Chapter XVIII: The Grand Cañon of the Colorado (2)

Surely, when the human race cuts its wisdom teeth, it will no longer crowd into dirty, noisy, malodorous cities, but will seek health and fresh air all the year round. Southern California will loom up more and more as an ideal place for building up a vast city in the country, so to speak,—a city in which each house will be surrounded by ten or twenty acres of irrigated land, capable of producing all the fruits and vegetables, eggs and poultry, needed by the family, and shaded by one of the fifty varieties of eucalyptus-trees already imported from Australia, or by the spacious pepper-tree, and a small orange, peach, and fig orchard. Such a city could be built up in a few years, with shade and all. Elsewhere when people plant trees, they do so for the benefit of posterity; here a row of the eucalyptus will grow in a few years large enough to afford abundance of shade. Noiseless electric railways will traverse this country town in every direction, bringing the scattered population to the business places and centres of amusement. But they will not crave the artificial excitements of city life as they do now; for when there are no excursions to the sea or the mountains, the fascinating care of the orange groves and flower gardens will absorb all the leisure moments. What novel, what theatrical play, could afford so much amusement as the daily irrigation of a flower-bed, and noticing how the plants grow visibly and in a few weeks develop into exotic wildernesses of tropical and semi-tropical flowers of the most gorgeous colors and unheard-of size? Or watching a rose-bush as it gradually intertwines itself among the branches of an orange-tree, which some morning will present the bewitching spectacle of a tree bearing red roses, white orange blossoms, and golden oranges all at the same time? Or sitting under this orange-tree in February, listening to a mocking-bird perched on its branches, and reading in your paper about the blizzards and storms of the East, and the tornadoes and cyclones which you know will never visit your home? Why should our novelists lay the scenes of their tales in Andalusia when we have an Andalusia of our own here on the Pacific Coast? At one time it formed part of the so-called Great American Desert, but in the next century it will be known as the Great American Paradise.

Yet let not the coming population of the Pacific Andalusia fancy that they will be spared all the trials and annoyances of life. Even Southern California has its disadvantages,—quite enough to prevent it from degenerating into a Utopia. Thus you will some morning be standing in your garden admiring your favorite banana bush. Suddenly it will tremble and sink into the ground a foot or two. Earthquakes are not unknown in this region, but they don’t “strike in one place” like that. No, it was one of those irrepressible gophers, the terror of the rural Californian. They will eat the roots of your fruit trees and choicest flowers, regardless of expense; and though cats and traps will catch them, and irrigation drowns them, the neighboring fields always furnish a fresh supply; and what is worse, their subterranean passages from these fields serve as tunnels which carry off your water, and make you pay twice as much for irrigation as you would have needed but for those holes. Then there are scale-bugs of all colors, which attack your orange-trees and have to be sprayed off; and a mysterious disease which kills your vines; and small green insects which eat up your flowers and buds so that you need a whole drug store to combat them. Rabbits will eat your vegetables and grape-vines, and the quails will feed on your grapes; and, to add insult to injury, the Los Angeles sporting clubs have succeeded in passing a law which prevents you from shooting these birds at a time when it would do most to protect your crops. However, if you are a sportsman, you will forgive and observe this law, which enables you at other times to shoot at a flock of quail in your own vegetable garden, though you live in a town of two or three thousand inhabitants.

The desolate appearance which all the unirrigated parts of the country present after May must also be reckoned among the disadvantages of this climate; for a sensitive soul can hardly help feeling pity for the drooping, parched vegetation, especially after having noticed how eagerly it drinks in the first rain of the autumn, with as much evident enjoyment as a Bavarian emptying his mug of beer at a draught. Nor can one help admitting that the orange groves and eucalyptus avenues, delightful as they are, cannot entirely atone for the absence of green forests; for Southern California, except in the foothills, is as treeless as Spain—which it resembles in so many other respects,—and a single oak-tree has more than once furnished the nucleus of a town. The higher mountains are as bare of trees as the valleys, but this is compensated for by the consequent greater clearness and variety of the sculptured outlines, and by the snows which fall during every rainstorm, sometimes extending almost down to the foothills. In the clear southern atmosphere these mountains, though they be fifty or sixty miles away, seem to be almost within a stone’s throw; and as they are visible everywhere, they constitute one of the greatest charms of Southern California. Once in a while, however, this view is spoiled for a day or two by one of those desert winds and sand-storms which are the most annoying feature of this climate, and are known as the Norther, or the “Santa Ana” wind, as the Anaheimers call it, in order to give a hated rival town a bad name. Without being a hurricane, or even a gale, this wind reaches a considerable velocity, is as dry and warm as if it came from an oven, and raises clouds of dust which obscure the sun and mountains as effectually as the smoke of the forest fires does in Oregon, and a film of which even lines the waters of the Pacific to a considerable distance from the shore. If I finally mention that this dust, even when it lies quietly on the ground two or three inches thick during seven or eight months of the year, is by no means a desirable thing to have about, I shall have mentioned all the serious blemishes that I could discover on the face of this fair country; and they are so insignificant compared with its attractions that I have given them the advantage of having the last word in this chapter, confident that they cannot essentially modify the opinion therein expressed as to the future of Southern California.

IV.

THE HOME OF THE ORANGE.

THE GERMAN COLONY AT ANAHEIM—RABBIT-HUNTING IN THE CACTUS
FIELDS—COWS AND ORANGES—THE BEST CALIFORNIA ORANGE—RIVERSIDE AND
ITS MODEL ORCHARDS—ORANGE-PICKING—A WONDERFUL AVENUE—LOCAL FLAVOR
IN ORANGES—AN ENGLISH COLONY—HOW PROHIBITION PROHIBITS—SCENES
BETWEEN RIVERSIDE AND SAN DIEGO.

After enjoying the sights of Los Angeles, including the palms and orange groves, the cable-car scenery, and Chinatown, which have been often enough described, it will repay the tourist to devote a week or two to a round trip through that part of the State which lies south of Los Angeles as far as San Diego and Tia Juana on the Mexican border. Take a ticket to Riverside, via Orange, and stop over a day at Anaheim, which commands a specially fine view of the snow-capped San Gabriel range and the giant San Bernardino. Anaheim is known as the “mother colony,” having been founded as early as 1858 by a party of fifty Germans from San Francisco, in search of a pleasant site for homes and good soil for raising Rhine wine. To-day the population is no longer exclusively German, nor is wine-making the chief industry; for Anaheim enjoys the sad distinction of being the place where the destructive vine disease originated, and now there are few good vineyards left in the vicinity, though the cellars of the hospitable families are still well stocked with a Riesling that unmistakably betrays its legitimate descent from the celebrated Johannisberger stock on the Rhine. Undaunted by their misfortune, the Anaheimers have dug out their dead vines and planted in their place oranges, walnuts, pampas plumes, and figs, which in a few years will bear as rich fruit and as big profits as the former vineyards. The fields and orchards are supplied with water through a ditch from the Santa Ana River, sixteen miles long, and lined all the way with willows. A drive along this ditch is interesting, as is a visit to the ostrich farm, two or three miles from the town. If a longer stay is contemplated, there is excellent hunting of wild goose, ducks, and other water-fowl, all the way from Anaheim to the ocean, while in the cactus fields around the town may be found quails and pigeons, and the sportive jack-rabbit abounds. In hunting him, you not only satisfy the craving for murder of some sort, which still lingers as a relic of savagery in the gentlest human breast, but you do a great service to the farmers, who are sometimes obliged in self-defence to organize rabbit drives, at which two or three thousand of the long-eared, fleet-footed robbers are killed.

Rabbit-hunting in cactus fields is a sport quite _sui generis_. The moment you catch a glimpse of Jack, he is apt to catch a glimpse of you and dodge behind a cactus bush; and if you follow him too quickly but unwisely, you will suddenly find your nether limbs pierced with a thousand fish-hook-pointed thorns, requiring an hour or two of hard and bloody work for their extraction. Unless you kill him on the spot he will crawl into a cactus bush, where neither dog nor devil can get at him. You know just where he is, but he might as well be at the bottom of the Pacific so far as you are concerned. But the loss is not great; for three out of four of these rabbits are not fit to eat, and are therefore usually chopped up for chicken food. Whether it is that in their flight they run against a thorny cactus leaf or that they carry off part of a load of shot, the fact is that the meat is generally diseased, being filled with a granular jelly-like substance like tapioca pudding. Tourists will do well to avoid hare when they find it on a Los Angeles bill of fare, as there is little reason to believe that the huge piles of jacks seen in the market there have been carefully sorted. But there is another much smaller rabbit, the cotton-tail, which affords equally good sport, and which is always good to eat; the younger ones tasting somewhat like chicken. Near the towns they are shy, active dodgers, and hard to shoot unless you sneak on them; but in less frequented hunting-grounds they graze complacently along the roadsides and look upon passing buggies as calmly as cows. Bang! goes the gun; Nero jumps out and brings the victim; and in this way dozens can be bagged in a few hours, before sunset, without once leaving the buggy; so that even invalids and cripples can go rabbit-hunting in Southern California. But there are stranger things still.

Did you ever see a cow eat oranges off a tree? That was one of the sights I witnessed in Anaheim. Not satisfied with the basketful of windfall seedlings which she received every day, our Millie, like Eve, cast longing eyes on the fruit tree near her open stable, and one day she broke loose and had a regular picnic before she was discovered. Her daughter, too, a promising young Jersey of six weeks, after one or two suspicious trials, became very fond of oranges, and having eaten three or four, would baah for more. The children of our Mexican neighbors, seeing all this fun, would come in to buy some for themselves, and received a liberal dozen for five cents.

These seedling oranges make delicious orangeade, and have a certain value because they ripen later than the finer sorts and produce larger crops; but they are rather sour and thick-skinned, and therefore fetch only a dollar or even seventy-five cents a box on the tree and two dollars at Chicago, while the best budded variety brings two dollars and a half to three dollars on the tree and four dollars to four dollars and a half in Chicago. Consequently the seedlings are no longer set out to any extent, while the demand for Washington-navel-trees was so great last winter that the nurserymen could not supply the demand, and young trees had to be imported from Florida. The Washington-navel is by far the best of all California oranges. It is a Brazilian orange, imported in 1873, and seems specially adapted to the climatic conditions of California. Riverside is its chief home, and Riverside navels are so highly valued that even in Los Angeles you get only three or four of them for a quarter of a dollar. They are very large, and, like the Spanish blood-oranges, almost always seedless, have a thin skin (with a small, navel-like formation or even a tiny orange at one end), and a sweet and most delicately flavored juice. I have squeezed as many as twenty teaspoonfuls of juice out of a single one of these oranges—a feat which I have never succeeded in accomplishing with a Florida orange. (I may add in parenthesis that to eat an orange with a teaspoon is to lose two-thirds of its flavor.)

The town of Orange, between Anaheim and Riverside, already gives warning of the neighborhood of the State’s orange centre. The station, in the springtime, is piled up to the ceiling with boxes of oranges, and near by a number of men are busily at work wiping the golden fruit with wet rags and rolling it down inclined boards to dry, preparatory to packing. The fruit is generally bought on the trees by the packing companies, who send round their men with ladders, and sacks suspended around their necks, from which the fruit is transferred to boxes, to be repacked afterwards, the bruised or imperfect ones being thrown out, so that three boxes (of the seedlings at any rate) yield only two for the market. Orange-picking is painted by the imagination as the most poetic of all agricultural employments, and nothing certainly could look more picturesque than the boxes of luscious fruit scattered through an orchard, under the dark green, fragrant trees; but the orange-tree, like the rose-bush that loves to twine around it, bristles with thorns which cry for blood, and make orange-picking about as exciting and perilous a pursuit as rabbit-hunting amid the cactus bushes.

The town of Orange belonged till lately to Los Angeles County (a separate Orange County was formed last year with Santa Ana as its capital), but before reaching Riverside we have entered San Bernardino County, the largest in the United States—“about the size of the States of Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, and Massachusetts combined.” The counties of Southern California are very much larger than those of the central and northern part of the State, and as the population increases they will doubtless be further subdivided. But it is doubtful if San Bernardino County will be divided very soon, for the greater part of it is comprised in the irredeemable Mojave Desert. The region west of the Bernardino range, however, is one of the most valuable in the State, experience having shown that it is the chosen home of the orange. Los Angeles County has many fine and luxuriant orange groves, and more of them than San Bernardino County; yet to see California orange culture in its highest perfection, one must go to Riverside. Nowhere else do the orchards seem so luxuriant and so well cultivated, or the fruit and trees so glossy and clean. Here the oranges do not need cleaning with a rag, owing to the absence of the black scale which elsewhere often gives the leaves and fruit a dirty appearance. The white scale-bug, too, which destroys the trees, has thus far spared Riverside groves, and in the business street of the town a notice is posted warning purchasers of orange-trees not to import any from infected counties. The orange is not indigenous to California, as it is to Mexico and Florida; it does not flourish here without some care, and becomes remunerative in proportion to the amount of care bestowed on it. A glance at the well-ploughed, weedless, carefully irrigated orchards of Riverside at once explains the enormous profits realized by local growers; and an incident that occurred at Anaheim throws further light on the matter. Noticing a couple of malodorous freight-cars on the side track, I asked a man what they contained. “Manure,” he replied, “from the numerous sheep corrals in the neighborhood, and bound for Riverside,” adding that this had been found the best manure for oranges, and that in a few years the Anaheimers, who now foolishly sold their treasure, would be importing it from elsewhere at an exorbitant price. Rows of cypress-trees are planted along the edge of every orchard, and sometimes even traverse the orchard in several places, to serve as windbreaks; for though there are no hurricanes to provide against, the desert wind is sometimes sufficiently boisterous to shake down bushels of unripe fruit and break the heavily laden branches unless thus protected.

The best way to see the Riverside orange groves, and marvel at their extent, is to ride or walk along Magnolia Avenue, doubtless the finest avenue in America. It is laid out a distance of twelve miles, and seven miles are now finished. Between the road and the houses on each side are four rows of tall eucalyptus and spreading pepper-trees, and two rows of fan palms, ten to twenty feet in height, and growing more beautiful every year. Nor is this fine avenue a monopoly of carriage-owners; for the poorest can enjoy its sights by paying ten cents for a ride in the street-cars, which have their track under a row of pepper-trees, without interfering with the broad carriage-drive. In this way Riverside spreads itself out, covering a territory, orchards included, of fifty-four square miles, and almost realizing the ideal of one of those California “rural cities of the future,” sketched in the last chapter. The grounds of some of the elegant villas which line this road are thrown open to the public, and one of them, which I examined, with its extensive stables, shady walks, hammocks, tennis grounds, and notices of club meetings, and _al-fresco_ teas, had an air of hospitality and sociability, recalling the life on Southern plantations before the Civil War. The large adobe house, a relic of the Spanish occupation, was deliciously cool on a warm day, and the owner said he did not find it unhealthy. He showed me through his extensive orchard, and with a large table-knife cut open specimens of more than half-a-dozen different kinds of budded oranges for me to taste. They were all sweet and juicy, but he had to admit himself that the differences in flavor were not so pronounced as the differences in the original homes of these varieties led one to expect. California fruit-growers doubtless attempt too much in seeking to raise oranges from so many different countries in the same field without losing their characteristic flavor. This difference in flavor is due to differences in soil and climate, and can only be preserved and reproduced in a similar soil and climate. As California fortunately has an infinite variety of climates and soil, it is probable that the problem of raising Italian, Spanish, Mexican, and Florida oranges all in the same State will yet be solved, but not in one and the same orchard. The Spanish blood-orange, for instance, the most delicately flavored of all oranges, is rarely seen in California; and when I asked why, I was told that it was inclined to sport and lose its characteristics. There is a fortune in store for the man who finds out under what conditions this variety flourishes in Spain, and seeks out a similar locality for it at home. Another excellent variety, the Florida russet, I never saw on the Pacific Coast. Its appearance is against it, and it is difficult to teach people to select their fruit for the palate rather than the eye.

Riverside is a little too far inland to get much benefit from the ocean breezes, but it is surrounded by mountains, snow-capped till summer, which to some extent atone for this disadvantage, and which make Riverside, from a scenic point of view, one of the most attractive places in the State. This, combined with its horticultural prosperity, causes it to grow rapidly, and among the new comers and the old there are a large number of English families, who, of course, endeavor to bring their household goods and customs with them. Foremost among these is the fox-hunt; but as there are no foxes to be hunted, the simple-minded plebeian jack-rabbit has to take the place of his astute, bushy-tailed colleague. There are no fences to jump or fields to destroy, and everything is in plain sight; but as the riding is much faster than in England, there is no lack of excitement. To come home from one of these hunts with a pair of rabbit ears in her hat is the chief pride of the English damsels at Riverside. Besides, these ornaments take the place of a parasol, much needed here sometimes. In midsummer, no doubt, Riverside is a good place to get away from, but in winter it offers special advantages to invalids, provided they are willing to submit to being treated like children, in being told what they may drink and what they may not. Riverside is a prohibition town. So I discovered at the hotel when I asked for a pint of claret. I have never been drunk in my life, and I find that a few glasses of pure claret aid my digestion, and moreover I like it, and am able to pay for it. Yet here I, who am supposed to be a free citizen in a free country, am placed in a position where I cannot indulge in a harmless and useful pleasure which concerns no one but myself, without breaking the law. Of course I broke the law, as anybody but a fool or a coward ought to do. A few words in private to the waiter, and the wine appeared on the table. Of course, when I asked him how much it was, he said he wouldn’t charge for it,—he had merely brought it “to oblige me”; and of course I asked how much he paid for it, and then left that amount, plus a suitable fee, on the table. A resident with whom I conversed subsequently on the subject gave me some instances of capital withheld and capital withdrawn from Riverside in consequence of the prohibition law, which unfits it as a residence for people who like to be free and law-respecting at the same time. A friend in Los Angeles had previously explained to me how Pasadena was damaged by the local prohibition law (which I believe has since been repealed), and gave an amusing account of the visit of the city fathers to Mr. Raymond, who continued to serve wine to his tourist and invalid guests after the law had been passed. Mr. Raymond quietly informed them that if they would not allow him to run a first-class hotel in their town, he would pull it down and rebuild it elsewhere. As the Raymond is one of the largest hotels and chief resorts on the Pacific Coast, the city fathers got alarmed, took their leave, and never molested Mr. Raymond again.

One more instance: Until within a year or two the owner of Catalina Island would not allow any beer or liquor to be sold to the thousands of campers on it; whereupon, an enterprising man hired a barge, moored it a hundred yards from the shore, put canvas over it, filled it with drinkables, and hired a boy to ferry his customers over and back. Mr. Shatto thereupon refused to allow the steamer to land anything for this man on his pier; but the latter got around this, too, by simply having his beer-barrels lowered directly from the steamer to his boat. These are illustrations of how prohibition prohibits in California.

It is not necessary to stuff your pockets and valise full of oranges on leaving Riverside for the South; for you will find just as good fruit, and plenty of it, in San Diego County. Backing up to a station called Citrus, a few miles north of Riverside, you wait for the train which leaves Barstow on the Atlantic and Pacific, or Santa Fé, Railway, for San Diego, and which, soon after you have boarded it, enters the county of that name,—a county not quite as large as San Bernardino, but still, according to the guide-book, covering as much ground as Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Delaware combined. It forms the southwestern corner of the United States, and owes much of its local color to the proximity of Mexico, or Lower California,—a peninsula which a large number of educated people in the East are in the habit of mistaking for “Southern California.” The branch of the Santa Fé road referred to is known as the California Southern Railroad. Between the Bernardino range and the ocean it traverses a region where the spring vegetation, though almost as abundant as in Los Angeles County, is not so luxuriant, owing to the diminished rainfall. Three-fifths or more of the vegetation which carpets the fields seems to consist of Compositæ, and the predominant color is yellow—as if to hint at the fact, which has long since been demonstrated, that there is more gold to be got out of the surface of California soil than out of all its subterranean mines.

One never tires of looking at these gaudily colored fields, especially when bordered by foothills, whose green garb is ornamented with red, yellow, brown, and blue patches, like a “crazy-quilt,” varying in shade and atmospheric effect with the time of the day; or when, as on this route, there is a background of high mountains, with their snow caps drawn half-way down their treeless foreheads as late as May. The two chief mountains are too long-drawn-out to be imposing sculpturally, but the great mass of snow on them gains in charm by contrast with the surrounding blue sky and warm sunshine. The best point of view is from Perris, the junction for the short branch road to San Jacinto.

Soon thereafter the Laguna is reached, also known as Lake Elsinore; but if the tourist expects to see one of those picturesque mountain lakes for which the State is famous, he will be grievously disappointed. The Laguna is a commonplace, dreary old pond, with steep hills on one side and flat on the other. There are ducks on it, but no cover to approach them. In May, 1889, it was sixteen feet higher than two years previously, and it has a habit of getting very low till the real estate on its banks has been claimed, whereupon it roguishly rises and submerges it for a few years. But the soil in the vicinity is credited with marvellous properties.

We now enter the region of Indian missions and reservations, and expect to see some of the redskins loitering about the stations, as they do at Yuma and elsewhere; but not a single one is to be seen at any of the towns. Those who make pilgrimages in the tracks of novel heroines may find something to interest them hereabouts with their “Ramona” as a guide; but otherwise the region is dreary and desolate, its only apparent attraction being the snow-mountains just described. A pleasant change is afforded by the passage through the Temecula Cañon, in which it is refreshing to follow along a creek, though it be but a few inches deep and two or three feet wide. It cools the air and lines the bank with pretty bushes.

Presently smoke-like mists begin to rise from the water, as if it were on fire; scattered pools with bulrushes and flocks of birds, and the russet color and rank monotony of the vegetation, indicate the approach to the ocean. A cool saline breeze strikes the cars; the windows of the more sensitive passengers are lowered, and at the same moment the Pacific comes into sight—to many of the tourists their first view of the king of waters. But the outlook is limited, for a few miles at sea hovers a fog-bank which looks as opaque and solid as if a Krupp gun could make no impression on it. For the rest of the way to San Diego the ocean is almost constantly in sight, and new varieties of plants and flowers occupy the attention. Conspicuous among the flowers are a white morning-glory, larkspurs, and lupines in several colors, the ice-plant with red flowers and leaves that seem to be covered with icicles, and a flowering bush which at a distance resembles the alpenrose.

V.

OVER THE MEXICAN BORDER.

SAN DIEGO AND CORONADO BEACH—AN IDEAL CLIMATE—AN ARTIFICIAL
LAKE—HOW TOWNS ARE RAISED—THE NATIONAL BOUNDARY—DONKEYS VERSUS
RAILROADS—MORE SALOONS THAN HOUSES—LIMES VERSUS LEMONS.

Although San Diego has no lack of hotels, most of the tourists cross the bay which separates the city from the thirteen-mile-long peninsula known as Coronado Beach, and take up their abode in the Coronado hotel, covering more than seven acres,—the largest in Southern California, and second in size and elegance only to the Del Monte at Monterey. Porpoises sport about the ferry-boat, almost within arm’s reach, and excite the appetite for sea-fishing. On the peninsula, a steam-dummy connects with the ferry and conveys those passengers for whom the coaches are too slow to the hotel. Coronado affords an excellent instance of what can be done in this region with irrigation. A few years ago this whole peninsula was a desert, while now there are numerous villas and stores, and good roads, and avenues of young trees, which in a few years will afford welcome shade. The hotel is surrounded by flower-beds as monstrous in proportion as itself, crowded with enormous double stocks, petunias, large pansies, marguerites, etc., etc.: and another superb flower-garden takes up the interior court. Dining-room, parlors, and dance-hall are sufficiently spacious for all emergencies, and simply though tastefully decorated. It may seem a disadvantage that, owing to the position of the dance-hall, there are few rooms facing the ocean; but as it is always cool here, day and night, summer and winter, the site of rooms is not so important a matter as on the Atlantic Coast.

No other part of California has so perfect a climate as Coronado and San Diego, the mean difference in temperature between summer and winter being only 12.3°, with an average of only five days a year when the thermometer rises above 85°; and, what is still more remarkable, only twelve days a year when it rises above 80°. As only ten inches of rain fall in a year,—just one hundred inches less than at Sitka, the other extremity of our Pacific Coast,—and clouds or fogs of more than a few hours’ duration are rare, it may be inferred that the sun shines almost perpetually, even in winter. When an invalid who proposes to make the Coronado his home for awhile reads in the rules and regulations pasted upon his door that a single fire costs a dollar, he is relieved to be told that cold weather is as scarce as fuel, and that, according to official government records, during the ten years from 1876 to 1885, there were only six days on which the temperature fell below 35°, two on which it fell to 32°, and none below that point! I had also read somewhere that mud is practically unknown, since the little rain that falls sinks into the soil immediately, so that it is safe to lie on the ground a few hours after a shower. I was therefore surprised, on picking up a local newspaper, to see an editorial headed “Too Much Mud.” But on examination it proved to be a political, not a meteorological article. On politics climate has no effect.

The Coronado beach is well adapted to bathing, which is indulged in all the year round, there being only about six degrees’ difference in the temperature of the water, winter and summer. When the ocean is too rough, or the tide unfavorable, the bay affords a safe bathing-ground, as at Fire Island. That the ocean is rough sometimes is evinced by the sad havoc it has made with the plank walks between the hotel and the water, and, as at Coney Island, it seems to be encroaching on the hotel premises, and will soon thunder against its very foundations. It is interesting to walk along the beach towards Point Loma, on which a lighthouse is picturesquely situated. Entertainment is afforded on the way by the water-fowl, which stand inside of the breakers waiting for a big foaming wave, into which they plunge headlong, emerging calmly swimming on the other side, with a fish struggling in the beak. Twenty miles at sea, to the southwest, are the Coronado Islands, the haunt of seals, occasionally visited by yachting parties. There is always something that appeals to the imagination in the meeting of two countries, and the fact that these islands belong to Mexico makes them doubly interesting.

Twice a week or oftener opportunity is given the guests at the Coronado to put foot on Mexican soil. A steam-dummy, with open cars, starts from the hotel, goes down the peninsula and up on the other side of the bay, as far as National City, and then branches off, first to the great Sweet Water Reservoir, and then to Tia Juana. It would be difficult to imagine a more delightful excursion than this seventy-mile round trip in open cars. The cool, fragrant air is free from dust, and the country is so picturesque that one keeps on choosing one place after another as an ideal site for a cottage and an orange grove. On reaching the Sweet Water Reservoir, which covers seven hundred acres, it is difficult to believe that it is not a natural lake, so prettily and cosily does it rest at the foot of the surrounding hills. Yet here, where now the wild ducks disport themselves, stood several farmhouses a few years ago, surrounded by green fields. The dam which created this lake is about four hundred feet long at the top and forty-six feet thick at the base, built of solid rock; and the reservoir holds six billion gallons, sufficient to supply National City and San Diego with water for consumption and irrigation for three years, though not another drop of rain should add to its volume. A flume seven miles in length carries the water to the two cities, which now, with abundant and cheap water, can amend their arid, treeless appearance, which at present is their least attractive feature.

After visiting Sweet Water Lake, the train faces about and turns towards old “Aunt Jane,” or Tia Juana, in Mexico, passing through the town of Chula Vista, a characteristic Southern California enterprise. A tract of five thousand acres has been subdivided by a land company into five-acre lots, with avenues and wide streets through which the steam-motor passes, and ornamented with thousands of evergreen trees. These lots are sold only to purchasers who will agree to build on them houses costing not less than two thousand dollars within six months from date of purchase; and by way of providing models and starting the ball, the company itself has erected a number of cottages. Such an attempt to force a town by hot-house methods would fail anywhere else: here it will probably succeed. Every time the train stops, a handful of real-estate circulars is thrown into each car, setting forth the unique advantages of that particular locality; while the fine appearance of the residences, with their lovely gardens and orchards, contributes its share towards advertising the region. For the convenience of the scattered settlers, the train-boy throws the daily papers into the yards from the flying train. Near the boundary line are some yellow pools, in one of which a water-snake darted out its angry tongue at a whole carload of tourists and then dived out of sight. A few minutes more and we were on Mexican soil; and though sufficient of the Mexican element lingers in Southern California to form a gradual transition, the change is distinctly perceptible. Characteristically enough, the first thing I saw after leaving the train was a young burro, with silky hair and no larger than a Newfoundland dog. In Spanish countries, where the railroad ceases the donkey begins. One side of Tia Juana is American; the other, Mexican. The dividing line, where the Estados Unidos meet Mexico, is occupied by a restaurant which bears the modest title of “Delmonico.” Opposite is a cigar-store which has the suggestive sign of “The last chance.” There are more saloons in Tia Juana than buildings. This may seem a paradoxical statement, but it is true; for some of the saloons are in tents, open in front, with a counter in the centre and empty beer-barrels for seats. The sight of the town is the Custom-House, with its polite but pistolled officials, and the rooms filled with rifles which parties crossing the line had to leave behind to await their return. There are also a few curiosity stores, conducted with a truly Spanish lack of enterprise. Almost every tourist wants to buy a memento of his hour in Mexico, but there is nothing to be had except some very crude pottery and a few tiny, hideous clay gods. Nor does the proprietor’s knowledge of English go beyond the ability to say twenty cents or thirty cents.

Looking beyond Tia Juana, nothing is to be seen but lone, low mountains,—not a house or hut anywhere,—and we gladly return to civilization with the train. On the way back, the conductor pointed out to me the place where the famous Bonnie Brae lemons are grown. I had previously eaten some at San Diego, and found them large and juicy, with fewer seeds and a much less thick and coarse skin than other California lemons. This variety seems destined to retrieve the reputation of the California lemon, which is not equal to that of the orange, or of foreign lemons. But I doubt if any kind of lemon will have much of a future in this country. At San Francisco lemons are not valued nearly so highly as Mexican limes, which are gradually taking their place. The lime has a tougher skin than the lemon, and does not break so easily in the squeezer. In fact, it can be easily squeezed by hand; and besides, there is more juice in a small lime than in a lemon twice its size and twice or three times its cost. Its taste, after a few trials, is more agreeable and piquant than that of any lemon, and I believe that Eastern cities will soon follow the lead of San Francisco in this matter. The lemonade of the future will be made of limes.

VI.

SANTA CATALINA ISLAND.

FROM SAN DIEGO TO LOS ANGELES—ALONG THE COAST—A ROMANTIC
SPOT—LOST IN A MUSTARD FIELD—SAN PEDRO—FLOATING
HIGHLANDS—SUN AND OCEAN BATHS IN WINTER—AVALON VILLAGE—THE
LUXURY OF EXISTENCE—FLOWERS, HUMMING-BIRDS, AND POISON
IVY—RATTLESNAKES—HUNTING WILD GOATS—INDIAN RELICS—ABALONE SHELLS
AND THEIR HUNTERS—SPORT FOR FISHERMEN—A SUBMARINE GARDEN—THE
SEALS AT HOME.

Eastern people have no idea how fast things grow in California. Everybody, of course, has heard the story of the farmer who in the morning planted watermelon seeds in his field, and in the evening found that the vine had grown to his kitchen door and deposited a ripe melon on the steps. But this is nothing compared with the way in which the cities grow. Thus, on page 216 of Drs. Lindley and Widney’s valuable work on “California of the South,” we read of “San Diego’s fifteen thousand inhabitants,” while on page 218 (and it surely cannot have taken more than a day or two to write these two pages) they say that “San Diego is growing with most wonderful rapidity. Its population is doubtless twenty-five thousand.” Most wonderful indeed! San Diego did seem quite a lively place when I saw it, although this may have been partly attributable to its being the headquarters of the miners going to the Santa Clara mines in Lower California. ’Tis an ill wind, etc.; and the losses of these duped miners were the gain of the San Diego merchants, who sold almost a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of victuals and tools to the gold-hunters. The temptation to follow the latter and get a glimpse of a genuine California mining-camp was great; but on hearing of the hardships to be endured, of the two hundred dollars’ duty laid by the Mexican government on a single wagon and team crossing the border, and the taxes on provisions equal to their full value, which raised the cost of food in camp to figures considered fabulous even by miners accustomed to starvation prices,—not to mention the tropical rains just then prevalent, which made tenting an invitation to catarrh, rheumatism, and pneumonia,—I concluded to move northward sixty miles or so, and spend a few weeks instead on Catalina Island.

Before leaving the Coronado I had an opportunity to note a curious way of settling urban questions in California. It had long been in dispute whether or not Coronado Beach belonged to San Diego, so it was determined to settle the matter on election day. There being a law that no liquor may be sold in San Diego on an election day, the barkeeper at the Coronado hotel was instructed to keep open, for which he was promptly arrested. This was to compel the courts to decide the question at issue. What the decision was, I do not know, as I left the next morning. Retracing my steps as far as Oceanside, I took the California Central direct back to Los Angeles. This road continues to skirt the ocean as far as San-Juan-by-the-Sea (a few miles from the famous San Juan Capistrano Mission), where the tourist bids good-by to the Pacific, not to see it again till he reaches San Francisco, unless he takes a branch road to one of the numerous seaside resorts of Los Angeles or to Santa Barbara.

San-Juan-by-the-Sea was called by Dana, in his “Two Years before the Mast,” “the only romantic spot in California,” which is probably the most absurd statement regarding California that has ever got into print. But it certainly is one of the most charming points on the coast for those who love solitude, and all tourists ought to stop over at least between two trains and see it. If they decide to spend the night at the “hotel,” I wish them better luck than befell me. Early in the morning, having paid the (really) big sum of one dollar for supper, lodging, and breakfast, I went down to the beach, about half a mile from the station, across an immense field of wild mustard, buried completely in a sea of fragrant yellow flowers waving over my head, and then had to cross a lively little creek on a narrow plank,—a creek which enjoys the satisfaction, rare in this region, of reaching the ocean without being tapped, or absorbed by the thirsty sun. The view from its mouth contrasts delightfully with the uninterrupted, flat sandy beach all the way up from San Diego. A high, precipitous rocky shore rises abruptly, and presents itself as a bulwark against the restless waves. It leads up to hills from which fine views may be enjoyed, and which give room for daily varied rambles which one misses so much at a flat place like Coronado Beach. As there is a fine beach a short distance below, it would be a splendid place for a hotel, and is already much frequented in midsummer by campers. When I was there, a deserted hut was the only visible evidence of human agency, and the solitude was emphasized by four monstrous pelicans sitting motionless and majestic on an isolated rock half a mile at sea. Below the precipice, where the waves in low water tumble gently over the rocky débris jutting far out into the sea, may be found quantities of shells, not dead and deserted specimens lying bleaching on the beach, but shells and cockles alive and wide awake, and moving about like little pagodas with wheels and clockwork.

On the way back to the station I cut off one of the tallest mustard plants,—bushes they might well be called, so thick and tough are the stems at the base,—and asked the station master how high he thought it was. He measured it and found it eleven feet in height! Then for the first time I felt convinced that the narrative of an Anaheimer, who told me how thirty years ago he once got lost _on horseback_ in a wild-mustard field on the fertile soil near where Fullerton now stands, was not a “California story.” To-day many of these fields of wild mustard are mowed down, yielding a crop which is the more profitable as there are no expenses for ploughing and sowing. I cannot see why there should not also be money in the castor bean, which, elsewhere cultivated in gardens as an ornamental shrub, is here a weedy nuisance hard to exterminate when it once gains a foothold. I have seen it grow as high as a second-story window in Los Angeles, side by side with a fuchsia _tree_, so to speak, still higher; while roses often cover a whole house, roof and all, and would aspire to the moon if there was a connecting link.

To reach Catalina Island we take the train at Los Angeles for its old harbor town, San Pedro, whence a steamer makes trips to the island three times a week. San Pedro is considered good fishing-ground, has numerous duck-ponds in the vicinity, and appears to be the headquarters of all the sea-gulls on the Pacific, the beach being completely fringed by them at times. The chief article of import seems to be timber, the wharves being covered with acres of boards and planks, brought from Humboldt County and from Oregon and Puget Sound. A part of the town lies in a hollow which forms a complete kettle, and must be an ideal breeding-place for typhoid fever. Hotel accommodations are very primitive, but the Southern Pacific is completing a hotel near the lighthouse, where the sea-breezes can never fail. The little steamer _Hermosa_, specially built for the traffic between San Pedro and Catalina, is new and comfortable, but has the great fault of rolling on the slightest provocation. However, the distance is but twenty miles, so that even those inclined to sea-sickness need not dread the passage. Santa Catalina Island is the second in size and the most interesting of the large number of islands which lie along the coast of California, beginning with the Coronado group, just below San Diego, and ending with Santa Cruz and Santa Rosa, off Santa Barbara. As it is the only one which has steam connection with the mainland, it has for many years been visited every summer by thousands of campers, and the hotel erected there lately has added to its popularity, although for sanitary and scenic reasons the site chosen for it is not the best that could have been found. The island is visible from the mainland all along Los Angeles County, even far in the interior, as it has mountains which rise to a height of about three thousand feet. Indeed, as the boat approaches, we see that it consists entirely of mountains, being a sort of floating highlands, like a section of the Coast Range rising abruptly out of the ocean, without any gradual slopes or foothills; presenting a solid front of perpendicular rocks except in a few places where the wall is broken by a little cove or harbor, with a pebbly beach, as at Avalon, where the hotel stands. A study of the map of Southern California leaves no doubt in the mind that these islands at one time actually did form a part of the Coast Range, being connected with each other and constituting a peninsula extending from Point Conception to below Coronado, with a wide channel or sound between (like that which now extends for about a thousand miles from Olympia to Sitka), and navigated by the Pineugnas Indians, who in the time of the early Spanish voyagers inhabited Catalina Island, and were noted for their fine physique and skill in shipbuilding. Though they are now widely separated and scattered, these Channel Islands continue to affect the climate of Southern California by breaking the force of the wild Pacific waves and winds.

This fact can be vividly realized by climbing the hills on Catalina till the Pacific is sighted, dashing its huge billows against the naked rocks that rise perpendicularly to two thousand feet or more above it, the home of eagles that build their nests in these inaccessible heights,—monstrous birds, measuring sometimes twelve feet from wing to wing. In striking contrast to this turbulence on the west side is the calm of the eastern side, which is hardly ever disturbed, even in stormy weather. Here the campers and hotel guests bathe in the bay every day in the year, the temperature of the sea-water in August being about 66°, and only four degrees lower in midwinter; while in Rhode Island, for example, the difference between midwinter and midsummer temperature is about 35°! The Kuro Siwo, or Japan current, three to four hundred miles in width, which is deflected by the Aleutian Islands southward along the coast of Washington and Oregon, becomes so far cooled off by the time it reaches San Francisco as to make sea-bathing in that neighborhood unpleasant even in summer. But this current is deflected again by Point Conception; and between the Channel Islands and the mainland south of this cape there is a return ocean current from the south, which partly accounts for the higher temperature of the water at Catalina, as well as along the main shore of Southern California.

The temperature of the air on Catalina Island hardly ever rises above 85°, and, thanks to the twenty miles of water which separate it from the mainland, it is never visited by the hot, parching desert winds. Yet, though thus surrounded by a vaporous sea, fog is almost unknown, being shut out by the mountains, and, what is stranger still, the air is said to be drier than on shore. With such conditions and with constant sea-breezes and an immunity from dust as complete as on shipboard, it is no wonder that Catalina is beginning to be looked upon as standing to Southern California in the same relation as Southern California does towards other States. I met several invalids afflicted with rheumatic or lung troubles who had failed to find relief at Los Angeles or Santa Barbara, but found it at once on Catalina Island; and convalescents make more rapid recovery there than elsewhere. He must be fastidious indeed who is not satisfied with the climatic conditions of this island, and notwithstanding its mountainous structure, I am convinced that before the end of another decade it will be covered with hundreds of handsome cottages and several hotels and supply villages. There is room for a considerable number of health and pleasure seekers; for the island is about twenty-three miles long, and from one to seven wide.

A few miles from its northern end, Catalina presents a curious contrast to its usual appearance. Here the mountains terminate abruptly, and the island becomes reduced to a narrow isthmus, about half a mile wide, on one side of which are the turbulent Pacific breakers, on the other the calm sound. Here are the ruins of government barracks, erected during the Civil War and now deserted, but no other signs of human habitation, though a hotel will doubtless be erected before long. The only way of reaching this interesting point is by an occasional excursion on a little tug-boat stationed at Avalon, the only village on the island at present. It consists of the Hotel Metropole (what a name for a hotel in such a position!) and a row of shanties, half wood and half canvas, in which bread and provisions and shells can be obtained. The hotel is built on the site of an old Indian burial ground, which is not a pleasant thought to those who know that invisible ghosts in the shape of typhoid-fever germs have been exhumed from European graveyards which had been undisturbed for several hundred years. For this and other reasons the hotel ought to be removed part way up the hill, just south of Avalon, whence a fine view of the island and the sound can be obtained.