first buyer.

In their new homes the poor Chinese slaves soon find their circumstances most wretched: they learn a little Spanish, but only to know their degradationslaves to the whites, and hated by the blacks. Thrilling scenes of revenge by the coolies, by fire, poison, or otherwise, often follow acts of cruelty by the whites.

It is fair to conclude that nothing short of the interposition of the United States government and the substitution of republican freedom over the land will ameliorate the condition of the wretched cooly in Spanish America and the West Indies.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

Counties-Coast counties-Area-Productions-Population--San Diego-Los Angeles-Santa Barbara-San Luis Obispo-Monterey-Santa Cruz-San Mateo-San Francisco: composition of the city, its population, education, buildings, trades, professions, newspapers, nationalities, society-Marin-Sonoma-Mendocino -Humboldt-Klamath-Del Norte.

In the general description of California in preceding chapters, the principal features of each section of the State-climate, seasons, mountains, rivers, lakes, bays, harbors, forests, mines, and agricultural productions— are given. To more fully convey to the reader the great development, resources, climate, and condition of the different sections of the State, each county in California, with its climate, seasons, natural productions, and material prosperity, with the area, population, and principal cities of each, are here set forth. The productions and material wealth of each are given as they were in 1870, this being the period of the enumeration of population.

In order that the various sections of the State may be followed in their physical connections, the counties are divided into three classes: the coast counties, facing upon the Pacific ocean, the valley and interior counties, embracing the chief agricultural portions of the State, and the mountain counties in and about the Sierra Nevada range, representing the great mineral wealth of California.

The most southern county, adjoining the Mexican Territory of Lower California, is San Diego, which forms the first county (beginning south) of the

COAST COUNTIES.

SAN DIEGO. The first settlement made in California was made in this county in 1769. Here is situated the beautiful harbor of San Diego, the early haunt of the Jesuit fathers. The county is among the largest in the State; its area is 15,156 square miles, making it almost as large as the republic of Switzerland, with its 15,261 square miles of territory. Several of the New England States might be contained in this county. The combined area of Delaware, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Massachusetts is but 16,030 square miles.

The county of San Diego is bounded on the west by the Pacific ocean, north by Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties, east by the Colorado river, which separates it from the Territory of Arizona, and south by the Mexican Territory of Lower California. The climate of this county is mild, and very equal, not being surpassed in any part of the world. Frost and snow are never seen, and the years succeed each other through successive periods of bright, balmy, dry, sunny summers, and gentle rainy seasons of brief duration, in which hill and valley are clad in verdure and fragrant flowers. In this county the rainfall is only one-quarter as much as it is at San Francisco. All the tropical fruits grow in San Diego-the orange, lime, lemon, and fig—and experiments recently made with the pine-apple and banana show that the climate and soil are well suited to them.

The population of San Diego county is 4,951; of whom 3,743 are native born and 1,208 are foreigners. There are 2,300 residing in the city of San Diego, the county-seat. The county is eminently an agricultural

one, the soil being rich and the climate genial. Stockraising is also carried on extensively. No mineral of importance had been discovered in this county until 1870, when rich veins of quartz, containing free gold, were found in the southern portion. Since this time, three quartz mills have been built, and mining is carried

on to some extent.

The surface of the country is a succession of rolling, bald hills, covered with wild oats, grass, and flowers, and rich, fertile valleys. Forest trees are rarely met with.

There are in the county twenty thousand acres of land under cultivation, one hundred thousand grapevines, thirty thousand cattle, ten thousand horses, and forty thousand sheep; and there are sixty thousand bushels of wheat grown annually.

LOS ANGELES.-Lying directly north of San Diego, on the line of the coast, is Los Angeles county, with an area of six thousand square miles, 1,100 of which are in islands off the coast; and a population of 15,309, of whom 10,984 are native and 4,325 of foreign birth: 5,600 reside in the city of Los Angeles, the countyseat. The county is bounded south by San Diego, west by the Pacific ocean, north by Santa Barbara, and east by the county of San Bernardino.

The climate here, as in San Diego, is perpetual summer: frost and snow are unknown. Gentle rains in winter cover the whole surface with green and wild oats; native grasses and flowers spread over the vast rolling hills and rich valleys, which are entirely free from trees and present a charming scene. All the semi-tropical and many of the tropical fruits grow well,

and the county is celebrated for its vast vineyards and orange groves. The orange in this county is ripe in the months of December and January, and in quality is superior to those grown in Central America and the Sandwich islands.

The rainfall in Los Angeles is only about half as great as at San Francisco. Like all the southern sections of the State, there are eight months without rain during which the sun hangs like a ball of fire in a cloudless sky; but the prevailing westerly winds from the Pacific ocean cool the atmosphere, so that heat is never oppressive. This county was settled at an early day by the Jesuits, who discovered gold and made some progress in placer-mining in this county threequarters of a century before the discovery at Sutter's mill, in 1848.

Some idea of the prosperity and resources of this angel land may be had when we know that there are in the county fourteen thousand horses, twenty-five thousand cattle, five million grape-vines, producing annually one million five hundred thousand gallons of wine and one hundred thousand gallons of brandy; four hundred and fifty thousand sheep, producing annually one million three hundred thousand pounds of wool; two thousand four hundred fig trees, three thousand seven hundred lemon trees, five thousand three hundred walnut trees, two hundred and fifty thousand mulberry trees, two thousand olive trees, and thirty-five thousand orange trees. The county produces seventy thousand bushels of wheat, one hundred and forty thousand pounds of honey, and three hundred thousand bushels of barley; and produces one-third of the whole corn-crop of the