San Francisco had, for some years, trouble about titles to property, owing to false or defective land-grants given by the Mexicans.  Men tried to take possession of lots they had no real claim to by building a shanty on the ground and squatting there, and the “squatter troubles” between such land thieves and the rightful owners caused lawsuits and shooting affairs.  A land commission finally settled these disputes, throwing out all the false claims and giving titles to the proper persons.

[Illustration:  ENTRANCE TO JAPANESE TEA GARDEN, SAN FRANSISCO.]

The little village of Yerba Buena has now grown to be the largest city on the Pacific coast and one that is known the world over.  It is widely and justly celebrated as the centre of great manufacturing and shipping interests, for its fine buildings, its climate, and its beautiful surroundings.  San Francisco Bay, the harbor the Franciscans named for their patron saint, is noted for its picturesque scenery.  Golden Gate Park, with its thousand acres of trees and lawn and flowers stretching out to the Pacific Ocean, the famous Cliff House, and the Golden Gate, through which so many Argonauts sailed into California, are the most attractive and best known places.

MEN CALIFORNIA REMEMBERS

Many pages of this book might be filled with California’s roll of honor,—­with that long list of men whose names are remembered whenever the state’s history is recalled.

Explorers, Mission-builders, Argonauts, and pioneers were the men who helped to make California the fair state you know and live in.  From the first day of the Spanish discoveries on this shore of the Pacific Ocean, we find brave and great men who gave their best efforts, and sometimes their lives, for California.

Let us head our brief list with Cortes, the name-giver, who dreamed long years of the golden land he was never to see.  Then Cabrillo, the sea-king whom San Diego people honor every year because he found their bay and first set foot on California’s ground.  Next comes the bold Englishman, Sir Admiral Francis Drake, who intended that his queen, Elizabeth, should have this Indian kingdom, as he believed it to be.  The stone Prayer-book Cross, in Golden Gate Park, was put up to commemorate the service of prayer and psalms, offered at Drake’s Bay by Fletcher, the minister on the Admiral’s ship.

Good Father Serra, the founder of the Missions, his friend and brother-priest Father Palou of San Francisco, and their fellow-laborers Crespi and Lasuen, helped in the work of building churches and teaching the Indians.  Governor Portola, the first Spanish ruler of Alta California, assisted the Padres, and also found San Francisco Bay.  Lieutenant Ayala, however, sailed the first ship, the San Carlos, through the Golden Gate.  Another governor, de Neve, founded San Jose and Los Angeles, and wrote a set of laws for the two Californias of his time.  That wise ruler, Governor Borica, ordered schools opened and tried to get the Indians to farm their lands and to raise hemp and flax.