Читать книгу Spanish and Indian place names of California - Nellie van de Grift Sanchez - Страница 15

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On the day, Friday, July 28, 1769, of the arrival of the Portolá expedition at the stream now called the Santa Ana, which takes its rise in the San Bernardino Mountains, and empties into the ocean at a point southeast of Los Ángeles, four severe earthquakes occurred. Speaking of this circumstance in his diary, Father Crespi says: “To this spot was given El Dulce Nombre de Jesús de los Temblores (The Sweet Name of Jesus of the Earthquakes), because of having experienced here a frightful earthquake, which was repeated four times during the day. The first, which was the most violent, happened at one o’clock of the afternoon, and the last about four o’clock. One of the gentiles (unbaptized Indians), who happened to be in the camp, and who, without doubt, exercised among them the office of priest, no less terrified at the event than we, began, with horrible cries and great demonstrations, to entreat Heaven, turning to all points of the compass. This river is known to the soldiers as the Santa Ana.” This was one of the rare cases where the usual method of naming was reversed, and the soldiers chose the name of the saint. St. Anna was the mother of the Virgin and her name signifies “gracious.”

In the account of Captain Pedro Fages, of the same expedition, the natives on this stream are described as having light complexions and hair, and a good appearance, differing in these particulars from the other inhabitants of that region, who were said to be dark, dirty, under-sized and slovenly. This is not the only occasion when the Spaniards reported finding Indians of light complexions and hair in California. One account speaks of a red-haired tribe not far north of San Francisco, and still another of “white Indians” at Monterey, but, judging by the light of our subsequent knowledge of these aborigines, the writers of these reports must have indulged in exaggeration.

On the southern bank of the Santa Ana, not far from the coast, is the town of the same name, and further inland its waters have made to bloom in the desert the famous orange orchards of Riverside.