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Title: A Truthful Woman in Southern California

Author: Kate Sanborn

Release date: September 27, 2006 [eBook #19391]

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Steven desJardins and the Online Distributed
        Proofreading Team


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A TRUTHFUL WOMAN IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA ***




Produced by Steven desJardins and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team






A TRUTHFUL WOMAN IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

BY KATE SANBORN

AUTHOR OF ADOPTING AN ABANDONED FARM, ETC.

NEW YORK
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
1906

COPYRIGHT, 1893,
BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.




CONTENTS.

CHAPTER  PAGE

   I.--HINTS FOR THE JOURNEY
  II.--AT CORONADO BEACH
 III.--SAN DIEGO
  IV.--EN ROUTE TO LOS ANGELES
   V.--LOS ANGELES AND ROUND ABOUT
  VI.--PASADENA
 VII.--CAMPING ON MOUNT WILSON
VIII.--CATCHING UP ON THE KITE-SHAPED TRACK
  IX.--RIVERSIDE
   X.--A LESSON ON THE TRAIN
  XI.--SANTA BARBARA
 XII.--HER CITY AND COUNTY
XIII.--IN GALA DRESS
 XIV.--AU REVOIR




A Truthful Woman in Southern California

CHAPTER I.

HINTS FOR THE JOURNEY.


     The typical Forty-niner, in alluring dreams, grips the Golden
     Fleece.

     The _fin-de-siècle_ Argonaut, in Pullman train, flees the Cold and
     Grip.

     _En Sol y la Sombra_--shade as well as sun.

Yes, as California is. I resolve neither to soar into romance nor drop
into poetry (as even Chicago drummers do here), nor to idealize nor
quote too many prodigious stories, but to write such a book as I needed
to read before leaving my "Abandoned Farm," "Gooseville," Mass. For I
have discovered that many other travellers are as ignorant as myself
regarding practical information about every-day life here, and many
others at home may know even less.

So let me say that California has not a tropical, but a semi-tropical
climate, and you need the same clothing for almost every month that is
found necessary and comfortable in New York or Chicago during the
winter.

Bring fur capes, heavy wraps, simple woolen dresses for morning and
outdoor life; and unless rolling in wealth, pack as little as possible
of everything else, for extra baggage is a curse and will deplete a
heavy purse,--that rhymes and has reason too. I know of one man who paid
$300 for extra baggage for his party of fifteen from Boston to Los
Angeles.

Last year I brought dresses and underwear for every season, and for a
vague unknown fifth; also my lectures, causing profanity all along the
line, and costing enough to provide drawing-room accommodations for the
entire trip.

Why did I come? Laryngitis, bronchitis, tonsilitis, had claimed me as
their own. Grip (I will not honor it with a foreign spelling, now it is
so thoroughly acclimated and in every home) had clutched me twice--nay,
thrice; doctors shook their heads, thumped my lungs, sprayed my throat,
douched my nose, dosed me with cough anodynes and nerve tonics, and
pronounced another winter in the North a dangerous experiment. Some of
you know about this from personal experience. Not a human being could I
induce to join me. If this hits your case, do not be deterred; just come
and be made over into a joyous, healthful life. I would not urge those
to take the tedious journey who are hopelessly consumptive. Home is the
best place for such, and although I see many dragging wearily along with
one lung, or even half of that, who settle here and get married and
prolong existence for a few years, and although some marvellous cures
have been effected, still I say the same.

And what is to be put in the one big trunk? Plenty of flannels of medium
thickness, a few pretty evening dresses, two blouses, silk and woolen or
velvet for morning wear, with simple skirts, a gossamer, rubbers, thick
boots for long tramps and excursions, parasol, umbrella, soft hat to
shade the face, and gloves for all sorts of occasions. I do not venture
to suggest anything for men, they travel so sensibly. The more
experienced one is, the less he carries with him.

So do not load up with portfolio and portable inkstand, your favorite
stationery, the books that delighted your childhood or exerted a
formative influence upon your character in youth. Deny yourself and
leave at home the gold or silver toilet set, photograph album, family
Bibles, heavy fancy work, gilded horseshoe for luck, etc. I know of
bright people who actually carried their favorite matches from an
eastern city to Tacoma, also a big box of crackers, cheese, pickles, and
preserved fruits, only to find the best of everything in that brilliant
and up-with-the-times city. One old lady brought a calla-lily in a pot!
When she arrived and saw hedges and fields of lilies, hers went out of
the window. Another lady from Boston brought a quart bottle of the
blackest ink, only to spill it all upon a new carpet at Santa Barbara,
costing the boarding-house keeper thirty-five dollars. Everything that
one needs can be purchased all along the way, from a quinine capsule to
a complete outfit for any occasion.

As to the various ways of coming here, I greatly prefer the Southern
Pacific in winter, and Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé in spring or summer.
Either will take you from New York to San Diego and return for $137,
allowing six months' stay. The "Phillips Excursion" will take you from
Boston to San Francisco for fifty-five dollars. But in this case the
beds are hard, and you provide your own meals. Some try the long voyage,
twenty-three days from New York to San Francisco. It is considered
monotonous and undesirable by some; others, equally good judges, prefer
it decidedly.

I believe in taking along a loose wrapper to wear in the cars,
especially when crossing the desert. It greatly lessens fatigue to be
able to curl up cosily in a corner and go to sleep, with a silk
travelling hat or a long veil on one's head, and the stiff bonnet or
big hat with showy plumes nicely covered in its long purse-like bag, and
hanging on a hook above. The sand and alkali ruin everything, and are
apt to inflame the eyes and nose. I find a hamper with strap
indispensable on the train; it will hold as much as a small trunk, yet
it can be easily carried.

Now imagine you have arrived, very tired, and probably with a cold in
your head, for the close heated cars and the sudden changes of climate
are trying. You may be at The Raymond, and "personally conducted."
Nothing can be better than that. But if you are alone at Los Angeles, or
San Francisco, come straight down to Coronado Beach, and begin at the
beginning--or the end, as you may think it.




CHAPTER II.

AT CORONADO BEACH.


I associate Coronado Beach so closely with Warner (Charles D.), the
cultured and cosmopolitan, that every wave seems to murmur his name, and
the immense hotel lives and flourishes under the magic of his rhetoric
and commendation. Just as Philadelphia is to me Wanamakerville and
Terrapin, so Coronado Beach is permeated and lastingly magnetized by
Warner's sojourn here and what he "was saying."

But I must venture to find fault with his million-times-quoted adjective
"unique" as it is used. It has been stamped on stationery and menu
cards, and has gone the world over in his volume "Our Italy," and no one
ever visits this spot who has not made the phrase his own. To me it
deserves a stronger word, or series of words. We say a pretty girl has a
"unique" way of dressing her hair, or an author a "unique" way of
putting things.

But as I look out of my window this glorious morning, and watch the
triple line of foaming waves breaking on the long beach, a silver sickle
in the sunshine; the broad expanse of the Pacific, with distant sails
looking like butterflies apoise; Point Loma grandly guarding the right,
and farther back the mountain view, where snowy peaks can just be
discerned over the nearer ranges; the quiet beauty of the grounds below,
where borders and ovals and beds of marguerites contrast prettily with
long lines and curves of the brilliant marigolds; grass, trees, and
hedges green as June--a view which embraces the palm and the pine, the
ocean and lofty mountains, cultivated gardens and rocky wastes, as I see
all this, I for one moment forget "unique" and exclaim, "How bold,
magnificent, and unrivalled!" Give me a new and fitting adjective to
describe what I see. Our best descriptive adjectives are so recklessly
used in daily life over minute matters, that absolutely nothing is left
for this rare combination.

As a daughter of New Hampshire in this farthest corner of the southwest,
my mind crosses the continent to the remote northeast and the great
Stone Face of the Franconia Mountains. Chiselled by an Almighty hand,
its rugged brow seamed by the centuries, its features scarred by the
storms of ages, gazing out over the broad land, where centre the hopes
of the human race, who can forget that face, sad with the mysteries of
pain and sorrow, yet inspiring with its rugged determination, and at
times softened with the touch of sunlit hope?

Point Loma has something of the same sphinx-like grandeur, with its long
bold promontory stretching out into the western waters. These two seem
to be keeping watch and ward over mountain and sea: each appropriate in
its place and equally impressive. There the stern prophet surveying the
home of great beginnings, the cradle of creative energy; and here, its
counterpart, a mighty recumbent lion, its dreamy, peaceful gaze turned
with confidence out over the wide Pacific to the setting sun, with
assurance of ultimate success, a pledge of aspirations satisfied, of
achievements assured, of----Whoa there! Hello! This to my runaway
steeds, Imagination and Sentiment. Brought back by a passing bell-boy, I
shall now keep a tighter rein.

But when one first breathes the air of California, there is a curious
exaltation and excitement, which leads on irresistibly. This is often
followed by a natural depression, sleepiness, and reaction. But that
view never changes, and I know you will say the same. A florid,
effervescent, rhapsodical style seems irresistible. One man of uncommon
business ability and particularly level head caught the spirit of the
place, and wrote that "the most practical and unpoetical minds, too,
come here and go away, as they afterward gingerly admit, carrying with
them the memory of sunsets emblazoned in gold and crimson upon cloud,
sea, and mountain; of violet promontories, sails, and lighthouses
etched against the orange of a western sky; of moonlight silvering
breeze-rippled breadths of liquid blue; of distant islands shimmering in
sun-lit haze; of sunrises with crowns of glory chasing the vapory,
fleece-like shadows from the wet, irridescent beach, and silhouetting
the fishermen's sails in the opalescent tints of a glassy sea."

Some temperaments may not be affected at all. But the first morning I
felt like leaping a five-barred fence, and the next like lying down
anywhere and sleeping indefinitely. I met a distinguished Boston artist
recently, who had just arrived. The day was superb. He seemed in a
semi-delirium of ecstasy over everything. His face glowed, his eyes
shone, his hands were full of flowers. He said, "My heart jumps so I'm
really afraid it will jump out of my body." The next morning he was
wholly subdued. It had poured all night, and the contrast was
depressing. A six-footer from Albany was in the sleepy state. "If I
don't pull out soon," he said, "I shall be bedridden. I want to sleep
after breakfast, or bowling, or bath, or my ride or dinner, and really
long to go to bed by nine."

There has probably been more fine writing and florid rhetoric about
California than any other State in the Union.

The Hotel del Coronado is a mammoth hostelry, yet homelike in every
part, built in a rectangle with inner court, adorned with trees,
flowers, vines, and a fountain encircled by callas; color, pure white,
roofs and chimneys red; prevailing woods, oak, ash, pine, and redwood.

All around the inner court a series of suites of rooms, each with its
own bath and corner sitting-room--literally "a linkèd suiteness long
drawn out." It is one eighth of a mile from my bedroom to my seat in the
dining-room, so that lazy people are obliged to take daily
constitutionals whether they want to or not, sighing midway for trolley
accommodations. The dining-room may safely be called roomy, as it seats
a thousand guests, and your dearest friends could not be recognized at
the extreme end. Yet there is no dreary stretch or caravansary effect,
and to-day every seat is filled, and a dozen tourists waiting at the
door.

Every recreation of city or country is found in this little world:
thirty billiard-tables, pool, bowling, tennis, polo, bathing (where
bucking barrel-horses and toboggan slides, fat men who produce tidal
waves, and tiny boys who do the heroic as sliders and divers, make fun
for the spectators), hunting, fishing, yachting, rowing, riding to
hounds, rabbit hunts, pigeon shoot, shooting-galleries, driving,
coaching, cards, theatre, ballroom, lectures, minstrels, exhibitions of
the Mammoth and Minute from Yosemite with the stereopticon, to Pacific
sea-mosses, the ostrich farm, the museum or maze for a morning hour,
dressing or undressing for evening display, watching the collection of
human beings who throng everywhere with a critical or humorous eye,
finding as much variety as on Broadway or Tremont Street;
dancing-classes for children; a chaperon and a master of ceremonies for
grown folks; a walk or drive twelve miles long on a smooth beach at low
tide, not forgetting the "dark room" for kodak and camera f--amateurs.

You see many athletic, fine-looking men, who ride daringly and ride to
kill. Once a week the centre of the office is filled with game:
rabbits, quail, snipe, ducks, etc., everything here--but an undertaker.
And old Ocean eternally booming (the only permanent boom I know of in
Southern California).

And that is what you see and hear at the Hotel del Coronado. The summer
climate is better than the winter--never too warm for comfort, the
mercury never moving for weeks. I expected constant sunshine, a
succession of June's fairest days, which would have been monotonous, to
say nothing of the effect upon crops and orchards. The rainy season is
necessary and a blessing to the land-owners, hard as it is for "lungers"
and the nervous invalids who only feel well on fine days and complain
unreasonably.

Ten inches is the average needed just here. Rain is rainy and wet
weather is wet, but the ground dries as soon as the pelting shower is
over. I do not find the raw, searching dampness of our Eastern seashore
resorts. Here we are said to have "dry fogs" and an ideal marine
atmosphere, but it was too cold for comfort during the March rains for
those not in robust health.

As I sit in the upper gallery and watch the throng issuing from the
dining-room, I make a nice and unerring social distinction between the
Toothpick Brigade who leave the table with the final mouthful
semi-masticated, and those who have an air of finished contentment.

The orchestra is unusually good, giving choice selections admirably
executed. I have not decided whether music at meals is a blessing or
otherwise. If sad, it seems a mockery; if gay, an interruption. For one
extremely sensitive to time and tune it is difficult to eat to slow
measures. And when the steak is tough and a galop is going on above, it
is hard to keep up.

Among the many fleeting impressions of faces and friends here, one or
two stand out clearly and indelibly--stars of the first magnitude in the
nebulæ--as dear Grandma Wade from Chicago, the most attractive old lady
I ever met: eighty-three years old, with a firm step, rotund figure, and
sweet, unruffled face, crowned with the softest snow-white curls, on
which rests an artistic cap trimmed with ribbons of blue or delicate
heliotrope, and small artificial flowers to match. I have known several
interesting octogenarians, but never one that surpassed her in
loveliness, wit, and positive jollity. Her spontaneous fun is better
than the labored efforts of many a famous humorist.

She still has her ardent admirers among men as well as women, and now
and then receives an earnest proposal from some lonely old fellow.

The last of these aged lovers, when refused and relegated to the
position of a brother, urged her to reconsider this important matter,
making it a subject of prayer. But she quietly said, "I'm not going to
bother the Lord with questions I can answer myself." When choked by a
bread-crumb at table, she said to the frightened waiter, as soon as she
had regained her breath, "Never mind, if that did go down the wrong way,
a great many good things have gone down the right way this winter."

She is invariably cheerful, and when parting with her son for the winter
she said, "Well, John, I want to know before I go just what you have
left me in your will!" which little joke changed a tear into a smile.

Even when ill she is still bright and hopeful, so that a friend
exclaimed, "Grandma, I do believe you would laugh if you were dying;"
and she replied, "Well, so many folks go to the Lord with a long face, I
guess He will be glad to see one come in smiling."

Oh, how repulsive the artificial bloom, the cosmetics and hair-dyes
which make old age a horror, compared with her natural beauty! God bless
and keep dear Grandma Wade!

Little "Ted" is another character and favorite, and his letter to his
nurse in New York gives a good idea of how the place affects a bright,
impressionable child.

     "My dear Julia: _It is a dummy near the hotel and it takes five
     days to come here and there is an island right beyond the boat
     house and they have a pigeon shoot every week. And there is six
     hundred people here Julia, one hundred and fifty came yesterday._

     "_There is a mountin across the river and a house very far away by
     itself, Julia. I play in the sand every day of my life, and I take
     swimming lessons and I have two oranges. California is the biggest
     world in the country and there is a tree very, very far away. Julia
     it is a puzzle walk near the hotel, Rose and me went all through it
     and Julia, we got our way out easy._"

He has it all. All the trees are cultivated here, so I looked round for
the one Ted spoke of, and find it lights up at night and revolves for
the aid of the mariners. I think that all Californians echo his
sentiment that "California is the biggest world in the country"; and
compared with the hard work of the New England farmers, what is the
cultivation of orchards but playing in the sand with golden oranges?
Some one says that Californians "irrigate, cultivate, and exaggerate."

Charles Nordhoff, the veteran journalist and author, lives within sight
of the hotel (which he pronounces the most perfect and charming hotel he
knows of in Europe or America), in a rambling bungalow consisting of
three small cottages moved from different points and made into one. He
believes in California for "health, pleasure, and residence." It is a
rare privilege to listen to his conversation, sitting by his open fire
or at his library table, or when he is entertaining friends at dinner.

So ends my sketch of Coronado. Coronado! What a perfect word! Musical,
euphonious, regal, "the crowned"! The name of the governor of New
Galicia, and captain-general of the Spanish army, sent forth in 1540 in
search of the seven cities of Cibola. General J. H. Simpson, U. S. A.,
has written a valuable monograph on "Coronado's March," which can be
found in the Smithsonian Report for 1869.

I intend to avoid statistics and history on the one side, and
extravagant eulogy on the other.

Now we will say good-by to our new friends, take one more look at Point
Loma, and cross the ferry to San Diego.




CHAPTER III.

SAN DIEGO.


     "The truly magnificent, and--with reason--famous port of San
     Diego."--_From the first letter of Father Junipero in Alto
     California._

Fifteen cents for motor, ferry, and car will take you to Hotel Florence,
on the heights overlooking the bay, where I advise you to stop. The
Horton House is on an open, sunny site, and is frequented by
"transients" and business men of moderate means. The Brewster is a
first-class hotel, with excellent table. The Florence is not a large
boarding-house or family hotel, but open for all. It has a friendly,
homelike atmosphere, without the exactions of an ultra-fashionable
resort. The maximum January temperature is seventy-four degrees, while
that of July is seventy-nine degrees, and invalid guests at this house
wear the same weight clothing in summer that they do in winter. The
rooms of this house are all sunny, and each has a charming ocean or
mountain view. It is easy to get there; hard to go away. Arriving from
Coronado Beach, I was reminded of the Frenchman who married a quiet
little home body after a desperate flirtation with a brilliant society
queen full of tyrannical whims and capricious demands. When this was
commented on as surprising, he explained that after playing with a
squirrel one likes to take a cat in his lap. Really, it is so restful
that the building suggests a big yellow tabby purring sleepily in the
sunshine. I sat on the veranda, or piazza, taking a sun-bath, in a happy
dream or doze, until the condition of nirvana was almost attained. What
day of the week was it? And the season? Who could tell? And who cares?
Certainly no one has the energy to decide it. Last year, going there to
spend one day, I remained for five weeks, hypnotized by my
environments--beguiled, deluded, unconscious of the flight of time,
serenely happy. Many come for a season, and wake up after five or six
years to find it is now their home. "There seems to exist in this
country a something which cheats the senses; whether it be in the air,
the sunshine, or in the ocean breeze, or in all three combined, I cannot
say. Certainly the climate is not the home-made common-sense article of
the anti-Rocky Mountain States; and unreality is thrown round life--all
walk and work in a dream."

At Coronado Beach one rushes out after breakfast for an all-day
excursion or morning tramp; here one sits and sits, always intending to
go somewhere or do something, until the pile of unanswered letters
accumulates and the projected trips weary one in a dim perspective. It
is all so beautiful, so new, so wonderful! San Diego is the Naples of
America, with the San Jacinto Mountains for a background and the blue
sunlit bay to gaze upon, and one of the finest harbors in the world. Yet
with all this, few have the energy even to go a-fishing.

Now, as a truthful "tourist," I must admit that in the winter there are
many days when the sun does not shine, and the rainy season is not
altogether cheerful for the invalid and the stranger. Sunshine, glorious
golden sunshine, is what we want all the time; but we do not get it. I
noticed that during the heavy rains the invalids retired to their rooms,
overcome by the chill and dampness, and some were seriously ill. But
then they would have been in their graves if they had remained in the
East. There are many charming people residing in San Diego, well, happy,
useful, who know they can never safely return to their old homes.

There has been such a rosy glamour thrown over southern California by
enthusiastic romancers that many are disappointed when they fail to find
an absolute Paradise.

Humboldt said of California: "The sky is constantly serene and of a deep
blue, and without a cloud; and should any clouds appear for a moment at
the setting of the sun, they display the most beautiful shades of
violet, purple, and green."[1]

[Footnote 1: Humboldt had never been in Alta California, and procured
this information in Mexico or Spain.]

Now, after reading that, a real rainy day, when the water leaks through
the roof and beats in at the doors, makes a depressed invalid feel like
a drenched fowl standing forlornly on one leg in the midst of a New
England storm. With snow-covered mountains on one side and the ocean
with its heavy fogs on the other, and the tedious rain pouring down with
gloomy persistence, and consumptives coughing violently, and physicians
hurrying in to attend to a sudden hemorrhage or heart-failure, the scene
is not wholly gay and inspiriting. But when the sun comes forth again
and the flowers (that look to me a little tired of blooming all the
time) brighten up with fresh washed faces, and all vegetation rejoices
and you can almost see things grow, and the waves dance and glitter, and
the mountains no longer look cold and threatening but seem like painted
scenery, _a la_ Bierstadt, hung up for our admiration, and the valleys
breathe the spicy fragrance of orange blossoms, we are once more happy,
and ready to rave a little ourselves over the much-talked-of "bay 'n'
climate." But there are dangers even on the sunniest day. I know a
young physician who came this year on a semi-professional tour, to try
the effects of inhalations on tuberculosis, and it was so delightfully
warm that he straightway took off his flannels, was careless about night
air, and was down with pneumonia.

The tourist or traveller who writes of San Diego usually knows nothing
of it but a week or two in winter or early spring.

Southern California has fifty-two weeks in the year, and for two thirds
of this time the weather is superb.

I can imagine even a mission Indian grunting and complaining if taken to
our part of the country in the midst of a week's storm. We flee from
deadly horrors of climate to be fastidiously critical. If, in midsummer,
sweltering sufferers in New York or Chicago could be transported to this
land they would not hurry away. The heat is rarely above eighty-five
degrees, and nearly always mitigated by a refreshing breeze from the
bay. I am assured that there have not been five nights in as many years
when one or more blankets have not been necessary for comfort. In summer
everything is serene. No rain, no thunder-storms, no hail, or
water-spouts. (The dust pest is never spoken of!) The picnic can be
arranged three weeks ahead without an anxious thought about the weather.
The summer sunsets are marvellously beautiful.

One must summer and winter here before he can judge fairly, and the
hyper-sensitive should tarry in New Mexico or in the desert until
spring. I believe that rheumatic or neuralgic invalids should avoid the
damp resorts to which they are constantly flocking only to be
dissatisfied. Every sort of climate can be found in the State, so that
no one has the right to grumble.

Do not take off flannels, although the perspiration does trickle down
the side of your face as you sit in the sun. A fur cape is always needed
to protect one shoulder from a chilling breeze while the other side is
toasted. It is not safe for new-comers to be out-of-doors after four or
five o'clock in the afternoon, nor must they ride in open cars except
in the middle of the day. These innocent diversions give the doctors
their support.

Bill Nye, with his usual good sense, refused to drive in a pouring rain
to view the scenery and orchards when visiting San Diego in March, and
says: "Orange orchards are rare and beautiful sights, but when I can sit
in this warm room, gathered about a big coal fire, and see miles of them
from the window, why should I put on my fur overcoat and a mackintosh in
order to freeze and cry out with assumed delight every half-mile while I
gradually get Pomona of the lungs?"

There are many places worth visiting if you can rouse yourselves for the
effort. Point Loma, twelve miles distant, gives a wonderful view, one of
the finest in the world. I warrant you will be so famished on arriving
that you will empty every lunch-basket before attending to the outlook.
National City, Sweet Water Dam, Tia Juana (Aunt Jane), La Jolla--you
will hear of all these. I have tried them and will report.

The Kimball brothers, Warren and Frank, who came from New Hampshire
twenty-five years ago and devoted their energies to planting orchards of
oranges, lemons, and olives, have made the desert bloom, and found the
business most profitable. You will like to watch the processes of
pickling olives and pressing out the clear amber oil, which is now used
by consumptives in preference to the cod-liver oil. Many are rubbed with
it daily for increasing flesh. It is delicious for the table, but the
profits are small, as cotton-seed oil is much cheaper. Lemons pay better
than oranges, Mr. Kimball tells me. Mrs. Flora Kimball has worked side
by side with her husband, who is an enthusiast for the rights of woman.
She is progressive, and ready to help in every good work, with great
executive ability and a hearty appreciation of any good quality in
others.

It does not pay to take the trip to Mexico if time is limited, there is
so little of Mexico in it. After leaving the train and getting into an
omnibus, the voluble darkey in charge soon shouts out, "We are now
crossing the line," but as no difference of scene is observed, it is not
deeply impressive. One young fellow got out and jumped back and forth
over the line, so that if asked on his return if he had been to Mexico
he could conscientiously answer, "Oh yes, many times." We were then
taken to the custom-house, where we mailed some hastily scribbled
letters for the sake of using a Mexican stamp,--some preferred it
stamped on a handkerchief. And near by is the curio store, where you
find the same things which are seen everywhere, and where you will
doubtless buy a lot of stuff and be sorry for it. But whatever other
folly you may be led into, let me implore you to wholly abstain from
that deadly concoction, the Mexican _tamale_. Ugh! I can taste mine now.

A _tamale_ is a curious and dubious combination of chicken hash, meal,
olives, red pepper, and I know not what, enclosed in a corn-husk,
steamed until furiously hot, and then offered for sale by Mexicans in
such a sweet, appealing way that few can resist the novelty. It has a
more uncertain pedigree than the sausage, and its effects are serious.

A friend of mine tasted a small portion of one late at night. It was
later before she could sleep, and then terrible nightmares intruded upon
her slumber. Next morning she looked so ill and enfeebled, so unlike her
rosy self, that we begged to know the cause. The tale was thrilling. She
thought a civil war had broken out and she could not telegraph to her
distant spouse. The agony was intense. She must go to him with her five
children, and at once. They climbed mountains, tumbled into cañons, were
arrested in their progress by cataracts and wild storms, and even the
hostile Indian appeared in full war-paint at a point above. This awoke
her, only to fall into another horrible situation. An old lover suddenly
returned, tried to approach her; she screamed, "I am now a married
woman!"--he lifted his revolver, and once again she returned to
consciousness and the _tamale_, and brandy, and Brown's Jamaica ginger.
If she had eaten half the _tamale_ the pistol would doubtless have
completed its deadly work. A kind old gentleman of our party bought a
dozen to treat us all. We were obliged to refuse, and it was amusing to
watch him in his endeavor to get rid of them. At last he made several
journeys to the car door, throwing out a few each trip in a solemn way.
He didn't want to hurt the feelings of the natives by casting them all
out at once.

Sweet Water Dam is a triumph of engineering, one of the largest dams in
the world, holding six million gallons of water, used for irrigating
ranches in Sweet Water Valley; and at La Jolla you will find pretty
shells and clamber down to the caves. There the stones are slippery, and
an absorbing flirtation should be resisted, as the tide often intrudes
most unexpectedly, and in dangerous haste. Besides the caves the
attractions are the fishing and the kelp beds. These kelp beds form a
submarine garden, and the water is so clear that one can see beautiful
plants, fish, etc., at forty or fifty feet below the sea surface--not
unlike the famous sea-gardens at Nassau in the Bahamas. There is a good
hotel, open the year round.

Lakeside is a quiet inland retreat twenty-two miles from San Diego,
where many go for a little excursion and change of air. The Lakeside
Hotel has seventy large rooms and complete appointments. The table is
supplied with plenty of milk and _real_ cream from their own cows,
vegetables and fruit from the neighboring ranches, game in its season,
shot on the lake near by, and, in the valleys, meats from homegrown
stock. The guests who are not too invalidish often go out for long
drives, never forgetting the lunch-baskets. One day we try the Alpine
stage. Winding across the mesa at the rear of the hotel, we have a
lovely view of the little lake half hidden in the trees, reflecting in
its quiet surface the mountains that rise up beyond it. Gradually
climbing upward, we come to a tract of land that is watered by the
Flume. To our surprise we learn that this is practically frostless, and
that since this has been discovered many young orchards of oranges and
lemons have been planted. The red mesa land on the side-hills will not
be touched by the frosts of a cold night when the valley at its foot
will have enough frost to kill all tender growth. This is a new
discovery, and has placed thousands of acres on the market as suitable
for the culture of citrus fruits. Do you notice how the appearance of
the landscape is changing? The nearer hills are much sharper and
steeper, and their sides are studded by great boulders. There are stone
walls, and here and there are great flocks of sheep. The horses stop of
their own accord at a lovely spot where they are used to getting a drink
of cool spring water. Did any ever taste quite so good as that drunk
from an old dipper after a long warm drive? The live-oaks and sycamores
look too inviting to be resisted, and we get out to explore while the
horses are resting. Underneath the evergreen shade we pick up some of
the large pointed acorns and carry them away as souvenirs. This would be
a delightful spot for a picnic, but we have many miles before us and
must go on. In a few more miles we reach a little town known as
"Alpine." In the distance looms the Viejas, and if any of the party wish
to travel over a grade, now is the opportunity. The top of the grade
brings us to a lovely view. Eastward is an unbroken chain of
mountain-peaks, from whose summits may be seen the broad Pacific on one
side and the Colorado Desert on the other.

One of the favorite drives is into the Monte. This is a large park or
tract of a thousand acres. On each side the hills rise, and in front El
Cajon shows new beauties with every step of the way. Great live-oaks
with enormous trunks, ancient sycamores, elders, and willows make in
some spots a dense shade. On the edge of the hillsides the Flume may be
seen, which furnishes many ranches as well as the city of San Diego with
the purest mountain water. Underneath the trees and up on the rocks the
lover of flowers and ferns will scramble. There are the dainty
forget-me-nots, tiny flowers of starry white, flowers of pale orange
with centres of deep maroon, the wild galliardia, and the wild peony
with its variegated leaves. Many other delicate blossoms which we cannot
stop to describe are there too. And the ferns! All kinds may be found
by the initiated, and many are close at hand. The fern lined with gold
or with silver, the running ferns, the ferns of lace-like fineness, the
ferns as soft as velvet, all growing in the greatest profusion. And each
day of the week a different drive and new delights.

There is the valley of El Cajon ("the box"), which should be visited in
grape-picking time. The great Boston ranch alone employs three hundred
and twenty-five pickers. Men, women, children, all busy, and the grapes
when just turned are sweet, spicy, and delicious, making the air
fragrant. This valley is dotted with handsome villas and prosperous
ranches. The range of mountains which looms up before us from the
veranda of the hotel is not yet dignified by a name, yet it is more
imposing than the White Mountains, and in the distance we see old
Cuyamaca, nearly seven thousand feet high. But we must take the next
train for San Diego, or this chapter will be a volume in itself. And I
have not even alluded to the "Great Back Country."

The founder of San Diego is still living, still hopeful, still young at
heart. "Father" Horton, the typical pioneer, deserves more honors than
he has yet received. Coming from Connecticut to California in 1851, he
soon made a small fortune in mining, buying and selling gold-dust, and
providing the diggers with ice and water for their work. He rode over
the country in those lawless times selling the precious dust disguised
as a poverty-stricken good-for-naught, with trusty revolver always in
his right hand on the pommel of the saddle--the handsome green saddle
covered with an old potato sack. In this way he evaded the very men who
had been on his track for weeks. Once he came near capture. He passed a
bad-looking lot of horsemen, one of whom had a deep red scar the whole
length of his cheek. He got by safely, but one, looking round,
exclaimed, "My God! That's Horton! I see the green saddle." And back
they dashed to kill him and gain his treasure, but he escaped into a
cañon, and they lost their one chance.

At another time he had $3500 in gold in his belt, and at a tavern of
poor repute he could hear through cracks in the floor of his bedroom the
gamblers below laughing about the old greenhorn above who had his supper
of mush and milk and had asked for a lock on his door.

Returning East _via_ Panama in 1856, he proved himself a hero and a
soldier during the terrible riot there. The natives, angry because they
had lost the money they used to make in transporting passengers,
attacked the foreigners, killing and plundering all who came in their
way, the police turning traitors and aiding them. The hotel was
attacked, and among all the passengers only three were armed. Mr. Horton
and these two young men stood at the top of the stairs and shot all who
tried to get nearer. When they fell back eight rioters were dead and
others wounded. Then Mr. Horton formed the two hundred passengers in
order and marched them off to a lighter, and put them aboard the
steamer. About half this number wanted to go on to San Francisco, but
had lost all their money and baggage. Mr. Ralston and Mr. Horton helped
many to pay their passage, but not one person was ever heard of again,
not one cent was returned, not even one word of gratitude or good
intentions.

Up to the period which is known as the boom of 1870-71, the history of
San Diego was so interwoven and closely connected with the life of Mr.
Horton that the story of one is inseparable from that of the other.

When Mr. Horton came from San Francisco to see the wonderful harbor
described by friends, there was nothing there but two old buildings, the
barren hillsides, and the sheep pastures.

His gifts to the city and to individuals amount to a present valuation
of over a million of dollars. Of the nine hundred acres of land which he
originally bought (a part of the Mexican grant) at twenty-seven cents an
acre, he owns but little.

But it is to his common sense, foresight, and business ability that the
present city owes much of its success; and it is interesting to hear him
tell of exciting adventures in "Poker Flat," and other places which Bret
Harte has worked up so successfully.

Lieut. George H. Derby is amusingly associated with "Old Town," the
former San Diego, three miles from the present city. He had offended
Jefferson Davis, then Secretary of War, by his irreverent wit, and was
punished by exile to this then almost unknown region, which he called
"Sandy Ague," chiefly inhabited by the flea, the horned toad, and the
rattlesnake. Mr. Ames, of the _Herald_, a democratic paper, asked Derby,
a stanch whig, to occupy the editorial chair during a brief absence. He
did so, changing its politics at once, and furnishing funny articles
which later appeared as "Phoenixiana," and ranked him with Artemus Ward
as a genuine American humorist. Here is his closing paragraph after
those preposterous somersaults and daring pranks as editor _pro tem_:

"Very little news will be found in the _Herald_ this week; the fact is,
there never is much news in it, and it is very well that it is so; the
climate here is so delightful that residents in the enjoyment of their
_dolce far niente_ care very little about what is going on elsewhere,
and residents of other places care very little about what is going on
in San Diego, so all parties are likely to be gratified with the little
paper, 'and long may it wave.'"

The present city has eighteen thousand inhabitants, twenty-three church
organizations, remarkably fine schools, a handsome opera-house, broad
asphalt pavements, electric lights, electric and cable cars,--a compact,
well-built city, from the fine homes on the Heights to the business
portion near the water.

In regard to society, I find that the "best society" is much the same
all over the civilized world. Accomplished, cultured, well-bred men and
women are found in every town and city in California. And distance from
metropolitan privileges makes people more independent, better able to
entertain themselves and their guests, more eagerly appreciative of the
best in every direction.

    "O city reflecting thy might from the sea,
     There is grandeur and power in the future for thee,
     Whose flower-broidered garments the soft billows lave,
     Thy brow on the hillside, thy feet in the wave."

Many of San Diego's guests have no idea of her at her best. The majority
of winter tourists leave California just as Mother Nature braces up to
do her best with wild-flowers, blossoming orchards, and waving
grain-fields. The summers are really more enjoyable than the winters.
When the Nicaragua Canal is completed it will be a pleasant trip to San
Diego from any Atlantic seaport. A railroad to Phoenix, Arizona, _via_
Yuma, will allow the melting, panting, gasping inhabitants of New Mexico
and Arizona an opportunity to get into a delightfully cool climate.


THE INDIANS AND THE MISSION FATHERS.

As for Indians, I have never seen such Indians as Helen Hunt Jackson
depicts so lovingly. I have never seen any one who has seen one. They
existed in her imagination only, as did Fenimore Cooper's noble redmen
of the forest solely in his fancy. Both have given us delightful novels,
and we are grateful.

The repulsive stolid creatures I have seen at stations, with sullen
stare, long be-vermined locks, and filthy blankets full of fleas, are
possibly not a fair representation of the remnants of the race. They
have been unfairly dealt with. I am glad they can be educated and
improved. They seem to need it. After reading "Ramona" and Mrs.
Jackson's touching article on the "Mission Indians in California," and
then looking over the opinions of honest writers of a previous
generation regarding the Indians, it is more puzzling than ever. The
following criticisms apply exclusively to the Southern Californian
tribes.

Mr. Robinson, after a twenty years' residence among them, said: "The
Indian of California is a species of monkey; he imitates and copies
white men, but selects vice in preference to virtue. He is hypocritical
and treacherous, never looks at any one in conversation, but has a
wandering, malicious gaze. Truth is not in him."

And the next testimony is from an Indian curate: "The Indians lead a
life of indolence rather than devote themselves to the enlightening of
their souls with ideas of civilization and cultivation; it is repugnant
to their feelings, which have become vitiated by the unrestricted
customs among them. Their inclination to possess themselves of the
property of others is unbounded. Their hypocrisy when they pray is as
much to be feared as their insolence when in tumultuous disorder. They
are never grateful for any benefit, nor do they pardon an injury, and
they never proffer civilities, unless to accomplish some interested
motive. They are ready to expose themselves to the greatest danger to
satisfy their predominant passions. The future from them is ever veiled
by the present. Their inconstancy and want of confidence deprives them
of friends, and he who by deception holds them in subjection may reduce
them to almost abject slavery."

Dana, speaking of the language of the Californian Indians, described it
as "brutish" and "a complete slabber."

The missionary Fathers did their best to teach and convert them, and the
missions must be spoken of. So we will go back a little.

No one knows how California was so named. St. Diego was the patron saint
of Spain. St. Francis, who founded the Franciscan order, was a gay young
Italian, who after conversion led a life of mortification and extreme
self-denial, tramped about like a beggar, scourged himself, slept on
ground, rolled in snow to subdue the flesh, fasted, wept until he was
almost blind, saw visions, like all other great religious leaders,
received messages directly from Christ, and was at last rewarded with
the stigmata (the marks of the crucifix on his body), and commemoration
after death.

Father Junipero, of this order, was appointed presiding missionary of
California, and arrived July, 1769, erected a great cross on the coast,
celebrated mass, and commenced his work. Like St. Francis, he was
earnest, devout, pure, and self-sacrificing, blessed with wonderful
magnetism. Once, while exhorting his hearers to repent, he scourged his
own shoulders so unmercifully with a chain that his audience shuddered
and wept; and one man, overcome by emotion, rushed to the pulpit,
secured the chain, and, disrobing, flogged himself to death. This holy
Father believed that he was especially protected by Heaven, and that
once, when journeying on a desolate road, he was hospitably entertained
by the Holy Family.

He said, "I have placed my faith in God, and trust in His goodness to
plant the standard of the holy cross not only at San Diego, but even as
far as Monterey."

And this was done in less than ten years, but with many discouragements.

The first Indian who was induced to bring his baby for baptism got
frightened, and dashed away, taking, however, the handsome piece of
cloth which had been wrapped around the child for the ceremony.

Next there was an attack with arrows; in less than a month serious
fighting followed; and later more than one thousand Indians joined in
the attack. One priest was killed and all inhabitants of the mission
more or less wounded, and the mission itself was burned. The present
ruins are the "new" buildings on the site of the old, completed in 1784,
the walls of adobe four feet thick, the doorways and windows of burnt
tiles. These half-cylindrical plates of hard-burnt clay were used to
protect the inmates from the sun and the burning arrows of the Indians,
and are now greatly valued as relics.

In front is the orchard of three hundred olive trees, more than a
century old, still bearing a full crop, and likely to do so for
centuries to come. As the Indians disliked work much, and church
services more, they were encouraged in both matters by rather forcible
means, as the Irishman "enticed" the pig into his pen with a pitchfork.
We "tourists" who, dismounting from our carriages, view with sentimental
reverence the picturesque ruins, the crumbling arches, the heavy bells
now silent but mutely telling a wondrous story of the past, and tiptoe
quietly through the damp interiors, gazing at pictures of saints and of
hell and paradise, dropping our coins into the box at the door, and
going out duly impressed to admire the architecture or the carving, or
the general fine effect against the sky of fleckless blue--we picture
these sable neophytes coming gladly, bowing in devout homage, delighted
to learn of God and Duty, and cheerfully coöperating with the good
priests who had come so far to teach them. In 1827 the San Diego mission
had within its boundaries an Indian population of 1500, 10,000 head of
cattle, 17,000 sheep, and more than 1000 horses. But Mr. Robinson tells
us that the Indians were dragged to service, were punished and chained
if they tried to escape, and that it was not unusual to see numbers of
them driven along by a leader and forced with a whip-lash into the doors
of the sanctuary.

It is said that they were literally enslaved and scared into submission
by dreadful pictures of hell and fear of everlasting torment. After
church they would gamble, and they often lost everything, even wives and
children. They were low, brutal, unintelligent, with an exceedingly
limited vocabulary and an unbounded appetite. A man is as he eats, and,
as some one says, "If a man eats peanuts he will think peanuts."

"There was nothing that could be swallowed and digested which the San
Diego Indian would not eat. Snakes, half roasted and even raw, were
toothsome dainties. The horned toad and the lizard had favorite places
at each repast. Human parasites were not refused, and mice, gophers,
bats, caterpillars, worms, entrails, and even carrion, were consumed
with a greed that did not stop at pounds. Hittel says that twenty-four
pounds of meat in a day was not too much for a Californian Indian, and
Baegart mentions the case of one native who ate seventeen watermelons at
a sitting. The smoking of wild tobacco was carried on to equal excess."

The saintly Fathers deserve unlimited praise for making them accomplish
so much and behave as well as they did. Those New Englanders who
criticise them as severe in discipline must remember that at the same
period our ancestors were persecuting Quakers and burning witches. The
beautiful hospitality of these early priests should also be mentioned.

Alfred Robinson described a miracle play which he saw performed at San
Diego at Christmas, in 1830, as akin to the miracle plays of mediæval
Europe. The actors took the part of Gabriel, Lucifer, shepherds, a
hermit, and Bartolo, a lazy vagabond who was the clown and furnished the
element of comedy: the whole interspersed with songs and incidents
better adapted to the stage than to the church.




CHAPTER IV.

EN ROUTE TO LOS ANGELES.


    "Bless me, this is pleasant,
     Riding on the rail!"

On the Surf Line from San Diego to Los Angeles, a seventy-mile run along
the coast, there is so much to see, admire, and think about, that the
time passes rapidly without napping or nodding. Take a chair seat on the
left of car--the ocean side--and enjoy the panoramic view from the
window: the broad expanse of the Pacific, its long curling breakers, the
seals and porpoises tumbling about in clumsy frolics, the graceful gulls
circling above them, the picturesque cañons, and the flocks of birds
starting from the ground, frightened by our approach. This we watch for
more than an hour; then the scene changes, and, leaving the water, we
have glimpses of wondrous carpets of wild-flowers, the golden poppy
predominant, miles of brilliant green on either hand, peeps at the three
missions, the groves at Orange, the town of Santa Ana, and Anaheim, the
parent colony, the first of all the irrigated settlements of Southern
California, now a wealthy city.

The missions are always interesting. San Juan Capistrano was seriously
injured by an earthquake in 1812; the tower was shaken so severely that
it toppled over during morning mass, killing thirty of the worshippers,
the priests escaping through the sacristy. It was the latest and
costliest of the missions. "Its broken olive mill and crumbling
dove-cote, and the spacious weed-grown courts and corridors, are
pathetic witnesses to the grandeur of the plans and purposes of the
founders, and also of the rapidity with which nature effaces the noblest
works of human hands."

But San Luis Rey is in good condition, having been restored to something
of its original beauty, and recently re-dedicated. The walled
enclosures once contained fifty-six acres, six being covered by the
sacred edifice, its arched colonnades, and the cloisters, in which the
Fathers lived, surrounded by three thousand baptized savages. Mrs.
Jeanne C. Carr quotes a stage-driver with whom she talked on the box as
saying: "Ye see, ma'am, what them old padders didn't know 'bout findin'
work for their subjicks and pervidin' for the saints 'n' angels, not to
say therselves, wa'n't wuth knowin'. They carried on all kinds o'
bizness. Meat was plenty, keepin' an' vittles was to be had at all the
missions an' ranches too, jes' by settin' round. The pastures and hills
was alive with horses and cattle, an' hides an' taller was their coin.
They cured and stacked the hides, dug holes in stiff ground, an' run the
taller into 'em; it kep' sweet until a ship laid up to Capistrano, _then
that taller turned into gold_. They could load up a big ship in a single
day, they had so many Indians to help." And he proceeded to tell of his
own lucky find: "A lot of that holy taller was lost 'n' fergot, nobuddy
knows how many years. One night I went up into the grass beyant the
mission to stake out my hosses; an' when I druv the fust stake it went
way deawn, like 'twas in soft mud. I jes' yanked it up: half on 't was
kivered with grease. The evening was cool, but the day had been brilin',
an' now mebbe ye kin guess how I found my taller mine. 'Twas a leetle
mouldy on top, but the heft on 't was hard,--a reg'lar bonanzy fer a
stage-driver."

It may seem irreverent to introduce this droll fellow in sharp contrast
with the beautiful ruin, full of the most cherished memories of old
Spain, but reality often gives romance a hard jar. It is pleasant to
know that the expelled Franciscan order has just returned to California,
and that San Luis Rey is now occupied. It is worth making the trip to
San Juan to see the old bells struck, as in former times, by a rope
attached to the clapper. They have different tones, and how eloquently
they speak to us. These missions along the coast and a line farther
inland are the only real ruins that we have in America, and must be
preserved, whether as a matter of sentiment or money, and in some way
protected from the vandals who think it jolly fun to lug off the old red
tiles, or even the stone bowl for holy water--anything they can steal.
At San Juan the plaster statues have been disgracefully mutilated by
relic-hunters and thoughtless visitors. Eyes have been picked out, noses
cut off, fingers carried away, and the altar-cloths everywhere have been
slashed at the corners.

A society has been formed to try to save them, and one learned and
enthusiastic mission lover proposes to revive the old Camino del Rey, or
King's Highway. "What could not the drive from San Diego to Sonoma be
made if the State once roused herself to make it? Planted and watered
and owned as an illustration of forestry, why should it not also as a
route of pilgrimage rank with that to Canterbury or Cologne on the
Rhine? The Franciscans have given to California a nomenclature which
connects them and us permanently with what was great in their
contemporary history, while we preserve daily upon our lips the names of
the great chiefs of their own order."

But where am I? Those mouldering walls led me into a reverie. Speaking
of "ruins" reminds me of a Frenchman who called on the poet Longfellow
in his old age and explained his visit in this way: "Sare, you 'ave no
ruins in dis country, so I 'ave come to see you."

The cactus hedge around each mission to keep the cattle in, and possibly
the hostile Indians out, must have been effective. We see now and then a
little that has survived. This makes me think of a curious bird I
noticed in my drives at San Diego, the roadrunner, classed with the
cuckoo. It has various names, the chaparral-cock, the ground-cuckoo, the
prairie-cock, paisano, and worst of all, in classic nomenclature, the
_Geococcyx californianus_.

It keeps on the ground most of the time, and can run with such swiftness
that it cannot be easily overtaken by horse and hounds. It has a tail
longer than its body, which it bears erect. It kills beetles, toads,
birds, and mice, but has a special dislike for the rattlesnake, and
often meets him and beats him in fair combat. When it finds one sleeping
or torpid it makes a circle of cactus thorns around him so he cannot
escape--for "future reference," as my driver said.

This thorny circle is akin to the lariat made of horsehair, the ends
sticking out roughly all around, with which the Indian used to encircle
himself before going to sleep, as a protection from the rattlesnake, who
could not cross it. But here we are at Los Angeles. Hear the bawling
cabbies: "This way for The Westminster!" "Hollenbeck Hotel!"




CHAPTER V.

LOS ANGELES AND ROUND ABOUT.


    "O southland! O dreamland! with cycles of green;
      O moonlight enchanted by mocking-bird's song;
    Cool sea winds, fair mountains, the fruit-lands between,
      The pepper tree's shade, and the sunny days long."

Los Angeles is the chief city of Southern California, and truly
venerable in comparison with most places in the State--founded in 1781,
now one hundred and twelve years old. Its full name, "Nuestra Senora la
Reina de los Angeles," "musical as a chime of bells," would hardly do in
these days, and "The City of the Angels," as it is sometimes called,
scarcely suits the present big business-y place, which was started by
those shrewd old padres when everything west of the Alleghanies was an
almost unknown region, and Chicago and St. Louis were not thought of.
These Fathers were far-sighted fellows, with a keen eye for the
beautiful, sure to secure good soil, plenty of water, and fine scenery
for a settlement. Next came the Hispano-American era of adobe,
stage-coaches, and mule teams, now replaced by the purely American
possessions, with brick, stone, vestibule trains, and all the wonders of
electricity. It is now a commercial centre, a railroad terminal, with
one hundred miles of street-car track within the city limits, carrying
twelve million passengers yearly. It has outgrown the original grant of
six miles square, and has a city limit, and the first street traversed
this square diagonally. It lies on the west bank of the Los Angeles
River, one of those peculiar streams which hides itself half the year
only to burst forth in the spring in a most assertive manner. There are
fine public buildings, fifty-seven churches, to suit all shades of
religious belief, two handsome theatres, several parks, and long streets
showing homes and grounds comparing favorably with the best environs of
Eastern cities. It is well to drive through Adams and Figueroa streets
before you leave. There are no attractive hotels at present; but one is
so greatly needed and desired that it will soon be designed and
realized.

Madame de Staël was right when she said she greatly preferred meeting
interesting men and women to admiring places or scenery. Among my
pleasantest memories of Los Angeles are my visits to Madame Fremont in
her pretty red cottage, presented by loving friends. It is a privilege
to meet such a clever, versatile woman. Her conversation flashes with
epigrams and pithy sayings, and her heart is almost as young as when it
was captured by the dashing "Pathfinder."

I believe there are men still existing who keep up the old absurd
fallacy that women are deficient in wit and humor! She would easily
convert all such.

The Coronels, to whom Mrs. Jackson was so indebted and of whom she wrote
so appreciatively, are still in the same home, cherishing her memory
most fondly, her photograph being placed in a shrine where the
sweet-faced madame kneels daily, and her books and knick-knacks are
preserved as precious souvenirs.

Don Antonio Coronel is truly a most interesting personage, the last
specimen of the grand old Spanish régime. His father was the first
schoolmaster in California, and the son has in his possession the first
schoolbook printed on this coast, at Monterey in 1835, a small
catechism; also the first book printed in California, a tiny volume
dated 1833, the father having brought the type from Spain.

I was taken to the basement to see a rare collection of antiquities. In
one corner is a cannon made in 1710, and brought by Junipero Serra.
Ranged on shelves is a collection such as can be found nowhere else, of
great value: strange stone idols, a few specimens of the famous
iridescent pottery, queer ornaments, toys, and relics. In another corner
see the firearms and weapons of long ago: old flintlocks, muskets,
Spanish bayonets, crossbows, and spears. There are coins, laces,
baskets, toys, skulls, scalps, and a sombrero with two long red
pennons, on which each feather represents a human scalp. Upstairs there
are early specimens of Mexican art; one of the oldest pictures of
Junipero Serra; groups in clay modelled by the Dona Mariana of Mexican
scenes; feather pictures made from the plumage of gorgeous birds--too
much to remember or describe here. But I do believe that if asked to say
what they valued most, they would point to the little wooden table where
their dear friend sat when she wrote the first pages of "Ramona."

For the stranger Los Angeles is the place to go to to see a new play, or
marvel at the display of fruits seen at a citrus fair--forts made of
thousands of oranges, and railroad stations and crowns of lemons,
etc.--and admire a carnival of flowers, or for a day's shopping; but
there are better spots in which to remain. I found the night air
extremely unpleasant last winter, and after hearing from a veracious
druggist, to whom I applied for a gargle, that there was an epidemic of
grip in the city, and that many died of pneumonia and that a small
majority of the invalids got well, I packed my trunk hastily and started
for Pasadena.

Those who live in the city and those who do not dislike raw, bracing
winds from the ocean pronounce Los Angeles to be the _only_ place worth
living in in all Southern California. Each place has its supporters
ignoring all other attractions, and absolutely opposite accounts of the
weather have been seriously given me by visitors to each. For those who
must be "high and dry" to improve, the rainy season is certainly unsafe.

Los Angeles is also a place to go from to the beach at Santa Monica, and
Redondo, or that wondrous island, "Santa Catalina," which has been
described by Mr. C. F. Holder in the _Californian_ so enthusiastically
that I should think the "Isle of Summer" could not receive all who would
unite to share his raptures--with a climate nearer to absolute
perfection than any land, so near all the conveniences of civilization,
and everything else that can be desired. His first jew-fish or black
sea-bass weighed 342½ pounds, and a dozen other varieties are gamy and
plentiful; fine sport with the rifle in the upland region, wealth of
verdure along the trail; below, good hotel, beaches, bathing, evening
concerts--"the true land of sweet idleness, where one can drift around
with all nature to entertain." To be strictly truthful, I must add that
the hotel was built just over an old Indian burying-ground, therefore
cases of typhoid fever are not unknown.




CHAPTER VI.

PASADENA.


    "If there be an Elysium upon earth,
        It is this, it is this."

For my own taste, I prefer Pasadena, the "Crown of the Valley"--nine
miles from Los Angeles, but eight hundred feet higher and with much
drier air, at the foot of the Sierra Madre range, in the beauteous San
Gabriel Valley. Yes, Pasadena seems to me as near Eden as can be found
by mortal man.

Columbus in a letter to Ferdinand and Isabella said, "I believe that if
I should pass under the equator in arriving at this higher region of
which I speak, I should find there a milder temperature and a diversity
in the stars and in the waters.... I am convinced that there is the
Terrestrial Paradise."

Poor persecuted Columbus! I wish he could have once seen Pasadena, the
very spot he dreamed of. Can I now write calmly, critically, judicially
of what I see, enjoy, admire and wonder over? If I succeed it will be
what no one else has done. I was here last year and gave my impressions
then, which are only strengthened by a second visit, so that I will
quote my own words, which read like the veriest gush, but are absolutely
true, came straight from my heart, and, after all, didn't half tell the
story.

I am fascinated and enthralled by your sun-kissed, rose-embowered,
semi-tropical summer-land of Hellenic sky and hills of Hymettus, with
its paradoxical antitheses: of flowers and flannels; strawberries and
sealskin sacks; open fires with open windows; snow-capped mountains and
orange blossoms; winter looking down upon summer--a topsy-turvy land,
where you dig for your wood and climb for your coal; where water-pipes
are laid above ground, with no fear of Jack Frost, and your principal
rivers flow bottom side up and invisible most of the time; where the
boys climb up hill on burros and slide down hills on wheels; where the
trees are green all the year, and you go outdoors in December to get
warm; where squirrels live in the ground with owls for chums, while rats
build in the trees, and where water runs up hill; where anything
unpleasant, from a seismic disturbance to mosquitoes in March, is
"exceptional" and surprising. A land where there are no seasons, but
where sunshine and shade are so distinctly marked that one can be easily
half baked on one side and dangerously chilled on the other.

Then the Climate--spell it with a capital, and then try to think of an
adjective worthy to precede it. Glorious! Delicious! Incomparable!
Paradisaical!!! To a tenderfoot straight from New Hampshire, where we
have nine months of winter and three of pretty cold weather, where we
have absolutely but three months that are free from frost, this seems
like enchanted ground.

A climate warm, with a constant refreshing coolness in its heart; cool,
with a latent vivifying warmth forever peeping out of its coat-tail
pocket.

June does not define it, nor September. It has no synonym, for there is
nothing like it. I am glad that I have lived to see hedges of
heliotrope, of geraniums and calla-lilies. I remember, in contrast,
solitary calla plants that I have nursed with care all winter in hopes
of one blossom for Easter. And I do not feel sure that I can ever tear
myself away. I am reminded of good old Dr. Watts, who was invited by
Lady Abney to pass a fortnight at her home, and remained for forty
years.

Here we all unconsciously eat the lotus in some occult fashion, are
straightway bewitched and held willing captives. I have looked up the
lotus, about which so much is said or sung and so little definitely
known, and find it is a prickly shrub of Africa, bearing a fruit of a
sweet taste, and the early Greeks knew all about its power. Homer in the
Odyssey says that whoever ate of the fruit wished never to depart nor
again to see his native land. Many of Ulysses' sailors ate this fruit,
and lost all desire for home.

The last letter received by me from New Hampshire, April 3d, begins in
this way: "It is like the middle of winter here, good sleighing and
still very cold." And then comes a sad series of announcements of
sickness and deaths caused by the protracted rigors of the season. And
here, at the same date, all the glories of the spring, which far exceeds
our summer--Spanish breezes, Italian sky and sunsets, Alpine mountains,
tropical luxuriance of vegetation, a nearly uniform climate, a big
outdoor conservatory. There is no other place on earth that combines so
much in the same limits. You can snowball your companions on Christmas
morning on the mountain-top, pelt your lady friends with rose leaves in
the foot-hills three hours later, and in another sixty minutes dip in
the surf no cooler than Newport in July; and the theatre in the evening.
As a bright workman said, you can freeze through and thaw out in one
day.

An electric railroad will soon connect Los Angeles with Pasadena and
Mount Wilson, and a fine hotel is to be placed on the top of Echo
Mountain, 3500 feet high, and this will then certainly be the ideal
health and pleasure resort of the world.

Pasadena's homes, protected on three sides by mountain ranges, are
surrounded by groves and gardens, trees and hedges from every clime.
Everything will grow and flourish here. Capitalists from the East seem
engaged in a generous rivalry to create the ideal paradise. Passion
vines completely cover the arbors, roses clamber to the tops of houses
and blossom by tens of thousands. I notice displays fit for a floral
show in the windows of butcher shops and shoe stores. The churches are
adorned with a mantle of vines and flowers.

Are there no "outs," no defects in this Pasadena? One must not forget
the rainy days, the occasional "hot spells" of August and September, a
wind now and then that blows off steeples and tears down fragile
structures, bringing along a good deal more sand than is wanted. And
every year an earthquake may be expected. I have experienced two, and
they are not agreeable.

Aside from these drawbacks and dust in summer, all else is perfection,
except that the weather is so uniformly glorious that there is seldom a
day when one is willing to stay at home. I feel just now like a
"deestrick" schoolboy who has been "kept in" on a summer afternoon.

The wild-flowers are more fascinating to me than all those so profusely
cultivated. I weary of five thousand calla-lilies in one church at
Easter, and lose a little interest in roses when they bloom perennially
and in such profusion that I have had enough given me in one morning to
fill a wash-tub or clothes-basket!

The wealth of color on the hills and mesas in springtime can never be
described or painted. The State flower, the yellow poppy with the name
that would floor any spelling-match hero--the eschscholtzia--is most
conspicuous, and can be seen far away at sea; but there are dozens of
others, that it is better to admire and leave unplucked, as they wilt so
soon. "The ground is literally dolly-vardened with buttercups, violets,
dodecatheons, gilias, nemophilas, and the like. And yet these are the
mere skirmish line of the mighty invading hosts, whose uniforms surpass
the kingly robes of Solomon, and whose banners of crimson and yellow and
purple will soon wave on every hilltop and in every valley.

"In April and May the lover of nature may pass into the seventh heaven
of botanical delight. Then in favored sections the display reaches a
gorgeousness and a profusion that surpass both description and
imagination."

No one can paint the grain fields as they look when the sun puts into
every blade a tiny golden ray and it is no longer every-day common
grain, but an enchanted carpet of living, radiant, golden green. We
tourists call it grass, but there is no grass to be proud of in
California.

No one can paint the sky; no one would accept it as true to nature if
once caught on the canvas.

I will not attempt to describe the mountains with their many charms. I
listened to a lecture lately where a man was struggling to do this, and
it was positively painful. The flowery verbiage, the accumulated
adjectives, the poetical quotations were overpowering. I seemed actually
sinking into luscious mellifluousness. I shook it off my fingers, as if
it were maple syrup. Then, as he climbed higher and higher, on and up,
never getting away from the richest verdure and the sweetest flowers,
scenes for an artist to paint with rapture, and a poet to sing in
ecstasy, I found myself pushing up my forehead to improvise a mansard
roof for my brain to swell in sympathy. And when he reached the summit
and the panorama burst upon his enraptured vision, it was too much for
my strained emotions, and I quietly slipped out.

And the strangest part is that every word is true, and, say what one
will, one never gets near the reality. In this respect, you see, it
differs from a floral catalogue sent out in early spring, or a hotel
pamphlet with illustrations.

The cable road is 3000 feet long, with a direct ascent of 1400 feet, and
the Echo Mountain House will be 1500 feet higher than the Catskill
hotels overlooking the Hudson, and it is estimated that not less than
60,000 fares will be collected upon this mountain railroad the first
year.

All this was designed and executed by Professor Lowe, of aeronaut fame,
a scientist and banker, the inventor of water-gas and artificial ice,
and a man of great business ability.

One of the best proofs of the health-giving power of this air is the
fact that the physicians practising here, with one exception, came
seriously ill and have not only recovered, but are strong enough to keep
very busy helping others.

Pasadena has no ragged shabby outskirts; the poorer classes seem to be
able to own or rent pretty little homes, some like large birdcages, all
well kept and attractive. Some gentlemen from Indianapolis came here in
1873 and started the town, planting their orange orchards under the
shadows of the mountains.

Each portion has its own attractions. Orange Grove Avenue, a street over
a mile long, is described by its name. Great trees stand in the centre
of the street, a fine road on either side, and the homes are embowered
in flowers and palms, while hedges are made of the pomegranate, the
honeysuckle, and even the heliotrope. Marengo Avenue is lined on either
side by splendid specimens of the pepper, the prettiest and most
graceful of all trees here. Colorado Street, with its homes and shops
and churches, leads out to the foot-hills and "Altadena," which is often
spoken of as recalling the handsome residences along the Riviera.

The street cars which go from the station toward the mountains bear on
each the words, "This Car for the Poppy Fields," and they are a sight
worth seeing. Mrs. Kellog describes this flower more perfectly than any
artist could paint it: "Think of finest gold, of clearest lemon, of
deepest orange on silkiest texture, just bedewed with a frost-like
sheen, a silvery film, and you have a faint impression of what an
eschscholtzia is. Multiply this impression by acres of waving color."
And in February this may sometimes be seen. It has been well chosen for
the State flower.

If consumptives must go away from the comforts of home, this is a haven
of rest for them. In a late _Medical Record_ I see that a physician
deprecates the custom of sending hopeless cases to the high altitudes of
Colorado, where the poor victim gasps out a few weeks or months of
existence. "If such cases as the above must be sent from home, as we
sometimes think here, to rid their home physicians of the annoyance of
their presence, they should be sent to Florida or Southern California,
where at least they may be chloroformed off into eternity by a soothing
climate, and not suffer an actual shortening of their days from a
climate acting on a radically different principle and entirely unsuited
to them."

This is a bit of the shady side after all the sunlight. It is a place
for the invalid to rejoice in, and those in robust health can find
enough to do to employ all their energies.

The "Tournament of Roses" last winter was a grand success, praised by
all. The "Pageant of Roses" was celebrated here lately, and I cannot
give you a better idea of it than by copying the synopsis.

Imagine the opera-house trimmed inside with wreaths and festoons and
bouquets of roses--a picture in itself; audience in full evening dress,
each lady carrying roses, each man with a rose for a boutonnière.

The dancing in costume was exquisitely graceful, and the evolutions and
figures admirably exact--no mistake, nothing amateurish about the whole
performance.

     PART FIRST.

     Los Flores, a garden in the Crown of the Valley. Goddess Flora and
     her pages asleep. Harlequin, the magic spirit, enters, produces by
     incantation the rain and summons the maiden Spring, who rouses the
     Goddess and her pages. The Goddess commands the Harlequin to usher
     in the Pageant of Roses. Enter the Red or Colonial Roses; march and
     form for the reception and dance of the Ladies of the Minuet.
     Retire. Harlequin, at the request of the Goddess, summons the Gold
     of Ophirs, bearing urn as offering to the Goddess, when is
     performed the dance of the Orient, including solo. Curtain falls on
     tableau.

     PART SECOND.

     Same garden. Goddess on her throne, surrounded by her pages. She
     summons the Harlequin, who in turn brings the Roses of Castile.
     They bring offering of flowers to the Goddess, and perform a dance.


     Goddess again summons Harlequin, who, by great effort, brings the
     Roses of the Snow, or the Little Girls from Boston, led by Frost
     Maiden. They perform a dance and retire. Both Harlequins enter,
     perform a dance, and command the blooming of the Pink Rose Buds.
     Pink Rose Buds enter without offering for the Goddess, and prevail
     upon the Harlequins to help them out of their difficulties. The
     Harlequins send Poppies for the great La France Rose Buds as an
     offering, and perform "The Transformation of the Rose." Rose Buds
     dance and are joined by the little Roses in the Snow. All dance and
     retire. Enter White Harlequin, who calls for the White Rose dance
     by the Greek maidens. They perform ceremonies and deck the altar of
     their Goddess, dance and retire. Curtain.

     PART THIRD.

     Grand march. Tableau, with falling Rose petals, in the magic cañon.

And not a word yet of The Raymond, that popular house set upon a hill
that commands a view hard to equal. The house is always filled to
overflowing, and this year General Wentworth tells me the business has
been better than ever. This famous resort is in East Pasadena, and has
its own station. It is always closed in April, just at the time when
there is the most to see and enjoy, and the flowers are left to bloom
unseen.

The other fine hotel here, named for its owner, Colonel Green of
"August Flower" fame, is on ground eight feet higher, although by the
conformation of the land it does not look so.

Many prefer to be in the town and nearer the mountains, and this house
proving insufficient for its patrons, an addition four times the size of
the present building is being added in semi-Moorish architecture, at a
cost of $300,000.

That item shows what an experienced man of business thinks about the
future of Pasadena.

The town is full of pleasant boarding-houses, as Mrs. Dexter's, Mrs.
Bangs's, and Mrs. Roberts's, and many enjoy having rooms at one house
and taking meals at another. You can spend as much or as little as you
choose. At Mrs. Snyder's I found simple but delicious old-fashioned
home-cooking at most reasonable rates.

And still more? Yes, the Public Library must be mentioned, the valuable
collections I was permitted to see, the old mission of San Gabriel
three miles away, and then I shall give the next chapter to my brother,
who spent a week on Mt. Wilson, and came down wonderfully benefited even
by that short stay. One invalid he met there had gained four pounds in
as many days. His ambition now is to open a law office up among the
clouds and transact business by telephone, saying the fact that his
clients could not see him would be no disadvantage.

While he is discoursing I will be studying the history of the Indian
baskets and report later.




CHAPTER VII.

CAMPING ON MOUNT WILSON.


    "On every height there lies repose."

At Pasadena the mountain wall which guards the California of the South
stands very near and looks down with pride upon the blooming garden
below. The mountains which belong especially to Pasadena are but three
miles away. Their average height exceeds slightly that of the Mt.
Washington range in New Hampshire. The Sierra Madre system, of which
they form a part, contains some peaks considerably higher.

Farther to the East, "Old Baldy"--Mt. San Antonio--raises its snowy
summit to a height just close enough to ten thousand feet to test the
veracity of its admirers. It is about ten miles from Pasadena by the
eyes, but would be twenty by the feet, if they could walk an air line.

To the south and east of "Old Baldy" is Mt. San Jacinto, 12,000 feet
above the Pacific, upon which it looks, in the far distance.

The majestic mountain wall, almost bending over the homes of Pasadena,
with their vines and fig trees, their roses and lilies, their orchards
of orange and lemon, and the distant snow-clad peaks glittering in the
gentle sunshine, combine to form a perfect picture. There are detailed
descriptions from the pens of those who feel an unctuous joy in painting
the lily, kalsomining the calla, and adding perfumes to the violet, the
rose, and the orange.

The "Pasadena Alps" are so smeared with oleaginous gush that I had
conceived against them a sort of antipathy, which was not diminished by
their barren, treeless appearance.

As Nature reasserted herself, this artificial nausea wore away. I took a
drive to Millard's Cañon, and was surprised at finding a charming wooded
road winding up through the cañon along a mountain stream. From the end
of the carriage-road we walked half a mile to a picturesque waterfall
having a sheer descent of perhaps forty feet.

This revelation inspired a drive to Eaton's Cañon, where I found similar
attractions, and which led me to the new Mt. Wilson trail, or "Toll
Road." I made inquiries, inspected the small but substantial mules which
do the pedestrian part of the trip, went up the trail a short distance,
and, after many assurances, arranged to make the ascent.

In fact, this trail is remarkably well built. It winds up the mountain
by a gradual and even ascent of nine miles, the grade nowhere exceeding
ten per cent. There are two camps near the summit, open all the year.
You may return the same day or stay for the remainder of your life.

Take little luggage, of course: a heavy overcoat or wrap, and a small
grip. In the winter the nights are cold, and clouds and rain are not
unlikely to present the compliments of the season.

The mountains of California are as topsy-turvy as its rivers. We used
to learn in our physical geographies that as the traveller ascends a
mountain the large trees continually give place to smaller--shrinking at
last to stunted shrubs, with a summit of barren rock.

As our mules plod up Mt. Wilson, the trail at first is sandy, and the
mountain's flanks a barren waste, with thin covering of cactus and
chaparral. Half a mile from the starting-point appear small bushes,
which grow larger as we move upward. The trail turns into a cañon, and
becomes a hard, cool pathway leading up through small live-oaks and high
growth of bushes. We begin to see slender pines and larger oaks. Now the
trail leaves the cañon and winds out upon the open mountain-side. Here
the chaparral is green and flourishing.

We wind abruptly into a cañon. Bushes of wild lilac overhang the path.
The manzanita reminds one of lilies of the valley transplanted to
California and growing on a bush. Down to the torrent at the bottom of
the cañon, and up its steep side, are large pines and live-oaks,
mountain mahogany and cedar. Near the summit we wind along a precipice
where the trail is blasted from the solid rock. Even here, any one who
is disposed to "look aloft" will see pine trees hanging over his head
hundreds of feet above.

The summit is a forest of towering trees. On the topmost ridges are the
monarchs of the mountains--oaks three and four feet, and pines four and
five feet in diameter. Of course this increase in the size of timber is
noticeably uniform, only where the soil and natural features of the
mountains favor it. But the summit of Mt. Wilson, at least, resembles a
picnic ground raised nearly six thousand feet above the sea. The air is
light, dry, and exhilarating. The ground is carpeted with pine needles.
Delicate wild-flowers are seen in their season. In April I found wild
peas in blossom, harebells, morning-glories, poppies, and many varieties
of yellow flowers. I also saw hummingbirds, butterflies, swallows, and
squirrels, and here and there patches of plain white old-fashioned snow.
It is a novel spectacle to see a small boy snowballing a butterfly. In
the spring even dead trees are glorified with a mantle of golden green
moss. It covers the trunks of some of the living pines, making an
artistic background for the deep green of their boughs.

From this upside-down mountain we look down upon rivers flowing bottom
side up. And that is California.

As to the safety of the ascent, no one need hesitate who is free from
settled prejudice against a side-hill. You will soon let the reins hang
from the pommel of the saddle. One who chooses may jump off and walk for
a change. Only, if you are at the end of the procession, be careful to
keep between your mule and the foot of the mountain; otherwise he will
wheel around and wend his way homeward. If toiling along near the
summit, absorbed in the beauties of the prospect, it might be awkward to
feel the halter jerked from your hand and to see the mule galloping
around a sharp bend with your satchel, hung loosely over the pommel,
bobbing violently up and down, and perhaps hurled off into space as the
intelligent animal rounds the corner.

Yes, it is safe, but there is a spice of excitement about it. I was
nervous at first, and seeing that the mule wished to nibble such herbage
as offered itself, I had thought it well to humor him. At a narrow space
with sharp declivity below, the beast fixed his jaws upon a small tough
bush on the upper bank. As he warmed up to the work, his hind feet
worked around toward the edge of the chasm. The bush began to come out
by the roots, which seemed to be without end. As the weight of the mule
was thrown heavily backward, I looked forward with some apprehension to
the time when the root should finally give way: I saw now that the mule
had fixed his stubborn jaws upon the entrails of the mountain, and
expected every instant to see other vital organs brought to light. I
dared not and could not move. The root gave way, allowing the mule to
fall backward, and startling him with a rattling down of stones and
gravel. One foot slipped over the edge, but three stuck to the path, and
the majority prevailed. After that I saw it was safer to let my faithful
beast graze on the outer edge. All went well until he became absorbed in
following downward the foliage of a bush which grew up from below. As
he stretched his neck farther and farther down, I saw that he was
bending his forelegs. His shoulders sank more and more. There was
nothing between me and the sea-level except the mule's ears. By frantic
exertions I worked myself backward, and was sliding down behind--too
late. The bush broke, causing the mule to fall back forcibly against the
inner bank, with myself sandwiched between the adamantine wall of the
mountain and the well-shod heels of the mule. The animal, being as much
scared as myself, started up the trail at a gallop. I had saved my life
but lost my mule. I have no taste for overtaking runaway mules on a
steep and interminable up-grade. It is a taste which must be acquired.
But then, of course, the mule would turn after his first alarm and tear
down to the stable. I resolved to push on in the hope of finding a wider
portion of the path, or at least of meeting the animal before he had
acquired uncontrollable momentum.

At the very first turn a boy appeared hurrying back with my palfry. The
mule had galloped on until he overtook the rest of the party, who had
sent him back in haste, while they followed on as quickly as possible.

It flashed upon my mind that the mule understands his business. We
imagine, egotistically, that the mule is all the time thinking about us,
and that he may take umbrage at some fancied slight and leap with us
down the abyss. Now the mule does not care to make the descent in that
way. He is thinking about himself just like the rest of us. We are only
so much freight packed upon his back.

The foregoing narrative may be exaggerated in some details, but the
essential facts remain, that the mule has a healthy appetite and that he
looks out for himself.

A little further on I had an opportunity to judge how a passenger would
conduct himself if he should be thrown from the trail. At the point
where the slope of the mountains is most abrupt, certain repairs had
lately been made upon the trail, and a man was now prying large stones
over the edge. They rolled and tumbled down, taking wild leaps into the
air and plunging from rock to rock. After they disappeared in the woods
we could hear them crashing and clattering down the cañon. A small
avalanche of broken fragments followed in their wake.

It must have been a fine sight when the blasting was first done in the
side of the rocky precipice: when huge masses of rock, half as big as a
house, were rent from the side of the mountain and thundered down with
frightful crash, cutting off huge trees and shaking the very mountains.
And now I will say again that the trail is wide and safe; the slopes on
the side are seldom very steep, and the mules could not be pushed over
by any available power.

Some people, in fact, prefer the old trail because it is more wild and
romantic and not so well kept. The new road has enough picturesque
features to satisfy me.

I remember when the valley came in sight again, after half an hour's
climbing, the first objects to catch my eye were the storage reservoirs,
which dot the valley and are used in irrigation. Their regular shapes
and the margins of masonry about them give them, from the mountains,
the appearance of mirrors. One seemed almost directly below. Probably it
was at least a hundred feet in length. In the form of a rectangle with
rounded corners, it was the exact counterpart of a framed mirror. The
surface was like polished glass, and trees upon the bank were reflected
with beautiful distinctness.

After another half-hour's ride comes a glimpse in the other direction.
Through a gap in the mountains we look for a moment behind the hills of
Pasadena into the heart of the Sierra Madre. Vistas of mountain-sides
are seen on either hand, one beyond the other, the long slope of one
slightly overlapping that of its nearer neighbor, offering for our
inspection a succession of blue tints, becoming more and more delicate
in the distance till they melt into the sky.

The mules care less for visible azure than for edible verdure, and soon
carried us by this picture. Far up the trail is a pretty scene upon our
own mountain. Suddenly we came out of the cool, wild forest upon a
little level spot, by the spring of the mountain stream. Here is an old
camp with green grass growing up about the deserted building. After a
final winding journey around the steep southerly side of the mountain,
came the first full view of the wild chaos of broken ranges toward the
desert. Then follows a gradual shaded ascent to the camp. The world has
varied panoramas of mountain scenery "set off" by the glitter of snowy
peaks. In California there are many accessible summits rising from
half-tropical valleys. Mountains which overlook the sea are without
number. There may be in America other points from which one may look
down upon a "city of homes," and a "business centre" with sixty thousand
busy inhabitants. I do not know any spot apart from the mountains of
Pasadena where you may put all of these in combination. From the
northerly peak of Mt. Wilson to the southerly peak of Mt. Harvard is a
distance by trail along the ridge of perhaps three miles, offering a
variety of points of view. To the north and east you may look down into
a gorge two thousand feet beneath, from which rises on the gentle breeze
the mingled voice of brawling brook and murmuring pines. Beyond is a
confusion of green mountains, from which a range of white summits rises
in the calm distance. Toward the south are solitary peaks with halos of
fleecy cloud.

As for the prospect in the other direction, it shows at once that the
way to print upon the mind a map of California's physical formation is
to see it _a la_ bird's-eye--as the short path to acquaintance with a
great city is a vertical one--to the tower of the City Hall.

One would require but a few more well-selected stations to map out all
of Southern California.

The several valleys of which Los Angeles is the commercial capital are
stretched out before us like perfectly level plains, divided by ranges
of hills. In the distance lies the glistening Pacific, with the blue
outlines of Catalina and more distant islands etched upon the western
sky. This picture is sometimes so distinct that you find yourself
trying to recognize acquaintances on the streets of Pasadena. Again
everything is dreamy with haze. Another morning you may stumble out
trying to rub yesterday's sunburn from your eyes, and find everything
below curtained by a bank of snowy fog. As for myself, I enjoy the
prospect most when I cannot see it at all--that is, at night.

There is a varied interchange of signals between the mountains and the
valley. At noon the people here talk with their Pasadena friends by
gleaming flashlight. Then there are the reservoirs scattered over the
valley. In certain lights they are not seen at all, but in line with the
sun they send up great flash signals themselves, and just after sunset
they are always seen reflecting the calm twilight. An hour after sunset
our camp-fire is lighted. As we stand by it, the horizon seems to have
retired for the night. There is continuous sky, shading without a break
into the shadows below. Gazing dreamily down, I am startled by the
flashing forth of a hundred brilliant stars from what was the valley
below. They disappear for a moment and then blaze out and become a
permanent constellation. These stars are too numerous to resemble any
known constellation. I concluded after a little that the mighty Orion
had drawn his sword and slain the Great Bear; that the lion had rashly
interfered and his carcass had been dragged to that of the bear, and
that the exhausted Orion had thrown himself wearily upon them to rest.
And there are the Pleiades close by; with feminine curiosity they have
come as near as they dared, to see what it is all about.

Those wishing a scientific explanation of these phenomena must consult
the Pasadena Electric Lighting Company, except as to the stray Pleiades,
which seem to have some connection with the lights of the Raymond Hotel.

But what is that dim and curious meteor slowly moving toward the spot
where Los Angeles used to be? Perhaps it is the headlight which heralds
the coming of the belated overland train. Suddenly I see out of the
darkness beyond Pasadena the blazing forth of a majestic cross, of
wavering, uneven outline, but made up of crowded multitudes of
sparkling, glittering, scintillating stars. Los Angeles has
substantially the same system of street illumination as Pasadena.

You will note that I have abstained from hauling the sun above the
eastern Sierras in the morning, and from tucking it under the Pacific at
night. This rearrangement of ponderous constellations is all that my
strength and my other engagements will permit. Those who want to know
the glories of the sunset and moonlight must climb Mt. Wilson
themselves.




CHAPTER VIII.

CATCHING UP ON THE KITE-SHAPED TRACK.


Not the kite-shaped track of new-made trotting records and pneumatic
tires, but a track upon which you may pass a pleasant day riding after
the iron horse.

The route extends easterly from Los Angeles to San Bernardino _via_
Pasadena. Beyond San Bernardino is the "loop," which will take us twelve
miles farther east to Mentone, and around an oval curve back to San
Bernardino. Thence we kite down to Riverside, then southwesterly to
Orange, and so up to Los Angeles. Leaving Los Angeles at 9 A.M. you may
return by 4 P.M., with time for dinner at San Bernardino.

Taking the traveller back and forth across the central part of Southern
California as it does, the kite-shaped trip is naturally a favorite
with tourists, and, as its "catchy" name indicates, it caters to that
element of travel. One always sees also anxious and eager "prospectors"
or expectant settlers, who lose no opportunity to inquire all about
citrus and deciduous fruits, and prices of land and of water for
irrigating the same. This excursion will show you the heart of the
orange belt or belts of Southern California, especially on the northern
and eastern sides of the "kite."

The schedule of trains allows of convenient stop-overs, and several may
be made to advantage.

Pasadena and Riverside of course must not be passed by. A short stay at
Orange or Anaheim gives an interesting glimpse of a region where orange
culture is combined with that of other citrus fruits, as well as the
grape and olive.

Aside from these points, the most interesting feature of the trip is the
"loop" beyond San Bernardino. The town of San Bernardino is a thriving
business centre. Perhaps it is on this account that its appearance from
the car window is not as attractive as that of Riverside or Pasadena,
which from all points of view seem peacefully embowered in half-tropic
foliage. But away from the railroads San Bernardino also has its
charming residence district, with the same general characteristics as
its sister towns.

Upon the "loop" a stop should be made at Redlands, an interesting spot,
where the successful culture of oranges is carried on at a much higher
elevation than was thought possible until a few years ago. There is
never any frost there to injure the fruit. The Hotel Terracina, on the
heights, has a wondrous view, and the Smiley brothers, of "Lake Mohunk"
celebrity, have fine grounds and homes on Cañon Crest, and are thinking
of building a hotel.

The circuit of the "loop" reminds me of roving around upon the rim of a
very large and shallow spoon, tilted upward toward Mentone at the
smaller end. San Bernardino is 1075 feet above the sea, and Mentone 1640
feet. At that point we have nearly climbed the foothills, and are very
close to the great mountains themselves. As we skim around upon the
upper side of the "loop," the long gradual slope from the foot of the
mountains to the stream at the centre of the valley seems an ideal
conformation for leading the irrigation streams from the mountains along
the rows of orange trees which will soon entirely cover this valley.

Four miles from San Bernardino is the station of Arrowhead, from which
we have a near view of the peak of nature which gives the place its
name. It is a bare, gravelly tract on the side of the mountain, which,
in contrast with the chaparral about it, takes the shape of an Indian
arrowhead with a portion of the shaft attached. Covering a large area,
the arrowhead is a landmark for many miles around. I could not help
thinking that if a gang of Italian laborers were employed for a few days
sharpening the outline of the arrowhead by cutting away bushes along the
edge, and setting out others judiciously in the converted background,
the effect of this interesting natural phenomenon might be much
brightened. There are hot-springs at Arrowhead, and a hotel renders the
varied attractions of the place available.

While we are kiting along let me tell you what I know about baskets
made by the Indian women of the Pacific Coast of now and long ago, the
last considered valuable and now commanding high prices. There are
several experts on this subject in Pasadena--Mrs. Lowe, ex-Mayor Lukens,
Mrs. Jeanne C. Carr, and Mrs. Belle Jewett, who has the most precious
collection of all.

Mrs. Lowe has gathered together for her Basement Museum, which any State
would be proud to own, all that she could find of special interest
relative to the Indians of California--clothing, headdress, weapons,
medicine charms, money, beads, and of course many baskets, for baskets
are as indispensable to the Indian as the reindeer to the Esquimau. They
were used as cradles, caps for the head when carrying burdens, wardrobes
for garments not in use, granaries on roof, sifters for pounded meal,
for carrying water, and keeping it for use, for cooking, receptacles for
money, plaques to gamble on, and so on. And the basket plays an
important part in their legends and folk-lore.

Mrs. Lowe determined to preserve these specimens, as tourists were
rapidly carrying away all they could find of such relics, and soon the
State would be without proofs to tell how the Indian of the past lived
and fed and fought, bought and sold, how he was dressed, and how he
amused himself.

Mrs. Ellen B. Farr, an artist in Pasadena who is famous for her success
in painting the pepper tree and the big yellow poppy, with its reddish
orange line changing toward petal tips to pale lemon, has also devoted
her skill to pictures of such baskets grouped effectually--baskets now
scattered all over the world, each with its own history, its own
individuality, and no duplicate, for no two baskets are ever exactly
similar.

The true way to obtain these baskets is, go a-hunting for them, not buy
them at stores. They are handed down for generations as heirlooms
originally, never intended for sale, and with the needles used in
weaving, made usually of a fine bone from a hawk's wing, and the
gambling dice, are the carefully concealed family treasures. But
sometimes by going yourself to see the aged squaws, or paying one who
is familiar with their ways to explore for you, you may get a rich
return. Baskets are of all sizes, from the little beauties no bigger
than a teacup, woven finely and adorned with beads and bits of dyed
feathers, to the granaries, or the storage baskets, holding half a ton,
nine feet and nine inches in circumference, three feet deep. Mrs. Jewett
showed me a photograph of one of this sort, in which she sat comfortably
seated with her six-foot son and his wife. This had been in use more
than fifty years, and was as fine as ever. Her one hundred and
twenty-eight baskets represent twenty-eight tribes. In regard to the
shapes and designs, the women seem to have copied straight from nature's
patterns, as seen in acorns, pine cones, seed vessels, etc., so they are
truly artists.

Figures of men are sometimes woven in: those with heads on represent the
victorious warriors; those decapitated depict the braves vanquished by
the fighters of their special tribe. An open palm is sometimes seen;
this is an emblem of peace.

Willow wands and stiff long-stemmed grasses are gathered and dried for
these baskets, then woven in coils and increased as they go on, as in a
crochet stitch. It often requires a deal of coaxing and good pay to
secure one of these highly prized "Coras."

The women were as devoted to gambling as the men, and made flat trays
for this purpose. The dice were eight acorn shells, or half-walnut
shells, first daubed over inside with pitch, and then inlaid with little
shells which represented money.

I saw a tray and dice purchased most adroitly from an excited gambling
party, who were at the time too much intoxicated to know exactly what
they were doing. After it had been paid for the owner was implored to
sit down and gamble himself, hoping in this way to win more money and
get back the board. It was hard to withstand their forcible appeals, but
the man ran away, and was obliged to hide all night for fear of assault.
Squaws would sometimes bet pieces of flesh from their arms when their
money was gone, and many of them have been seen with rows of scars on
their arms for this reason. No basket can be finished by an Indian woman
until she has ceased to bear children. Then her work is done.

The Japanese are famous basket-makers, but they do not far excel the
best work found among these untutored workwomen.

Most curious of all is the fact that a _savant_ connected with the
Smithsonian Institute was amazed when examining a "buck," or man's
plaque, to find it almost exactly like one he had brought from northern
India--similar in weaving, size, and shading.

And a lady told me that she could make herself understood by those of a
certain tribe in Mexico by speaking to them in Sicilian. Which makes me
think of Joel Chandler Harris and his embarrassment, after publishing
his stories of "Uncle Remus," to receive letters from learned men at
home and abroad, inquiring how this legend that he had given was the
same as one in India, or Egypt, or Siam.

The art of basketry is rapidly deteriorating, and will soon be lost
unless Indian children in the reservation are taught something of the
old skill by their grandmothers, before the few now living depart for
that happy, unmolested hunting-ground they like to believe in, where I
do hope they will find a land all their own.

The Mexican drawn-work is seen everywhere for sale, and at moderate
prices--so moderate that any one is foolish to waste eyesight in
imitating it. Each stitch has a name, and is full of meaning to the
patient maker.

One can easily spend a good deal for curios, such as plaques, cups,
vases, napkin-rings, plates and toothpicks of orange wood, bark
pin-cushions, cat's-eye pins, etchings of all the missions in India ink,
wild-flower, fern, and moss work, and, perhaps most popular of all, the
pictures on orange wood of the burro, the poppy, and pepper and oranges.
Or, if interested in natural history, you can secure a horned toad, a
centipede, or a tarantula, alive or dead, and "set up."

A horned toad is more easy to care for than the average baby alligator
of Florida, and as a pet is not more exacting, as it can live six months
without eating.

"Why do some women like horrible things for pets?

"Mother Eve set the example, and ever since serpents have been in the
front rank of woman's eccentric loves. Cleopatra was fond of tigers and
ferocious beasts, but she turned at last to a snake as the most fitting
creature to do her bidding.

"Centuries ago the queens of Egypt made pets of horned toads, and the
ugly little reptiles became things of state, and their lives more sacred
than the highest ministers to the court. Daughters of the Nile
worshipped crocodiles."

A very intelligent man, who has every reason to speak with authority
about the tarantula as found in California, declares that it is not
dangerous. He says they live in ground that has not been disturbed by
the plough. Their hole in the ground is about three fourths of an inch
in diameter and twelve or fourteen inches deep, with only a web over the
top. Many tell us that the tarantula has a lid on the top of his house,
but this is incorrect, as that belongs to the trap-door spider. It is
sold, however, here as a tarantula's nest. This creature dislikes the
winter rains as much as the tourist does, and fills up the entrance of
the nest in October and November, not appearing until May. The greater
number are found on adobe and clay soil. Tarantulas never come out at
night; the male sometimes appears just before sundown, but the female is
seldom seen away from home unless disturbed. They seem to have a model
family life. Mr. Wakely, who has caught more of these spiders than any
living man, does not seem to dread the job in the least. One man goes
ahead and places a small red flag at the opening of the nest; the next
man pours down a little water, which brings Mr. T---- up to see what is
the matter, and then Mr. W---- quietly secures it with a pair of pincers
and puts it in a bottle, and has thus succeeded in catching hundreds,
but has never had a bite. (This last line reminds me of the amateur
angler.) He tells me that there seems to be a general impression that a
tarantula will jump into the second-story window of a house, and,
springing upon the neck of a young lady sitting there, will kill her
instantly. He has never seen one jump three inches. If one leg is broken
off nature soon provides another. The Texas variety is believed to be
more dangerous. I do not know.

There are rattlesnakes to be seen and heard about the mountains in hot
weather.

As to buying precious stones, especially opals, in this part of the
country, I think it is wisest to buy opals in the real old Mexico for
yourselves, often very cheaply. The prices rise rapidly here. A water
opal, however beautiful, has no commercial value. It is but an
imprisoned soap-bubble, and is apt to crumble. There are stores where
pretty colored stones can be bought, but the majority get cheated as to
price.

But we are not paying proper attention to the "panorama." Many have been
led to settle here by taking this picturesque trip; and with plenty of
water oranges pay splendidly. So there is substantial wealth, ever on
the increase, in these new towns.

By the way, were you ever asked to be a "panorama"? I once had that
honor. A lady came to my house one Sunday morning, and explained that
her husband was dreadfully depressed over a fall in stocks or something,
and she knew I could be "so amusing" if I chose, and wouldn't I get into
her carriage and go with her to amuse said husband, and be a sort of
panorama for the poor man? "I don't want him to be in the panorama," she
said, "nor of the panorama; I want you just to be the panorama by
yourself." I was forced to decline this singular appeal, glad as I
should have been to cheer her dumpy spouse.

Why, oh why is it, that if persons have the slightest power of being
what is vaguely called "entertaining," they are expected to be ever on
duty at the call of any one who feels a desire for inexpensive
diversion?

At one hotel I sat by the side of an odd old man, a retired tobacco
merchant of great wealth, who was ready for conversation with all
newcomers, and who seemed to feel that I was not doing my full share as
an entertainer for the masses. He also had the unusual habit of
speaking his thoughts aloud, whether complimentary or otherwise, in
frank soliloquy, like that absent-minded Lord Dudley whom Sydney Smith
alludes to, as meeting and greeting him with effusive cordiality, and
then saying, _sotto voce_, "I suppose I shall have to ask this man home
to dinner."

But my friend at my elbow had very little of the _sotto_ in his _voce_.
He began in this way:

"Ahem! I hear you can be funny." No response from person addressed. Then
to himself: "I don't much believe she can do anything--don't look like
it." To me: "Well, now, if you _can_ be funny, why don't you?" I could
not help laughing then. "Yes, if you can, you ought to go into the
parlor every night and show what you can do, and amuse us. It is your
duty. Why, I told Quilletts--you know 'bout Quilletts? awfully funny
feller; good company, you see--says I, 'Quilletts, I like you. Now, if
you'll stay I'll give you a cottage, rent free, all summer (I've got an
island home--lots of us fellers on it--great times we have); but you
must agree to be funny every night, and keep the ball a-rollin'.' Now
we want you to get up and do something to entertain the guests. We want
to be amused--somethin' that will set us laughin'!"

I replied: "Mr. Brushwood, I understand you are a dealer in tobacco?"

"Yes, mum; and you won't find finer tobacker anywhere in this world than
what's got my name on it. Here's a picture of my store. Why, Brushwood's
tobacker is known all over the United States."

"Yes? Well, when I notice you freely distributing that tobacco, bunches
of your choicest brands, papers of the very best for chewing, cigarettes
by the dozen, in the parlor evenings, I'll follow on just behind you,
and try to amuse as a condensed circus. I'm not lacking in philanthropy.
I only need to be roused by your noble example, sustained by your
influence."

Brushwood looked disgusted, grunted his disapproval, backed his chair
out from the table, and as he walked to the door of the dining-room many
heard him mutter, "She's a queer dick; don't amount to much, anyway;
thought so when I first saw her; impudent, too!"

As the farmer remarked when he first encountered a sportsman dude, "What
things a feller does meet when he hasn't got his gun!"

But the train is slowing up, and see, Judge Brown, my old friend of The
Anchorage, is looking for us. No! No "Glenwood"; no "Arlington"; no
"kerridge"!




CHAPTER IX.

RIVERSIDE.


    "Knowest thou the land where the lemon trees bloom,
    Where the golden orange grows in the deep thickets' gloom,
    Where a wind ever soft from the blue heavens blows,
    And the groves are of laurel and myrtle and rose?"

Yes, that describes Riverside, and reads like a prophecy. If Pasadena is
a big garden with pretty homes scattered all through its shade and
flowers, then Riverside is an immense orange grove, having one city-like
street, with substantial business blocks and excellent stores, two
banks, one in the Evans block, especially fine in all its architecture
and arrangements, and the rest is devoted by the land-owners to raising
oranges and making them pay. You will see flowers enough to overwhelm a
Broadway florist, every sort of cereal, every fruit that grows, in prime
condition for the table ten months out of the twelve. Three hundred
sunny days are claimed here out of the three hundred and sixty-five.
They are once in a while bothered by a frost, but that is "unusual."
Before 1870 this was a dusty desert of decomposed granite. What has
caused the change? Scientific irrigation and plenty of it. Or, as Grant
Allen puts it, "mud." He says: "Mud is the most valuable material in the
world. It is by mud we live; without it we should die. Mud is filling up
the lakes. Mud created Egypt, and mud created Lombardy."

Yes, one can get rich here by turning dust into mud. It is said to be
the richest town "per capita" in all California of the same size, $1100
being the average allowance for each person. This is solemnly vouched
for by reliable citizens. And they have no destitute poor--a remarkable
record. The city and district are said to enjoy an annual income of
$1,500,000 from the fruit alone, and there is a million of unused money
in the two banks.

Irrigation is better than rain, for the orange growers can turn on a
shower or a stream whenever and wherever needed. It requires courage
and faith to go straight into a desert with frowning mountains, big,
little, and middle-sized, all about, and not an available drop of water,
and say, "I'm going to settle right here and turn this desert into a
beautiful home, and start a prosperous, wealthy city. All that this
rocky, barren plain needs is water and careful cultivation, and I will
give it both." That was Judge Brown's decision, and the result shows his
wisdom. No one agreed with him; it was declared that colonists could not
be induced to try it. But he could not relinquish the idea. He was
charmed by the dry, balmy air, so different from Los Angeles. He saw the
smooth plain was well adapted for irrigation, and Santa Ana could be
made to furnish all the water needed. So that it is really to him we owe
the pleasure of seeing these orchards, vineyards, avenues, and homes.
Where once the coyote and jack-rabbit had full sway, land now sells at
prices from $400 to $3000 per acre. There are no fences--at least, there
is but one in all Riverside. You see everywhere fine, well-trimmed
cypress hedges with trees occasionally cut in fantastic, elaborate
designs. There are many century plants about the grounds; they blossom
in this climate after twelve years, and die after the tall homely flower
has come to maturity. The roadsides have pretty flowers planted all
along, giving a gay look, and the very weeds just now are covered with
blossoms. Irrigation is carried on most scientifically, the water coming
from a creek and the "cienaga," which I will explain later. There are
several handsome avenues shaded with peppers, and hedges twenty feet
high, through which are obtained peeps at enchanting homes; but the
celebrated drive which all tourists are expected to take is that to and
fro through Magnolia Avenue, twelve miles long. The name now seems illy
chosen, as only a few magnolia trees were originally planted at each
corner, and these have mostly died, so that the whole effect is more
eucalyptical, palmy, and pepperaneous than it is magnolious. People come
here "by chance the usual way," and buy because they see the chance to
make money. You are told pretty big stories of successes; the failures
are not alluded to.

I saw a large and prosperous place belonging to a woman of business
ability, who came out all alone, took up a government grant, ploughed
and planted and irrigated, sent for a sister to help her, sold land at
great prices, and is now a wealthy woman. If I had not passed through
such depressing and enthusiasm-subduing experiences as an agriculturist
in the East I might be tempted here. I did look with interest at the
ostrich farms, and had visions of great profits from feathers, eggs, and
egg-shells. But it takes a small fortune to get started in that
business, as eggs are twenty dollars each, and the birds are sometimes
five hundred dollars apiece. And they are subject to rheumatism and a
dozen other diseases, and a blow from a kicking bird will kill one. I
concluded to let that dream be unrealized. Did you ever hear of the
nervous invalid who was told by his physician to buy a Barbary ostrich
and imitate him exactly for three months? It was a capital story. The
lazy dyspeptic was completely cured. As a hen woman I will remark _en
passant_ that it is hard to raise poultry in this part of California.
The climate is too exhilarating, and if the head of each chicken does
not get a drop of oil at once it dies of brain disease.

Corn does not thrive. Mr. Brown at first put down ten acres to corn. It
looked promising, but grew all to stalk. These stalks were over twelve
feet high, but corn was of no value, so he sold the stalks for eighty
dollars, and started his oranges.

The English are largely interested here, and have invested two or three
millions, which will pay large interest to their grandchildren. Their
long avenue is loyally named "Victoria." A thrifty Canadian crazed by
the "boom," the queerest mental epidemic or delusion that ever took hold
of sensible people, bought some stony land just under Rubidoux Mountain
for $4000. It was possibly worth $100, but in those delirious days many
did much worse. It is amazing to see what hard work and water and good
taste will do for such a place. He has blasted the rocks, made fountains
and cisterns, planted several acres of strawberries, set out hundreds
of orange trees, has a beautiful garden, two pretty cottages, and some
day he will get back his original price for a building site, for the
view is grand.

Riverside, while leading the orange-producing section of Southern
California, is not exactly the location which would have been selected
by the original settlers had they possessed the experience of the
producers of today. The oranges do not have to be washed, as in some
other places; they are not injured by smut or scale; the groves are
faultless in size of trees, shape, and taste of fruit. One orange
presented to me weighed thirty-one ounces. But the growers, having lost
$1,000,000 by Jack Frost several years ago, are obliged now to resort to
the use of lighted tar-pots on cold nights to make a dense smudge to
keep the temperature above the danger line. One man uses petroleum in
hundred-gallon casks, one for each acre, from which two pipes run along
between the rows of trees, with half a dozen elbows twenty feet apart,
over which are flat sheet-iron pans, into which the oil spatters as it
vaporizes. An intensely hot flame keeps off the frost. This I do not
hear spoken of at Riverside; you must go to a rival for any disagreeable
information. At Pasadena their severe winds are called "Riversiders"; at
Anaheim they are "Santa Anas"; and friends write me from damp Los
Angeles to the dry air of Riverside, "How can you stay in that 'damp'
place?" The inhabitants of Riverside do not concede that Pasadena is a
place for orange growers. At Redlands, luckily above frost terrors, the
terrible losses at Riverside from that trouble are profusely narrated.
San Diego gets its share of humorous belittlement from all. You hear the
story quoted of the shrewd Chinee who went to that city to look for
business, where one hears much of future developments, but did not
settle, saying, "It has too muchee bym-bye." Friends, and especially
hotel proprietors, exclaim in disgusted astonishment, "What! going to
Riverside? Why, there's nothing there but oranges."

I find more: fine and charming drives, scenery that differs from that
of Pasadena, "that poem of nature set to music beneath the swaying
rhythm of the pine forests of the lofty Sierra Madres," but is equally
enjoyable and admirable.

Still, above all, and permeating every other interest, is the _orange_.
As to dampness, a physician threatened with consumption, and naturally
desirous of finding the driest air, began while at Coronado Beach a
simple but sure test for comparative degrees of "humidity" by just
hanging a woolen stocking out of his window at night. At that place it
was wet all through, quite moist at Los Angeles, very much less so at
Pasadena, dry as a bone or red herring or an old-fashioned sermon at
Riverside. Stockings will tell! (From April to September is really the
best time to visit Coronado.) I experienced a very sudden change from a
warm, delightful morning to an afternoon so penetrating by cold that I
really suffered during a drive, although encased in the heaviest of
Jaeger flannels, a woolen dress, and a heavy wrap. I thought of the
rough buffalo coat my uncle, a doctor, used to put on when called out
on a winter night in New Hampshire, and wished I was enveloped in
something like it, with a heated freestone, for feet and a hot potato
for each hand. If I can make my readers understand that these sudden
changes make flannels necessary, and that one needs to be as careful
here as in Canada as regards catching cold from night air and these
unexpected rigors, I shall feel, as the old writers used to say, "that I
have not written entirely in vain."

In one day you can sit under the trees in a thin dress and be too warm
if the sun is at its best, and then be half frozen two hours later if
the wind is in earnest and the sun has retired. In the sun, Paradise; in
shade, protect yourself!




CHAPTER X.

A LESSON ON THE TRAIN.

"The Schoolmistress Abroad."


All through Southern California I hear words of whose meaning I have no
idea until they are explained. For instance, a friend wrote from San
Diego in February: "Do not longer delay your coming; the mesas are
already bright with wild-flowers." A mesa is a plateau, or upland, or
high plain. And then there are fifty words in common use retained from
the Spanish rule that really need a glossary. As, arroyo, a brook or
creek; and arroyo seco, a dry creek or bed of extinct river.

Alameda, an avenue.

Alamitos, little cotton-wood.

Alamo, the cotton-wood; in Spain, the poplar.

Alma, soul.

That is all I have learned in A's. Then for B's.

I asked at Riverside what name they had for a big, big rock that rose
right out of the plain, and was told it was a "butte." That gave a
meaning to Butte City, and was another lesson.

Banos means baths, and barranca is a small ravine.

Then, if we go on alphabetically, cajon, pronounced _cahone_, is a box.

Calaveras, skull.

Campo, plain.

Ciénaga, a marshy place.

Campo sancto, cemetery.

Canyon or cañon, gulch.

Cruz, cross.

Colorado, red.

Some of the Spanish words are so musical it is a pleasure to repeat them
aloud; as:

Ensenada, bright.

Escondido, hidden.

Fresno means ash.

I inquired the meaning of "Los Gatos," and was kindly informed it was
"The Gates," but it really is "The Cats."

Goleta, the name of another town, means schooner.

The Spanish _j_ nearly always has the sound of _h_.

Jacinto, Hyacinth.

José, Joseph.

Lago is lake; pond, laguna; and for a little lake the pretty name
lagunita. "Lagunita Rancho" is the name of an immense fruit ranch in
Vacaville--and, by the way, vaca is cow.

Madre is mother; nevada, snowy.

San Luis Obispo is San Luis the Bishop.

El Paso is The Pass.

Pueblo, a town.

Pinola is parched corn ground fine between stones, eaten with milk.

Pinoche, chopped English walnuts cooked in brown sugar--a nice candy.

Rancho, a farm; and rio, river.

Everything is a ranch out here; the word in the minds of many stands
for home. A little four-year-old boy was overheard praying the other day
that when he died the Lord would take him to His ranch.

Sacramento is the sacrament.

Sierra, saw-toothed; an earthquake is a temblor.

San and Santa, the masculine and feminine form of saint.

As the men who laid out a part of New York evidently travelled with a
classical dictionary, and named the towns from that, as Rome, Syracuse,
Palmyra, Utica, so the devout Spanish explorer named the places where he
halted by the name of the saint whose name was on the church calendar
for that day. And we have San Diego (St. James), San Juan (St. John),
San Luis, San José, San Pedro, Santa Inez, Santa Maria, Santa Clara,
and, best of all, Santa Barbara, to which town we are now going.

The Mexican dialect furnishes words which are now permanently
incorporated in our common speech; as:

Adobe, sun-dried brick.

Cañon, gorge.

Tules, rush or water-weed. (Bret Harte's _Apostle of the Tules_.)

Bonanza, originally _fair weather at sea_, now _good fortune in mining_.

Fandango, dance of the people.

Corral, a place to collect stock. (A farmer of the West never says
cow-pen, or barnyard, or farmyard, but corral.)

Cascarones, egg-shells filled with finely cut gold or silver paper, or
perfumes, broken on head of young man, in friendly banter or challenge
to a dance.

Burro, small kind of donkey.

Broncho, wild, untamed animal.

Sombrero, hat.

Rebozo, scarf.

Serape, blanket.

Lariat, rawhide rope.

Hacienda, estate.

While we are rattling along there is so little to see until we reach
the ocean, that we may as well be recalling a few more facts worth
knowing. At Riverside I learned that the leaf of the orange tree was
larger when it first came out than later. It grows smaller as it
matures. And most people say that the fig tree has no blossom, the fruit
coming right out of the branch. But there is a blossom, and you have to
cut the fruit open to find it. Just split a young fig in two and notice
the perfect blossom in the centre.

They say it takes two Eastern men to believe a Californian, but it only
takes one Eastern woman to tell true stories which do seem almost too
big for belief. One man got lost in a mustard field, and he was on
horseback too.

I saw at San Diego a tomato vine only eight months old, which was
nineteen feet high and twenty-five feet wide, and loaded full of fruit
in January. A man picking the tomatoes on a stepladder added to the
effect. And a Gold of Ophir rose-bush at Pasadena which had 200,000
blossoms. This is vouched for by its owner, a retired missionary, who
cannot be doubted. There are truly true pumpkins that weigh 256 pounds
and are seven feet in circumference; cucumbers seven feet long; seven
beets weighed 500 pounds; three bites to a strawberry; and the
eucalyptus shoots often grow twenty feet the first year, carrying with
them in their rapid ascension the stakes to which they were tied. All
this is true. But here are two stories which may be doubtful, just to
show what anecdotes are current in California. "A man was on top of a
California pumpkin chopping off a piece with an axe, when it dropped in.
He pulled up his ladder and put it down on the inside to look for it.
While groping about he met a man, who exclaimed, 'Hello! What are you
doing here?' 'Looking for my axe.' 'Gosh! you might as well give that
up. I lost my horse and cart in here three days ago, and haven't found
'em yet!'"

"A farmer raised one thousand bushels of popcorn and stored it in a
barn. The barn caught fire, and the corn began to pop and filled a
ten-acre field. An old mare in a neighboring pasture had defective
eyesight, saw the corn, thought it was snow, and lay down and froze to
death."

As to serious farming, and how it pays in this part of the State, I have
clipped several paragraphs from the papers, and will give three as
samples of the whole. I desire also to communicate the cheerful news
that there are no potato bugs to make life seem too hard to bear.


"RAISED ON TWENTY ACRES.

"How much land do I need in California? is a question often asked. The
answer is readily made: as much as you can profitably and economically
work. A gentleman has made the following exhibit in the Los Angeles
Chamber of Commerce: 'Raised on twenty acres of ground, 2500 boxes of
oranges, 1500 boxes of lemons, 37,000 pounds of grapes, 2000 pounds of
pears, 35,000 pounds of apples, 15,000 pounds of berries, black and red,
1000 pounds of English walnuts. Besides nectarines, apricots, plums,
three crops of potatoes, 500 pounds of crab-apples, and one acre of
alfalfa kept for cows, and flowers of different varieties. These
oranges are worth on the trees $3500, the lemons $3000, the grapes $370,
pears $30, apples $75, berries $30, walnuts $80. The total will be
$7085, and all the products not counted. That surely is more than the
crops of a half section in Kansas or Illinois will sell for.' Every one
may not do as well, but they can approach it, and if they do, twenty
acres is quite enough."


"PROFITS OF BERRY CULTURE.

"Speaking of the profits of growing strawberries in Southern California,
the Covina _Argus_ gives some interesting facts and figures. That paper
says: 'One of the growers stated to us that last year he picked and
shipped from three acres the enormous amount of fourteen tons. These
berries brought as high as fifteen cents and as low as four cents per
pound, but netted an average of about eight cents per pound, or $2240.
That would make an acre of berries produce a cash return of $746.66 2/3,
which, considering the shortness of the berry season, from four to five
months, is a pretty good income on the money invested.'"


"PROFIT IN ALMONDS.

"M. Treat, an authority on almond culture, has contributed the following
to the Woodland _Mail_: 'This year from 190 California paper-shell
almond trees (five years old), covering two and five-sevenths acres, I
gathered 3502 pounds of nuts, which sold in Chicago at twenty-two cents
a pound. This is $316.82 to the acre--a little over $4 to the tree--18½
pounds to the tree. When these same trees were four years old they
averaged about three pounds, and in eight years they will double what
they bore at five. They will at eight years bear full 40 pounds to the
tree. At twelve years they will bear fully 100 pounds to the tree
without the least exertion. This is at seventy trees to the acre, and
reckoning at twenty-two cents to the pound, $1540 per acre. Now these
are nothing but plain, bare, raw facts.

"'Almond trees live and do well for fifty years, and in some places in
Europe when fifteen years old bear from 150 to 200 pounds per tree.'"


At Saugus Junction Mr. Tolfree has established one of his famous
restaurants, where I can conscientiously urge you to get out and dine.
Every course is delicious.

Ventura County is partially devoted to the culture of Beans. I use a
capital because Beans represent Culture, or are associated with it in
one State at least, and the very meaning of the word is property, money,
from the French _biens_--goods. I wonder how many of my Boston friends
knew that! I did not until a friend showed it to me in Brewer's
phrase-book, where I also learned that beans played an important part in
the politics of the Greeks, being used in voting by ballot. I always had
a liking for beans, but I have a profound respect for them since viewing
the largest Lima Bean Ranch in the world, belonging to my friend Mr.
D. W. Thompson, of Santa Barbara. There are 2500 acres of rich land,
level as a house floor, bounded by a line of trees on one side and the
ocean on the other; 1600 acres are planted to beans, and the profits
are nearly $60,000 yearly. Thirty-six tons of beans were used this year
in planting. This could not be done in the East, but beans do not need
to be "poled" here, as, influenced by the dreamy atmosphere, they show
no desire to climb, but just lie lazily along the ground. Still, there
is a deal of work connected with the business. Dairying, building,
horseshoeing, repairing of machinery, are all done on the place. "As
soon as the spring rains are over, eleven gang ploughs, four ploughs to
a gang, each gang drawn by six horses, plough about seven acres per
day." Then the harrowing and planting in the same big way. During the
entire summer these vines grow without a drop of water, freshened daily
by the heavy sea fogs. Harvesting and threshing all done by machinery.
The steam thresher would amaze some of our overworked, land-poor
farmers. About one hundred and twenty carloads of beans are annually
shipped from this ranch, reserving the tons needed for seed.

And all along the way fine ranches are seen, where beans are seen
growing alone, or planted between the long even rows of fruit trees. Mr.
Thompson also owns a large hog ranch. But dear me! We are now skirting
the beautiful ocean curve which leads to the "Channel City"--so near the
beach that the waves almost touch the rails and the dash of the surf
seems under the cars. See how fine a situation! The coast line taking a
sudden and most fortunate turn, the trend of mountain range and plain
land is east and west, instead of north and south. Sheltered by
mountains and mesas, and nestled in the green foot-hills, with the ocean
breeze tempered by a chain of islands, making a serene harbor, Santa
Barbara has much to make it the rival of San Diego and Pasadena. Pork
and beans must now give way to legend and romance, martyred virgin, holy
monks, untutored "neophytes," handsome Castilians, dashing Mexicans,
energetic pioneers, the old Spanish, the imported Chinese, the eastern
element now thoroughly at home, and the inevitable, ubiquitous invalid,
globe-trotter, and hotel habitué--each type or stratum as distinctly
marked as in a pousse café, or jelly cake. What a comparison! I ask
Santa Barbara's pardon, and beg not to be struck with lightning, or
destroyed by gunpowder.--"_Yes, to the Arlington._"




CHAPTER XI.

SANTA BARBARA.


    "Saints will aid if men will call,
    For the blue sky bends o'er all."

Sweet sixteen and an "awful dad." Santa Barbara and Dioscurus. Such a
cruel story, and so varied in version that the student of sacred legend
gets decidedly puzzled. The fair-haired daughter was advised secretly by
Origen, who sent a pupil disguised as a physician to instruct her in the
Christian faith. She insisted on putting three windows instead of two
into the bathroom of the tower to which her father sent her, either to
prevent her from marrying or to imprison her until she would wed one of
the many gay young suitors. These three windows showed her belief in the
Trinity, which she could not have learned from Origen, as among
Christians he was regarded as heretical, and his followers were
Unitarians and Universalists combined, adding the cheerful theory of the
"second opportunity" and that all punishment from sin would have an end,
yet clinging to the old pagan mythology and believing that sun, moon,
stars, and the ocean all had souls--a "Neo-Platonist."

Refusing to recant, Barbara was arraigned and condemned to death. Her
energetic paternal evidently had heard the maxim, "If you want anything
done, do it yourself." His heavy blows fell soft as feathers. She seemed
in sweet slumber. So he drew his sword, cut off her head, and was
instantly killed by lightning from Heaven. Thus ends the history of two
"Early Fathers."

But sweet St. Barbara will never be forgotten. She is the patroness of
artillery soldiers, and protects from lightning and sudden death. In the
many pictures where she appears she carries a feather, or the martyr's
sword and palm, or a book; and the three windows are often seen. She is
the only Santa who bears the cup and wafer.

The appreciative Spaniards honored her memory by bestowing her pretty
name on the choicest spot of the coast, a belt of land seventy miles
long and thirty-five wide, from Point Concepcion to Buena Ventura. No
one can dare to doubt this tragic tale, for Barbara's head may still be
seen preserved as a relic in the temple of All Saints at Rome. I do not
want to be too severe in my estimate of the Roman noble, Dioscurus. An
old lady who never spoke ill of any one, when called upon to say
something good of the devil, said, "We might all imitate his
persistence;" and this impulsive demon was certainly a creature who, if
he had an unpleasant duty confronting him, attended to it himself.

The first navigator who landed on the coast of Santa Barbara, or on one
of the four islands, was Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, in 1542. He is buried
on San Miguel (pronounced _Magell_). The Indians (and the entire Indian
population at that time amounted to 22,000) were exceedingly glad to
welcome the strangers, much better behaved than those found at San
Diego, who stripped the clothing from those too ill to defend
themselves. Perhaps a reason for this superiority may be found in the
fact that these tribes were entirely naked, and had no desire for any
conventional covering. They serenaded their new friends so loudly that
sleep or rest was impossible, and offered their most delicious food and
free use of canoes. They ate seeds, fruit, fish, locusts; hunted rabbit,
hare, and deer; dried the meat of the latter on trees; placed acorns in
a sieve basket, rinsed and boiled them. As every race is unhappy without
an intoxicating drink and something to chew or smoke, they extracted a
bitter beverage from a certain seed, and used a root in place of
tobacco.

These Channel Indians let their hair grow so long that they could make
braids and fasten them round the face with stone rings. The visitors
spoke of the "Island of the Bearded People." They had substantial brush
huts, supported by pillars bearing inscriptions supposed to allude to
their religion, and they enjoyed dancing to the music of bone flutes.
For gifts, they most desired red calico and chocolate.

Cabrillo's men found a primitive temple on one of the islands, and in it
an unknown god or idol. One of the eight original tribes had a form of
worship strongly resembling a Turkish bath. The men sat round a hot fire
until drenched in perspiration; then plunged into a pool of cold water.
The women were not permitted to be devout in this "cleanliness next to
godliness" manner. It was a luxury and prerogative the noble braves
wanted entirely for themselves. (We see something similar in our own
progressive, enlightened churches, where women are expected to provide
and pack clothing for missionary boxes, attend unfailingly on the stated
means of grace, visit and nurse the sick and poor members, deny
themselves for charity, listen reverently to stupid discourses on the
unknown, delivered with profound certainty that approaches omniscience,
but are not allowed to "speak out in meetin'," or to have the honor of
being represented by women delegates at denominational conventions, or
clubs and councils. They are to lead heavenward, but earthly pleasures
and honors are strictly "reserved"! About the same, isn't it?)

When Father Junipero Sena reached Santa Barbara on his mission-starting
pilgrimage, he sent for Mexican artisans, who taught his converts all
the industrial arts. They were taught to support themselves, then a
piece of ground was parcelled out to each, with a yoke of oxen and
farming utensils. Serra formed eleven missions; ten were added later. He
built the great aqueduct which is still used in Santa Barbara. All honor
to his memory! "There lingers around Santa Barbara more of the aroma and
romance of a bygone civilization, when the worthy Padres set an example
of practical Christianity to the Indian aborigines that we would do well
to emulate, than is found elsewhere in the State."

In the good old days a person could travel from San Diego to San
Francisco and not expend one shilling. The Mission Fathers would furnish
saddle, horse, or a comfortable bed, meals, and the Spanish host would
leave in the guest-chamber a small heap of silver covered by a cloth,
and the stranger, if needy, was expected to take some of it to supply
his wants.

Would you like to see a specimen of the Indian dialect used by the
"Bearded People"? I can count to five in the Siujtu language--or, at
least, I don't care to go much further: paca, sco, masa, scu, itapaca;
twenty is sco-quealisco; and to-morrow, huanahuit.

The islands are now only occupied by flocks of sheep, sheared twice a
year, and paying their owners a good profit; $100,000 one year from
Santa Rosa alone. The wool gets full of seed, and it is not the finest
quality, but this is counterbalanced by the quantity.

Many large abalone shells are found on San Miguel. They are pried off
with a crow-bar, the shells are polished for sale, made into buttons,
etc., and the meat is dried and sent to China, where it is ground and
made into soup. It has been used here, and pronounced by some to be
equal to terrapin, and by others to closely resemble leather.

These islands are always a delight to look upon. As the state of the
atmosphere varies they seem near or far away, clearly defined, or with a
hazy outline. But in sunlight or shadow, mist or mirage, they are ever
beautiful. Within the peaceful channel ships are safe while a wind storm
rages just beyond. The government sends big war-ships here for a trial
of speed. None of these islands are now desirable for residence. There
is no natural supply of fresh water, and the sheep rely on the moisture
left by the heavy fogs, and on a certain plant which holds water in its
cup-like blossom. I hear that at Catalina the goats, deprived of their
natural pabulum of hoop-skirts, tomato cans, and old shoes, feed on
clover and drink the dew.

That's what this climate does for a goat. I do not dare to make many
statements in regard to novelties in natural history since one poor
woman poetized upon the coyote "howling" in the desert, and roused
hundreds of critics to deny that coyotes ever howled. And a scientific
student came to Santa Barbara not so long ago, and found on one of these
islands a species of tailless fox, and hastened to communicate the
interesting anomaly to the Smithsonian Institute. It seems that the
otter hunters trapped these foxes for their tails, then let them go.

If it were not for these blunders I would state that roosters seem to
keep awake most of the night in Southern California, and can be heard
crowing at most irregular hours. Considering the risks, I refrain.

The islands were named by a pious priest, who made the map; and those we
see in looking out from Santa Barbara are San Miguel, Santa Rosa, Santa
Cruz, Ana, Capa. San Nicholas Island is interesting as having been the
abode for sixteen years of a solitary Indian woman, a feminine Robinson
Crusoe, without even a Friday, who was left by mistake when the rest of
the Indians were carried away by order of the Mission Fathers. Two of
the men who at last succeeded in finding her gave their testimony, which
has been preserved; and one of them, Charlie Brown, is still alive, and
likes to tell the strange story. It seems she had run back to get her
child, and the ship went off without her. Nidever tells his story in
this way:

"We scattered off two or three hundred yards apart. She had a little
house made of brush and had a fire; she was sitting by the fire with a
little knife; she was working with it. She had a bone; all came up and
looked at her; she had a heap of roots--that is what she lived on--and
had little sacks to carry them in. As soon as we sat down she put a lump
of them to roast on the fire. Finally we got ready to go, and we made
signs for her to come with us. She understood the signs for her to come
with us; she picked up her things to take them on board."

She had a dress made of duck skins, sewed together with the sinews of a
seal, with needles made of bone--an eye drilled through. This dress the
priests sent to Rome.

The demijohn in which she carried water was made out of rushes and
stopped with asphaltum. She was making one of these water bottles. She
heated small round stones in the fire and put them in the asphaltum, and
then lined the bottle, making it tight. She had no matches, of course,
nor even a tinder-box, but started fire by rubbing two sticks together.

She said her child was eaten up by wolves. None of the Indians
understood her dialect; finally one woman was found who could talk to
her a little, who had been raised on the same island. The woman was
found in 1853. She seemed happy and contented, and would go round to
different houses and dance the Indian dances. She was a great curiosity;
twenty or thirty would go along with her. Many who were sailing by would
stop just to see her.

The other hunters had noticed small human tracks, but never could see
any one. At last several men were scattered all over the island, and
Charlie Brown was the first to discover her. He thought at first it was
only a black crow sitting on a whalebone. I give his version, as his
language is far more picturesque and vivid than my paraphrase would be.
He says:

"She had built a brush fence about two feet high to break the wind. The
sun was coming in her face. She was skinning a seal. The dog when he
noticed me he began to growl. I thought if she should run. I stepped
right round her, and she bowed as if she knew me before, and when the
Indians came up they all kneeled down, and when she saw there was some
of her color, she held out some of her food and offered all some.

"I took her by the shoulder, and I said, '_Varmoose_,' and she
understood at once. I took everything she had, and she took a big seal
head in basket. We all had something to carry. Then she had a little
brand of fire, and she took that away and wobbled along with a strange
kind of a step like until we came to a watering-place about fifty feet
down the bank, and they all went down there and she went too, and she
sat down there and we watched to see what she would do, and she washed
herself over; her hair was all rotting away, a kind of bleached by the
sun, and we got to the vessel and she kneeled down, and we had a stove
right on deck and she crawled to the stove and we gave her a piece of
biscuit and she ate like a good fellow. It came on to blow; old man
Nidever had some bed-ticking. I made her a dress, and gave her a man's
shirt. She was tickled to death. If I was where she was she would hold
up her dress and point that I made it."

He was asked how she happened to be left, repeated Nidever's story, and
added: "She found they were all gone, and commenced to hollo. No answer,
and hunted round and saw the tracks and found they went to lower part of
the island. When she got there found the vessel going away, and she
called, 'Mancyavina,' but it never came. She put her head on the ground
and laid on the ground and cried, and they never came.

"The priest here had all the Indians in Santa Barbara and Santa Inez to
see if they understood her. They could understand some words, but not
all. She got baptized, and they made her a Christian and everything. A
steamer came up from below; the captain offered to take her up and show
her, but old man Nidever would not agree. She died; they gave her green
corn and melons, and they were too much for her. She made knives of
bone and wood, and had pointed nails for catching fish. She had ropes
nicely twisted with sinews, twisted as true as any rope-maker could
make, and had bottles made of grass, and dishes of wood with handles;
she put the feathers next her skin to keep warm."

I will only add that wild dogs were numerous, and she tamed them for
friends. The priests called her Juana Maria, and I think the name of the
island should be changed in her honor. I doubt if Santa Barbara herself
could have done as well under similar circumstances.




CHAPTER XII.

HER CITY AND COUNTY.


    "Syrian apples, Othmanee quinces,
    Limes and citrons and apricots,
    And wines that are known to Eastern princes."

In walking through the streets of Santa Barbara you may still see the
various types, but not so clearly defined as of old. Holy Fathers still
intone the service within the massive mission walls; they still
cultivate the large garden, from which woman is sedulously excluded. But
the faces are German and Irish. At a street corner two men are talking
earnestly, and as you pass you get a glance from Mexican eyes, dark and
soft, but the hair shows Indian blood. A real old Mexican vaquero rides
by in the genuine outfit, well worn and showing long use; next a
carriage full of fashionable visitors; then a queerer combination than
the Anglomaniac with his trousers legs turned up if the cable reports a
rainy day in London. This is the American vaquero--usually a short, fat
man with dumpy legs, who dons a flapping sombrero, buys a new Mexican
saddle, wooden stirrups, and leather riata, sometimes adding a coil of
rope at left side, wears the botas with a corduroy suit at dinner at
hotel, and doesn't know at all how comical an appearance he presents.
The very next to pass is one of the pioneers, who, although worth a
million or more, puts on no style, and surveys the mongrel in front with
a twinkle in his eye. Every one should own a horse or pony or burro
here, for the various drives are the greatest charm of the place.
Through all Southern California the happy children ride to school, where
the steeds, fastened to fence in front of building, wait patiently in
line, like Mary's lamb. But in Santa Barbara you see mere tots on
horseback, who look as if it were no new accomplishment. I believe the
mothers put them on gentle ponies to be cared for, or safe, as mothers
in general use the cradle or high-chair. One of the old Mexican
residents of Santa Barbara, when over eighty years of age, had the
misfortune to break his leg. He lay in bed uneasily until a surgeon
could be summoned and the fractured bones set and duly encased in
plaster. He then insisted on being carried out and placed upon his
favorite horse, where he sat during each day with patient serenity until
the damage was repaired by nature.

The drives are all delightful. You cannot make a mistake; there are
twenty-eight drives distinct and beautiful. Those best known are, to the
Mission Cañon, to the Lighthouse, to Montecito and Carpenteria, Cooper's
Ranch, through the far-famed Ojai Valley, and the stage or coaching trip
to San Luis Obispo, not forgetting La Vina Grande (the big grapevine),
the trunk eighteen inches in diameter, foliage covering 10,000 square
feet, producing in one year 12,000 pounds of grapes; and the Cathedral
Oaks. I jotted down a few facts at the Lighthouse _a la_ Jingle in
_Pickwick Papers_: gleaming white tower, black lantern, rising from neat
white cottage, green window-shutters, light 180 feet above sea-level,
fine view from balcony, fields of young barley down to water's edge,
bluest blue in sea and sky, the lamp holds only one quart of oil,
reflectors do big business, considering, throwing the light 417 miles.

The keeper, a woman, has been there over thirty years, never goes away
for a single night, trim, quaint, and decided, doesn't want to be
written up, will oblige her, don't believe a woman ever did so much good
with a quart of kerosene daily before. Been a widow a long time, heard
of one woman, wife of lighthouse-keeper, he died, she too stout to be
gotten out of the one room, next incumbent married her.

Montecito, as Roe described it, is a village of charming gardens and
green lawns, with a softer climate even than Santa Barbara--a most
desirable situation for an elegant country retreat. I had the privilege
of visiting the home of Mr. W. P. Gould, a former resident of Boston,
who has one of the most perfect places I have ever seen. He has been
experimenting this year with olive oil in one room of his large house
for curing lemons, and has perfected a machine which expresses the
"virgin oil" without cracking a single pit or stone. This is a great
improvement, as one crushed stone will give an acrid taste to a quart of
oil. There is a fashion in fruits as much as in bonnets or sleeves.
Olive culture is just now the fad. Pears, prunes, almonds, walnuts, have
each had their day, or their special boom. Pomona is headquarters for
the olive industry. Nursery men there sold over 500,000 trees last year.
The tree does not require the richest soil. Hon. Elwood Cooper's olive
oil is justly famous, but the machinery designed by Mr. Gould makes a
much purer oil, pronounced by connoisseurs to be the finest in the
world. The olives are sun-dried; the ponderous rollers and keen knives
of the masher mash the fruit, and every after-process is the perfection
of cleanliness and skill. There is a nutty sweetness about this oil, and
a clear amber color, which makes it most desirable for the fastidious
invalid.

This new process has been purchased by a company who are going to try to
give the country what it has never known before--pure olive oil, free
from a bit of the stone. No pure oil is brought to our country. The
public think the price too high; they prefer to buy cotton-seed oil at
thirty-five cents a gallon, and this is adulterated with peanuts,
sunflowers, and so on. This will do for the masses, but the best is none
too good if it can be found.

Few appreciate the medicinal value of olive oil. Nations making use
regularly of this and the fruit are freed from dyspepsia. A free use in
the United States would round out Brother Jonathan's angular spareness
of form, and make him less nervous and less like the typical Yankee of
whom the witty Grace Greenwood said: "He looks as if the Lord had made
him and then pinched him." One does not see the orange groves here, but
the lemon trees and walnuts and olives are an agreeable change--just for
a change.

"Who ever thinks of connecting such a commonplace article of diet as the
lemon with the romantic history of ill-fated Anne Boleyn? Yet,
indirectly, she was the cause of its first introduction into England,
and so into popular notice. Henry VIII., who, if he rid himself of his
wives like a brute, certainly won them like a prince, gave such splendid
feasts and pageants in honor of the coronation of Anne and of their
previous nuptials as had seldom been accorded to queens of the royal
blood. These kingly entertainments were in turn followed by the great
civic feast of London, for which the whole world was searched for
delicacies to add to the splendor. At one such banquet, graced by the
presence of the royal pair, a lemon was introduced as an elegant
novelty. To an epicure such as Henry, the acquisition of a castle in
France would have proved less acceptable, and such was the importance
attached to the discovery--so says an old biographer--that a special
record was made of the fact that the cost of this precious lemon was six
silver pennies."

We hear nothing of irrigation, but almost everything will thrive without
it. The soil grows well all varieties of fruits found in the Eastern and
New England States, besides all the semi-tropical fruits, as guavas,
loquats, persimmons, dates, etc. As the Rev. Mr. Jackson says: "Could
it be shown that the primitive Eden bore as many fruits pleasant to the
taste, it would add a new pang to the thought of original sin."

The number of native trees seems small, but trees have been naturalized
here from every part of the world. The pepper tree is from Peru, also
the quinine tree: from Chili, the monkey tree and the Norfolk Island
pine.

Mr. Cooper imported the eucalyptus from Australia. It grows rapidly, and
is planted for windbreaks. It is used for firewood, and when cut down
nearly to the ground will start up with the same old courage and
ambition. Its roots are so eager for water that they make long detours,
sometimes even climbing up and down a stone wall, if it is in their
route, or into a well. From the same country comes the acacia, the
rubber tree, and a large number of shrubs. New Zealand contributes her
share, and to China and Japan they are indebted for the camphor tree,
the gingko, the loquat, and the chestnuts. To South Africa they are
indebted for the silver tree, and from the northern part of that
country the date-palm and the tamarind.

One sees side by side here, and in Pasadena, trees from almost opposite
climes: the New England elm and a cork tree, a cedar of Lebanon and a
maple or an English oak. Then the glorious palm--twenty-two varieties in
Montecito Valley alone.

Sydney Smith said of the fertility of Australia, "Tickle her with a hoe
and she laughs with a harvest." But in California even the hoe is not
needed, for "volunteer crops" come up all by themselves, and look better
than ours so carefully cultivated. They say that if a Chinaman eats a
watermelon under a tree the result is a fine crop of melons next year.
And I read of a volunteer tomato plant ploughed down twice that measured
twelve feet square, and bore thousands of small red tomatoes.

Alfalfa is an ever-growing crop--can be garnered five times each year.

And as for flowers, I really cannot attempt to enumerate or describe in
detail. There are hundreds of varieties of roses. They were found
growing wild by myriads, and have been most carefully cultivated and
improved. One rose tree in the grounds of the Arlington Hotel has spread
over sixty feet of the veranda, and three lady guests have climbed into
its branches at once. As one man said: "The roses here would climb to
the moon if a trellis could be provided."

A friend sent me twenty-five large bunches of the choicest roses from
her garden one morning in April, each bunch a different variety. Their
roses are shipped in large quantities to San Francisco, and Chicago has
her churches decorated at Easter from the rose gardens of Santa Barbara.

Honey naturally is thought of. Apiculture here is a great business. The
bee has to be busy all day long and all through the year--no rest. One
ingenious fellow proposed crossing the working bee with the firefly, so
it could work all night long by its own lantern. But this is better. I
hear wondrous stories of bees getting into cracks of church towers or
upper stories, and bulging out the buildings with their accumulated
stores--positively cartloads of sweetness. Think of honey made from
orange flowers selling at five cents a pound!

A clergyman writing of Santa Barbara County says that twenty-five years
ago all their vegetables were imported. Now beans yield a ton to the
acre, potatoes two hundred and fifty bushels per acre, and he has seen
potatoes that weighed six, seven, and eight and a half pounds--as much
as an ordinary baby; beets, seventy-five tons to the acre; carrots,
thirty. Mr. Webster once declared in Congress that this State could
never raise a bushel of grain. Corn yields fifty bushels to the acre;
barley, sixty; wheat, thirty. Others give much higher records: corn, one
hundred and thirty bushels; barley, eighty; potatoes, four hundred;
forty tons of squashes, four tons of hay, sixty tons of beets.

I have spoken of stock-raising. Dairying is a profitable industry.
Poultry farming a little uncertain. If interested in mining there is
much to explore. Just in this county are found gold, silver, copper,
asphaltum, bituminous rock, gypsum, quicksilver, natural gas, and
petroleum.

And what sort of a climate does one find? Santa Barbara is an
all-year-round resort. It has all that one could ask.

    "The mountains look on Marathon,
    And Marathon looks on the sea."

It is a perpetual summer--sometimes a cold and rainy June, sometimes a
little too warm, sometimes a three days' sand-storm, disagreeable and
trying; but it is always June, as we in New England know June. At least
it is Juney from 9 A.M. until 4 P.M. Just before sunset the temperature
falls. Then when the sun goes rapidly in or down it is like being out at
sea. And to a sensitive patient, with nerves all on outside, chilled by
the least coolness, it is unpleasantly piercing.

When any one describes Santa Barbara to you as a town

    "Where winds are hushed nor dare to breathe aloud,
    Where skies seem never to have borne a cloud,"

remember that this applies truthfully to "a Santa Barbara day," but
_not_ to all days. Surf bathers go in every month of the year. But this
does not alter the fact that a person would be disappointed and consider
himself deceived if he accepted the general idea of absolute heaven on
earth. The inhabitants do not wish such exaggerations and
misrepresentations to go forth. California can bear to have the whole
truth told, and still be far ahead. Who wants eternal sunshine, eternal
monotony?

The temperature during the day varies little. I see that one resident
compares it with May in other parts of the country. I think he has never
tried to find a picnic day in early May in New England. He says: "Our
coldest month is warmer than April at Philadelphia, and our warmest one
much cooler than June at same place." They did have one simoon in 1859,
when the mercury rose to 133°, and stayed there for eight hours. Animals
and birds died, trees were blasted and burned, and gardens ruined. But
that was most "unusual."

Flannels are worn the year round. Average of rain, seventeen inches.
There are sixty-one mineral and medicinal springs in California that
are already famous. Here we can take hot sulphur baths, and drink the
nauseous water that is said to cure almost all diseases.

Farming is comparatively easy. But grapevines are smitten by a
mysterious disease called "cellular degeneration," and phylloxera; a
black scale that injures orange and olive, and a white scale that is
worse. Apples are not free from worms; the gopher is sure to go for
every root it can find. There was a serpent even in the original Eden.
The historian remarks: "The cloddish, shiftless farmer is perhaps safer
in Massachusetts." I think of experiences at "Gooseville," and decide
not to buy, nor even rent a ranch, nor accept one if offered. "Fly to
ills I know not of?" No, thank you!

I'm tired now of agriculture and climate, and will turn to less
practical themes. You sympathize. We will stop and begin a new chapter,
with a hope of being more interesting.




CHAPTER XIII.

IN GALA DRESS.


    "The sun is warm, the sky is clear,
      The waves are dancing, fast and bright;
    Both isles and snowy mountains wear
      The purple noon's transparent light."

To see Santa Barbara at its best you must go there for the Floral
Carnival. Then at high noon, on a mid-April day, all State Street is
brilliantly decorated with leaves of the date-palm, pampa plumes, moss
combined with tropical foliage, calla-lilies, wildflowers, bamboo,
immortelles, branches of pepper trees, evergreens, lemon boughs laden
with yellow fruit, and variegated shrubs. Draperies of white and gold,
with green or red in contrast, or blue and white, in harmony with red
flowers, or floral arches draped with fish-nets bestrewn with pink
roses; or yellow alone in draperies combined with the poppy, or gray
moss and roses. No one fails to respond to the color summons for the
day of days. The meat-markets are tastefully concealed with a leafy
screen and callas. The undertaker makes his place as cheerful as
possible with evergreens, roses, and red geraniums. The drugstore is
gaily trimmed, and above the door see the great golden mortar made of
marigolds. The Mexican and Californian colors are often flung out, and
flags are flying from many windows. The long broad street is a blaze of
glory; the immense audience, seated on tiers of benches, wait patiently,
then impatiently, for the expected procession; and as many more people
are standing in line, equally eager. Many have baskets or armfuls of
flowers, with which to pelt the passing acquaintance. There are moments
of such intense interest that everything is indelibly and eternally
photographed. I see, as I write, the absolutely cloudless sky of perfect
blue, the sea a darker shade, equally perfect, the white paved street,
the kaleidoscope of color, the fluttering pennants, the faces of the
crowd all turned in one direction, and hark! the band is really coming,
the beginning of the pageant is just seen, and now sea, sky, flags,
crowds are no more regarded, for the long-talked-of parade is here. See
advancing the Grand Commander and his showy aids, gay Spanish cavaliers,
the horses stepping proudly, realizing the importance of the occasion,
the saddles and bridles wound with ribbons or covered with flowers. And
next the Goddess of Flowers, in canopy-covered shell, a pretty little
Mayflower of a maiden, with a band of maids of honor, each in a dainty
shell. The shouts and applause add to the excitement, and flowers are
hurled in merry war at the cavaliers, and the goddess and her
attendants. Next comes the George Washington coach, modelled after the
historic vehicle, occupied by stately dames and courtly gentlemen in
colonial array; even the footmen are perfection in the regulation livery
of that period. Solemn and imposing this may be, but they get a
merciless shower of roses, and one of the prizes. And do look at the
haymakers! Oh, that is charming! Country girls and boys on a load of
new-mown hay, with broad-brimmed hats, and dresses trimmed with
wild-flowers. And now the advance-guard is coming down again; they have
just turned at the head of the line, and it is already a little
confusing. But the judges! How can they keep cool, or even think, with
such a clamor of voices, and guests chattering thoughtlessly to them.
Here comes a big basket on wheels, handle and all covered with moss and
roses. Four girls in pink silk trimmed with moss stand within, bearing
shields of pink roses to protect their laughing faces from excess of
attention. What a lovely picture! Another basket just behind covered
entirely with marguerites; the wheels also are each a marguerite, the
white horses with harness covered with yellow ribbon--so dainty, so
cool. Is it better than the other? And here is a Roman chariot, a
Spanish market-wagon, a phaeton covered with yellow mustard, a hermit in
monastic garb; then Robin Hood and his merry men, and Maid Marian in
yellow-green habit, Will Scarlet and Friar Tuck in green doublets,
yellow facings, bright green felt hats, bows and quivers flower-trimmed,
even the tiny arrows winged with blossoms. Now there are equipages
three deep to survey instead of one, as they pass and repass in
bewildering splendor. And do look! Here come the comicalities! "The Old
Woman who lived in a Shoe"--a big floral slipper, with a dozen children
in pink and gray-green, and the old woman on great poke-bonnet; a
Japanese jinrikisha; an egg of white flowers, and a little boy hid away
so as to peep and put out a downy head as a yellow chicken; a bicycle
brigade; equestriennes; an interesting procession of native
Californians, with the accoutrements of the Castilian, on horseback. One
carriage is banked with marigolds, and the black horses are harnessed in
yellow of the exact shade. It is fitly occupied by black-eyed Spanish
beauties, with raven hair done up high with gold combs, and black lace
costumes with marigolds for trimming, and takes a well-deserved prize.

Roses, roses, roses, roses! How they fly and fall as the fleeting
display is passing! Thirty thousand on one carriage. Roses cover the
street. And yet the gardens don't seem stripped. Where millions are
blooming thousands are not missed. And not roses alone, but every flower
of field and garden and conservatory is honored and displayed. Now the
contestants are driving up to the grand stand to secure silken banners.
Every one looks a little bit weary in procession and audience. Is it
over? I murmur regretfully:

    "All that's bright must fade,
      The brightest still the fleetest;
    All that's sweet was made
      But to be lost when sweetest."

Yes, it is over! Waving banners, rainbow colors, showers of blossoms,
rosy faces, mimic battle, fairy scenes, the ideal realized!

This is better than the New Orleans Mardi Gras, so often marred by rain
and mud, with mythological ambiguities that few can understand, and
difficult to interpret in passing tableaux; better than similar display
at Nice and Mentone. _This_ I do call "unique" and the only. Let Santa
Barbara have this yearly festa for her own. She has fairly won the
preëminence.

We at the comparatively frozen and prosaic north can indulge in gay
coaching parades at Franconia, Newport, or Lenox, where costumes of
gorgeous hues assist the natural beauty of the flowers. But it is only a
coaching parade, at the wind-up of a gay season. We cannot catch the
evanescent glamour, the optical enchantment, the fantastic fun, the
exquisite art of making long preparation and hard work, careful schemes
for effect, appear like airy nonsense for the amusement of an idle hour.
We show the machinery. A true carnival can only be a success in a
perpetual "summer-land," "within a lovely landscape on a bright and
laughing seacoast." Taine said, "Give me the race, the surroundings, and
the epoch, and I show you the man." Give me fair women, roses, sunshine,
leisure, and high-bred, prancing steeds, and I show you this Santa
Barbara Carnival.

But this is only a portion of the entertainment. There is a display of
flowers at the Pavilion, where everything can be found that blooms in
California, all most artistically arrayed; and more fascinating in the
evening, when hundreds of tiny electric lights twinkle everywhere from
out the grayish-green moss, and the hall is filled with admiring guests.
There is always a play given one evening by amateur talent, a
tournament, and a grand closing ball.

The tournament is exciting, where skilful riders try tilting at rings,
trying to take as many rings as possible on lance while galloping by the
wires on which these rings are lightly suspended---a difficult
accomplishment. Their costumes are elaborate and gay, but never _outrè_
or bizarre, and no two alike. Each has his own color, and, like the
knights of old, has a fayre ladye among the spectators who is especially
interested and anxious for his success.

Next comes the Spanish game of "colgar," picking up ten-dollar gold
pieces from the saddle, the horse at full speed. And the gymkhana race
ends the games. Those who enter, saddle at the word "go," open an
umbrella, and, taking out a cigar, light and smoke it--then see who
first rides to the goal.

Last came the real _vaqueros_, and they ride untamed, unbroken horses,
after a long and rather painful struggle to mount. They lasso mustangs
and do wonderful things. But it was too much. I was glad to go and rest.

The Flower Dance at the ball, where human flowers formed intricate
figures and dances for our edification and delight, was so attractive
that my words are of no avail. Picture twenty-eight young ladies, each
dressed to represent a flower--hollyhock, pansy, moss, rose,
morning-glory, eucalyptus blossom, pink clover, yellow marguerite,
Cherokee rose, pink carnation, forget-me-not, buttercup, pink-and-white
fuchsia, lily of the valley, wine-colored peony, white iris, daffodil,
and so on. They advance with slowly swaying motion, with wreaths
uplifted until they reach the stage, where sit the guests of honor.
There they bow low, then lay the garlands at their feet, and retire,
forming ingeniously pretty groups and figures, while bees and
butterflies flit in and out. See the bees pursuing the little pink
rosebuds until at last they join hands and dance gaily away, only to be
enthusiastically recalled.

Do you ladies want to understand a little in detail about the dresses?
Of course you do. Well, here is the yellow marguerite:

Slender petals of yellow satin falling over a skirt of white silk crêpe,
a green satin calyx girdle about her waist, and golden petals drooped
again from the neck of her low bodice and over her shoulders.

A handsome brunette represented a wine-colored peony in a rich costume
of wine-colored velvet and satin. The petals fell to make the skirt, and
rose again from a bell sheathing the neck of her low corsage, and the
cap on her dark hair was a copy of the flower.

There, you see how it is done. But it requires genius to succeed in such
an undertaking. Look at Walter Crane's pictures of human flowers for
more suggestions.

Most effective of all was the cachuca, danced by a girl of pure
Castilian blood, who was dressed to symbolize the scarlet passionflower.
The room was darkened save where she stood, and her steps and poses were
full of Spanish fire and feeling, combined with poetic grace.

Yes, it is over, but the pictures remain as freshly colored as if I saw
it all but yesterday.

During the Carnival sentiment reigns supreme--that is, if you have
engaged rooms far in advance, and the matter of three daily meals is
settled--and portly business men become gallant, chivalrous, and even
poetic. In testimony I offer two verses sent to a lady visitor with a
bunch of roses:

    "We had not thought it was for aught
      He lingered round us, scanning,
    But to admire our spring attire,
      The south wind softly fanning.

    "But when we knew it was for you
      Our charms he sought to capture,
    All round the bower each budding flower
      Blushed pink with rosy rapture.

          "Lovingly,

            THE ROSES."

George Eliot once said: "You love the roses--so do I! I wish the sky
would rain down roses as they rain from off the shaken bush. Why will it
not? Then all the valleys would be pink and white, and soft to tread on.
They would fall as light as feathers, smelling sweet; and it would be
like sleeping and yet waking all at once."

She never knew Santa Barbara.

I said the horses feel proud, and their owners tell me how they turn
their heads to see their adornment. And well they may, for a true
Barbareno loves his horse as does the Arab, and delights in his
decoration. Easily first in this matter is Mr. W. D. Thompson, who came
to Santa Barbara from Maine more than forty years ago, a nephew of the
captain with whom Dana sailed. Mr. Thompson is a progressive man, who
appreciates the many improvements achieved and contemplated, but still
loves to tell of the good old times when he was roughing it as a
pioneer. He has done a most important and valuable work in having a
typical Mexican saddle and bridle of the most approved and correct
pattern made out of the finest leather and several thousand silver
dollars. As his favorite mare stood before me with this magnificent
saddle on, and her forelegs tied with a little strap so that she could
step daintily but not run, I never saw such a pretty sight of the kind.
This saddle and bridle, worth over $3000, are now on exhibition in
Chicago. No more significant or beautiful exhibition of the early
argonautic period could be sent from Southern California, and it will
surely attract constant and admiring attention. Here is a description
from the San Francisco _Argonaut_:

"This saddle and bridle, manufactured of bullion from Mexican dollars,
are exquisite works of art. The saddle is of typical Mexican pattern,
with a high pommel, well-hollowed seat, and the most elaborate of
trappings. The leather is stamped with elegant designs, and the whole
thing is a complete, costly, and elaborate equipment, of good taste and
artistic design. The saddle is studded over with silver ornaments. The
leather facings are set thick with buttons and rosettes; the pommel is
encased in silver; the corners of the aprons are tipped with silver; the
stirrups are faced and edged with silver half an inch thick, elaborately
chased and carved. The saddle-tree is hung with silver rings, fore and
aft, to answer all the requirements of the vaquero in lacing up his
riata. The girth, which passes under the horse's belly and cinches the
saddle in place, is woven of hair from horses' manes by a native
artisan, and is fully eight inches broad, with a tassel hanging at its
middle. The saddle, the bridle, and all its appointments are marvels of
beauty. The reins, martingale, and whip are composed of solid silver in
woven strands. The headstall is covered with fluted silver, with large
engraved silver rosettes at the sides, with decorations of flowers and
heads of wheat, with an elaborate nose-piece with silver engraving. The
side-pieces are of silver, massive and ornate, with a silver chain under
the horse's jaw. The bridle, reins, and accessories weigh about twelve
pounds, and are worth not less than two hundred and fifty dollars in
value of silver coin used in its manufacture."

Everybody up and down the coast knows Dixie Thompson. His talk is full
of delightful anecdotes of the early settlers, and he has a droll, dry
humor of his own that is refreshing. Mr. Nordhoff, who is an old
friend, once wrote to the Harper "Drawer" about his shrewd way of
restraining the over-keen traders and laboring men who tried to impose
upon him. He heads the pleasant bit of gossip, "Captain Thompson's
Club," and says:

"Captain Dixie is, to all appearance, the man of most leisure in all
leisurely Santa Barbara. He and his horses and carriages are always at
the service of a friend. But while he seems to be the idlest of men, he
is, in fact, an extremely capable business man who has many irons in the
fire--tills much good land, has horses and cattle and pigs of the best
breeds on many hills and in several rich valleys, and keeps all his
affairs running in good order. Still, he is an easy-going, not a
bustling, man of business. And it is just here that his social
contrivance comes in: he has judged it expedient to form a club.

"'You see,' said he, the other day, to an old friend, 'the boys don't
always see me around, and sometimes they try to take a little advantage.
I find a fellow who don't haul half a load for me while I am paying for
a full load; another one who gives me short measure; or another who does
not do what I have told him. I hate to scold; and as they all deny when
I accuse them, and I can't be telling men that they are lying to me, I
thought I'd just establish a Liars' Club and bring them all in. It is
now in good, healthy operation. We don't call it the Liars' Club, of
course; we speak of the Club. But when I catch a man trying to 'do' me,
I just tell him that I'll have to make him a member of the Club.--Oh,
how do you do, Mr. President?' said Captain Dixie to a well-known
character just then passing by.--'He's the president of the Club, you
know,' he added. 'Here's Pancho now; I told him the other day I would
have to make him a member of the Club if he didn't look out. I guess
he'll get in yet. It's a very flourishing club, and more useful, I
guess, than some others.'

"Don't laugh, my dear Drawer. I believe Captain Thompson has struck an
admirable idea, and one which might well have wide application. Don't
you suppose the material for such a club exists, for instance--not here
in New Haven, of course, but over in New York, say, or perhaps in
Washington? Think it over. The Drawer has always taken the lead in great
moral and social improvements. I leave it to you."

Here, as in all Southern California, you will never know anything of the
real town unless you have a friend who can take you to unfrequented
cross-country drives up winding paths to mesas, or upland pasture
guarded by lock and key from the average tourist, and get views
indescribably fine.

I am ashamed of my fellow-travellers who pick oranges by the score, and
even break off boughs from the choicest and most conspicuous trees, and
rush uninvited pell-mell into private grounds and quiet homes of
well-bred people to see and exclaim and criticise. Add to this nuisance
the fact that hundreds of invalids come yearly to the most desirable
localities, turning them into camping-grounds for bacilli. I wonder at
the singular forbearance and courtesy of the residents.

Occasionally some one invited to speechify or air his opinion of things
in general here bluntly expresses his surprise at finding everywhere so
much culture, wealth, and refinement. This is a queer reflection on the
fact that this part of the State is filled with specimens of our finest
families from the East. I will frankly admit that I must be at my very
best to keep up with those I have been privileged to meet here.

You must not forget when in Santa Barbara to visit the fine public
library, the best adapted for the convenience of actual workers of any I
have entered. You must not fail to drive to Montecito ("little forest"),
to Carpenteria and Goleta.

I also advise you to spend a morning in Mr. Ford's studio, and an
afternoon with Mr. Starke and his treasures in wood-carving and
inlaying, brought yearly from the Yosemite, wrought out with his own
hands. He uses nearly fifty varieties of trees in his woodwork, and few
see his stock and go away without investing in a redwood cane, a
paper-knife, or an inlaid table. His orders come from all parts of the
world, and are often very large, mounting up to hundreds of dollars. He
is a simple-hearted student of nature, and a thorough workman. I enjoyed
a brief visit to Chinatown and Spanishtown close by, where I saw a woman
scrubbing clothes on a long flat board, with a piece of soap in each
hand, standing in a hut made of poles covered with brush, and noticed an
old oven outdoors and the meat hung up in strips to dry. I enjoyed also
a call on the old fellow who "catcha de fisha."

And now, looking back as we are whirled away, I find I am repeating
those lines from Shelley which so exactly reproduce the picture:

                   "The earth and ocean seem
      To sleep in one another's arms and dream
    Of waves, flowers, clouds, woods, rocks, and all that we
      Read in their smiles, and call reality."




CHAPTER XIV.

AU REVOIR.

Just as a woman is leaving her friends she ever has the most to chatter
about. How can I say _au revoir_ briefly when there is so much more to
tell? I so earnestly want to give California _en verdad_, or in truth.
There has been too much bragging from the settlers, as in 1887 the Los
Angeles _Herald_ said that "New York would soon be excelled by that
city." There is a general desire to surpass all the rest of the world in
as many ways as possible, and a general belief that it can easily be
done. And visitors have omitted all that was unpleasant, and exaggerated
the good points, so that one Californian speaks "of the dancing
dervishes of travel, singing insanely from the moment they come to us."

There is so much that is novel in this wonderland that it is hard to
keep cool and look at all sides. In 1870 all vegetables and grain were
imported. Mr. Webster declared long ago in Congress that California was
absolutely worthless except for mining and grazing. The rancheros
thought the land only fit for sheep to roam over. Now great train-loads
of vegetables and grain leave daily for the East; all the earliest fruit
of New York, Boston, and Chicago comes from this State, and ships are
carrying all these products to all parts of the world. From north to
south the State measures over 800 miles--as far as from New York to
Florida--with an area of 189,000 square miles--as much as New England
and the Middle States combined, throwing in Maryland. The northern and
southern portions are as unlike as Massachusetts and Florida, and the
State must soon be divided. How little is known of Northern California!
Next year I hope to describe that, with its lofty mountains, wonderful
scenery, lakes of rare beauty, immense interests in grain, fruits, and
mining. This little bit along the coast is but a minute portion of the
whole. I have only followed in the footsteps of the Fathers, and would
like to take you to Monterey, where Junipero Serra founded his last
mission. Mrs. Stanford has placed a statue of the dear old saint on the
shore to honor his life-work. Realizing the size of the State and its
capabilities, big stories seem inevitable. As Talleyrand said of Spain,
"It is a country in which two and two make five."

Some statements need to be modified. It is declared over and over that
here there are no thunderstorms. In the _Examiner_ of May 19th I read:
"Santa Rosa was visited by a very severe electrical storm about eleven
o'clock last night. The sky was brilliantly illuminated by lightning,
and peal after peal of heavy thunder was heard. This was followed by a
rain which continued until near morning." A church steeple was struck by
lightning and destroyed. This is unusual, but for "never" read "hardly
ever." No mad dogs, yet a little terrier I bought in San Francisco to
give to a friend had to be shot its first summer on account of rabies.
Let us balance matters:

No malaria,       but rheumatism.
No cyclones,       "  wind and sand storms.
No thunderstorms,  "  earthquakes.
No mad dogs,       "  rattlesnakes and centipedes, tarantulas and
                      scorpions.
No sunstrokes,     "  chilling fogs.

All goes when the sun goes. The climate is "outdoors." A sunny room is
essential. The difference between noonday and midnight, temperature
between sun and shade, is something to be learned and guarded against.

Each place is recommended by doctors who have regained their own health
as _the_ place for invalids. What Dr. Edwards says of San Diego is
repeated everywhere else by experts:

"San Diego presents the most even climate, the largest proportion of
fair, clear days, a sandy and absorbent soil, and the minimum amount of
atmospheric moisture--all the factors requisite in a perfect climate."

In each "_peripheral resistances are reduced to a minimum_." Dr.
Radebaugh, of Pasadena, who, I believe, has not the normal amount of
lung but has been restored to health by the air of Pasadena, where he
has a large practice, assures me that, in his candid opinion, "Pasadena
is the greatest all-the-year-round health-resort in the world." Dr.
Isham, of same place, goes into details, and is almost the only
physician I have consulted who acknowledges drawbacks in the Pasadena
climate for those who desire a cure for throat or lungs. "This climate,
like all else here, is paradoxical and contradictory," and he mentions
that the winds blowing from the Pacific are not usually the
rain-bearers, but those blowing from a point directly opposite, and that
the arid desert. Among objectionable features he mentions the "marked
changes of temperature daily, frequent fogs, excess of humidity in
winter owing to protracted rains (thirty inches in five months, from
November, 1892, to March of this year); hot, dry winds that prevail in
summer, with wind and sand storms, which have a debilitating effect on
nervous systems, and are irritating to the mucous membrane."

How refreshing to find one person who does not consider his own refuge
from disease an ideal health-resort! He also owns that doctors do not
know yet how to treat such troubles as bronchitis, as is proven by their
experimenting upon patients in Minnesota, Colorado, Arizona, Florida,
and Pasadena. And he closes his letter in this way:

"When local jealousies have subsided, and contending climates have had
their day, the thing of cardinal importance for an invalid such as you
have mentioned to do when about to change his or her home will be, not
to attach too much importance to this or that particular climatic
condition as determined by the barometer, thermometer, hygrometer,
anemometer, and other meteorological instruments, nor to lay too much
stress on a difference of a few hundred or thousand feet of elevation
above the sea; but choose a home where the environments will afford the
invalid or valetudinarian the greatest opportunity of living
out-of-doors, and of spending the hours of sunshine in riding, driving,
walking, and in other ways, whereby the entrance of pure air into the
lungs is facilitated. In Pasadena the days in winter are warm enough to
make outdoor life attractive and healthful, while the number of sunny
days throughout the year is above the average of that prevailing in many
other deservedly popular health-resorts."

I will also quote a letter received from Dr. W. B. Berry, formerly of
Montclair, N. J., who, coming to Southern California an almost hopeless
invalid, is now fairly well, and will probably entirely regain his
health. He also is careful and conservative in statement, and therefore
commands serious attention:

                                        "Riverside, Cal., May 2, 1893.

     "Dear Miss Sanborn: To recommend any place to an invalid is to an
     experienced climate-hunter no doubt, at times, a duty,--certainly
     it is a duty from which he shrinks.

     "One does not see so many advanced cases of pulmonary disease here
     as at either Asheville or Colorado Springs. The thousands of miles
     of alkali, sage-brush, and desolation might explain that, but it
     does seem to me that a much larger proportion of consumptives are
     'doing well' in this country than in those.

     "_Pure dry air_, _pure water_, and _clean dry soil_ are the
     climatic elements essential for the pulmonary invalid, and for most
     others. These conditions can be found at Riverside and its vicinity
     during a large proportion of the year.

     "Here, too, are cool walks, with sunshine or shade, as may be
     desired, and things on every side to interest. For, unfortunately,
     the man with a sore chest has a brain and a spinal cord to be
     stimulated and fed, not to speak of those little heartstrings
     undiscovered by the anatomist, and which yet tug and pull mightily
     in a far country.

     "In short, it would seem that any consumptive in an early stage of
     his disease who does not thrive at a moderate altitude would do
     well to come here and to stay--that is, if he will remember that
     all the climate is out-of-doors."

My own troublesome throat is almost as good as new, and I am proud to
name my physician, _Outdoors, M.D._ Come and consult the same unfailing
restorer.

I have given, according to my humble ability, _la verdad cierta_--the
absolute truth--about the small fraction of the State known as Southern
California.

I came with gargle and note-book, but long ago gave up the former; and
as for these jottings, I offer them to those who want to see this
much-talked-of Earthly Paradise as in a verbal mirror. And to all a
cordial _au revoir_!

    "Adieu to thee again!
    A vain adieu!
    There can be no farewell to scene like thine:
    The mind is colored by thy every hue."




KATE SANBORN'S BOOKS.

Adopting an Abandoned Farm.
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clear, simple style that is delightful. His facts are gathered with
great care, and admirably interwoven to impress the subject under
discussion upon the mind of the reader."--_Chicago Inter-Ocean_.





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[Transcriber's Note: The following typographical errors have been
corrected.

In Chapter II, "irridescent" has been changed to "iridescent", and
"witten" has been changed to "written".]







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