rers, of _California_, to indicate their
belief that it was on the "right hand of the Indies." Just so Columbus
called his discoveries "the Indies,"--just so was the name "El Dorado"
given to regions which it was hoped would prove to be golden. The
romance had said, that in the whole of the romance-island of California
there was no metal but gold. Cortes, who did not find a pennyweight of
dust in the real California, still had no objection to giving so golden
a name to his discovery.

Mr. Hale, with that brevity which becomes antiquarians, does not go into
any of the details of the life and adventures of the Queen of California
as the romance describes them. We propose, in this paper, to supply from
it this reticency of his essay.

The reader must understand, then, that, in this romance, printed in
1510, sixty years or less after Constantinople really fell into the
hands of the Turks, the author describes a pretended assault made upon
it by the Infidel powers, and the rallying for its rescue of Amadis and
Perion and Lisuarte, and all the princes of chivalry with whom the novel
of "Amadis of Gaul" has dealt. They succeed in driving away the Pagans,
"as you shall hear." In the midst of this great crusade, every word of
which, of course, is the most fictitious of fiction, appear the episodes
which describe California and its Queen.

First, of California itself here is the description:--

"Now you are to hear the most extraordinary thing that ever was heard of
in any chronicles or in the memory of man, by which the city would have
been lost on the next day, but that where the danger came, there the
safety came also. Know, then, that, on the right hand of the Indies,
there is an island called California, very close to the side of the
Terrestrial Paradise,[1] and it was peopled by black women, without any
man among them, for they lived in the fashion of Amazons. They were of
strong and hardy bodies, of ardent courage and great force. Their island
was the strongest in all the world, with its steep cliffs and rocky
shores. 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 rock with much
labor. They had many ships with which they sailed out to other countries
to obtain booty.

"In this island, called California, there were many griffins, on account
of the great ruggedness of the count