Note 1293 — Chapter VI · (continued 2)

At least so says Herrera (Stevens’s edition, vi. 305). Castañeda defers the naming till Alarcon’s expedition. Cabrillo in 1542 used the name as of well-known application. The origin of the name has been a cause of dispute. Professor Jules Marcou is in error in stating that the name was first applied by Bernal Diaz to a bay on the coast, and so was made to include the whole region. He claims that it was simply a designation used by Cortés to distinguish a land which we now know to be the hottest in the two Americas,—Tierra California, derived from “calida fornax,” fiery furnace. (Cf. Annual Report of the Survey west of the hundredth Parallel, by George M. Wheeler, 1876, p. 386; and Annual Report of the Chief of Engineers, U.S.A., 1878, appendix, also printed separately as Notes upon the First Discoveries of California and the Origin of its Name, by Jules Marcou, Washington, 1878.) Bancroft (California, i. 65, 66) points out a variety of equivalent derivations which have been suggested. The name was first traced in 1862, by Edward E. Hale, to a romance published, it is supposed, in 1510,—Las Sergas de Esplandian, by Garcia Ordoñez de Montalvo, which might easily enough have been a popular book with the Spanish followers of Cortés. There were later editions in 1519, 1521, 1525, and 1526. In this romance Esplandian, emperor of the Greeks, the imaginary son of the imaginary Amadis, defends Constantinople against the infidels of the East. A pagan queen of Amazons brings an army of Amazons to the succor of the infidels. This imaginary queen is named Calafia, and her kingdom is called “California,”—a name possibly derived from “Calif,” which, to the readers of such a book, would be associated with the East. California in the romance is represented as an island rich with gold and diamonds and pearls. The language of the writer is this:—