Land Where Time Stands Still

LAND WHERE TIME STANDS STILL By MAX MILLER Illustrated with photographs by GEORGE LINDSAY and THE AUTHOR DODD, MEAD COMPANY NEW YORK 1943 COPYRIGHT, 1943 BY MAX MILLER ALL RIGHTS RESERVED NO PART OF THIS BOOK MAY BE REPRODUCED IN ANY FORM WITHOUT PERMISSION IN WRITING FROM THE PUBLISHER PRINTER IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BY THE VAIL-BALLOT PRKSS, INC., BINCXIAMTOK N. V COLLECTING PITAHAYA FRUIT FOREWORD THIS book is the record o a trip overland In the fall of 1941 from San Diego to Cape San Lucas at the tip of Lower Cali fornia. It Is neither an adventure story nor a systematic study of the little-known Mexican province. It is simply a record of what I saw there, and such economic and socio logical statistics as it contains arise incidentally from the story itself. Lower California is the Mexican land which hangs like an elephants trunk below our own California. In this book when I speak of Lower California I am, of course, referring to the Mexican province. Southern California denotes the area roughly a hundred miles north and south of Los An geles, and east to the Arizona line. And when I use the word California alone, I am speaking of the entire state of Cali fornia, U. S. A. This is confusing, even to Westerners, and it needs clearing up at the outset. GREETINGS MY DEAR MAX With reference to the anti-American feeling which was so prominent and noticeable during your visit to Lower California, the following data may be of interest to you At the time of your visit such feeling was especially pro nounced, owing to the activities of numerous German agents who had been sent into the country to organize local resident Germans. They combined to turn loose a continu ous series ofpublications, talks, and general barroom gossip to promote an ill-feeling against the Americans, and you happened to be in the muzzle of the gun at the time of your trip. Pearl Harbor solidified the Mexican idea against various Axis powers just as much as it did that of the United States. The Mexican government very promptly slapped in jail all the German residents and nonresidents and all Japanese of the same character they could get their hands on and they were all safely under lock and key before even the United States had made any such movement. Left to themselves, the Mexican people responded in the proper fashion and are just as an ti-Axis as we ourselves are and are carrying on their activities with wholehearted co operation, both on the part of government officials, Army, Navy and Air Force. In fact, their enthusiasm is admirable and they cannot understand why we dont immediately invade Japan and settle our score with that racial group. They are very anxious to go along on the trip and do their bit at finishing them off. You would be quite astonished at the enthusiastic attitude of that region at present in comparison to what you noted at the time of your visit. With very best regards, James Harding Baja California, 1943 ILLUSTRATIONS Collecting Pitahaya Fruit Frontispiece PAGE Mission San Borjas 20 Grand Old Man of San Borjas 28 Orchestra at San Borjas Mission ........ 28 Onyx Quarry at El Marmol 52 Jail at El Arco Shark Camp, Gulf of California 76 Creeping Devil Cactus 84 Valley of Comondu 108 Drying Dates at Comondu 1x6 The Naturalists at Work 116 Town of Magclalena on Magdalena Island 132 Bringing Water to La Paz 148 Reading from Top to Bottom, Max Miller and Friend . 148Some of the Abandoned Pearl-Fishing Equipment at La Paz 1 64 Oxen Plowing at San Jose del Cabo 180 Turtle Fishermen at San Francisco Bay on the Gulf of Cali fornia 196 Bells of Loreto Mission, Oldest of the California Mission Chain, - Part of the National Highway Max Miller and the Young Mathematical Genius . ., 228 Cabo San Lucas, the Very Tip of the Peninsula . . . .234 LAND WHERE TIME STANDS STILL