‘Why, the amount of suffering that was endured in those mountain passes and deserts can never be told in words. Those who went by the Great Desert west of the Colorado found a stretch of burning salt plains, of shifting hills of sand, with bones of animals and men scattered along the trails; of terrible and ghastly odours rising in the hot air from the bodies of hundreds of mules, and human creatures too, that lay half-buried in the glaring white sand. A terrible journey indeed; but if any State in the Union could be fair enough, fertile enough, and rich enough to repay such a lavish expenditure of energy and suffering, California certainly was and is the one. Now who can tell us something of the name “California”? You, Geoffrey?’ ‘Geoffrey has crammed!’ exclaimed Bell, maliciously. ‘I believe he’s been reading up all day and told papa what question to ask him!’ ‘I’ll pass it on to you if you like,’ laughed Geoffrey. ‘No—you’d never get another that you could answer! Go on!’ ‘In 1534, one Hernando de Grijalva was sent by Hernando Cortez to discover something or other, and it was probably he who then saw the peninsula of California; but a quarter of a century before this a romance called _Esplandian_ had appeared in Spain, narrating the adventures of an Amazonian queen who brought allies from “the right hand of the Indies” to assist the infidels in their attack upon Constantinople—by the way I forgot to say that she was a pagan. This queen of the Amazons was called Calafia, and her kingdom, rich in gold and precious stones, was named California. The writer of the romance derived this name, perhaps, from Calif, a successor of Mohammed. He says: “Know that on the right hand of the Indies there is an island named California, very close to the Terrestial Paradise, and it was peopled by black women without any man among them, for they lived in the fashion of the Amazonia. They were of strong and hardy bodies, of ardent courage, and of great force. Their island was the strongest in all the world, with its steep cliffs and rocky shore. Their arms were all of gold, and so was the harness of the wild beasts which they tamed and rode. For in the whole island there was no metal but gold. They lived in caves wrought out of the rocks with much labour, and they had many ships with which they sailed out to other countries to obtain booty.” Cortez and Grijalva believed that they were near the coast of Asia, for they had no conception of the size of the world nor of the vastness of the Pacific Ocean; and as the newly-discovered land corresponded with the country described in the romance, they named the peninsula California.’ ‘My book,’ said Philip, ‘declared that the derivation of the name was very uncertain, and that it was first bestowed on one of the coast bays by Bernal Diaz.’ ‘Now, Philip!’ exclaimed Margery, ‘do you suppose we are going to believe that, after Geoff’s lovely story?’