his journey's purpose as his horse climbed slowly up the steep trails,
knocking the loose stones down a thousand feet and more upon a roof of
tree-tops which looked like stunted brush. Those gigantic masses of
immense stones, each wearing a semblance to the face of man or beast;
those awful chasms and stupendous heights, densely wooded, bare, and
many-hued, rising above, beyond, peak upon peak, cutting through the
visible atmosphere--was there no end? He turned in his saddle and looked
over low peaks and cañons, rivers and abysms, black peaks smiting the
fiery blue, far, far, to the dim azure mountains on the horizon.

"Mother of God!" he thought. "No wonder California still shakes! I would
I could have stood upon a star and beheld the awful throes of this
country's birth." And then his horse reared between the sharp spurs and
galloped on.

He avoided the Mission of Santa Barbara, resting at a rancho outside
the town. In the morning, supplied as usual with a fresh horse, he fled
onward, with the ocean at his right, its splendid roar in his ears. The
cliffs towered high above him; he saw no man's face for hours together;
but his thoughts companioned him, savage and sinister shapes whirling
about the figure of a woman. On, on, sleeping at ranchos or missions,
meeting hospitality everywhere, avoiding Los Angeles, keeping close to
the ponderous ocean, he left civilization behind him at last, and
with an Indian guide entered upon that desert of mountain-tops, Baja
California.

Rapid travelling was not possible here. There were no valleys worthy the
name. The sharp peaks, multiplying mile after mile, were like teeth of
gigantic rakes, black and bare. A wilderness of mountain-tops, desolate
as eternity, arid, parched, baked by the awful heat, the silence never