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California

Our Western Wonderland

FELIX J. KOCH, A. B.

of the American Geographical Society

Author of "Little Journey to the Balkans,"

*'The Great Southwest," etc.

and

GEORGE WHARTON JAMES

Author of "In and Out of the Old Missions of California, "In and Around

the Grand Canyon," "The Wonders of the Colorado Desert,"

"Traveler's Handbook to Southern California," etc.

1923
A. FLANAGAN COMPANY

CHICAGO

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

California
Our Western Wonderland

THOSE of us who made the Little Journey
through the Great South-West, will not be con-
tent, having arrived at Los Angeles, to rest there.
It may be called the southern gate-way to the real
West, the West teeming with places of absorbing in-
terest, in endless variety.

In the space of a few short days we intend to visit
Moimt Wilson, from whose sunmiit we may look at
the sun through a mirror telescope over six thousand
feet above the level of the sea, or we may peer into
the wonders of the ocean's bottom at CataUna, or,
again, visit the Venice of the Pacific, admiring this
copy of the famous Italian city visited on another
Little Journey.

Moreover, to visit Los Angeles late in Januar}^, and
find balmy winds, flowers and clear blue skies, when
the rest of the country is covered with ice and snow^
will make every drop of roving blood in our veins urge
us to wander.

We are reminded of the poem we read somewhere at
home and which has seemed so often to express our
own sentiments on these trips of ours :

Beyond the East the sun-rise,

Beyond the West the sea,
And East and West the ''wander-thirst"

That will not let me be;

4 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

It works in me like madness, dear,

To bid me say good-by,
For the seas call, and the stars call,

And Oh, the call of the sky !

I know not where the white road runs,

Nor what the blue hills are,
But a man can have the sun for friend

And for his guide a star
And there's no end of voyaging

When once the voice is heard.
For the river calls and the road calls,

And Oh! the call of the bird !

With this in mind we proceed to ^Vander^' througl
the ^^City of the Angels."

STREET IN LOS ANGELES

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND 5

THE HISTORY OF LOS ANGELES

Just as we are about to start a friend puts into our
hands ^The Traveler's Hand Book to Southern Cali-
fornia/' and we are soon deep in its pages, reading the
history of this interesting city. We learn that it owes
its existence to the Spaniards. In the year 1781,
the King of Spain decided to colonize California.
Spain had always claimed California as hers because it
was discovered by the Spanish Explorer, Cabrillo, over
three hundred years earlier. The King was afraid that
if he neglected it any longer the British might seize it.
Then, too, he wanted some ''ports of call" where his
ships, trading between Spain and the Philippine Islands,
might stop to secure fresh water, fruits and other food
supplies, make repairs and generally provide for the
welfare of his sailors. Accordingly he arranged to
establish colonies at several points, build fortresses for
their protection, and at the same time send missionaries
to convert the native people to the faith of the Roman
Catholic Church. To carry out this purpose he sent
Don Jose Galvez as his special representative in New
Spain, (as Mexico was then called), with full authority
to carry out his will. Lower California — the peninsula,
that still belongs to Mexico — had already been colon-
ized and missions had been established bv the Jesuits
for over a hundred years, and it was from the southern-
most of these missions that the parties who were to
begin the colonization of Alta (or higher) California
were to start.

Don Gasper de Portola was appointed military chief
of the expedition, and he was to be Governor of the
new country. His Lieutenant was Fernando Javier

K) A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

Rivera y Moncada. The religious work was placed
under the direction of Fray Junipero Serra, a Fran-
ciscan friar, who had been a missionary to the Lipan
Apaches and other Indians in Mexico and had proven
his great devotion to God and to the savages his life was
given to elevate, civilize and christianize.

In September 1768 Rivera was sent to all the mis-
sions of the peninsula to gather from each such pro-
visions, live stock, and implements as could be spared.
He was also to prevail upon all the available families
he could find to go along as colonists. Other mes-
sengers gathered from the churches furniture, orna-
ments and vestments for the Missions that were to be
established.

Two vessels were loaded — the San Carlos which was
started January 9, 1769, and the San Antonio which
left La Paz February 15. They were to meet in the
harbor discovered by Cabrillo over 230 years before,
but rediscovered and given its present name by
Viscaino in the year 1602. Two land expeditions
started, the first under Rivera and the second under
PortoU. Serra was with the latter.

In due time all four parties met in San Diego, and a
mission and presidio (or fort) were established there.
Then a party was sent north to find the Bay of Mon-
terey, where another mission was to be established, but
somehow those in charge failed to recognize Monterey
Bay and pushed farther north and discovered the Bay
of San Francisco, one of the largest and finest harbors
in the world, and where later, another mission and fort
were established. The next expedition found Mon-
terey and a mission and fort were soon built there.

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND 7

Rapidly others were established, one of them being
San Gabriel (founded September 8, 1771) which we
shall visit later.

Ten years after San Gabriel was established, Rivera,
who had now become Governor, was instructed to
establish a town on the Uttle river, some twenty miles

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EPISCOPAL CHURCH, LOS ANGELES

away, and he brought forty-two persons from Mexico
for the purpose, and on the 26th of August, 1781, the
new town was started, while appropriate ceremonies
attended the dedication of the "plaza^ or pubUc square,
on September 14.* This was the beginning of the town
that is now one of the wonder cities of the world,
having a population of about 590,000.

8 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

STREET LIFE IN LOS ANGELES

There are so many differences between the streets
here and those in Eastern cities that we can well spend
a day, or several, in walking or riding through them.

The street cars here, as everywhere in the West, have
the center closed, like our winter cars. Both ends are
open and have two benches set almost back to back,
lengthwise, leaving just enough space between for the
conductor to pass through as he collects his fares.

The city is very modern. Splendid street-lamps,
six white globes surrounding a central one, light the
highways at intervals.

Barber shops, we note, have the front set in some dis-
tance from the walk, allowing room for a vestibule, in
which the boot-blacks have their stands. We see
ladies sitting on the chairs to have their shoes cleaned,
which they seldom do in the East.

Stamp and coin shops and others devoted to Japan-
ese curios are numerous. Tea bazaars surround a tall
nine-story hotel, and then we enter a district of homes,
all of which have verandas.

Groceries in this city have a wire netting for their
entire front, instead of a substantial wall. This netting
has doors that can be locked, so that whether the store
is '^open'^ or ^'^closed'^ the air can circulate constantly.
This is, of course, possible only in a rather rainless
region, such as this is.

Flowers greet us on every hand. In January and
February even the poorer women wear great bunches of
violets. This is a city of flowers. The houses (outside
the business section), are fairly embowered in them,
and they grow in marvellous and delightful profusion.

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND 9

We notice a Ramona Hotel, a Ramona Street, a
Ramona Coach, and read in the papers of a Ramona
Convent, a httle to^Ti called Ramona, and in this way
learn how much the people of Southern California
think of the book Ramona, written by Helen Hunt
Jackson, to arouse the people of America to under-
stand the sad condition of the Indians of this region.
It is a beautiful, tender and pathetic stor}^ .It is a
romance that tells of a beautiful girl, half Scotch and
half Indian, who was brought up by the Sefiora Moreno,
a woman of great character, but with intense self-will
and an exalted opinion of what was owing to her from
all with whom she came in contact. She had plans of
her own for Ramona, which were thwarted when the
beautiful girl fell in love with, and married, Alessandro,
the Indian leader of a band of sheep shearers. Prac-
tically driven from her home, Ramona joined her hfe
so completely \\dth that of her husband that she thus
identified herself with the Indians, whose cruel suf-
ferings are truthfully portrayed. Alessandro is at
length slain by a wicked white man and Ramona re-
turns to civilized life.

PATRIOTS, ALL

One thing in this connection we shall note times with-
out number in the West, and that is the intense local
patriotism of the people.

Ever}^ man, woman, and child, sooner or later in
the course of a conversation will become the eulogist
of the West in general, and of his home city in par-
ticular.

Here in Los Angeles you are led to beUeve that there

10 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

can be no city quite so progressive, so beautiful, so
clean ; as Jack Appleton's poem has it :

There may be other cities as pretty,

As splendid as cities can be,
But this is the city I hve in,

And this is the city for me!

The citizens of Los Angeles have a right to be proud
of their city, its beauty and progressiveness, and its
innumerable interesting comers.

The quaintest and oldest part is ^^Sonoratown,'^ so
named because many of the families and earliest set-
tlers came from Sonora, one of the provinces of North-
ern Mexico. It is located North of the old plaza and
the mission chapel, the latter having been built some-
time during 1814, when the comer stone was laid, and
1822, when it was formally dedicated. A number of the
houses are of the old adobe (a-do-by) structures, flat-
roofed and whitewashed, so common in Mexico. In-
teresting signs, here and there, tell us that Mexican
habits and customs are still observed. Here is a ^^ta-
male^' vender, yonder a restaurant where the chief
articles of diet are ^^chili con carne'^ (che-le kon kar-ne),
red pepper with meat, — ^^tortillas'^ (tor-te-yas) — a kind
of flat pancake made from flour and water — and the
every day brown beans — '^frijoles^' (fre-ho-lehs).

The hill west of Sonoratown used to be called Fort
Hill, as here the cannon were placed and a rude fort
constructed when Los Angeles was captured from the
Mexicans in 1847. It is now the site of the Los Angeles
High School and many beautiful residences and semi-
public buildings.

OUR FIRST CHINA-TOWN

Just behind the plaza is located Chinatown, another
of the interesting sights of Los Angeles.

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND

China-town covers a comparatively small district.
The buildings are chiefly brick and most of them have
verandas on the second story, on which there are plants
and from which hang large balloon-shaped lanterns.
Most of these are white with floral and animal designs
in colors.

NEW YEAR DECORATION IN CHINA-TOWN

We are fortunate in having happened here now, as it is
the time of the Chinese New Year, and so there are in-
numerable banners and decorations added, and the
houses fly various Chinese flags.

Men go about with long braids or cues, wearing loose
black silk jackets and clogs that remind us of
Bosnia. Stores of Oriental wares have a dragon up
over the door. In the main portico up-stairs, lanterns

A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

are hung. Next door, a Jap may have his place, with
the signs in Japanese.

A man in a blue vest worn over a black shirt, and
with the cue down his back, passes.

There are many Curio stores. In them we shall find
pretty Chinese tea-pots in the shape of an elephant or
with two spouts ; pictures with the frame carved, but

CHILDREN OF CHINA-TOWN

left unpainted ; long streamers to hang from the walls ;
hideous looking dragons, and clumsy swords made of
Chinese coins. We are tempted to empty our purses.
Against the walls at the alley comers hang signs in
heavy Chinese characters on gay-colored papers. Here
is the sign of a Chinese doctor. Tl^ie orange colored
placards with the black lettering are everywhere to be

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND 13

seen, as also gay balloons, flowers, and queer dolls
made of paper flowers.

There is a Chinese restaurant where we can taste
chicken noodle a-la-whole-hok (whatever that may
mean) and op-hoi-min, and chop-suey, and so on, but
from half -past eight in the evening until midnight only.

We note how few and far between are the women, and
that the few children we meet are gaily attired.

Few Chinamen come to the United States expecting
to spend all their days here. They hope to return,
someday, to their old homes, therefore, they seldom
bring their wives, and this is the chief reason so few
women are seen.

China-town is well defined and we pass out of it into
a foreign quarter. Thence, we take the car back to one
of the great hotels, that we may engage a place in one of
the autos that make a three-hour trip through the city.
But first, we drop into a restaurant for lunch, and are
charmed to find bouquets of callas on each table.

SIGHT-SEEING IN AN AUTO

The automobile gives us an opportunity of seeing
more especially the residential part of Los Angeles.

We start not far from the Huntington Building, one
of the most important in Los Angeles. It is named
after Henry Edward Huntington, the railway magnate,
nephew of ColHs P. Huntington, one of the greatest
railway builders the world has ever known. Henry
received his railway training under his uncle, and when
the latter died and left him a large fortune he came to
Los Angeles, bought the street railway system, im-
proved and exten^d it, until now it is the finest and
most perfect interurban electric system in the world.

14 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

It radiates in every direction, reaching nearly every
town within seventy miles or more, with large, com-
fortable and swiftly traveling cars. AH the cars that
go to outside places enter and depart from this building.

As it is Chinese New Year's we are again taken
Chinatown to see the ceremonies.

THE JOSS HOUSE AT ^ ^CHINESE NEW YEAR"

First on the itinerary is a joss-house, the outside
plain and like any other Chinese store building. A
straight, narrow and short flight of stairs leads into a
room that seems one mass of Oriental fantasies, a
chamber most difficult to describe. By and by, out
of the chaos, we are able to note that the walls are
covered with an orange-colored paper inscribed with
black lettering, and that on this there hang long
series of slips, bearing the names of contributors to
the fund to build the temple. Each temple has its
own joss or spirit.

In the rear of the room is the altar. Here again fan-
tastic designs support a platform which is draped at
each side with curtains. Before the altar are placed
tapers of punk of varying size and there are also tables
with dishes containing various Chinese foods, every-
thing from rice down to the orange and other local
fruits, all left as New Year offerings to the idol.

Worship is held here from four to ten in the morning.
Before the altar a light is kept burning, illumining the
Chinese posters hanging down close by. Against one
wall the great Chinese standard carried in parade,
and the tubular mandarin umbrellas used on such occa-
sions, have their places.

As we step out we hear close by the discharge of a

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND 15

^reat bunch of shooting crackers, fired in celebration of
the New Year.

We now return -through the city by way of the
Federal Building and the County Court House. The
Lormer building affords a striking testimony to the
rapid growth of Los Angeles. WTien the congressional
appropriation was made for its erection the city had a
population of about 175,000. Before it was completed
the population had grown to 350,000 and was increas-
ing daily so that the building is already far too small
for its needs. About a mile to the south we are in

RESIDENTIAL LOS ANGELES

Surrounded by handsome dwellings, many of them
frame structures, with a broad porch on the ground
floor, and short verandas before the center windows of
the second story front. Nearly all these homes are set
in good sized lawTis, with large and beautiful palms at
the front, and usually wdth pepper trees interspersed.
As in New Orleans, there is generally a row of palms
[dong the walk. Variations, however, are numerous.
One place will have three massive flights of stairs lead-
ing up from the walk to meet at the lower terrace.
Terraces are quite popular.

Another house will be completely covered over, aU
but the massive doors, with a low vine. Blooming
poinsettias or a massive honey-suckle find much favor.

We ghde through the West Lake section, where every
house is artistic, beautiful and costly. This is one of
the most charming locations in the city. It is on
slightly elevated ground and affords to its inhabitants
panoramic views of unsurpassed glor}^, majesty and

16 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

beauty. To the North the towering Sierra Madre
(Mother Mountains) brood in loving tenderness over
the cultivated San Gabriel Valley^ and the eyes roam
over scores of miles of ohve, orange, lemon, grape-
fruit, almond and peach orchards, which, in blossom
time, clad in tender pinks, snowy whites, dainty cream
and other radiant bloom, give forth deliciously fra-
grant odors.

In Westmoreland beyond, the mansions become
jBner still. Mission and colonial styles in great vari-
eties prevail. The bungalow and the imitation of the
old log house are also to be seen.

At Pico (Pe-ko) Heights there are still other hand-
some homes. One street lined with tall palms fasci-
nates us, and a girls' collegiate school, in a veritable
bower of foliage, makes us envy its occupants. Hospi-
tals are numerous, for many thousands of sick people
come to California each year, from all parts of the
country, in order to be restored to health in its per-
petual sunshine and balmy air. Churches abound, for
there are so many diverse elements in the population
that every creed known to the religious world has its
adherents.

Los Angeles is especially proud of its educational
facilities. Most of its public schools were built in
comparatively few years, to meet the rapid growth of
the city. They are all equipped in accordance with the
latest methods and afford a striking example of the
American idea of giving to every child, however poor,
the very best in education that can be obtained.
Its polytechnic school is one of the largest and best
equipped in the country and the work of its students

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND 17

ranks high. There are many private schools and col-
leges, and also the University of Southern California,
a Methodist Institution, with its colleges of Liberal
Arts, Music, Fine Arts, Dentistry", Medicine, Law, etc.,
scattered throughout the city. There are two excel-
lent art schools, one near West Lake Park and the
other at Garv^anza (one of the suburbs on the way to
Pasadena). Southern Cahfomia with its glorious snow-
capped mountains, mysterious canyons, craggy ravines,
forest-clad slopes, leaping cataracts, babbhng brooks,
enchanting foot-hills, trees from every land, fruit-
laden orchards, gorgeous flowers of many thousands
of varieties, rocky and sandy sea-shore, summer
islands bathing in deep blue waters, pearly faced ocean,
vessels of every kind which float — including United
States battleships. Orient-bound steamers, Chinese
sampans, Japanese craft, luggers, schooners, yachts,
house-boats, tugs, and motor-boats — affords endless
subjects for the artist.

To the East are vast deserts, with weird cactus
growths, great alkali flats, moving sand-mountains,
and sunrises and sunsets of such glowing colors that
they dazzle the eye and thrill the senses. All these
and hosts of other interesting nature objects attract
the painter, and when is added the variety .of human
life found here, well may he think he is in an ^ ^artist's
paradise." For not only are there all the ci\dlized races
of earth, but Hindoos, Chinamen in pigtail and native
costume, and our owti picturesque Indians from the
mountains and from the pueblos of Arizona and New
Mexico. Scores of pictures also, are painted annually
of the interesting and ruined Mission structures, that

18 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

were established for the christianizing of the ancestors
of these Indians, over a century and a quarter ago.

One great advantage of the balmy climate of Los
Angeles and the surrounding country is that it affords
the artist opportunities for out of door sketching almost
every day in the year. What a wonderful privilege
this is can be fully appreciated only by those who
engage in the work.

Los Angeles is not only proud of being an educational
and artistic center, but it glories in its Chamber of
Commerce and Sierra Madre Club. The former is an
association of business men who organized many years
ago to further the welfare of Southern California in
general and Los Angeles in particular. It sends ex-
hibits all over the country and is always ready to send
beautifully illustrated literature to every person who
desires to learn about the country and its resources.
The Sierra Madre Club is an organization of mining
men, for Los Angeles is now the center of one of the
greatest oil-mining regions in the United States.

NIGHT IN THE CITY OF CELESTIALS

After supper we wiU do Chinatown in the company
of a guide — one of the many little bands of tourists
swarming through the quarter. Owing to the New
Year's celebrations, hoodlums have recently invaded
China-town, tearing the decorations and acting as van-
dals generally do; and so we foreigners, being of the
same race as these, are regarded with no friendly
eyes.

Everywhere on the balconies the gauze balloons are
illuminated with electricity and look bright and gay.

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND 19'

Here and there children are shooting fire-crackers.

Again we visit a temple, entering by a similar narrow
stair between the brick walls of a dark court, passing
into a rear court and then into a room where a platform
sustains two poles of red and black, which, in their turn,
uphold a balcony; a double door leads off at each side.

We knock at a panel, which a Chinaman opens, and
we pass through two sets of double glass-doors into a
narrow vestibule, where more stairs lead on to the next
floor and to the joss.

There, at the rear of the room, is the altar with its pic-
ture of the deity draped with green curtains; at each
side are gay bunches of paper primroses. Before the
altar are tied bouquets of fresh narcissus, in honor of
the New Year ; on the table in front there are, likewise,
offerings of grain, cakes, and candy, each in a Uttle
china bowl. Chrysanthemums too are here. A lower
table holds an incense pot, below which some heavy
metal work completes the whole.

The walls of the room are hung with placards. In
the center of the apartment, another altar has also fresh
narcissus plants and little cups of food, as well as a plate
of cakes arranged pyramid fashion. This is draped
with heavy tinsel embroidery, while on the floor lie mats
whereon the Celestial devotees may kneel, and worship
the idol at will. To the rear, lit by both gas and electric-
ity, is a third idol ; on one side are chairs draped in red.

We return to the streets. Over many of the doors
there is a mammoth beech leaf of gilt paper, upon
which gay-colored paper primroses are set. Pretty
light effects are produced by the lanterns.

A doctor, we see, has red baize across his windows for"

20 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

his sign. We peer into a pool-room where the Chinamen
are in American costume. Now and then a woman in
black trousers, or some children in gay costumes, go by.
In the shops we note that every store has a partition
across it, with a door leading into the rear, where the
storekeepers stay the greater part of the time.

We note that the barbers shave the entire head all
but the cue, then clean out the ears with what resembles
a long darning needle, which they wipe off on a piece
of paper. Then they tie the cue up in a knot.

Here and there we see some Chinese smoking the
long, fiute4ike opium pipe. Many of the other shops
are lit with lamps. There is a restaurant thronged
by American tourists; and then we pass up another
flight of narrow steps, ending abruptly at a door, and
enter a Masonic Hall, for the Chinese are real Free
Masons. Here again there is a gay altar and before it
the table with the bowls of offerings, while the papers
of the lodge's incorporation hang on the wall.

On the top floor of another building is a Chinese tea
garden, whose recessed balconies are lighted by huge
globular lanterns. Here fine banquets are often served,
for which live fish in tanks are shipped from China.

Other narrow streets, where we should be lost without
our guide, bring us to a little narrow hall filled with
smoke, and a door admits to an opium den. There, at
each side of the narrow aisle, cots of matting are set on
which the Chinese lie, feet to the passage, in their black
silky jackets, smoking the opium pipes. The pipes, as
was said, are much like a flute with a porous porcelain
cup near one end. At the smoker ^s side is a tray with
a little glass spirit lamp of red alcohol, burning away

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND

beneath a bell- jar. They take a bit of the opium at the
end of a long needle, heat it over the flame until it
boils, then set it in the bowl of the pipe and smoke away
to oblivion. There are perhaps a dozen of these smok-
ers here.

Continuing our progress through the streets, we
find stores that sell all kinds of pretty Chinese trin-
kets. There are card cases of leather, back scratchers
of bone, tea packed in artistically designed cans, and
candied ginger, all offered at such low prices that we
find them irresistible.

RAISING OSTRICHES IN CALIFORNIA

It is a good rule of travel, if one would thoroughly

enjoy one's trip, to
vary it as much as
possible; and so,
while we have by
no means seen all
that we intend see-
ing in Los Angeles,
our next expedi-
tion will be into
the suburban town
of South Pasadena
(Pas-a-dee-nah) in
order to vdsit the
world-famous
Ostrich Farm.

On our way, in
the electric cars,

FEEDING THE OSTRICH ^^^ Wlil DC DUSy

22 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

noting the street-life of Los Angeles. In the grocers^
shops, for instance, we see the artichokes, large as we
have seen them only in France. Then, we remark the
numerous lady barbers about the city. We will catch
a glimpse of the ^Toodle Dog'' restaurant, which,
however, is only a cheap imitation of the famous rest-
aurant' of the same name found in San Francisco, and
then follow the dry bed of the Los Angeles River,
which in winter is sometimes a raging torrent. A
large biscuit factory, and another large plant for
making concentrated fruit syrups, interest us; and
then we are on the famous Mission Road, the boulevard,
as it were, of Pasadena.

Pretty homes, with poinsettias, callas, geraniums and
nasturtiums, to say nothing of palms, finer grounds
with tall palm trees both on the lawns and along the
curbs, and the fine buildings of Occidental College, bor-
der the way to Pasadena. To all intents and purposes
we can not tell where Los Angeles ends, and the new
settlement begins, but the latter is in reality a separate
town. Pretty country hills and valleys lead off until
finally we come into another settlement and the cot
tages of Pasadena are about us. Far in the distance
San Antonio, the great peak of the Los Angeles sec-
tion of California, rises into view.

Immediately we find ourselves at the entrance to the
Ostrich Farm, which is in itself attractive. There are
flower-beds about the door-way by which one enters
the farm, which, in addition to being put to the prac-
tical use of raising the birds for their feathers, is also a
recognized show place. The birds for the farm were
originally purchased by the owner at Capetown, and

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND

shipped over in a chartered vessel. Just before the
ship was to sail, however, the city fathers passed a law
forbidding the export of ostriches, and so the master
had to shp out in the very nick of time, for today to ex-
port a single ostrich from South Africa requires the
payment of an export duty of five hundred dollars. Of

OSTRICH SWALLOWING ORANGES, SOUTH PASADENA

the thirt}^ birds so imported all but six have died, but
from those six the flock has grown.

If we were especially interested in ostrich breeding
we would make a flying trip out into the Lahabra (Lah-
hah-brah) Valley, where the real breeding place lies,
and where today there are several hundred ostriches,
browsing on a hundred and twenty acre tract of alfalfa.

24 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

Out there they have about a hundred and forty chicks '
a year, breeding-time occurring in the spring.

Usually there are fourteen eggs in the nest of the os-
trich, each of these eggs weighing about three pounds.
The eggs take about forty days to hatch, and when laid
(as they should be) in the spring time, about two-thirds
will yield birds. The nest itself is a mere hollow on the
ground into which the eggs are set. The mother bird,
being grey in color, sits upon this nest in the day time,
the male, being black, sits on it at night ; their respective
colors thus affording the birds protection.

If we are fortunate we may feast on ostrich eggs some
time at Pasadena, where the big hotels make a feature
now and then of an ostrich omelet for their guests.

The little ostriches, which are frequently put into in-
cubators on hatching, are the cutest things one can
imagine. At the outset their feathers are brown, and
stick out much as do the spines on a porcupine. Until
about six months of age, birds of both sexes look alike ;
after that the plumage of male becomes darker. Great
care must be taken v/ith these baby birds. The temper-
ature in the incubator is usually kept at 103 degrees,
or about the degree of heat of their native land, and
it is known that a fall of the temperature to sixty de-
grees will harm the birds if they are in draught, though
in the sun they can stand even colder climates.

At two years of age the birds attain their full height,
at four they are mature. At six months some of them
stand six feet high, and it is estimated that they grow
twelve inches a month for each of the first six months of
their lives.

When the birds are eight months old the first f eatheri?

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND 25

are plucked. After that every ninth month witnesses
a plucking. These first feathers, however, are inferior
ones, twenty to twenty-two inches long, being cut real-
ly in order to make way for the better crop to come.
When the plucking, which is really simply cutting the
feathers with shears, is to be done, a stocking is drawn
over the head of the ostrich, when the silly bird, no
longer seeing danger, imagines the foe to be gone. Care,
however, must be taken not to get in the way of the
powerful leg of the ostrich, which can strike a man to
death in an instant.

When the ostrich is fully matured, twenty to twenty-
four plumes will be taken from each wing, and from forty
to fifty heavy feathers extracted from the tail. Feathers
and plumes are sorted and divided into some hundred
and forty grades, though only about twelve of the com-
moner of these are known to the la^Tnan. Ostrich feath-
ers, curiously enough, are sold out here by the pound,
bringing from four to a hundred and twenty-five dollars
a pound. Feathers bringing a hundred and twenty-five
dollars the pound will probably sell at two dollars a
plume. Plumes, it is not always remembered, do not
grow as we usually see them, but consist of three feath-
ers, laid one on the other, the ^ Squill' ^ part of the upper
two being scraped very thin, so that it may be sewn
onto the stem of the lowest feather. Then the end or
tip is curled, and the plume is ready for dyeing or for
use in its natural color.

The ostriches we note, as we walk among the runs,
are all put out in pairs. When 3^oung, the little birds
are allowed to run together indiscriminately. They
then pair off, each selecting its mate, and these couples

A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

remain constant to each other for hfe. That there is
money in ostrich raising may be reahzed from the fact
that adult birds have been known to pay annually an
equivalent of ten per cent interest on eight thousand
dollars. Average birds, however, may not yield more
than thirty dollars a year in feathers, for the plumes
are so light that all the feathers off one bird will not
weigh more than a few ounces. Birds themselves are
seldom sold, but when they are, each bird will bring
three hundred dollars or more.

From the yards, if we are privileged visitors, we
will step into the building where plumes and other
feather articles are prepared. Feathers are brought in
off the birds in bundles, looking much like stacks of
close-grained, dirty peacock feathers. They are washed

A PASADENA HOME

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND 27

in ordinar}^ water by a peculiar process and then
some of them are dyed. In order to make the plumes,
then, the quills are cut off on the front and back by
scraping down, as we have said, with a piece of glass, un-
til very thin, when one feather is laid on the next, and
three together go to form the quill. After this they
are curled. Feathers, in fact, can be prepared to put
oh a hat in three hours from the time they were taken
from the bird, but this is seldom done. Boas, too, are
manufactured here, the feathers being treated as are
the plumes, but they are of a heavier sort, and then cut
and steamed in order to make them pUable for curUng.
From the factorv' we will again return to the ostrich
runs, for a crowd of \isitors has gathered now and an
attendant is feeding oranges to the birds. Tourists
never tire of watching the ostriches snap at and catch
the golden balls, and these then gradually making their
way down the long snake-like neck.

BEAUTIFUL PASADENA

From the ostrich farm we continue by car on to
Pasadena, ''the Cro-wn of the Valley, '^ a place of subur-
ban homes and palms, of elegant tourist hotels, adapted
to the balmy wdnter season which attracts wealthy tour-
ists from all parts of the world to come and spend
their winters under the influence of its charming
allurements.

Usually the tourist does not include hotels in his
sight-seeing, feeling that he gets enough of these with-
out, but in CaUfomia we should be very unwdse did we
not make a complete tour of all these leading hotels,
so magnificent and so unique, in many cases, are their

A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

fittings. Here at Pasadena, for instance, one hotel, a
large Moorish structure, rises in private parks of palms,
pepper-trees, pines and cypresses, with gardens of
roses, geraniums and carnations.

The hotel itself contains five hundred and fifty
sleeping rooms, and is able to accommodate eight
hundred guests. Often in the California ^ ^season, '^
which lasts from November 23rd to about the 10th of
May, a hotel like this will be crowded to the utmost.

If we had begun our little journey somewhat earlier
in the winter, and could have been at Pasadena for
New Year's day, we should have witnessed one of the
most beautiful spectacles the country affords, i. e., the
famous Pasadena rose tournament.

THE BRIDGE AT PASADENA

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND 29

THE ROSE TOURNAMENT

When almost all the rest of the United States is
wrapped deep in snows, and the flowers are beautiful
only in conserv^atories and perhaps in the homes of
flower-lovers, then out here in the Golden State they
make merry with roses, the very queens of the floral
world. This tournament at Pasadena is distinctly a
civic affair. There is a local Tournament Association
to which any one can belong on paying a nominal fee,
and its some two hundred and fifty members are the
leading business men of Pasadena. These take in charge
the tournament, and whether the price of flowers be
high or low it is held each year. The revenue comes
largely by the sale of tickets to the tourneys after the
parades, but the parades are the great center of
interest.

Any form of vehicle, from a California stage coach
to an autoniobile, can enter, providing only that it be
decorated with flowers. Houses, too, along the line of
march are decorated with roses, until Pasadena is one
wealth of flowers. As one writer put it, ^ There is the
red of maidens ' cheeks and of roses, there is the white
of fair brows and of dimpled arms and roses, there is
the deep blue sky, to complete the national colors.
Then, at that time of year, the days have a peculiar de-
lightful freshness, and the mountains are curtained in
velvet for back-ground, on which the yellow sun-light
plays upon waving banners and flower}^ equipages,
and on lawns dotted with flags and flowers. Sweet
showers may have cleared the air just before, and there
will be an ocean breeze, scented with blossom perfumes

30 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

from the valley of San Gabriel, to add beauty to the
whole.

'The tournament opens with trumpet blast sending
a thrill of joy into the heart of every spectator. Then
there files out the procession, slowly so that all can see,
while bannerets of red and white are flown from win-
dows crowded with people. Each entry has its own
particular admirers, so that there is continued applause
along the line of march.''

Especially among the wagons decorated by the dif-
ferent public schools is there no end of friendly rivalry.
Hotels and associations, too, compete, so that there will
be any number of effects. There will be a pink and
white flower garden on a wagon, enshrined in flowers,
an old stage-coach of the forties, an Indian tepee of
leaves, huge baskets of buds, living violet and lily beds,
with sweet young school girls dressed in white in their
midst ; in short, there wiU be any and every manner of
floral decoration, but in them all, roses predominate.
So it is rightly called the tournament of roses. Even at
the time of year when we are here, well on towards the
end of January, we shall still hear them telling of just
which school took the prize, and why, and of who was
the queen of the roses, and perhaps see pictures of this
float and that in the windows.

THE MANSIONS OF PASADENA

We shall now wish to see the homes of the well-to-do,
whose riches have made all this possible.

We will hire a carriage for the afternoon, that being
the best available means. We will make our way then
at once to the Orange Grove Avenue district, for which

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND

the city is famous. Almost at once we are out of the
^^city/' by which term the commercial and business part
is usually understood, and in residential Pasadena,
the beautiful. Here, too, the streets are fringed with
pepper-trees, and lined along the curbs with palms,
and behind the walks there are quite generally pretty
box-hedges.

The names of the people residing here are called off
by rote by our driver. There is the large handsome
home of ]\Ierritt, the millionaire. Next to it is that of
the Woodburys, a dehghtful old white frame house.
A bit farther on lives Sprague, of Sprague and Warner,
the Chicago wholesale merchants. This house is built
in old Enghsh style, and has green lawns rising in ter-

BtJSCfi RESIDENCE PASADENA

32 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

races around it. A noted Los Angeles banker, has
likewise a beautiful home, recognized from the avenue
by its yellow turrets ; and so it goes on and on and on,
seemingly without end.

The variety of styles to be seen in these places is aU
most incredible. It reminds those of us who made the
Little Journey to New England of Magnolia or New-
port, and those who are to make The Little Journey
to the Middle States, of the fine homes we shall see at
Elberon and along the Jersey coast. Some are heavy
in style, others are simpler, but practically all are of
frame construction. We remark one house which
has a curious indented center, this indenture serv-
ing to form a great porch, supported by four yellow
pillars at each side, these being joined at the top by
heavy beams of wood. In the vicinity of the pretty
homes of the packer, Cudahy, and of Warner, of Sprague
and Warner, an attractive kindergarten building
claims our attention.

But now young pepper-trees and palms and box-
hedges begin to hide the places from the road. Many
of the houses are rambling, and there are dark cozy
cottages completely covered over with ivy. On the
heights we see a mansion, built much in the style of an
English castle ; but sheltering, instead of an Eifglish
nobleman, one of the Standard Oil barons.

As we pass outside the limits of Pasadena we are
shown the magnificent estate of Sam EUerton, the cat-
tle king of Chicago, also the simple little frame home of
Mrs. Garfield; and, across the street from it, the home
of Mrs. Childs, wife of the famous editor of the Phila-
delphia "Public Ledger."

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND 33

One of the most famous places of Pasadena is the
home of Mr. Adolph Busch of St. Louis, of Anheuser-
Busch fame, and especially his ^ ^sunken garden."
Orange Grove Avenue, where it is located, is the show
avenue of Pasadena's residences. It '^'backs'' upon
the Arroyo Seco (Dry River), a deep and wide ravine
through which the winter's rains occasionally pour
in a raging stream. On the near slope of the Arroyo
Mr. Busch has made his sunken garden, a deep basin-
like lawn, surrounded by walks, shaded with every
variety of shrub and tree, and made gorgeous with
millions of ever-blooming flowers. Here, too, are
strange cactuses, seldom seen away from the deserts,
but which in their flowering season, are covered with
rich pink, purple, creamy and other blossoms that give
out most delicate and delicious odors. A small army
of men is required to keep this garden in condition.

We next take a peep at the home of ^^Bob" Bur-
dette, whose accounts of the trials of a boy, told from
the lecture platform, have so often delighted us, and
then at the former home of Professor T. S. C. Lowe
the inventor, and builder of the Mount Lowe Railway.
After that we are driven out along the Arroyo (Ah-roy'-
yo) Terrace, where we can overlook the vast valley,
the former bed of a river wide and lovel3\ Beyond we
can discern the observatory on Mt. Lowe, and on Mt.
Wilson, still higher, another observatory is visible.
Then, skirting the grounds of another millionaire's
estate, we see the ivied cottage which Helen Hunt
Jackson, author of ''Ramona" often visited.

We now return to Los Angeles in order to get well
rested for our trip on the morrow.

A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

THE LARGEST PIGEON-FARM IN THE WORLD

For our next morning in the ^'City of the Angels" we
have planned a visit to the largest pigeon farm in the
world. To get there we take the Garvanza (Gar-
vahn'zah) car line, which gives us an opportunity of
seeing the rather pretty Elysian Park, its slope covered

MAMMOTH PIGEON RANCH

with beautiful flowers, and of crossing the Los Angeles
River, now a dry water course making its way among
high hills.

The pigeon farm we find to be one of the most
beautiful sights we have ever met with on our travels.
The cotes are built at the foot of a lofty scrub-covered
hill. These are really a series of wooden tables, three in

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND 35

a set, on each of which six tiers of cotes are placed. In
these tiers there are seven pairs of holes apiece for the
birds, fourteen therefore for a tier, eighty-four to each
of two sides of a table, one hundred and sixty-eight on
both sides, and five hundred and four to each tri-table
arrangement. Across the top, running in the opposite
direction, are three other tiers, six pairs of holes each in
the lower roof and four pairs on the others swelUng the
total to five hundred and sixty-eight in all for every
three-table arrangement.

In and out and round about these are the birds.
Most numerous are the pure white pigeons, with pink
bills and pinker feet, and black glossy eyes surrounded
by a yellow circle. Other birds have the head of black,
with iridescent feathers that change from black to pur-
ple and then turn from purple to black again. Still
others have a white head with a black spot at the eyes
and a splash of black on the breast, others again
are a medley of white and black.

From this multitude of birds there proceeds a per-
petual cooing, like the whirl of a mill.

One likes to linger and watch them, as they eye the
stranger. Then of a sudden some one bird takes
fright and his warning note causes them all to rise and
be off like snow-flakes in a storm, snow-flakes falling
upward instead of down.

There are perhaps sixty thousand pigeons here, and
most of them have paired off for hfe. Some of the
birds lay all the year round except in the fall, when they
*'lay off,'^ as do chickens, for the moulting. There
are two eggs to the nest and these take about eighteen
days to hatch. It is interesting to make a comparison

36 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

with the ostrich egg we saw at East Pasadena. The
adult pigeons feed their httle ones as long as they are
permitted to do so. But the squabs are taken when
about three weeks old, and killed for the market, the
little birds at that age bringing from two to three dol-
lars a dozen.

It requires about sixty bushels of grain a day to sup-
ply the wants of the pigeon farm, or, as they call it
here, the pigeon ranch.

OIL CITY IN MINIATURE

From the pigeon farm, the largest today in the coun-
try, we go by street car citj^ward once again in order to
visit the miniature Oil City. This is a district almost
in the heart of Los Angeles, where oil was struck, a
boom occurred and people built, or permitted to be
built on royalties, derricks in their front grounds and
back-yards and in fact in every possible place.

This was about twenty-four years ago, and while oil
was found, it was not in such quantities as to prove the
expected bonanza. Now the wells produce just about
enough oil to pay for pumping, but they give to the
city its suburb of derricks, a thing unique in the West.

SEASIDE RESORTS ON THE PACIFIC

Tiring of city and city life, we will now take our first
view of the Pacific and also of the delights of the sum-
mer cities on its shores. The oldest of these is Santa
Monica (San-tah Mon-e-ka), where is located the
'longest wharf in the world.'^

To get there we take one of the traction cars entering
Los Angeles. The ride, for the most part through

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND 37

AT SANTA MONICA

rolling countr}^, shows the productive nature of the
soil. There are a number of small farms, but many
large areas are planted to strawberries, blackberries,
tomatoes, etc. Los Angeles is a large city and needs
many fruits and vegetables to supply her tables.

A number of little cottages, summer or rather winter
homes, border the road by which we enter the city,
and then beyond we see the great ocean, the largest
in the world. We cannot pass it by without giving
it a glance, though we have opportunity for but a
fleeting one.

THE FIRST VIEW OF THE PACIFIC

Our first impression is of its beauty. Possibly be-
cause it is so much more pacific than that other ocean,
the Atlantic ; the water seems bluer than we remember
ever to have seen the Atlantic. The white ripples are all

38 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

gentle and playful. There are benches under a row of
trees some little distance back from the shore, and here
we sit to meditate and listen to the breakers.

We think of the lands far across, China, Japan and
the rest of the Orient. To sail west to reach the east
— that longing now fills our souls.

As we have come in the morning and as the afternoon
is the time for the crowds at Santa Monica, we do not find
the place as lively as the New Jersey resorts, and we can
make a tour of it at our ease. There is a palm drive,
which we follow to the innumerable bathing establish-
ments. The sand, however, is irresistible, aiid pretty
soon we are walking up the beach, ankle deep in it.
Here and there a flat blue pebble or stone lies on the
sand; shells are not numerous.

Landward we can see the great hotels and the cot-
tages, the streets sloping up to the two or three
main avenues which run parallel with the ocean.
Practically everywhere there are pretty, simple cot-
tages, so that the whole seems very much like a replica
of Asbury. We find even the waffle-houses and the
tin-type booths and the board-walk along the cheaper
hotels. On the ocean there are more wild ducks, and on
the beach we find a little seaweed with small air balls
to explode, such as we found along the Atlantic on our
New England Little Journey. Boys are bathing in
numbers now, girls stroll about the beach in sunbon-
nets, grown-ups are preparing for their dip.

There is a large bath-house built out on a pier, hav-
ing a hundred and twenty-nine rooms on each side of
the pier. One side is for men and the other for women,
and we resolve to indulge in a swim ourselves. As

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND 39

high-tide extends from 1:35 to 7:29 P. M., we
shall have to wait in order to bathe at the best
time, and so we join another coterie who are fishing from
the end of the pier. Later we sit for a while on the
sand, beneath one of the Japanese umbrellas which are
such features of this beach, and then go for a stroll
beside the water.

OCEAN PARK A SECOND ASBURY

By and by we are beyond the hmits of Santa Monica
and in Ocean Park, practically a suburb of the first,
but reminding us even more by its cottages of Asbury.
Here is a toboggan slide out into the sea, which we shall
want to try, and then the souvenir stands and the
fruit booths, the soft-drink venders and the like, not
to mention the Casino, will all exert their fascinations
upon us.

THE SHELL INDUSTRY OF THE PACIFIC

There is one booth in particular in which we
want to linger ; it is that in which shells are sold. With
us in the Middle West and East the shell is perhaps
used as an ash-receiver or to stand before the grate and
for httle else, but out west there are many persons who
pride themselves on collections of shells. Not only
that, but the makers of the little shell jewel cases and
the like must all be supplied. So there are men and
women who go out to gather shells — ^the men princi-
pally Japs and Chinese.

The abalone (a-ba-lo'ny) of course is coveted more
than any other. This we ourselves shall find in pro-
fusion near Monterey. The abalone is the large half-

40 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

shell with the brilliantly iridescent interior that is so
often seen in homes and bazaars ; it is to be found
on the west coast of California wherever there are
rocks, as it is attached to the lower side of the
boulders. Since the abalones have been getting scarcer
the government has protected them, and one may take
only those over fifteen inches in circumference in the
green, blue and red shells, and those from six to seven
and three-quarters in the black.

Not alone for the shell, but for the meat itself do the
fishermen search for the abalone. This mussel is
much like a clam, but for shipment is usually dried and
then resembles nothing so much as a bunch of dry,
thick cloth, or a dry sponge minus the usual holes.
Housed inside its one shell, this mussel has a powerful
suction, like a fly's foot, which holds the shell to the
rocks, so that it can be pried off only with a crowbar.
Usually, therefore, the abalones are taken at low tide
when the men can get under the rocks and pry them off.
At other times three or four fishermen go out in a boat
and dive sometimes eighty feet deep to get them.

The meaty part being scooped out, for sun drying^
or else for the cannery at San Pedro (which puts them
up for Chinese export), the shells are sold to curio deal«
ers, at twenty to a hundred dollars a ton. The finest
variety is the blue, then the green and the black, the
latter noted for its pearl. All manner of novelties are
ground from abalone by means of carborundum-wheels
and sharp pieces of metal. The ^'finishing" of an aver-
age shell takes perhaps twenty minutes and it will sell
for fifty cents.

There are innumerable other rare shells to be had ij^

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND 41

this shop; the circummula carpentonno (sir-kum-miill-
lah kar-pen-tun-no), the rarest shell of the Pacific, a Ut-
tle thing three inches in length, a specimen of which
will bring sixty dollars; the plum-shaped roseate
bracopodus (brack-o-po-dus) that is equipped with
a regular stem, and many others.

From the shell store we make our way to a res-
taurant near the surf, where sea-bass is served, to in-
dulge in an ocean luncheon. After our swim, in the
afternoon, the spell of the sea upon us, we loiter in the
sand, sauntering hither and thither, up to the bounds
of the new amusement resort, Venice, enjo^ying our
hoUday thoroughly.

In the evening we sup at one of the fine hotels of
Los Angeles to get a taste of their fare and their service.
There are oysters, as is usual out here in the West,,
then consomme with crackers, broiled fish and potatoes
and olives, with which a California sparkUng wine is
serv^ed. After that we have duck, with egg plant
and asparagus, a wine jelly ser\^ed in regulation wine-
glasses, and assorted cakes and coffee.

BY BURRO UP MT. WILSON

That there is no lack of variety in Cahfomia sight-
seeing this week's itinerary will assure us. From the
sea level at Santa Monica, we are destined to chmb
to the mountain peaks in our ascent of Mt. Wilson,
stay over night among the clouds, and on our next re-
turn to the level of Old Ocean make what is practically
a submarine outing to look at the sea-bottom.

An excursion up Mt. Wilson such as we plan is a
trip not generally made by the tourist, who prefers the

A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

^ comfort of Mt. Lowe to the greater beauties of Wilson.
We repair by street car once again to Pasadena. As
we have made this trip before, we purchase from one
of the news-dealers the papers of our home city.
These news-dealers ' carts with the leading dailies from

CORRAL OF MULES FOR ASCENT OF MT. WILSON

all over the country are a feature of street life in the
California cities. As the ride out toward Sierra Madre
is not particularly attractive, we can read our papers
with a clear conscience.

Arrived at the end of the line, we mount the burros
to climb Mt. Wilson. Grown-up people ride on the
little beasts, unless very heavy, when they are
required to hire a mule. As the mule knows the way
and there is but one trail, we shall not need to bother

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND

with guides. Very likely we shall meet travelers
going afoot up the mountain, and shall keep them
company, giving them the use of our animals occa-
sionally that we may ^ ^stretch our legs'' by walking.
Those of us who made the Little Journey to the Balkans

^ -

«A^^-'^ ,

.":4>>i)(^^^^

-.1^

-'^ifc. ^

^^mi 'k>i

^ ,'^lnHi^^'^^* *^^^Wb^^^^^^^

\f^^V^. ^

'■

^^^^■^Mi'lflHiH

l^ggl

HOW WE ASCEND

will constantly be reminded of parts of that trip on
this ride.

Unlike the Balkan burros, however, these donkeys or
burros of ours want to loaf all the way, and not that
alone, but to nibble the green leaves of the shrubbery,
and we are forced frequently to employ a Uttle
whip. Then they have a bad habit of ambling most
carelessly along dizzy ledges, so that we rather prefer
walking to risking oui'selves on their backs, even though

44 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

we are assured, from what the stableman told us before
we started, that we are perfectly safe, and only do this
^^to scare tenderfeet/'

When we are not in the rather stunted pin-oak for-
ests or treading over parterres of resurrection-vine,
and listening to bird-songs and the babble of a brook,
we are enjoying vistas of the great Pasadena Valley,
with its square, olive-hued orange groves and its fertile
meadows stretching to other mountains.

Now and then too we meet some traveler coming
down from above, who jokes with us about the ride.
It was a quarter to eleven when we left the cars ; it will
be half -past one before we reach Orchard Camp, a little
lunching-station and half-way house on the trail. Here
and there humor, if not beauty, is added to the trip in
the guise of signs painted by some wag, on the rocks
just at the most difficult places, such as ^'Oh, joy,^'
and "1 wish I were an angel.''

A CAMP IN THE SIERRA MADRES

This half-way house is most convenient as a resting
place for those to whom the journey is wearisome.
It is just a small, unpainted shingle shack consisting of
a single room; outside is a summer-house and there are
also some bottles. The camp is in charge of a young
man in corduroy trousers, blue shirt and heavy sus-
penders, who stays here the year round, though often
for days not a soul goes by.

This young man, like so many others out here in the
heart of the Sierra Madres, is a trapper. During the
colder months of February and March, when at this
elevation (3250 feet) the snow hes deep, he may trap

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND 45

deer, foxes and wildcat, to say nothing of coons and
badgers — sometimes, though rarely, even a mountain
lion.

In the summer his solitude is often broken. Moun-
tain-lovers hire tents and raise them all about his soli-
tary cabin, or come here for supphes when camping out
in the mountains, so that life in the camp is varied
enough to be endurable. We certainly enjoy the cof-
fee and sandwiches and the wild cherr}^ phosphate that
is serv^ed us, in spite of the fact that it has all had to
be carried up by donkey.

SIX THOUSAND FEET ABOVE THE PACIFIC

From this point, the trail becomes very steep, the for-
ests, of an oak whose leaves resemble holly, are very
dense. When we are able to catch an occasional bird's-
eye view, it is over vast expanses.

Instead of making the direct ascent of one peak, as
when we began the ascent of Mt. Wilson we supposed
we should do, we find that in fact we zigzag back and
forth, in and out of canyons that separate the ridges, tiU
we reach that final mountain, and then cUmb on and
up to its summit. In these silent forests, where only
the chirp of the birds breaks the silence, we occasion-
ally come upon some pack train of six mules, the lead-
ing animal bearing a bell, and are reminded of the road
from Rjeka to Banjaluka of ouTBalksm Little Journey ^
for the scene is almost identical.

When we come out on a camp which is known as
Santa Anita Heights, we have that sense of being at an
immense height, under the eaves of the world as it
were, which Himalayan travelers experience.

A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

SCLAR OBSERVATORY, MT. WILSON

The sun is beginning to sink, and we note the reflec-
tion of the sunset on the eastern horizon as though
Old Sol were really sinking there, whereas as a matter
of fact he is still almost midway betwieen zenith and
sky-line. This is a phenomenon seldom encountered
by the traveler.

When we at last safely reach the summit of Mt. Wil-
son, the hotel, a delightful little tavern, and some cot-
tages are disclosed, among tall weather-beaten pines.
The hotel is really no more than a chalet cottage, sit-
ting-room, dining-room and kitchen. We wonder where
we are to sleep.

By and by, after again appeasing our hunger, we are
led to the cottages. These are of unpainted shingles.

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND 47

and resemble the chalet of a Swiss homestead; they
consist of just one room apiece. Each cottage is part
of a circle that encloses the peak, so that all of them,
from their httle front porches, have that gorgeous \dew
of the valleys. And here, on the mountain-top, we
are to spend the night.

AN OBSERVATORY LIKE NOAH^S ARK

We deposit our belongings and refresh ourselves with
a washing which our long mule ride has made doubly
necessary, and then stroll through the forest, on to
another bluff ol rhe mountain-top. Here, visible from
afar, is located what is perhaps the most curioua
observ^atory in the world.

The structure is-of canvas, so as to admit the air
and have the temperature inside the same as that
without. The canvas is snowy white and built in the
shape of an ark. A commanding site has been selected
for it, and from below and in fact from wherever
seen it recalls at once Noah's home stranded on the
top of ^It. Ararat.

Inside this peculiar observ^ator}^ is a telescope en-
tirely different from that which most of us think of when
the word telescope is mentioned. Instead of being com-
posed of lenses fixed into a big tube through which the
obser\'er gazes into the heavens, this telescope is what
is called a reflector. There are two large mirrors, one
with a diameter of thirty inches and another of twenty-
four inches. From these mirrors the sun is reflected
by means of a prism into the magnifying lense into
which the observer looks. This telescope is used ex-
pressly for the purpose of photographing the sun, and

A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

already a large number of most valuable photographs
have been obtained. These photographs show the
changes that take place day after day in the appearances
and size of the sun-spots.

While we are perhaps not sufficiently advanced in
the science of optics, let alone astronomy, to under-

OUR HOUSE ON MT. WILSON

stand all that the kind director explains to the rare
visitor who chances to get inside the place, we can jot
down the fact that it takes about two months for two
men to finish such a mirror as these, so fine is the sur-
face. The polishing is done with jeweler ^s rouge on
pads of chamois skin. Even when finished and
mounted here, the mirrors are burnished over again

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND • 49

every tenth day. The glass of these mirrors is four
inches thick and is set upon a silvered surface.

As evening comes on, we leave the observatory. We
are enchanted with our surroundings ; as we stand on
the platform high out over the valley, behind us rise
the tall pines, of the forest. At our side is the ark, hke
some mighty specter. Below, other somber forests
roll to the valley, which in turn extends far off to the
sea. We can even see from our vantage point a ship
away out on the Pacific. The stars are peeping out,
the moon appears, and not since those starry nights on
the Mediterranean of which we had a taste on our
Little Journey to Austria Hungary have we enjoyed
an evening so much.

Nor do the dehghts of this excursion end here.

AN OLD-FASHIONED EVENING

After supper all gather about a great log fire burning
beneath an old-fashioned chimney, such as we have
not encountered since we left New England. Two
Yankees from New England who are present tell stories
of Barnum, another guest pops com for all, and while
we copy our day^s notes we enjoy the situation
thoroughly. Then by invitation we make our way back
to the observatory to see the moon through the tele-
scope. Although the latter is intended primarily for
solar work, the moon too can be observed and is
certainly a splendid sight as now viewed, its craters
and cones and valleys all made distinct.

And in the moonlight, now, the valley is filled with
new beauties, not the least of which is the distant
illuminated city.

50* A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

THE MOUNT WILSON OBSERVATORY

The observatory on Mount Wilson was established
as a branch of the great Carnegie Institute of Wash-
ington, D. C, because of the remarkable advantages
the climate conditions of Southern California afford for
astronomical work. In cold countries it is exceedingly
difficult for astronomers to do their work, as the
presence of artificial heat in the observatories causes
heat-waves to rise which destroy the images of the
celestial objects that are seen through the telescopes.
At Williams Bay, Wisconsin, for instance, where the
great Yerkes Telescope of the Chicago University is
located, the astronomers, during the winter nights,
have to wear double suits of clothes and underclothing,
with heavy overcoats and extra shoes of felt to protect
the feet and legs in order to withstand the cold.
While the nights sometimes get quite cold on Mount
Wilson, there is never any severe difficulty on this ac-
count, and consequently it is an ideal spot, as far as
the comfort of the astronomers is concerned. But in
addition to this, the atmosphere itself is so clear and
so free from any kind of disturbance that would af-
fect the sharp definition of the objects gazed at through
the telescope that it is ideal from the standpoint of
scientific observation. The close proximity of the
desert on one side of the mountains and the ocean on
the other seems to produce a suitable equilibrium of
the air that is highly advantageous to astronomical
observations. The result is that more good work has
already been accomplished in certain lines in this
observatory and that of Mount Lowe than at any
other observatory in the world. More will be done

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND

when all the instruments that are ultimately to be
placed on ]\Iount Wilson are in position.

The negatives are then developed, and we are shown
a number of these glass plates, the round image much
like a great fog spot in the center with a sort of crusty,
skin-like effect due to clouds passing over the surface.

MIRROR AT MT. WILSON OBSERVATORY

These photographs are almost more than instanta-
neous, they are taken in just one one-thousandth part
of a second.

After we have finished viewing the sun through these
great finely-polished mirrors, we step into the labora-
tories, built of solid concrete, to see the innumerable
instruments for calculating changes between pictures.

52 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

So constantly is the sun changing that no two pictures
obtained are ever absolutely alike.

We next visit the homes of the professors^ a series of
neat little offices and bed-rooms built in the mission
style on the mountain-top, with their windows opening
into the tree-tops as did our own room at Rila Monas-
tary, when we made the Little Journey to the Balkans.

Here we look over a number of photographs of stars,
and are told of the different instruments required to
make them. Much of this information, however, is
well ^^over our heads" and we beg to be excused.

In fact, the whole matter of photographing objects
ninety millions of miles away is altogether too big a pro-
ject for young brains such as ours, especially as we are
looking forward to our ride back on the donkeys.

We leave at noon and experience some difficulty in
getting the mules past the stable. At last, however, we
are off, and enjoy the down trip throughout. It is
twenty minutes past four by the time we reach the foot
of the trail, and as we f oimd on our Little Journey
through Spain, where we took our donkeys into the
Pyrenees, it is not without regret that we part with
the animals.

Back at Los Angeles from our trip to the mountain-
tops, we prepare at once for a voyage to inspect the
bottom of the sea.

A TRIP ON THE PACIFIC

For today we have in prospect as delightful a
trip as any on our entire journey. We are bound for
the Santa Catalina Island, an island autocracy out
in the Pacific that is world-famous for its remark-

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND

ably clear channels and straits, where by means of
glass-bottomed boats the entire sea-bottom is \dsible.

From circulars we learn that the largest of these
islands is about twenty-two miles long, and has an
area of some four thousand seven hundred acres.

Of course it is important to know how to get there.
^Ve take a traction car in Los Angeles for San Pedro
(Pee-dro), from which the islands lie twenty-two miles
out to sea. San Pedro is now, in reaUty, a part of
Los Angeles. The U. S. Government is spending mil-
hons to make a great harbor, and in order that it might
be controlled by Los Angeles, a strip of land reaching
from that city to and including San Pedro has been ab-
sorbed. Hence it is now Los Angeles all the way to
the ocean.

AVALON

54 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

Here we see in profusion boats laden with lumber,
schooners and other vessels engaged in the Pacific coast
trade. Gulls wheeling about mark the lobster landing,
which recalls our New England Little Journey,

We soon board a steamer for Santa Catalina and
for our first voyage on the Pacific.

All of our geography rises before us, as though to
make us regret we did not study harder at school.
Who discovered the Pacific, and when, and under
whose flag did he sail? How many square miles of
water are there in this ocean? Do we remember how
to bound it, and can we tell what degrees of latitude it
embraces? If not we shall have plenty of time to look
up these points in our pocket atlases as we sail island-
ward, and this will do us far more good than to have
it told to us.

In fact, once we have left the break-water, stretching
out from the dull green hills behind, and the trees have
faded into mist over on our right and left, while the
smell of the sea is strong and bracing, we are glad
of something to do. We do not want to listen to the
foolish people who are afraid of sea-sickness even on a
sea as smooth as this. When we get out on the open
ocean there is nothing on the smooth surface to
see save an occasional four-master, weighted way
down with freight ; and aside from counting buoys and
looking out for the Santa Monica wharf, the longest
pier in the world, we have nothing to do but to lounge
and idle, watch for flying-fish, and enjoy the healthful
rest of a sunny day at sea.

By and by, far ahead, some green mountainous cones,
with patches of yellow, rise from the waters to mark our

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND 55

destination, the Island of Santa Catalina.

Before we arrive, however, we are treated to the sight
of a school of porpoises. There seems to be twenty or
thirty of them, and they move indolently and carelessly
along, occasionally shooting out of the water in a pecu-
liar curvdng fashion that is most interesting to witness.

At last we land at the wharf. As we walk from it
we find one main street which faces the Uttle Bay of
Avalon. At one end is a fine hotel, at which we are to
stay; at the other, an open air theatre, where band
concerts are given ever\^ evening during the season.

THE FAUNA OF THE PACIFIC

We find the glass-bottomed steamers the first point of
interest to the sight -seers. As most of these visitors re-
main today only, these are crowded to the guards. We,
however, are to stay until we have seen all there is to
be seen, so take our way to other places first.

Not far from the wharf is the aquarium, where we
can find the fauna of the Pacific unfolded to us through
the medium of glass tanks. For those of us who have
visited the aquarium in New York, the comparison will
be most interesting. On a series of trellises, to begin
with, there are small glass globe aquariums, where all
manner of curiosities are housed.

First in interest, perhaps, is the trigger-fish.
This is shaped like a flounder; its color is dull
brown ; and there is no known reason for the name it
bears. Then there is a sheep 's-head which weighs some
eighteen pounds, and lives in the same case with a
turtle, in a sort of happ}^ family way, for the turtle
never snaps at the fish, nor does the fish attempt to
annov the turtle. Here too is the squid, which darts

A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

•

THE GULLS

its ink out to protect itself from the foe by hiding its
exact whereabouts, and also the ramora, which gets
upon whales and sharks, and virtually sucks the life
blood from them.

Still more interesting is the transparent clam, which
is taken from a depth of seven hundred feet beneath the
surface, and which inhabits the beautiful roseate shells
we found at Santa Monica. It appears that it is im-
possible to obtain the proper food for these clams in
captivity and therefore they die shortly after being
taken. Growing coral, and dead coral with the moss
growing on it, moss filled with red anemones like
flowers in bloom, and pale little j'-ellow growing sponges,
all are here. Then, too, there are sea-hares, which re-

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND ' 57

semble a huge shell-less snail, climbing about the walls
of its case, and causing us to wonder whether it may be
the far-distant ancestor of our modern garden-snail.
On the back of these hares there is a beautiful fold of
skin which opens and closes as we watch it, while the
little animal feeds on a great bunch of seaweed in its
compartment. Now and then, when alarmed, these
chocolate-red animals curl up for defense and drop like
a stone from wherever they may be. At other times
some of the red ink with which they are filled is visible
beneath a rock and discloses their presence.

An octopus, or devil-fish, of which specimens fifty
feet in length are sometimes seen, is another attraction
of this aquarium. These animals grow very slowly,
but are very long-lived, and just how ancient may be
the sleepy fellow whose long tentacles with their
thousand feelers we see against the sides of the glass
no one seems to know.

These, however, are but a few of the wonders of the
aquarium. There are sharks' eggs, like a piece of
India rubber, or the seed of the thorn-tree, which take
ninety da3's to hatch, and there are conger eels four
feet in length, with nostrils that resemble a circular
bit of bored lead, while their eyes are sunk deep, quite
out of sight in open sockets; lobsters and craw-fish,
masses of claws and feelers, prett}^ red-eyed star-fish,
sea-cucumbers, which mark the line between animal
and vegetable Ufe, the "stingaree," noted for its long
^'stinger'' tail, and beautiful golden perch, like a great
gold-fish but broader, and of a magnificent reddish-
golden shade — these are all on exhibition. - We must,
however, also make a point of seeing the goat fish, a

58 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

tiny white fellow, the exact shape of a goat, and then
the gold electric-fish, whose spots become phosphor-
escent at night.

MOUNTING MOONSTONES

We now wander on through quaint, interesting
Avalon itself. We stop to note in the window of one
of the chop-houses a square aquarium tank in which
is a beautiful fish, with a red center-band across its
black body, sporting among some abalone shells. Inside,
if we wish, we may have a fish dinner for a quarter.

Then we come on another typically sea-side indus-
try, the polishing of moonstones from the Moon Beach
to which we shall come later. These are not the
real moonstones of the jewelers^ shops, but agate or
chalcedony formations, some of which bear a curious
moss formation, resembling the moss-agate. The stones
are found as pebbles, much like the lucky-stones we may
find in Michigan on another Little Journey, greyish
white, and ranging from the size of a pea to that of a
fist. The average weight of these stones, as found, is
thirty carats, and such a pebble is ground down in these
shops to perhaps three, in order to be fit for setting in
rings and stick pins. Now and then, some of these
stones will be of lavender or of amethyst hue, and then
they bring as much as five or even ten dollars. Com-
moner sorts', when clear, retail at fifty cents.

We enjoy the cutting of moonstones; it reminds us
of the diamond cutters of Amsterdam we met on our
Dutch Little Journey, The pebbles are inserted in
engineer's wax at the end of a stick, and then cut by
hand until ready for the carborundum wheel with

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND 59

which they are finished. They require from twenty
minutes to an hour and a half of grinding, but there is
a set price of half a dollar for the work.

DOWN TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA

We have come to Avalon, however, to have a look, like
McGinty, at the bottom of the sea, and we will not be
put off any longer. A\Tiat Jules Verne has written in his
'Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea'' and his
''Mysterious Island,'' and what we recall of "Among
the Florida Reefs" and other books make us eager
for this excursion.

We go aboard the glass-bottomed tug, a regular
steamer, in whose bottom, in either end, are set
a number of large panes of glass, about which a
black painted railing rises. Over this we and the
other tourists aboard lean, from our benches, to look
into the water below. The seals disport about us on the
pebbly beach as we leave, but our eyes are soon glued
to the green water with the moss drifting over the peb-
bles, and we forget all about the land.

Almost at once the bottom begins to descend beneath
us, and the beautiful scener^^ of the ocean bed, of which
we have long heard so much, unrolls below.

Here and there are black spots on this bottom, mark-
ing clusters of seaweeds in the depths. Then there
is the skeleton of a fish to attract our attention.
At another moment the water bubbles like seltzer
beneath that pane of glass, and while we are waiting
for it to clear we think of Verne and his "Mysterious
Island," and admire the inventiveness of the author's
brain which could imagine romance so close to truth.

60 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

We turn again to admire the ocean bottom, where
we see abalone shells filled with sand. The water is
now growing deeper and more blue, and from an old
board some great ropes rise up to support a buoy.
The}'' are overgrown with moss, like some phantom
vessel's moorings. Ever bluer, ever deeper and ever
more smooth becomes the bottom. In the glass we
now see ^ ^mermaids and mermen, '^ as the Uttle guide
fantastically calls them ; these are our own reflections,
of course. Then little black fish go by, darting away
into the distance.

By and by we sail over great stalks of the iodine kelp,
an enormous plant like a great tobacco stalk, with
green membraneous leaves, some of them about a foot
in length and three inches across at their broadest
part. To these leaves nature has added little air-
sacks, that keep the plant up. These leaves are
gathered and dried for the iodine they contain. Most
of the kelp forests have a little parasite tha't eats the
plant to a string, as we see in a few moments. In
among these great green kelp forests rock-bass,
beautiful blue fish, are disporting themselves, and in
among them there are countless hundreds of golden
perch, which live on the sea moss. So varied are the
objects of interest that we never tire of the picture. In
and out of the iodine gardens these blue fishes and gold
ones make their way. Here and there what seems a
worm about six inches long, is noted on the rocks ; it is
in reality the sea-cucumber, such as we saw in the
aquarium above, and the lowest known form of gen-
uine animal life. Then too there are sponge-like masses,
a sponge moss, also a very low form of life. Pink and

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND 61

lavender coral mosses, a brown moss blooming three
times a year — these and other varieties add their beauty
to the prospect . Then suddenly out of the crevices of
great rocks where the blooming sea-urchin Uves in pro-
fusion dart sheep^s-head fish, with teeth like those of a
human being.

We skim over some mighty rocks jumbled here in
great confusion, and wonder why it is that their crev-
ices have not long since become filled with sand. Out
of these crevices again rises the iodine weed, and smaller
weeds like the sweet-fern of our middle western turn-
pikes are dense. Dense as are the weeds, just so dense
are the gold-fish. In places the kelp is right under us,
and also the fishes. Ever}^'here too is a black fish with
two white spots on its back; it is the black perch.

The water becomes clearer, and is filled with the
sponge moss. Then more iodine weed comes in sight,
this eaten away to long threads, then more shells.
Among the latter an enormous blue-fish is dawdhng,
while smaller gold and azure varieties disport them-
selves around.

The water is so clear that we scarcely realize that
the ocean bed on which we look is a hundred and
twenty-five feet below us. In Florida a spy-box, a glass
at the end of a square boxlet, is lowered from the
sides of a boat, that one may see, as those of us who
took the Little Journey through the Old South will
recall; but no such depth of bottom is there at-
tained. Nor is the sea so deUghtfuUy pale blue ; nor do
we find there the thousands of blue-fish, their little
tails all in line, nor the iodine kelp rising up, some-
times to a height *of seventy-five feet, in huge ropes.

62 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

From thousands these blue finny fellows turn to mil-
-lions; in fact, we should not have believed it possible
there could be so many. When the iodine masses be-
neath the glass pane do not obstruct our view, we can-
not begin to count them ; there seems to be a depth of
seventy-odd feet of fish to the spotted rocks and the
moss below.

By and by, a little brown fellow, a vegetarian, which
keeps at play near the bottom — ^the kelp fish, he is
called — puts in his appearance. The guide calls our
attention to other wonders of the ocean. When we
rest our necks from craning, above the glass we see only
the leaden blue ocean. Then again we watch the
^ 'Garibaldi,^' or yellow perch, in the forests of sea fern,
and the great white open clam-shells on a submarine
mountain.

At one place we cross a sargasso sea, a sort of sub-
marine pampas, where starfish are numerous in the
white sands, and there are masses of seaweed, grassy
in form, growing from the bottom. These have a bluish
tinge, and are very fine and feathery, especially as
they wave in the currents. Here, and there a large
cockle 'shell, or a beautiful upturned abalone, makes us
wish we could ramble where our eyes now explore, and
gather all that we see.

At one time our attention is drawn to the mainland
to see a wild mountain-goat, scaling the bleak rocky
crags, and looking down at us saucily. Curious lateral
lines in the sands on the bottom produced in reality by
the currents are the work of ^ ^mermaids plowing'^ ac-
cording to the little guide.

To tell everything we see, the mermaids' hair, sea-

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND 63

weed which its name describes, the kelp that has no
air balls, but a strong stalk instead to keep it up in the
waves, the skates on the bottom and the other strange
forms, would be impossible in these pages.

By and by, we discern the next island, San Cle-
mente, twenty-eight miles off to sea, whose sole inhabi-
tants are sheep-herders, and then we round in and
come to the seal rocks, where is to be seen perhaps the
finest herd of free seals in the world, next to the famous
one of San Francisco, accessible to the ordinary tourist.
We see seals ever^^where on .the rocks, the Uttle cubs
often lying on their mothers' backs, or some old one
moving sluggishly to where the countless gulls hover.
There are light brown, grey and even black ^eals here,
in all the freedom of other and wilder seas. We stop a
while to watch them and listen to their whimperings,
and then return a bit more rapidly than we came, over
the submarine gardens.

AN ISLAND AUTOCRACY

It is a quarter to five when we reach Avalon once more.
We saunter about the quaint httle island town, with its
shaded cottages and its street overhung by the euca-
lyptus trees. We visit the sites for the tents of the
summer city, and see many of the great blooming
geranium trees.

Then we drop into the offices of the island autocracy,
to learn something of its government. Probably in
our early childhood we wished we could buy an island
somewhere and be king or queen. That is just about
what has been done at Avalon. About fifteen years
ago the Company purchased this island, and practically

64 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

rules it as might some Czar. No ship may land here
except that of the Company. No stores may be opened
except of the sort the Company desires. The boats
refuse to carry supplies the Company does not desire,
so that rival hotels are impossible. In fact, were there
a despot ruling over Avalon the situation would not be
very different.

We learn interesting facts about the island. For in-
stance, we hear that at one time there was a mining boom,
gold and silver having been found in Cherry Valley.
There is also splendid wild goat hunting in the interior.

HUNTING WILD GOATS

In fact, we ourselves join one of the parties which are
constantly being formed and go on such a hunt.
Guides and horses are obtained and we ride to that
side of the island where the wild goats are most
numerous. There, with a thirty-three round Winchester
gun, we try our skill. The desire of each hunter is,
of course, to obtain the head of an animal, which is
mounted by the sportsman.

We also visit the enormous sheep-pastures in the
interior of the island, which remind those of us who
made the Little Journey to Australia of the great sheep
ranges of New Zealand. At one place there are some
twenty thousand domestic sheep in the enclosures.

Then, too, there are fig orchards, where the fruit
ripens in July, and this has a peculiar flavor not to be
obtained on the mainland, and banana trees also are
there to demonstrate that we are in the South.

It is nearly supper time now and so we return to the
hotel. We must hurry through our meal, since it is

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND 65

Saturday evening, so that we may be down at the dock
and witness the fireworks with which the incoming boat
is greeted. After this there is dancing and card playing
and the hke, in which some of us join.

Those of us who are too timid or do not find such re-
creation to our taste, indulge in the island literature,
and learn how this island was discovered by Juan
Rodriguez Cabrillo, in September, 1542, how on this
island of forty thousand acres there is a peak two thous-
and five hundred feet high, and how, way back in the
Stone Age, man was an inhabitant of the islands. How
did he come those wear^^ miles from the mainland?
What manner of boat or raft did he build ? Indians, too,
were here later. What did their canoes resemble? It is
interesting to speculate on these problems.

Then, to bed, to rest for another day of sight-seeing
on the island.

FISHING FOR THE LEAPING TUNA

Rising early the next morning, down in the lobby of
the hotel we pick up the '^Records of the Ananias So-
ciety, composed principally of Eastern Uars,'^ which
gives the records of supposed tuna catches from 1894 on.

This naturally leads us to inquire into tuna-fishing,
for which these islands are as famous as is Nantucket
for its blue-fish, and perhaps to arrange for a fishing
excursion.

The tuna, we learn, is the largest of the bony-fishes.
In the Atlantic, specimens are occasionall}^ harpooned
which weigh fifteen hundred pounds. The tuna is a
fish of wide range, being found in the warm temperature
of practically all seas. This, however, is about the

A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

ON THE WHARF AT AVALON

only place where it comes in shore in numbers, and is
caught with rod and reel. The common name then
is the ^^tunny^' or ^ 'horse-mackerel' ' of the New Eng-
land fishermen.

The tuna of the Catalina waters differs from those
found elsewhere in its great leaping powers. These
are developed in its pursuit of its natural prey, the Cali-
fornia flying-fish. To catch them it makes great leaps
out of the water. This gave its distinctive name of
the leaping tuna.

The tuna here is taken with rod and reel and a regu-
lar club has been organized. The rules of this asso-
ciation are interesting. Any one who has caught a
tuna with rod and reel, in California waters, which

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND 67

weighs over a hundred pounds, and had such catch
properly registered, is eUgible. The member catching
the fish weighing most is president and holds office
until his record is exceeded. The member catching
the greatest number of tunas in any calendar year, re-
gardless of weight (the average here is about one hun-
dred and eighty-th]!;ee pounds), is vice-president and
likewise holds office until his score is beaten by some
other member.

For breakfast this morning we get a typical CaUfor-
nia island meal, beginning with navel oranges. Then
follow clam bouillon, grape-fruit and honey from the
Simi Valley (to be visited later) or fig-jam from the
island itself. After that comes shredded codfish, or fried
red rock cod, or '^yellow-tail," or broiled salt mackerel.

MOONSTONE HUNTING

This morning we will indulge in another submarine
outing, into a different section of the sargasso seas.
Again aboard one of the glass-bottomed boats, we go out
among the rugged rocks, where the water is per-
haps forty-five feet deep and of green blue. Then the
wonders begin again, much as we saw them yesterday —
the sea-cucumbers in the sand, the great white rocks,
and the golden perch in the iodine weeds, while a light
blue moss-like sea-violet, which loses its color as soon
as it strikes the air, is a new curiosity. The trip is much
like our previous one, except that we skirt closer in to
shore, where the lambs are visible on the slopes of the
mountains and where great rock masses hide from
view the old boat hospital anchored in a picturesque
cove. Some black diving birds, a crane or two, and

A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

then the blue bass, with the two white spots on their
backs, are the principal novelties encountered. By and
by our attention is drawn to a seal, one of the local herd
for whose protection fines ranging from twenty to two
hundred dollars have been instituted, these especially
providing for the protection of the one or two pups which

HUNTING MOONSTONES AT CATALINA

accompany each mother seal in June, when she teaches
them to swim on the coast here, to the delight of pass-
ers-by; the little pups are at first absolutely helpless
in the water. Now gulls and cormorants and pelicans
are pointed out, and we make a turn to one side to
carry the mail to a queer old hermit who lives here on
the beach because he is afflicted with some nervous

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND 69

trouble. He takes his letters in a bag at the end of a
long pole fitted to his skiff.

Finally we land at the moonstone beach, five miles
from Avalon, where, at the foot of the mountains, along
the narrow gravelly areas that the water occasionally
washes, ever}^ one searches for the pebbles, or for the
rarer moss-agates. Then, too, one can chnib over the
boulders to a cave or to the top of a peak to take
pictures, or else dislodge sea-urchins and rock oysters.
A few of us go in wading in our search for the
moonstones. There is no lack of pastimes.

Some of us Usten to the old boat-captain as he tells
of an island about twenty-eight miles off San Pedro,
where the gulls nest; the island being one great rock
rising from the sea, on which the nests are so dense as
to be less than a foot apart, just enough room for one
brood not to interfere with another. These nests are
of seaweed and grass set right on the rock, and about
ten inches across. From two to five eggs are laid in
them, and on warm days these are left alone much of
the time.

We also hear stories of sharks occasionally seen in
these waters. Now it is time to return.

On the way ^It. Black Jack, two thousand five hun-
dred and fifty feet high, is pointed out to us on the is-
land. We now find the blue sea full of inch-long trans-
parent white fish, tails all in line, some wiggUng both
tail and fins, others motionless save for a gradual drift-
ing in one given direction. They are thick as snow in a
December snow-storm.

Returning for luncheon, we idle away some time
with the seals on the beach, which come right out of the

A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

water at Avalon to take the fish thrown them. Tame
as they are, the big fellows, headed by their leader
^'Old Ben/' fight among themselves while scores of gulls
wheel in and about to seize the shreds of fish torn free
by the sea lions.

The steamer for the mainland does not leave until
half-past three, so we have plenty of time to make

SEALS AT AVALON

again the submarine excursion of yesterday, and
get some additional photographs of the coast; the
camera unfortunately cannot take the effects seen
through the glass bottom. Then with a lantern made
of a dried star-fish, and other souvenirs, we are ready
to bid this fascinating island adieu.

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND

COTTAGE LIFE ALONG THE PACIFIC AT OCEAN PARK

On the way back to Los Angeles we make the acquain-
tance of some people who have a summer cottage at
Ocean Park, which is, as we remember, practically
n suburb of Santa Monica.

They invite us to take tea with them, and we get a
taste of regular sea-side cottage life. The cottages.

-^.^HHIH^HHii

COTTAGE LIFE

which have a neat hall leading to the dining-room at
the back, and several bed-rooms upstairs, can be rented
furnished, for the season. Women are then hired
to cook and keep house and the expense of hotel life
is saved, while most, if not all, of its pleasures can be
enjoyed. The supper, with its home cooking and the

72 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

glimpse of family life, is refreshing to us, furnishing a
little variety in our journey.

VENICE IN CALIFORNIA

After supper we take the cars for Venice, the great
amusement resort on the Pacific, erected in imitation
of the glorious Italian city. Every building is now il-
luminated with glaring yellow electric lights, there are
booths and shows and restaurants. Standing out
against the night sky, outlined in lights, is a cafe, in
the form of a caravel.

Crowds surge everywhere. The destination of most
of them, however, is the palm garden, where there are
loges and orchestra seats and a stage, and where an
orchestra dispenses popular music, while, as at the
cafes of Fiume, the populace enjoys light refreshments.

Although the round trip from Los Angeles costs only
fifty cents, we find the crowd is a most refined one,
and we enjoy our evening heartily.

Of course a night visit to Venice, whether it be the
Venice we visited on the Little Journey to Italy or Venice
in California, does not content us, and next morning
we decide that we may as well see all that is to be seen
in this place before passing to any other, and so we
again take traction for Venice.

At the entrance to the main avenue of the city we
see a building which reproduces very faithfully the
architecture and coloring of its Italian model. It is
of a brown and yellow stucco, and contains, besides a
substantial bank, offices of real estate agents on the
ground floor, while up above are those of a doctor
and a notary.

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND

SHIP HOTEL AT VENICE

The street itself from this point is of asphalt, broad
and lined with pillars of yellow imitation marble sur-
mounted by great bronze capitals. Behind these pil-
lars there are curio stores where abalone shells, spoons
of the same, pins and tidies are for sale. Then there
are parlors for pool, a game of which people are very
fond out here, and hotels, bowling alleys, popcorn
and peanut stands, all seemingly brand new, for
Venice has been in existence a single year only; but
for the absence of crowds and the calls of barkers, one
would fancy it to be simply a temporary carnival
city, instead of a substantial town.

As a matter of fact, however, Venice is little more
than a dream city, so far as its conception goes. A

74 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

gentleman of Richmond, Virginia, Kinney by name,
having bought real estate in Los Angeles, twelve miles
away, and becoming infatuated with this site, resolved
to lay out a Venetian city, and has already expended
not less than a million and a half dollars in the venture.
To begin with, he purchased about five hundred and
sixty acres for his site. Then he built three miles of
canals, a wharf, auditorium, and ship-hotel, as well
as another great hotel patterned after St. Mark's
Cathedral in old Venice of the Adriatic. . A mammoth
breakwater was added; streets, too, were laid out,
and the pillars for the arcades of future buildings,
were erected.

Then lots were offered for sale, under certain con-
ditions— among others that there must be a Venetian
arch along the street, and arcaded walls, as well as
marbleized columns, while the roads must at all
times be in line with those of the neighbors.

We step first into the Bank of Venice to admire
the frieze, a series of panels of Venetian life, in heavy
blue effects. Then we peep in at the handsome
bowling alley across the way, where walls of red,
relieved by heavy imitation ebony, scarlet carpeting
and deep brown leather wall seats give an air of
richness to the whole.

From here we pass on to the European and Oriental
Exposition, where Aladdin's lamp seems to have been
rubbed to supply wonders for this Venice of the Pacific.
Great Japanese booths are everywhere, and we may
purchase any number of oddities. There are purses
of red or blue silk, or of leather, in green and yellow
design ; queer, crude china figures of men and women,

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND 75

and heavy brass egg-shaped cups and the hke, as well
as pictures in India ink which sadly tempt our
purses. We cannot resist purchasing some of the tiny
lockets of bone, containing five dice, each one per-
fect and yet each no larger than a good sized pin-head.

Continuing up the pier, we come to another shop,
where an ingenious man has learned how to make orna-
ments out of seaweed. Just how this is done is a secret.
The windows are filled with curious Uttle brown and
white figures, principally brownies, with white bands
about their heads, and high collars, standing on small
ornamental platforms. For these we learn the bull-
kelp species of seaweed alone is used — ^this having
a great air-ball on the top, and the string being prob-
ably forty to fifty feet long. The plant is gathered
green, and the kelp prepared, for perhaps three to
four months, by a secret process, before ready for use.
Then black, green, and cream or yellow kelp are worked
together for the desired effects. Ladies' hats are
made of it, which cannot be hurt by the rain. Belts,
resembling rattlesnake skin, and even tiny tea-pots
and the hke, are formed of this elastic material.

Retracing our steps from this pier, we can either
indulge in the swings on the beach, or the carousal,
or drop into one of the bath-houses for a plunge in
the brine. Here, too, we meet the Venice barker,
a tall negro in a sailor suit, calling for this show or
that. Then we come to another bathing pavihon,
built in truly Venetian style. The bath-rooms on the
second and third floors are each surrounded by ver-
andas, and these are enclosed by imitation yellow
marble colunms, rising to an open-work roof.

76 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

Now we are on the Midway. Here we find an expert
checker player wilHng to play with anyone at ten cents
a game, and keeping up games with five different
persons at once. There are also German frankfurter
stands, Japanese ping-pong tables, and the usual
shows, such as the doll-woman, darkness and dawn,
the house of mirth (where the barker is dressed like
a gorilla), a chicken farm where you try to hit the
chickens with a soft ball, and so on. A working mine,
and an oriental theater, palmists and cafes are also
here. One barker, however, interests us greatly, for
he is a ventriloquist of first-rate ability. He carries
a doll in his arms, and it is difficult to realize that it is
not the doll but his own voice answering his different
questions, for his lips are closed, while those of the
doll are moved by means of hidden springs.

This part of Venice is a pleasure resort, and the
management is constantly on the lookout for changes in
the style of amusement so that the fun-loving crowds
of Los Angeles will get into the habit of coming here.

When evening approaches we are rather tired,
and glad to beat a retreat back to Los Angeles.

UP ANOTHER MOUNTAIN PEAK

Our next trip is to be from the sea-level sk}^ward
again, this time on a route that no tourist omits, —
the traction up Mt. Lowe. We go by street car from
Los Angeles direct, and as part of the route has been
covered before, on the way we read a little booklet
descriptive of the mountain.

We find that the bald top of Mt. Lowe (Lo) stands
six thousand one hundred feet above sea level, and

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND

that the Alpine Tavern at the end of the electric
railway is eleven hundred feet below this summit.
The real grade of the trip begins at sixty feet to the
hundred, and on its greatest steeps we rise sixty-
two feet in ever}^ hundred. Statistics are usually
uninteresting, but here we are glad to learn that the
inchne up Mt. Echo has a length of five thousand feet,

ASCENDING MT. LOWE

while the direct height is fourteen hundred feet;
we also scan the table of heights of other peaks — ^Mt.
Washington's ascent three miles in length; that of
Pilatus, which we made on our Little Journey to Swit-
zerland, likewise three; up the Sch}Tiige Platte the
ride is four miles and a third ; while up the Rigi Vitze-
nau it is four and a half miles; at Monte Generosa

78 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO '\

it is five miles and a half ; the trip up Pike's Peak is
eight miles and a half. From Los Angeles to the
Alpine Tavern on Mt. Lowe is exactly twenty-five
miles, of which eight are mountain-riding.

While we are journeying towards the mountains, a
friend gives us the history of the building of this rail-
way. It was the project of D. J. Macpherson who in-
terested Professor T. S. C. Lowe who had recentty moved
from the East to make his permanent home in Pasadena^
Professor Lowe was bom at Jefferson Mills, now known
as Ri vert on, in New Hampshire. Though poor, he
was a great student and full of laudable ambition.
He studied chemistry as a young man, and then for
several years made ascensions in a balloon for the
purpose of studying the currents of the upper atmos-
phere, so that thereby he could further the interests,
not only of science but of commerce, by operating air-
ships to and fro across the Atlantic Ocean. In Aprils
1861, he sailed in a balloon from Cincinnati, Ohio, to
the Atlantic Coast in South Carolina, 800 miles, in nine
hours. When the Civil War broke out, he proffered
his services to President Lincoln for the purpose of
organizing an aeronautic corps for the United States
Army, with which he proposed to watch the opera-
tions of the enemy in the field.

After the close of the war, he interested himself in
scientific discovery, inventing and perfecting the ice
machine, the refrigerator-steamship and new processes
of making illuminating and heating gas. With the
fortune he had accumulated he removed to Pasadena,
and there engaged in the construction of this unique
railway to soar above the clouds.

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND 79

UP IN A MOUNTAIN-CLIMBER

This car consists of three tiers of two benches each,
each bench seating five persons. The car stands in a
nook surrounded by the forest-covered mountains,
where the bubbhng of a brook is audible from below.

We look up at the steep incline and are surprised to
find only three rails, although we are told that there
is one car to ascend and one to descend. At first we
cannot understand how it is possible for two cars to
n.m on three rails, until we dimly discern, what ap-
pears to be nearly at the top of the incUne, a turn-out,
where there are four tracks, two for the ascending
car and two for the descending one. Of course we ex-
pect that these turn-outs will be manipulated by a
switch as on the ordinar}^ railways, but we find this is
not the case. By an ingenious contrivance of Profes-
sor Lowe's the middle rail is simply spUt, as it were,
and the ascending car turns to the left and the descend-
ing car turns to the right as they meet at this center
point of the incline.

WTien we arrive at the top we are much interested
in watching the operation of the machinery' that raises
and lowers the cars on the Inchne. It is run by elec-
tricity which moves a monster iron wheel called a grip
sheave, placed in a slopingly horizontal position, the
outer rim of which is composed of seventy steel jaws.
As this wheel revolves the cable is seized by these jaws,
which automatically release the cable after a half
revolution has been made. The whole machiner}^ is so
wonderfully contrived and deUcately balanced that if
any accident were to happen to the operator, and the
descending car v/ere to go even the sHghtest degree

80 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

quicker than it should, the whole machinery would
stop and the cars be brought to a standstill. After
nearly twenty years of operation, there has never been
an accident, and while it appears to be the most dan-
gerous railway in the world, in actual experience it has
proven to be the safest.

On the roof of the power house is located the monster
Search Light that was operated at the Chicago World's
Fair. It was purchased by Professor Lowe for the
purpose of studying the clouds and upper air currents.
Every night its gigantic beam of light of 3,000,000
candle power is shot down into the towns and cities at
even a distance of twenty to thirty miles. The sailors
sometimes come into the harbor and report that they
distinctly saw its light at a distance of sixty miles.

We see on Echo Mountain the ruins of a large and
fine hotel that was destroyed by fire some years ago.
It is now promised that it will soon be rebuilt. A
cannon is fired on the other side of the narrow mountain
top and we hear, in the reverberating echoes, many
times repeated, why this is called Echo Mountain.

We then take our seats in an ordinary electric car
which whirls us rapidly to the heights above, around
the wonderful Circular Bridge, through Granite Gate
to Alpine Tavern, 5,000 feet above the level of the sea.
This is a delightful ride around swinging curves, on
elevated granite shelves, and looking down into pro-
found canyon depths.

A BIT OF TRANSPLANTED SWITZERLAND

This part of Mt. Lowe is like a bit of Switzerland
transplanted to the far West. The tavern is built
like a Swiss chalet, — ^its upper story of Ught yellow

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND 81

wood. In the reception room a great log fire burns
upon heavy andirons, and to right and left of it huge
logs are piled. A kettle swings over the fire, upon
its crane, as in Whittier^s ^'Snow-bound.'' A great
wooden chimney-piece reaches to the ceiling, and
above it the words ^'Ye Ornament of the House is ye
Gueste who Doth frequent it!^^ are inscribed in Old
English letters.

Of course our appetite impels us at once to dine,
after which we start on a walk to the top of Mt.
Lowe. We might hire a burro for this purpose, but
prefer stretching our rather stiff Umbs, and so take
to the poor man's carriage and start at precisely 12:39.

THE WALK TO THE TOP

A STEEP, gravelly trail leads through the brown
earth-bank and among tangles of oak, so that it is
often hard to find the way. We see only an olive-like
brown-stalked shrub, pin-oaks, wet with the fog,
and pines that sing and sough. Here and there, there
are little points of attraction, of which the Rainbow
Springs is one. Then, too, one can stop to feed the
very tame grey squirrels of which the trees are full.
By and by, however, we find that we are in the very
heart of the mountains. Chain on chain of granite
peaks, looking like white or pink marble, rise out of
the forests of oak. At the edges of these cliffs there are
jumbled masses of scrub and rock. We get a brief
view and then the fogs fall and all is hidden, and, as
on our ascent of the Meeraugerspitze in our Little
Journey to Hungary, we are soon walking on the
brink of what seems like a bottomless abyss. By

82 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

half -past one it begins to pour, so we have to turn
back and run for cover.

travelers' trials

Here becomes apparent the difference between genuine
sight-seers and tourists. The sight-seer comes to
see. If today he cannot go up the mountain he stays
until tomorrow, or the next day. For,, argues he,
what is the good of going farther without having seen
what is before us? The tourist, however, is content
to let the top of Mt. Lowe pass unvisited and takes
the next car back.

Hardly are we safe at the tavern before it begins to
hail on the mountain. The hail is sharp and fine and
sticks deep in places. It is cozy at the windows now,
listening to the beating of the hail-stones on the pane
.and the crackle of the logs here within.

Meantime we hear people talking of the mountain.
Some one tells how originally an Alpine club had a
hostelry here, and how even now in the forest, which
is a government timber reservation, deer and black
bear are found. Probably we shall meet the chief
ranger of the forest, and each such ranger, we learn,
has to watch over some ten thousand acres. His
principal precaution is against forest fires and when
these are detected he telephones to other rangers
to come to his help. Hunters with guns are excluded,
unless provided with permits for rifle-hunting, which
can be obtained. These rangers have an interesting
time among themselves ; but their life is a lonely one,
for they live in camps, six men to a camp, and each
camp is eight miles from the next. There in the

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND 85

log-cabin or the shake-roof tent, they tell stories
or play cards when off duty.

Another carload of people comes up and in, wet
from the trip. They dry off before the sweet, balsam-
breathing logs, while mountain tales are recounted.
At half -past four, however, there is a noticeable clear-
ing out of the toarists, for the last down-car leaves
then and only those remaining over night will be left.

The sun has by this time come out again, and we
once more make the climb to the top. An electric
railway to this summit is projected, we are told, so
we wish to go in pioneer fashion while we may. We
find now that holly bushes and mazanita make their
appearance beyond the point where the hail-storm
routed us, and while the thunder rumbles on other
mountains, we scale a narrow rocky trail, zig-zagging
ever below us as we ascend, to points where the
valley is unfolded in all its beauty. Our hearts are
pumping with the altitude as much as with the chmb,
and so we stop to rest a moment on the rock, while
some one recalls Professor Lowe who projected the
car route on the peak.

At one place on the forest cUmb we pass through a
grove of fine oaks, and to these we find ever\^ passer-by
has hung his visiting card. So we add our cards.

After a considerable journey, we are on the i^ery
top, an open area with some old barren trees, and a
flag-staff minus Old Glory. It is now 5:10 P. M.
and our pedometer shows that here we enter on the
third hundred miles of walking we have done on this
trip. Down mountain is always faster than up,
and at five minutes to six we are back at the tavern.

A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

At supper we gather round the log fire to enjoy its
warmth, and then, in the evening, at the two tables
in the sitting-room young and old indulge in various
games, while a great fire sings its accompaniment.

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE TRIP

The. next morning, of course, we want to descend
from Mt. Lowe. The day is gorgeous and everything
assumes so different an aspect as to make it appear
almost a different excursion. We are awakened at
six by a hand-bell, while it is still so dark here
above the clouds that we need the electric light to
;see to dress.

After breakfast we find that only our party is to
go down in the first car, which leaves at half-past

READY TO DESCEND MT. LOWE

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND 85

eight, so we have the car to ourselves. As far as Echo
Mountain the journey is the same as yesterday, of
course, but when we arrive here we now stop off, to
visit Lowe Observatory, maintained by the car com-
pany, that, on two nights of the week, tourists may
come and view the simpler wonders of the heavens
under the guidance of Prof. Larkin, one of the great
comet discoverers of our countr}^ Formerly Prof.
Swift, whose specialty also was comets, and who was
world-renowned, was here, remaining in charge, in
fact, until his e^^esight failed him, and he removed
to Marathon, X. Y.

We enjoy the ride down immensely. The sky is a
beautiful blue and we can see chain on chain of moun-
tains unfold as we descend. Looking through the
shrubbery and the tall pines, we peer into canyons
completely clothed with verdure, and then beyond
to the valley with the great flat city, where the white
steam-curls from trains rise sk}^ward at intervals.
Beyond the city are square cultivated patches, and
we see areas of low fogs, like distant seas, in
other places. There is just a deUghtful chill in the
air, appropriate to a mountain excursion; this is a
little sharper in the forests of wild holly and hve-oak
than elsewhere.

A MOUNTAIN CHARACTER

At the observ^atory, a small white building on the
top of a knoll, near the head of the incline, we meet
Prof. Larkin. He is a t^^ical gentleman of the
old school, in shiny black suit, and black skull cap,
and it is almost with disappointment that we do not

A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

find him adding knee-breeches to complete his costume.
He shows us the telescope, which he hid in a reservoir
on the bluff in order to save it when the great hotel
fire on this bluff in December of 1905 threatened the
observatory.

Then we return to the top of the incline and enter
a car to descend. There is not even a conductor now

NEWSPAPER VENDER, LOS ANGELES

to accompany us, and our party makes the trip quite
alone in the little car, leaving at 10:20. Suddenly a
phantom sea, caused by fogs which never rise above
two thousand seven hundred or three thousand feet
at the utmost, appears among the orange groves in
the San Gabriel Valley. Then the views, ever un-
folding, so compel our interest that we forget all about

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND 87

even^thing but that at which we look. At 10 :28 we are
at the foot of the inchne and ready for the cars for
the city. These leave at 10:40 A. M. and at two min-
utes past eleven we are again in Pasadena. Thence
back to Los Angeles by easy stages we make our
way in season for lunch.

SAN GABRIEL^A BIT OF OLD SPAIN

From Los Angeles, in the afternoon, we again
take our departure, this time, however, for a journey
not quite so lengthy, to the neighboring hamlet of
San Gabriel (San Gah'bre-el), whe^ the famous old
San Gabriel Mission stands. San Gabriel is one of
the excursions to which we shall look back later with
delight. So primitive and beautiful is the town, that
our recollections of it can never be effaced.

We take the traction once again, and find the
ride rather an uninteresting one. Real estate subdi-
visions are the principal adornments of the country
through which we pass, until later we come to the
orange groves.

From the outset we are charmed with San Gabriel.
There is a quaint Uttle tavern, then a general mer-
chandise shop, and after that, count r}^ homes among
the trees; these have the roofs slanting over the side
walls to pillars along the curb. Hardly any of the
buildings are more than one story high, and the roofs,
even that of the little hotel, are moss-grown.

Ahead, among these picturesque homes, rises the
old mission, its walk flanked with palms on the one
side and the narrow old cement wall on a bed of
brick on the other. In the rear of the church, also

A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

surrounded by a wall, there is a garden of tall gera-
niums and roses, upon which looks the long white
ground-floor porch of the priests' home, overhung
with ivy. In front stands the church itself, yellow
and ancient.

Stepping inside, we find the walls whitewashed,

A SPANISH TAVERN AT SAN GABRIEL

and hung with rather crude pictures of the Apostles,
all in heavy frames. Small oblong windows, high up
in the walls, give light to this interior, and while we
take seats in the old wooden pews, a young cleric
repeats the story of the mission — ^how the church
was built about 1771, the statues and decorations
being brought from both Spain and Mexico at that

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND 89

time. He points out to us the several figures on the
altar, the paintings and the old brick floor, and then,
at one side, the pulpit from which the fathers preached
to the Indians. Then, while he tells how the bodies
of five priests were buried inside the church to keep
the Indians from looting their graves (for, as their
chiefs were buried with all their treasure, they thought
that the priests would be interred likewise) , the priest
leads us into a httle baptistery^ annex, in the center
of which small whitewashed room is a stone block
surmounted by a great pan or font with a Ud of
hammered copper, brought from Spain a century and
a half ago. With water from a well in a comer near by
three hundred Indians were baptized at this font.
Only last Sunday, he adds, two children were baptized
here, for the mission is still in use as a Roman CathoHc
Church, the congregation numbering about two hun-
dred and fifty. Years ago the mission lands were
confiscated, but there still remain to San Gabriel
about a hundred acres, set out largely in oranges,
arid these lands are worked by the priests themselves.

From the church we wander on into the old Mexican
cemetery, where each grave is surrounded by a paUng,
and is adorned with a large wooden cross, the arm
ends of which are quite ornamental. Old Spanish
epitaphs mingle here with EngUsh, for the cemetery
is still in use. Even as we leave the place, in fact,
we see six Httle children bearing a child's cofhn into
the cemeter}^, and behind, on foot, a number of women,
following the grave-digger.

If we had time, we should enjoy taking a peep into
the Uves of these people, for they are typically Spanish.

90 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

Their principal article of food^ for example, is the
tamale (tah-mah'leh), a dish consisting of beef or
chicken, corn and olives, mixed together and ground
fine in a machine intended for the purpose, then
highly seasoned, wrapped in corn-husks and boiled,
^nd, too, they are very fond of tortillas (tor-tiFyahs),

FIVE MILES OF ORANGE GROVES

which are made of an unsalted corn-paste and resem-
ble unleavened bread, the dough being patted into
very thin cakes which are usually cooked on the out-
door stoves. These tortillas put us in mind of taste-
less pancakes. For feasts chili-con-carne is added,
with wine, if it can be afforded.

Most of the women here make a living by picking
oranges, lemons, walnuts, and berries. School attend-

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND 91

ance is very lax and so the children join their
mothers, whole families riding out in merry wagon-
loads, to do the picking.

Continuing our stroll through San Gabriel village,
the little whitewashed frame houses with the verandas
on the second floor overshadowed by pepper-trees, the
old tavern with its slanting posts, and the grape-vine
tavern from which floats the music of a Spanish
guitar, interest us greatly. In the courtyard of the
tavern we are shown what is claimed to be the
largest grape-vine in the world. It rises from a trunk
composed of three or four intertwining vines, and
climbs from post to post in the yard. The roots of
this vine, it is stated, stretch out for two hundred
feet in each direction, and its age is estimated at a
hundred and fifty years.

This seen, we start back to Los Angeles, arriving
there a little before half-past four o^clock.

LONG BEACH

At FIVE, we are again aboard a car bound for Long
Beach and the Pacific. These cars take one through
the poorer district of Chinatown and notably among
the laundries. There we are amused to see what
look like balloons, dangling inverted, on the roofs.
They are, it seems, the laundry hung out to dry inside
of sheets. The architecture in this district is very
uniform, the homes having steps at one side of the
front, leading to an indented porch that is about
equal to the front room in depth. Innumerable new
real estate subdivisions are out this way, for Los
Angeles is unique the world over for these, and to

92 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

open such a one the land-owner simply lays out streets,
plants trees, and where the main road is encountered
puts up ornamental gate-posts. We pass through the
town of Watts, and at about half-past five are at
Long Beach.

Long Beach is a regular summer resort town with
cottages on every hand and an ocean front, along
which, only a square away, the main street extends.
All manner of candy stores and curio shops are here,
and we are especially attracted by curious jewelry in
the windows which is made of fish-scales. There
is a main pier running out into the sea, and an aquar-
ium, and then, beyond again, we see the beautiful
quiet Pacific in the full moonlight, with the great
waves dashing in on the sand, and the beach reflecting
the waves before the water has fully crept in.

Those of us who have visited the New Jersey re-
sorts are reminded of them here. There are the
popcorn and the salt-water taffy shops, the dance
halls on the pier, the restaurants, and even the board-
walk, leading to an immense bath-house in the colonial
style. We take supper in a cafe overlooking this
scene, where there are sweet peas at each table to add
their fragrance to its beauty.

Recently the Hotel Virginia has been built at Long
Beach. It is one of the finest hotels on the coast and
rivals the famous beach hotels of the world.

THE AMERICAN ROTTERDAM

For the morrow we have laid plans to finish with
Los Angeles and its vicinity. This means another
trip out to San Pedro, where we go for a ramble

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND 93

among the wharves of our miniature Rotterdam. So
great is the number of masts in the shps and of sailors
on the quays, and of pieces of lumber and the Uke,
that we call to mind our Dutch Journey at once.
Otherwise, however, there is nothing to see, the Uttle
homes and stores not being especially attractive,
and the famous government breakwater, requiring
a boat to take us to it, being of greater interest
to specialists than to travelers like ourselves.

Returning to the City of the Angels for lunch, we
secure a grape-fruit, costing but a nickel out here,
to regale us. Then we will go by train to Dolgeville
(Dolj-vil), on the Southern Pacific where cars are changed
for Pasadena, to see what has become of what was
once the largest vineyard in the world. We find it
laid out in a series of great real estate tracts, — such
is the advance in the value of property in the West.

We continue by rail to Pasadena for another
farewell look; and then returning to Los Angeles, call
once again at the post-office for our mail.

By the time this is done and our letters answered,
and we have had our tea, we are quite ready for bed.

THE MOST SOUTHWESTERLY RAILWAY RIDE
IN THE COUNTRY

Our last morning in Los Angeles we devote to shopping.
There are little nut-shells of views for this friend, a
horned-toad sandwich for that, a little pin of Brazihan
beetles set in amber or a handsome jade or turquoise
pin for some other. Decorated ostrich eggs, match-
cases to contain a photograph under a hidden spring,
spun candy, and so forth, all tempt us to purchase.

A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

Then, at 2:20 P. M., we prepare to leave for
San Diego, on the most southwesterly stretch of
railway in the United States.

While we are awaiting our train we ^^read up'^ in
the different booklets as to this trip. San Diego
(San Dee-a'go) we find to be a city with a population
of almost 18,000 in 1900, increasing to 39,000 in 1910,

WINTER HOME IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

and to 75,000 in 1920, so rapidly is immigration
peopling the West. The county in w^hich it lies,
which is of the same jiame, has an area of eighty-five
hundred square miles, about equal to that of Massa-
chusetts.

This part of California has as good soil as any In
all the state, and so alfalfa, vegetables, blackberries,

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND 95

two crops in a year, and strawberries the year around,
to say nothing of other small fruits, are raised.
Then there are gems found here — such, for instance, as
kunzite, which is not known to exist in any other part
of the world.

San Diego City, the county seat, is but fifteen miles
from the border of Mexico, and it, therefore, is our
most southwestern city of any importance.

Now the train is off. For company we have an old
Wells Fargo agent who recounts tales of the CaUfor-
nia staging days, and a couple of Theosophist
organizers, of whose work at Point Loma (Lo'mah)
we shall learn more. The country at first is fl^t,
then rolling, and interspersed with orange groves and
oUve orchards. At Anaheim (An-a-haim) we are in
the great walnut region, and here and at other stops
pecans — salted and in Uttle paper sacks — are sold,
much as pistachio nuts were in Roumania. At Cap-
istrano (Cap-iss-trah'no), too, where now there are
only some old adobe houses, with the Mexican women
at work on their blankets, and a few modem homes,
recollections of Verne, and also of ^^Two Years Before
the ^lasf' are brought vividly to mind, while the ruins
of one of the old Franciscan missions are to be seen
from the cars.

By and by we strike the sea and follow it along to
our destination. The track is built almost at the
water's edge; in fact in places lagoons rvm in under
it, and here the wild ducks rise in flocks as the cars
whirl by. Sunset on the broad, shipless ocean is most
beautiful, as seen from the train, the water turning
from green to blue, and wonderful cloud forms rising

96 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

on the horizon. Night, however, comes on quite
suddenly and when we reach San Diego at 6 : 20 P. M.,
it is very dark.

THE CITY OF SAN DIEGO

San Diego is by no means as large a city statis-
tically as it seems geographically. In fact, we
cannot recall a town that stretches out so far in pro-
portion to its population.

Our first task, however, is to take the 'bus for
one of the famous tourist hotels on the heights, where
our rooms are on the ground floor, so that we just
step across the hall to dine. We shall long enjoy the
recollection of our first night in San Diego. Wish-
ing to call on a friend here, met on another Little
Journey, we walk out upon the quiet streets under a
clear full moon.

It is a strange feature of our sight-seeing that we
cannot lay out a definite plan, but must often take
events as chance wills. So on the very first morning
of our stay at San Diego we learn that an excursion
party is to leave by wagonette for Tia Juana (Tee'ah
Wah'nah), or, as it is translated from the Mexican,
^^Aunt Jane,'' — just over the Mexican border — and
that it will be well for us to join it.

The recollection of our former Little Journey to
Mexico rises up, and we excuse ourselves for again
crossing the border with the thought that we did not
at thai time get so far up into northwestern Mexico
as we now are, and so we go.

On our way to the rendezvous, we note in the pretty
gardens of San Diego great wicker cages filled with

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND

TIA JUAN A

song-birds that carol here, out in the open air, all
the year round.

At nine we leave, a fairly joU}' crowd abDard. In
riding out of San Diego, we note the great number of
wares exposed on the walks before the stores, a custom
reminding us of our European journeys. Occasionally
too, a very high electric light tower rises up, as in
Detroit. San Diego looks like a young city, owing
to the many vacant lots.

By and by, we overlook San Diego Bay, for which
such great things are predicted now that the Panama
Canal has made this city the first port of entry for
Uncle Sam from the south. A revenue cutter lies

98 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

out in the bay, having been engaged in stopping the
constant smugghng in of Chinamen from Mexico
along this border.

Flowers are in blossom everywhere, almonds and
trumpet vines, and for background there are ever
the lofty mountains on the border between this country
and Mexico, — mountains that rise up into the clouds.

Presently we strike the old national road, and
overlook a low, scrubby plain which extends to those
distant peaks.

When we have driven four and a half miles from
the court-house we pass at last out of San Diego. It
is about twenty-four miles to the opposite limit of the
town.

Out of San Diego, we are in National City, its main
thoroughfare hemmed in by tall eucalyptus (u-ka-lip'-
tus) trees — trees with a leaf like that of a willow, and
great bunches of black seeds set in clusters like grapes.
In these trees, among the dark leaves, one often finds
a lighter grey variety of leaf,* looking like that of an
entirely different species of tree.

The homes of National City, '^The Bottom of our
Country,^' according to the maps, are rather suburban
places, set in great gardens and interspersed with
meadows where cattle graze. For a village or over-
grown hamlet too, this place spreads out quite tedi-
ously, and by and by we are in open country. We
realize that we have left the city at last and are out
in the Sweetwater Valley. Eight or ten miles off Uncle
Sam is building a great irrigation dam for this valley.

The country is still the rolling green meadow land,
with scattered homes and orange groves. Many of

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND 99

these groves, we note, are edged with tall, densely
set fir trees, often cut down into hedges, whose chief
pjarpose is to keep out the sea-wind, which causes the
trees to scale. Here and there in the groves we see
grooves that look hke the runs down which the ball
is returned in a bowling-alley. These are the remains
of an irrigation system installed at one time when the
Sweetwater River went dr}^

At last we halt at Nestor, a quaint little cross-
roads settlement, where we find the most southerly
candy store in Uncle Sam^s dominions. The place
is known as the Pea Nut Office, for very brown peanuts
are sold to tourists here at a dime a bag, by a queer
old man, from behind the four shelves of jars in the
window. We jot his sign down as we halt, — ^' Fresh
Roasted Pea Nuts and Fresh Nuts. Popcorn and
Sweet Cider. Ice for Sale. Notary Public. Real
Estate and Soda-Water.^'

At about twenty minutes to twelve we strike the
hills, and follow them along until a great valley opens,
enclosing the town of Tia Juana.

MEXICO^ S MOST NORTHWESTERN TOWN

TiA JuANA is a very small place, with horses and cattle
grazing outside as they do about some Bedouin en-
campment, and the Httle town seeming to be grouped
about the bull-ring.

The houses are mere shanties of one or two rooms,
whitewashed. Round them play dark-skinned children
with touseled hair, who look like Indians. Against
the house walls red blankets hang to air. There is a
school with four doors at the front and four windows

100

A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

between them, in which Spanish and the making of
drawn-work are the principal studies.

Practically every place has a flag-staff, but we see
no flags. The custom-house is a shed somewhat more
freshly painted than the rest; the old man in charge
simply, looks into our wagon and calls, ^^All right !'^

First, of course,
we go to the dirty
little hotel. A din-
ing-room opens on
one side of the
hall, a souvenir
store on the other.
In the former the
tables are spread
with red cloths,
and each plate is
turned down upon
the tip of the
knife. For dinner
we are waited on
by a boy of fifteen
and his sister, who
speak English
w^ell. We are
served chili-con-
came, but otherwise the meal is an American one.
Then we look over the rest of the town. We count
just six main stores, each of one room and each with
sign-board high up over it, which in turn is surmounted
by a flag-pole. Practically the chief revenue of the
place is derived from the tourist, and there are raffia

^^>^mm

JHI

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^KiH

^^.

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pMB ^ jtftt|>

I^^^^^^^^V \i

H'''PSW

■PP^B

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MH^^H

MEXICAN TYPE

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND 101

baskets of gay design, blankets, hats, drawn-work, feather
pictures and pottery for sale. Graphophones which
play plaintive Spanish airs, principally ^'La Paloma,"
are to be heard. We enjoy our stroll greatly.

Had we time, we might join a hunting expedition
into northernmost Mexico, or go to the Agua Cahente
(Ah'gwah Kah-le-en'teh) Hot Springs, two and a half
miles distant.

Instead, however, we ride back across the Une to
the American town of Ti (Tee— to differentiate from
the Mexican ^'Tia") Juana, just over the river, where''
countless sheep feed on the burr-clover. Not less
than six thousand dollars was paid to our government
in one month by Frenchmen as duty on stock. We'
also see some of the wild burros captured in the
Mexican mountains close by, and then stop to read
the inscription on the border monument. A station
of the border patrol, too, interests us, and then
we pass back into our own countr}^ by way of the
American custom-house. '•

The road is ver^^ similar to that by which we came,
but the tedium is Ughtened by tales of smugghng
which various passengers recount.

When we return to San Diego we are very tired
and quite ready for early bed-time.

A SAUNTER IN SAN DIEGO

Realizing that we have not yet seen San Diego itself,
our resolution, before falling asleep, is to devote the
next morning to that purpose.

Bright and early, therefore, we are up, to ^^do"
Uncle Sam's most southwesterly city. We have, how-

102 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

ever, first a letter to write and we note that the letter-
head provided by the hotel has at the top, ' The

temperature here today is ,'^ for if there is one

thing of which these people are proud, and rightly, it is
their wonderful climate. Passing down to the town,
we skirt a park of about fourteen hundred acres, catch
a gUmpse of the home of General Grant and then are
attracted by the gardens, in which residents have
erected aviaries for singing-birds like those in
the story of the ^ Three Sisters'^ in the Arabian Nights.
Even in the heart of town we find similar cages, often
with the upper part of glass to protect the birds in
the cooler night-time, the perches being built up there.
We note here, too, that the front of the grocery stores
is of fine wire screening instead of » glass. This is to
allow constant circulation of air. Another little
oddity that attracts our eye is the fact that the cement
pavements have the edge raised possibly an inch,
so as to retain rain-water and cause it to flow evenly
down. Everywhere there are real-estate offices and
saloons, and the latter are indicated by a series of
napkins hung from the bar.

The very long residence streets lead ofT from the
€Ourt-house; the houses are of frame and built grad-
ually up the heights, so as to overlook the bay. Every-
where the love of flowers is apparent, and roses, nas-
turtiums and lilies bloom luxuriantly in these balmy
February days.

Here, as at Venice, we find a shop of quaint kelp
ornaments, and then there are shops where, as at Santa
Monica, shells are ground. We come at last to the
bay, at one end of the town. There is a park in which

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND 103

we see some fine date palms. The bay is dotted witH
the yachts of the local yacht club, awaiting their
several owners. Before returning to D Street, the
main thoroughfare of the city, we shall wish to patron-
ize the great bath-house, built in Moorish style, which
is here.

On our way back to the heart of the city we notice
a curio store, with this quaint sign, ^^ George Wash-
ington cut a cherry tree. We tried to get the hatchet.''
We also take a snap-shot of the Isis (Eye'siss) Temple
Theater, the property of the Theosophists, of whom
we shall learn more, later on, at Point Loma. Nor can
a visit to the gem stores for which this section is
famous be omitted.

GEMS OF THE SOUTHWEST

Besides the abalone pearls, of the roseate hue of an
abalone, there are also the large, scaly, irregular fresh-
water pearls, while California moon-stones, polished
jasper, rubies from the Navajo (NahVah-ho) reser-
vation, smoky topaz from mines about thirty-five
miles away, black tourmahne and the famous kunzitej
a pale lavender diamond to be found, it is said, no-
where else on earth, are all to be seen in profusion. We
also see obsidian arrow-points made by the Navajos,
Having explored the various shops, we find ourselves
again at the bay, wnere we hear the bells on ten war-
ships of the Pacific squadron of Uncle Sam's fleet,
which frequently puts in here. As we have already
said, now that the Panama Canal is completed San
Diego Bay is the first port of entry on our west coast
from that waterway; hence it may have a great

104

A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

future. An old wooden man-of-war, the Pina Pinta^
with its square windows and two heavy masts, its
smoke-stacks all rusted and the whole sadly in need
of paint, is tied up here as headquarters for the naval
reserves, in quiet contrast to the great warships, the
black torpedoes and the cruisers in the bay. Off
across the water rises the famous winter resort, Coro-^
nado (Kor-o-nah'do) Beach.

CORONADO BEACH

We take the ferry for Coronado, and the trip across
.the bay reminds us of that which we made at Boston,
to and from Winthrop, on our New England Little
Journey. Stepping off at the Beach, as it is called,

CORONADO

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND 105

we stop to visit the two torpedo boats which are
close in to shore, where the men are at dinner at a long
table stretched under an awning on deck.

Then we walk up the main avenue of Coronado, the
street car track in the center of the road, palms to
right and left of it, and then the roadway, and after
these the arbor vitse and the walk. Here, too, real-
estate subdivisions make up the greater part of the
route until we reach a famous park, filled wdth curious
pines heavy with cones, and yellow-blossoming trees,
resembling the haw. Here open the grounds of one
of the most famous hotels in the world. We come
just in season for dinner and step at once into the
great vaulted dining-room, a magnificent hall fit to
be the Walhalla (Vahl-hahriah) of Norse legend, where
the favored spirits of the mighty Vikings could carouse.
The sides of this vast arched chamber are of natural
oak, set in tiny little strips, forming various geo-
metrical patterns. A balcony for the uniformed
orchestra, projecting at one side, alone breaks the
severity of the contour. Below, Chinese bo3^s scurry
about, taking out the dishes, while white waitresses,
in blue dimity dresses with neat white collars, serv^e.
At one end of the room is a switch-board communicat-
ing with the retiring-room; a girl presses different
buttons and thus announces to the waiters the arrival
of the people they are to serv^e. The magnificence,
fashion and style always manifest here, the Hfe and
the bustle (for the hotel is equipped with seven him-
dred and fifty rooms and can accommodate a thousand
people, though the seats in the dining-room are for
but six hundred), are really worth having come to see.

106 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

We shall want, then, thoroughly to explore the hotel
with its adjacent buildings, the plunge, with the ^^ sea-
horses^' to ride, the tent city on the neck of land run-
ning far out into the sea, and then to stroll out as far
as this far-stretching reef reaches into the sea, so that
we may catch a closer glimpse of the Coronado Islands
away out in the ocean. By and by we return to the
hotel, where we may meet some former fellow -travelers.
Then, as evening comes on, we take a little summer
car, with the two benches set with their backs to a
central aisle down which the conductor comes to
collect his fares, back to the wharf, and there the
ferry to San Diego. In the evening we may be fortu-
nate enough to gain admission to a typical home in
this most southwesterly city of the republic, a peep
we shall heartily enjoy, but which will only serve to
show that American homes are very much alike all
over the country.

A DANGEROUS EXCURSION TO THE CORNER
OF THE REPUBLIC

There is one excursion out from San Diego which we
as good travelers will make, though it is not taken by
most tourists, as it is expensive and requires too much
time. This is to the extreme southwest comer of
the country, where the United States, Mexico and the
Pacific meet.

In order to make this trip, it will be necessary first
to get a permit from the alcalde (ahl-kahl'de) at Tia
Juana, since that section of the country is a center for
the smuggling in of Chinamen, and it is only one who
has some such purpose in mind who would be Ukely

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND

107

to go there. In fact, smugglers, persons fleeing from
the United States to Mexico, where they cannot be
arrested and brought back for certain crimes, and
again, in turn, Mexicans who have fled to our country
for the same reason, are the principal travelers. Now
and then a company of tourists will make the trip in

EXTREME SOUTHWEST CORNER OF OUR COUNTRY

order to gather shells on the beach, just below the
Mexican Une ; but without the permit, they are Hable
to arrest by the border pohce of either nation.

Except for the fact that we make better time when
not stopping to see things we have seen before, the ride
to Nestor is much the same as it was on the other ex-
cursion. Meantime our driver, who served under

108 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

Farragut, tells of how he occasionally takes passengers
as far as the Mexican line, where they stop to con-
verse with others who have come a like distance to
meet them, neither party daring to go over the border.
Again, he will carry men to connect with the stage
running on down the coast to Ensenada.

At a sign beyond Nestor, thirteen and a half miles
from San Diego and three to Tia Juana, instead of
turning to the left and driving parallel with the moun-
tains, we. follow the chain at its base. Down here
there is a school-house of a single room set right up
against the mountain side and with a flag on the top.
Outside at the pump the boys and girls gather, per-
fectly indifferent to the fact that their school-house
is the most southwesterly of all those in Uncle Sam's
dominions. This is a mile and a quarter from Nestor.

Every house after this is interesting, for we are
looking for the last inhabitant. It is very lonely out
here, with only the mocking-birds, the cypresses, and
in the road the yellow California poppies. Now and
then a jack-rabbit or a squirrel leaps across the way,
and we note the gopher holes in the ground in among
the wild cucumber vines and low-growing ice plants^
their thick beet-shaped leaves covered with great drops,
as on a sweating ice pitcher; the wild cyclamen,
too, attracts our attention. Otherwise there is only
the wild, rolling, half -cultivated border land. By and
by, we see the surf leaping high off on th^ coast, and
we know we are coming close to the goal. We pass
through ravines and valleys enclosed by low buttes,
and then come out on rising ground where there is a
great deserted Mexican homestead.

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND

109

It begins to rain about this time and the luncheon
hour is near, so we camp here, at the first house over
the Une. The place, utterly deserted, has an air of
romance about it, with its empty rooms and falhng
wall paper. From it we look out on the wild, angry
sea with the fog rolhng in, and then landward to the

BOUNDARY MONUMENT, EXTREME SOUTHWEST CORNER OF THE

UNITED STATES

"The man has one foot in Mexico, one in California, and the Pacific Ocean behind him

valley stretching away into the distance, all the
United States to our north and east. It is all most
impressive despite the rain-storm.

When the shower has ceased, we drive on to the
country^s ^' corner.'^ This is marked by a monument
similar to the one we saw near Tia Juana — a great
marble structure enclosed by a grating and bearing

110 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

inscriptions in Spanish and English, which impress
us strangely as we copy them. This is the EngUsh
version :

Initial Monument

of Boundary Between

Tlie United States and Mexico

Established by Joint Commission

October 10, 1849

Agreeably to the Treaty Dated at the

City of Guadalupe Hidalgo

February 27, 1848

Jn. Q. Wilber, U. S. Commissioner

Andrew B. Gray, U. S. Surveyor

After we have inspected this to our satisfaction,
we gather shells on the sand and also wild flowers, of
which there are here innumerable varieties. Away
off from the road, out on the plain, is the last house
on this side of the border. By and by we meet Uncle
Sam's most southwesterly servant, a rural free delivery
rider named Sinclair, whose route lies out from Nestor,
The most southwesterly inhabitant, he tells us, is one
Michael O'Brien, aged sixty years, who lives in a
little cottage out on the plain. O'Brien, having been
first a sailor, started in New York as a butcher. Then
he drifted down here and is now living a hermit life,
having once been quite wealthy. He has a little
cabin and with his single burro he gathers kelp to sell
to ornament makers.

The ride back is decidedly pleasant in the setting
sun, through the meadows glittering with rain-drops,
the meadow larks singing a song of triumph as we
enter San Diego after having been to the extreme
southwest comer of the country.

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND

111

HARNESSING THE TIDES

We have had a good deal of carriage riding now, and
so again devote ourselves to prowling about San
Diego. We can wander again among the gem shops,
where we are certain to find something new and of
interest. Then we can go on to the exhibition room
of the Chamber of Commerce, where a unique ap-
paratus for harnessing the tides is on exhibition.
It consists of a series of diamond-shaped paddles,
built by driving piles into the sea-bed, and between
these piers are placed tread-mills, which consist of
endless chains of floats. The end of each mill, then,
is inclined down into the water below the low-tide
mark on the one end, and above it on the other. The

UNCLE SAM'S MOST SOUTHWESTERLY SERVANT

112 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

waves washing on the shore are forced over the top
of these tread-mills, thus setting in motion the paddles
and causing them to drive air pumps which com-
press the air in tanks to be used to drive engines and
dynamos, which, in their turn, will generate electricity.
Here, too, we find innumerable maps serving to
show the importance San Diego is going to assume

ENTRANCE TO POINT LOMA

now that the Panama Canal is built. There are also
•exhibitions of the local silk culture, for which the
equable climate has made San Diego especially adapt-
able, since the temperature here has fallen below
thirty-two degrees but four times in recorded history.
Of this, however, we shall prefer to hear more when we
Tisit the ''little old lady of the silk worms.' ^

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND 113

THE LITTLE OLD LADY OF THE SILK WORMS

This queer old lady has her rooms on the second floor
of an adjoining building. As we call on her, we find
her to be a sort of ^'Mistress Blaskef come back
to life, with her hair parted in the middle and held by
a large old-fashioned comb. She wears a loose red
Mother Hubbard and a very old-fashioned breastpin.
Everywhere about her are silk worms, in every stage
of their brief careers. The eggs of the worms, she
tells us, are shipped from Japan, on heavy paper,
or else from France in round cardboard boxes, per-
forated to admit the air, and they bring about five
dollars a thousand. They may be kept in cold
storage twelve months, but as soon as removed
will hatch in from two weeks to six montiis; why
some of them take so long no one seems to know.
One miller lays from two hundred and fifty to six
hundred eggs. Those that are about to hatch are
grey-blue. After hatching the shells are white. Worms
just out of the egg are perhaps a tenth of a millimeter
in length, and of the thickness of a hair. They feed
immediately on the leaves of the mulberry, growing
so rapidly that at the age of twenty-four days they
will be four inches long, and after thirty-one days
are ready to have the silk taken.

Then it is that they make their cocoons, ceasing to
eat, and being placed in excelsior, so as to spin their
little homes, a work that it takes three days to com-
plete. When done, the cocoon is steeped in boiling water
to prevent the worm eating its way out and so cutting
the silk. Then one end of the long silk thread (for

114 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

all the cocoon is of a single thread) is seized upon a
stick and reeled off.

Here at San Diego it is then made into tiny tea-
sets, into valentines and into a series showing the
several stages of the silk worm's life, for use in the
schools. From two hundred and twenty to eighteen
hundred yards of silk may be obtained from a single
cocoon. The silk itself is secreted in a little tube
of the worm's body, coming out through two small
holes in the lower jaw, as two fine threads, which the
worm twists into one as he forms his cocoon.

In the shops of San Diego, too, we are interested
in photographs of the funeral of the victims of the
Bennington, which exploded in this harbor a few
years ago as the result of the commander's careless-
ness, and with a loss of thirty lives.

POINT LOMA AND THE THEOSOPHISTS

We cannot leave San Diego without one more carriage
excursion, that to Point Loma, the home of the The-
osophists of the United States. This place became
prominent in the public eye when ex-Secretary of the
Treasury Gage went there to live, but it is so beauti-
ful and so unique in its architecture that we wonder
it was not better known before.

We follow the shore of the bay around until ahead
there comes in sight on the heights what seems a
sort of temple, with great Doric front, standing out
from afar. Behind this is a great glass dome with
a smaller globe on top, and toward this we ride on.
Here begins the farm of the Society, the whole enclosed
by a neat white fence decorated with growing ivy.

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND

115

Coming to the entrance, where there is a tent city^
we drive on to the great white gate, Hindu in style^
which admits to the main grounds. A splendid road,
flanked with beds of the pink vine geranium, and
])ack of these the date palms hiding from view almond
orchards and growing barley or oats, leads up the hill-

GATE TO THEOSOPHIST HEADQUARTERS AT POINT LOMA

slope to the top, where there is a semi-monastic, semi-
romantic building which is the headquarters of the
Association — the glass dome which we saw from
afar, its center surmounted by another cupola; in
front of these stands another dome, lavender in color.
At the two comers are turrets which give a somewhat
conventional appearance to the whole.

116 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

At the head of the lane a guide meets us. He, Uke
all the other men here, is attired in a brown khaki suit
much like those worn by the rough riders. The land
for four and a half miles along the coast, he tells us,
is owned by the Society, as headquarters for the inter-
national brotherhood. Over this Madame Tingley,
as head of the Society, presides. No one, however,
receives any pay, and persons come here simply be-
cause they are attracted by an interest in the work.
Those who are in a position so to do, support them-
selves financially besides. Children, too, are brought
here from all over the world, some from different
local lodges, some from afar, to be taught by the so-
called Raja Yoga (Rah' j ah Yoh'gah) system of in-
struction, which develops the child mentally, morally
and physically in equal degrees. School hours, as we
usually understand the term, really consume but two
hours and a half a day.

Meantime, however, we have arrived at the main
domed building, known as the Homestead. This
building is devoted to lower class-rooms and studios,
on the ground floor, and to the dormitories of the
girls above. As there are some three hundred chil-
dren on the place, a good deal of room is needed.
Children are divided into groups of six or eight each,
and each group is accompanied by a sort of tutor,
and a nurse, in the cases of the smaller, who remain
with them constantly.

Continuing, we pass a number of pretty bung-
alows of the Theosophists, some of them used by
the boys in their work, for the lads live in groups in
the bungalows with their teachers. These bungalows,

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND 117

of a peculiar ventilation and construction, were devised
by Madame Tingley herself. The Theosophists, we
learn, do all their own work here, not only the carpen-
try, plumbing and the rest, but also the management
of the chemical works, the dye plant, etc. There are
about as many adults as there are children, between
two hundred and fifty and three hundred in all. Many
more of the organization would greatly Uke to come
here, but there is so much difficulty in maintaining
those whose presence is felt to be absolutely necessary
to the place, that a rigid selection has to be made.

Beyond the bungalows there is a great natural
amphitheater, the seats (of wood now, but to be re-
placed by stone) facing the sea near by and the
hills that round off to the beach. Beyond, on the
brow of the hill, another tent camp, largely for literary
devotees, crowns the prospect.

Before leaving, we step into one of the home
bungalows, that of a Miss White, an artist, to enjoy
the quaint, rustic and at the same time artistic fur-
nishings, and envy her the prospect from her window
out over the gardens to the sea. Spalding, too, the
famous sporting-goods man, has a home here which
we see on our way.

DINNER IN A LIGHT-HOUSE

Leaving the Theosophists we continue our ride
over the strip of land that connects what is practically
a mammoth island with the mainland and with Point
Loma itself. Ahead we can see the Coronado Islands
rising dim in the fog, while just ahead the surf dashes
upon the bluff. Here, too, we may see the tallest

118 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

light-house in the United States, which stands four
hundred and twenty-two feet above the level of the
sea. This, however, was too high above the fogs
and hence was abandoned. Later, to take its place.
Uncle Sam erected a new light-house here, which
is the most southwesterly one in the country. This

POINT LOMA LIGHT

has two keepers, each with his home close by, and on
alternate days these serve meals consisting of
bread, bologna and coffee. We prefer the luncheon
we have brought, but we want some coffee to warm
us and for this are charged the full price of a meal,
thirty-five cents apiece — rather dear for a cup of
coffee, is it not? But then we enjoy hearing the old
light-house keeper tell of his service under Farragut,

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND 119

and having him point out to us the guns and the cut-
lasses on the walls and show us his curiosities — dried
and pressed pink seaweed, newly ground abalones,
and most interesting of all, a photograph of the Golden
Gate at San Francisco taken on the one day of the
year when the sun sets exactly in the center.

Then we saunter out to a rocky cove, in which,
perhaps twenty feet below, the seal play in the waters,
while far out at sea the Coronado Islands are now
clearly visible.

OLD TOWN AND THE HOME OF RAMON A

Our way back is practically the same as that
by which we came, save that we make a circuit
to visit Old Town, a mere hamlet, whose yellow ^dobe
church, boarded over outside, and still used, is interest-
ing as being the one in which the fictitious, '^Ramona'^
of Mrs. Jackson's story is said to have been married.

Returning to the hotel in San Diego, we are sur-
prised to meet a Pullman conductor whose aunt is
teacher at the mission school of Samokov, visited on
our Bulgaria?! Little Journey,

We are now prepared to bid the city of San Diego,
and in fact the great Southwest, farewell. We might
go on to El Cajon (Cah-hone') to see the raisin vineyards,
but we shall find these on the way to San
Francisco, and the rain prevents our excursion to the
pastures of the Coronado Islands. Consequently, we
leave by morning train at 8:40 for Los Angeles, where
we arrive at one o'clock. We stop only long enough
to get some things left in check at the hotel and then
again board the train for the North. We are now start-

120 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

ing on a railroad journey of four hundred and eighty-
four miles, which will bring us to San Francisco.
Our route is along the Los Angeles River, named
Porcinuncula in 1769, and in plain sight of the
pigeon ranch visited before. The rolling hills, covered
with vineyards, give way to mountains on the right.
Of these mountains we shall see a good deal for some
time, for our first stop is to be Santa Barbara, a hun-
dred and ten miles from Los Angeles. On the way
there is not very much to attract our attention. At
Oxnard (Ox-nard) there is a huge beet-sugar manu-
factory, and at Fernando (Fur-nan'do) we see
the site of the mission San Fernando, founded by
Father Dumetz in 1797. If we are interested in our
geography we shall note on the south the Sierra de
Santa Monica, on the west the Santa Sussanna, on
the north the San Fernando Mountains. We see, as
we go by, neat country towns of frame churchy and
scattered buildings, then pass through the Sylma
ohve grove, the greatest in the world. Beautiful
long lines of trees rise from the barren ground and
then we are in a tunnel, which will remind those of us
who made the Little Journey to Switzerland of the
St. Gotthard. This tunnel, piercing the narrowest
section of the San Fernando Range, is a mile and a
half in length and it seems to us that it takes a good
five minutes to traverse it. Emerging, we are in the
famous Santa Clara Valley.

THE SANTA CLARA VALLEY

This valley reaches from the mountains to the sea.
Here at the outskirts we are in the petroleum country, a

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND 121

more open valley with the mountains all about. At
Saugus a line runs off to the San Joaquin (San Wah-
keen) Valley, which we shall visit later on. The
Santa Clara River winds its course among buttes in
the valley. Even in the tree-tops there is unlooked-
for ^'fruit" — great green bunches of the mistletoe.
Then, at Camulus (Kam-u-lus), a mere cluster of
houses among orange and oUve groves, we have
the scene of Helen Hunt Jackson's ''Ramona^'
pointed out to us. Here was situated the Morena
(Mo-re'na) Ranch, which was Ramona's home,
and here one may still see the artichoke patch,
the chapel and dormitories and the kitchen described
in the book, and the corrals that marked the starting
point of Ramona's midnight flight to the sheltering
canon at the east.

At Camulus it seems as though we were at the
end of the great broad mountain valley. Hundreds
of cattle browse here and there; we see some of the
famous long-homed steers which are so abundant in
Texas. Almonds are in blossom, and there are pome-
granates and figs and oranges, with here and there an
apiary. At Piru (Pe'roo), a small settlement at which
our train stops, there are lemon trees. Chinamen
have gathered at the station to watch the train come
in. Great English walnut orchards, their boughs a
pale brown pink in the distance, also begin to appear.
Irrigation canals stretch hither and thither among
the trees, and then for miles and miles there seem
to be only the walnut orchards. Where all this fruit
will finally be consumed is a question which we are
not able to solve.

122

A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

As afternoon lengthens and turns to dusk the
beautiful cloud-forms that appear on the sky line
make us more and more delighted with this region.
Among some pear groves there is a town with a name
that interests us — ^Montalvo (Mon-tahFvo). It was
Edward Everett Hale who discovered in a romance
by one Odonez de Montalvo. bearing date of 1510,

OLD MISSION, SANTA BARBARA

the first use of the name California. The town re-
ceived its name in commemoration of this.

At five minutes to six we reach the shores of the
Pacific. The sight at low tide in the dusk is very
beautiful. San Buenaventura (Boo-en'ah-ven-too'rah)
is here, hemmed in by mountains, and almost as quiet
as when the Spanish explorers came here in 1782^

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND 123

and Father Serra founded the Mission San Buenaven-
tura. Out at sea we can discern Anacapa (Ah-na-
kapah) Island, one of the Santa Barbara Channel
group, dim, but not quite so much so as the other
more distant islands.

A section of apricots and almonds and walnuts
follows, and then, in the night, we ride through
Summerland to Santa Barbara.

We go by 'bus to the hotel, arrange our notes and
then to bed, that we may have an early start on the
morrow. Our first ramble in Santa Barbara will
long be remembered. We enjoy the stores along the
main street with their innumerable novelties, lamp
shades made of abalone shells, other shells of a deep
blue worked upon pillows ; Japanese stores with novel-
ties from far Cathay, and then the series of one-story
shops with the roof extending above the walk to poles
set along the curb. In the groceries curious custard
apples are for sale, and in the candy stores we see
watches made entirely of sweets. There is an odd green-
painted restaurant, its portico shaded by a very fine
grape vine. After our ramble we go on to the
famous De la Guerra mansion.

This house is one of the relics of the oldest
time. It is a large one-story building forming three
sides of a square, and is typically Spanish in its style,
with the roof of red tiles except just over the
porch, where it slants more and is of shingle resem-
bling slate. On this porch the doors and windows
open in very quaint style. This is the home of one
of the famous families, descendants of Spanish grandees,
which are still to be met with at Santa Barbara.

124 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

Of the De la Guerras, we learn, there is now but one
son left, and he, true to the ancestral teachings,
considers it ^ ^beneath'' him to work. The original
De la Guerra came to Santa Barbara in 1786 with the
expedition of friars that was sent to this place. At
that time people ^ook what land they desired, although
later permission had to be obtained. De la Guerra
got about five thousand acres, but he, like most of
the old grandees, failed to understand the laws apply-
ing to the land and gradually was defrauded of large
parts of it. Many of these old grandees, too, De la
Guerra among the number, had much of their wealth
in herds and flocks, and the killing place for these
was of considerable size. Dana alludes to this in his
^^Two Years Before the Mast." When a boat, such
as Dana's Pilgrim, would come in, the grandees
would trade sugar and coffee, tea and flour, as well
as pelts and tallow. They used also to hold daily
audience, when any poor person in distress could
apply to them, and when such presented himself
the grandee would call his servants and order them
to bestow rice and other necessities on the applicant.
De la Guerra thus obtained for himself great influence
and was known as the grandee of the town, and even
to this day some of the older inhabitants take ofT
their hats when passing the home of the present
representative.

We drop into the little newspaper office at Santa
Barbara for more information about the place. We
find that the famous flower festivals for which it was
once renowned are no longer held, being too expensive,
and also because it was impossible to compete with

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND 125

those of Pasadena. Then we ask about the native
products. We learn that at Alcatraz (Al-ka-traz'),
some eight niiles away, asphalt was found but
recently. Also that this locahty produces the famous
''ice cream fruit/^ wliich resembles the alhgator pear,
and grows upon trees fifteen to twenty feet high.
Santa Barbara, however, appears to us to be distin-
guished chiefly for ha\^ng more liver}^ stable carriages
and horses than any cit}^ of twice the inhabitants on
the continent. So numerous are they that enough
provender cannot be raised in the vicinity, and quan-
tities have to be imported.

We saunter up the main streets of this typical
tourist city. We notice in the shadows cast by the
overhanging roofs stands where papers of all the large
cities are on sale. Then we board an electric car and
make for the sea and the great hotel of Santa Bar-
bara. This hostelry is built in mission style and one
side of the grounds strikes us at once. It contains
a huge bed of blooming callas, countless hundreds
of the beautiful flowers being stretched out here,
while great borders of yellow chrysanthemums, and
then of red geraniums, flank these and stretch on to
the sea walk.

A DOG HOTEL

One feature of especial interest to us in this place
is a ''dog hoter' for the dogs of the guests, capable
of holding fifty canines, though there are seldom more
than four or five here at a time. No charge is made
for their care.

We enjoy sitting on the piazzas of the hotel and

126 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

watching the sea stretching to the mountains, where
low clouds hover, or else sauntering along the beach,
where the sand is exquisitely clean.

Then we take the cars back to town and inland
toward the mountains. The mammoth palms, the hedges
of callas, the pepper trees and the magnolias that
surround the handsome winter residences^ built in the
mission style, tempt us to use our kodaks again and
again, and the great drooping fuchsia shrubs and the
red honeysuckles and the fences of white daisies charm
us constantly.

SANTA BARBARA MISSION

Of course our destination is the famous old mission,
probably today the most interesting of all the Cali-
fornia missions.

This ancient edifice stands at the end of a lane of
pepper-trees, with the mountains for background.
It is built of what looks like white concrete, with the
doors outlined in red, and its characteristic note being
given by two square domed bell-towers with a
cross between. Beyond this extends the long
main building, with the seventeen windows. There
is an overhanging portico of many arches, so picturesque
in appearance that we fall in love at once with this
old mission, the most charming of the twenty-one
seen on this little journey along El Camino Real.

There is an old brother, brown-robed and hooded,
who shows us about. First he points out the old
mill-stone of the mission, then the nine bells turned
by a small wheel with a handle, and then some of the
old vellums or books, some of which are as tall as a

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND

127

three-year-old child. Old raw-hide beds, used by
the early priests, are in one of the white-walled brick-
floored rooms. Old parchments are shown in another,
and then our guide leads us to the roof for the view,
and thence around to the church proper, its interior
a good deal Hke that of San Gabriel, with its simple
benches and ancient pictures. From here he takes us

PORCH AT SANTA BARBARA MISSION

to the enclosed cemetery at one side the church,
in which innumerable Indians are buried. Today,
however, no mounds are visible, though here and
there a wooden cross or an old stone tomb marks
the grave of some Spanish grandee. It is stated that
not less than four thousand Indians, victims of an
epidemic, are interred here.

128 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

Today there are about thirty-five brothers in charge
at Santa Barbara^s mission. These are under a
Guardian or Superior. The headquarters of the Order
which controls the mission — the Order of St. Francis
of Assissi, of whom we heard on our European Little
Journeys — is at Rome. The mission hes in the prov-
ince of St. Louis, where the Provencal or Superior
over all the California missions has his see. There
is not a very large congregation here, only about a
hundred families; regular services are, however, main-
tained. It is principally the old and sick brothers
who are sent to this convent, and they show the
tourists about. No woman except the wife of the
President or of a governor may enter their quarters
at the mission.

OIL TAKEN FROM THE SEA

We return by car to Santa Barbara for dinner at
another of the big hotels, up whose portico there climbs
the largest rose-bush in the world.

Then, the last bit of Welsh rarebit disposed of,
we engage a carriage for Summerland, where, on
the advice of some spiritualists, wells were sunk out
in the sea-bed and oil has been struck. As this is the
city of vehicles, we are interested in the price — two
dollars for the afternoon, with driver.

Our route will run parallel to the sea, with ducks on
the waves in the foreground, and out in the dim dis-
tance the Santa Barbara Islands just visible, and
among oak groves from which the long moss hangs and
on which galls are numerous. By and by, as we round
a bluff, the town unfolds before us. It is a mere hamlet

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND

129

of cheap frame houses, but made beautiful by its setting
at the very edge of the vast expanse of open ocean.
Innumerable oil derricks rise out of the water every-
where. Piers, one of them eleven hundred feet in
length, extend into the sea, and at each side of these
are more derricks. Latterly, however, the govem-

OIL WELLS IN THE PACIFIC. SUMMERLAND

ment has ruled that beyond six hundred feet from
shore no derricks may be built.

Buying a piece of land on the coast entitles one to
go out into the sea for oil. A ^'conductor'' pipe?
twelve or thirteen inches in diameter, is put down^
being driven through the sand into the clay beneath.
This shuts off the ocean water, and then a pipe nine
and five-eighths inches across goes down until oil

130 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

is struck. After that, a third pipe of smaller circum-
ference is sunk. As the oil is in the sand, the latter
is pumped out until the petroleum becomes clearer,
when the regular two-inch piping is inserted. A well
of this sort may be put in working order in a week,
derricks being erected on piles seven feet in depth.
When pumping begins, an average of three barrels
a day of a high grade of fuel petroleum is usually
obtained, but as one pump can pump thirty-two
wells, and as the engine of this is run by natural gas
fresh from the ground, there is practically no ex-
pense. Oil never appears on the surface of the sea
here, except at well-cleaning time, or when in some
great storm a derrick or two is knocked over, or when
the sand breaks off the pipes. Fish cannot live in
these waters, as the oil kills their prey.

Over the railway tracks at Summerland we may
step into the asphaltum factory and see how this is
made. The oil, we find, is run into great stills like
a boiler on its side, each holding one hundred and
twenty-five barrelfuls. These stills are bricked about,
and in them the oil, heated by oil, is brought to a
temperature of 750°. The distillation is then run
out through a condenser to be sold as fuel oil, or,
when further treated, as gas oil, while what remains
is the liquid asphaltum. This process takes about
twenty hours to complete. From one hundred and
twenty-five barrels of raw material about twenty-
eight barrels of the finished asphaltum will be obtained,
and while the raw oil brings about fifty cents a barrel,
the asphaltum sells at from ten to twelve dollars a
ton, being used principally for paving and roofing.

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND 131

Returning to Santa Barbara in the evening, we look
in on the gay throng at another of the great hotels,
for this city is a famous winter resort, where pleasure-
seekers from all lands congregate in the ^^ season/'

THE LAND OF HONEY

As THE night train did not stop conveniently to allow
us to visit the Simi Valley — famous for its apiaries — on
our way up to Santa Barbara, we must now '^back
track" as we are very anxious to see how this interest-
ing industr}^ is conducted. Owing to its equable cU-
mate and the profusion of its wild flowers, orange and
other fruit blossoms, which give richest materials to the
bees for conversion into honey. Southern CaUfomia
is one of the great honey-producing sections of the
world. ^lany men have made great fortunes in this
industry, and in Pasadena we were shown a perfect
palace, surrounded by large and exquisitely laid out
grounds, that belonged to one of the '^honey kings.''

Leaving Santa Barbara in the morning we go to
Strathem, where a wagonette conveys us to Simi.

We follow directions and walk up the track to the
first house, for we wish to visit one of the great apiaries
for which this region is famous. When we hail the
owner he first looks us over, to make sure we are not
tramps, and then invites us in.

We ask him at once about the bees. In starting
an apiary, ^'a^pery/' as they call them here, he tells
us the first step generally is to buy a colony of perhaps
a hundred hives, worth three dollars and a half apiece.
There are about forty thousand bees to a hive in the
working season, but the bees' life is very short, so nature
has caused them to breed rapidly. The stor}^ of the

132

A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

hive centers about the queen bee. She is pecuUar in
that while her eggs appear Uke any others, she can
lay male or female eggs at will, and does this in cells
of different sizes, the worker cells being about one-
fifth of an inch across, and the drone cells smaller;
both are hexagonal. In the ordinary honey season,

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WHERE THE BEES MAKE HONEY

when the bees are storing honey, the queen lays two
or three hundred eggs a day, or two or three times
her own weight in eggs. Of these the worker eggs
hatch and reach maturity in about twenty-one days,
hatching at first as larvae in forty-eight hours and
remaining at this stage of development four or five
days, when the transformation into the perfect insect

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND 133

begins. In the working season the Ufe of a bee is
very short, thirty or forty days, whereas when the
insect is not working it is much longer. Death is due
largely to accidents and the strain of the season.
The bees that do not work may Uve to be two or
three years old. In the spring the hives contain
comparatively few workers, perhaps two thousand,
and no drones at all, as these do not Uve over the
winter. As soon as the flowers come the bees begin
to work, and as there are many flowers they get a great
amount of surplus honey; for a long time in the
spring this is used as rapidly as gathered, and is even
supplemented by honey kept through the winter for
feeding the young bees, as the queen is now laying. If
the season promises to be good, the queen begins
laying drone eggs, she being governed by the amount
of honey that is brought in.

The workers are the first hatched. They mature
in twenty-one days, and a week later begin their work
in the field, gathering both honey and pollen, the
latter being used to mix with honey and to feed to
the brood. The drones, too, fly out soon after hatch-
ing, but their flight is simply to mate with a chance
queen on her so-called wedding flight. This .mating
is done high in air.

When the queen has filled the hive with a brood
and the bees are hatched in such numbers as to over-
heat the hive, the queen feels it is time to send out
a swarm, and if the honey season is good the old queen
heads such a swarm, and a young queen, reared for
this purpose in a special cell, remains in the hive
after having gone on her wedding flight. The new

134 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

swarm will then settle anywhere, and apiarists usually
cut down the bough on which the bees have swarmed
and shake them into the new hive.

As there are queen bee eggs at all stages of incuba-
tion in the hive when the old queen swarms, the
first act of the young queen will be to go through
the hive and sting through the cells of rival hatching
queens and so kill them, unless she sees that the
season is so good that there may be a second swarm,
when she will permit one to survive.

The queen egg cell is about the size and form of a
peanut and the queen is fed on what is known as
royal jelly, which is milky white and very pungent.

A colony of bees, it is stated, will yield about two
hundred and twenty pounds of honey a year.

We are next led to the rough little shed which serves
as extracting house, and here see a wheel into which
the combs of honey are set. The tops are then shaved
off, and the centrifugal force produced by revolving
the wheel dashes the honey into the receptacle below,
so that the comb may be used over and over again.
Strangely enough, honey is seldom adulterated and
never artificially made. The wax of which the comb
is made is tasteless and indigestible and is no longer
considered as having any food value. The tops and
bottoms of the cells, after being clipped off are put
in cases in the sun to be melted and the wax is then
sold for commercial purposes.

In order to inspect the hives, which are set out on
the hillsides, we have to wear crepe veils that
are rather annoying, and we are quite glad when, re-
turning to the house, these can be laid aside.

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND 135

We dine here at the honey ranch and partake of
a typical country dinner, to which the hired man sits
down with the family, while one and all wash hands in
the same tin basin to prepare for it. We then spend
the afternoon out on the porch watching two little
girls in picturesque sunbonnets playing about with
their dog, making mud pies and searching for mush-
rooms in the broad fields that separate them from
the nearest neighbor. We even walk over to Simi,
a typical country village, to kill time until the train
leaves which bears us back to Santa Barbara, whence
we are to continue our northward march.

THE CITY OF MUSTARD

From honey to mustard is the transition we have
before us, for our next destination is Lompoc (Lum-
pock), probably the greatest mustard market in the
world.

The trip thither by rail is not without interest, —
sixty-six miles to Surf, and then ten miles on a branch
line to the town. We follow the line of the Santa
Ynez Mountains on the one hand and the Santa Bar-
bara Channel on the other. Away out to sea is San
Miguel (Mee-guU) Island, on which Juan Rodriguez
Cabrillo was buried January 3, 1543. The route
follows the Camino Real once more and is that taken
by Juan Crespi, the path-finder of Jimipero Sierra.
At Point Concepcion (Con-cep-ce-own), our party will be
interested in its Ught-house, as well as in the wireless
telegraph station at Arguello Point.

At Surf, a mere station beside the sea, we dismount
to await the branch railway for Lompoc. We enjoy

136

A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

this waiting by the open ocean, with the ospreys
flying high above our heads.

A brief ride brings us into Lompoc itself, a village
of neat little frame houses, surrounded by hedges of
cypress to cut off the wind. We see the wild mustard
in bloom at the sides of the one main street, but look
vainly, at this season, for the other.

IN THE MUSTARD FIELDS

Finally, we chance on a mustard-raiser, who tells
us about the industry. There are two varieties of
mustard seed, he says, the red and the yellow. The
red brings the higher price, from three cents a pound
up, and a fair crop of this, per acre, will be about a
ton. Seed is sown in February, the exact time de-
pending on the rain. It is thrown broadcast over

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND 137

the earth. In about a week the seed comes up,
resembhng a sprouting grain. In June the plant blos-
soms; the flower of both varieties is yellow and very
fragrant, so that the prospect is a most deUghtful
one. About the last of September, the seeds ripen,
the plant needing practically no care when once
sown.

The mustard plant is then reaped with a reaping
machine and collected in bunches of a pitchforkful
each. These are gathered in great wagons, where
they resemble hay, and are hauled to a great sheet
of ducking, where the seed is threshed out into sacks
of about ninety pounds. A hundred pounds or so
are threshed at a time, eight men operating the outfit
for hauling and dumping on the sheet. Once on the
sheet, horses do the threshing, being driven about
over the plants with a roller five or six feet in diameter.
When the straw has been removed from the sheet
the seed is taken to the fan-mill to clean and then
is put in sacks and shipped. Not less than seventy-
five thousand sacks of mustard go out of Lompoc a
year, it being about the only place in the country
where the grain is raised in any quantity.

After we have visited the bean fields we ride
out into the Lompoc Valley. Beans we find here
to be almost as important as mustard, being har-
vested by a machine hke a plow-share or a long knife
of steel fastened into a wooden frame shaped hke a
sled, which cuts three rows at once as a lawn mower
would. The cut plants are then bunched together
and hauled to the threshing place to be threshed out
and put in sacks.

138

A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

Potatoes and apples, dairy products, stock, and
honey, all come from this valley. Oil derricks indi-
cate another industry, and the almond orchards are
large. Then, on the outskirts, we pay a visit to
the old mission, now a ruin, but interesting never-
theless, reminding us of our rambles among the ancient
castles of the Rhine-land. There is a mission at Santa

"Vy^^^^^^H

^^SSw

^^W^ ■

"HP

RUINS OF MISSION AT LOMPOC

Yiiez (E-nais), just twenty-five miles from here, where,
we learn, services are still held. Strangers are rare
at these missions, however, for there is nothing else
of interest to bring people to the towns. The mission
near Lompoc, which was destroyed by the earthquakes
of 1812, was founded in 1787, and is known as Pu-
risima (Poo-riss'e-mah) Concepcion.

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND 139

We explore the interior of the ruin and notice that
the bricks are red outside, and of a bluish-black in-
side. As nails were not to be had at the time that
the mission was built the beams were bound in place
with rawhide thongs, some of which still dangle
down. Owls and squirrels flit and scurry among the
ruins as though to impress us with their age.

At supper at the hotel a dish of English walnuts,
raisins and almonds is on the table, as is usual
in hotels in this part of the West.

CURIOUS ROCKS

On the morrow, we can visit the great beds of dia-
tonaceous earth near here. It is used, mixed with
asbestos or chalk, to form a non-conductor of heat,
and is converted into panels, doors and other fire-
proof necessities and ornaments. The stuff is very-
light and is quarried with pick and shovel by miners,
who pile it up and let it dry for a few weeks, to get
out the natural moisture, when it becomes lighter
still, and is shipped to be made into magno-silica and
other forms. It is also used in the partitions of walls
to deaden sound.

Of course we want to see the famous silo (sigh-lo),
a round tower near here recalling that of Pisa. It
is forty feet high by sixteen in diameter. The outside
of this cylinder is a wooden framework, the inside of
flooring. The interior is sealed about with tarred
paper, and on the top a bed of straw perhaps twenty
inches deep is put, which molds to form an air-tight top.
Whole stalks of com, and green stuff of every kind,
that cannot be used when fresh, is chopped up and

140 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

placed in the silo where it keeps sweet and fresh until
all other green fodder is scarce, when it is fed to the
stock which thrive well upon it.

We saunter over to the great mustard bamSy
too, and see the seed packed, and after that, the
sun proving too warm outside, we sit in our rooms in
the quaint little hotel until train time, getting our
journals in shape.

Then we return to Surf to continue up the main
track of travel. We enjoy riding down right by the
side of the sea, or, when we skirt inland, among the
great sand-waves which the railway had to fight
when building this section of track. These waves of
pure beautiful sand have drifted up where the green
meadows slope down, making inroads that look like
the runs of water one sees in New Jersey. At Oceano
(0-shan'oh) we pass a winter resort, but continue
on to San Luis Obispo (Lu'iss 0-biss'po).

SAN LUIS OBISPO

We have come to San Luis Obispo because we have
been told that here is the largest prune orchard in
the world. The town we find to be very scattered,
the houses principally of frame, each with a sloping
roof of red or blue, edged in white, not unlike a Chinese
pagoda. Here, as elsewhere in this section, there is
a sanatorium, and old people and consumptives are
numerous because of the balmy climate.

The city sights we soon exhaust. They consist
only of the great white court-house and the mission,
very well preserved. Then we engage a buggy for
the land of prunes. Our route lies into the open

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND 141

country, among lemon groves, from which now and
then monstrosities such as four lemons grown together
and weighing fifty-two ounces, are obtained. We
learn of the local products — of tugsten, a new mineral
which is found near by and is used in tempering armor
plate — and of the copper and silver mines. Distances
are ver>^ deceptive in this clear air, and our drive is
longer than we expected. Its monotony is varied
by one of those accidents which are apt to take place
on a protracted journey such as ours, namely, a run-
away, which enlivens the trip and gives us a scare.

By and by, however, we come to our destination,
America's greatest prune orchard, only to learn that
latterh^ the owner has replaced these trees with
EngUsh walnuts and the prune orchard is gone. This,
however, is so typical an incident of the trials which
come to the most careful traveler that we cannot
omit recording it in our day books. We return by
way of Edna (Ed'na), a little hamlet from which
the school children are just driving home in their
sulkies, and we listen to their talk as they ride at
our sides.

They are telling of one of the frequent barbecues
held hereabouts. A hole about five feet by three
is dug in the ground, and into this good oak timber
is put ; this is ht and a great fire started. When the
flames have ceased and only the red-hot wood coals
remain at the bottom, large pieces of meat, well seas-
oned, are strung upon rods of steel or willow over the
pit. When these are roasted 'Ho a turn,'' the company
gathers, men and women sitting alternately about
the long ''bench tables," to enjoy the feast.

142 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

There are quite a number of Swiss and Portuguese
settlers in this vicinity, and we learn that they fre-
quently celebrate their various national festivals.

From this point we could continue on to some neigh-
boring hot springs, but as we shall see these very
shortly, at Paso Robles, we can leave that rather
circuitous drive out of consideration.

MUD BATHS OF PASO ROBLES

We rise again rather early in the morning to take
the train for the thirty-six mile ride to Paso Robles
(Pass-o Ro-bells), or the ^^pass of the oaks,'^ so named
for its venerable oak trees. The springs both here
and at Santa Ysabel, two miles distant, where there
is a flow of six hundred thousand gallons a day, are
noted for their curative properties, being especiall})
good when taken in connection with the mud baths*
for rheumatism and skin afflictions.

Our ride is through a pass of the Santa Lucia
Mountains and then through the far-famed oak forests
at the head of the Salinas River to Paso Robles.
Owing to the grade, our speed is slow and we note
the altitude at one place, Cuesta (Koo-ess'tah) — one
thousand two hundred and eighty-nine feet. Hot as
it was yesterday at Lompoc, so hot that we did not
care to sit out of doors, here there is frost upon
the grass and we can see our breath. On the car the
newsboy sells bottles of oyster cocktails, a custom
seldom met with in the East but very gejieral in Cali-
fornia. Paso Robles we find to be a village of
frame houses thinly scattered among oaks and cy-
presses. Great six-horse lumber teams go by, and

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND 143

there are also soda works. Close by is a civic bath-
house, where people can take the baths, and there is
a little cobblestone fountain, out of which the luke-
warm water pours, free to the poorest that comes.
The taste is that of sulphur and not very bad, if one
cares for odd tastes.

We peep in at the bath tubs, the plunge and the
rest. All but two of these are of sugar pine, instead
of porcelain, as it appears that china is affected at
once and becomes a dirty gray. We put a half dollar
in the water and at once it is turned black.

The city, we learn, operates its baths in opposition
to those of the great hotel which had practically in-
augurated a monopoly of the waters, and as the latter
naturally puts up more pretentious bath-houses, the
warfare is a merry one.

The new city bath-house of concrete is the rext thing
on the itinerary, and here we see the sulphur, sweat and
mud baths. The last named are unique. The mud
is often found naturally prepared, though quite as
often it is artificially made ready by allowing the
waters to percolate through it for some time, leaving
the soil heavily charged with mineral. \Vhen the
earth is thoroughly ^' rotted,'^ it is placed in tanks
three feet and a half by four, and four feet deep^
into which steps lead. Here the mud is kept at a tem-
perature of 115° by means of steam, and one can
immerse oneself as deep as one wishes. If, for example^
the foot be affected with rheumatism, the patient wiE
sink the leg, up to the knee perhaps,in mud, and there
let it remain for ^bout six or eight minutes. From
the mud one passes to a hot shower bath, then into

144 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

the sweat blankets and later into a plunge. After
that one may take massage if desired. Special tubs
are reserved for certain diseases and fresh mud is
ever being added. The time required for a bath of
this sort is from an hour to an hour and a half,
and the price is fifty cents. To us the mud appears
rather slushy, the top seems all water, and the bot-
tom like thin mortar.

Again we remember that in California the great
hotels are really one of the sights of the state, and so
we pass on down to this one. We find that out
of the great lobby there opens a hall which leads
to all points of interest. It runs through the hotel,
to the cozy glass sun parlor, where there are large
willow easy chairs and little tables, then into little
enclosed arcades as on an ocean liner, and so to the office
of the hotel baths. From there we step into a little
reception room, then down an aisle between the dress-
ing-rooms and finally into the baths themselves,
where the fine long white porcelain tubs are filled
with the pale blue water.

From the hotel we step out into the park in the
heart of the town. Here little shops cater to the
farmers round about, rather than to the guests, as
most of the latter are sick and have come supplied
with what they need.

A little horse car, the horses set in tandem, comes
by, and we board this to ride to the end of its route.
The trip is about two miles in length, out through
meadows dotted with the famous oaks of Paso Robles
which are bearded with moss, and over a country road,
where the health-seekers walk up and down for daily

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND 145-

exercise. At the end of the hne is another bath-
house simple in form, and here, too, is a warm spring
which has a rather pleasing sulphurous taste. The
water is much hotter than at Paso Robles itself, being
at its coolest 109°, and the other springs averaging
112°, 116° and even 122°. Patients usually go down
into a concrete vat, built right over the 108-degree
spring, and stay there for four minutes. Then they
pass into a pool at 112° for three or four minutes to
wash off the mud, and after that go into blankets, where
they sweat probably half an hour. The square steam-
ing mud pit recalls to us the hot baths of New Zealand,
of our Australian Little Journey, and also the pictures
of the tortures of Hades we found on the church
portico at Dupnitza.

We shall dine at Paso Robles and then continue
onward, up the coast, as it were, for the ocean is but
twenty miles distant.

The country traversed is rather interesting. We
go through Kings City, west of which he the ruins of
Mission San Antonio de Padua (Pad'oo-ah), founded
in 1771. At Soledad (Sol-e-dad) is another mission,
that of Xuestra (Xoo-ess'trah), Senora de la Soledad,
which dates from 1791. Crossing the SaUnas (Sah-
li'nass) River and after passing through the town
of that name (which is famous for its beet sugar
factories), we might stop off for a nine-mile drive to
the famous Vancouver (Van-kooVur) Pinnacles, where
are subterranean lakes, trap-rock statuary, and other
objects of interest to sight-seers. We, however, are
bound for what we beUeve to be an even more interest-
ing place, Castro ville (Kass'tro), where we again

146

A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

leave the main road of travel for Monterey (Mon-te-ray).
We are getting on; we shall be only a hundred and
twenty-six miles from San Francisco when we reach
Monterey.

THE MOST FAMOUS LITTLE TOWN IN THE WEST

Just as Concord is the most famous little town in
the East, so in the West Monterey has that dis-
tinction. Within six miles of it are more points of
interest than are afforded by any other place in the
western wonderland.

Nor is it without history. Cabrillo, we remember,
coasted along here in 1542, naming the place the
Cabo de Pinos (Cah'bow Pe'noss). Then in 1693,
Sebastian Vizcaino discovered the Carmel (Kar-mell)

tt^ti: ^'t

•Hi 4.1

CUSTOM-HOUSE PORTICO AT MONTEREY

OUN WESTERN WONDERLAND

147

River, and on the 16th of December landed at Mon^
terey. Here, in 1770, Junipero Serra, whose name
has become so famihar to us, founded the mission San
Carlos Borromeo (Bor-ro-may'o), later transferring

ALTAR IN MONTEREY CHINATOWN

it five miles east to the banks of the Carmel River,
where we will visit it.

Closely associated with Monterey is Del Monte
(Dell ]\Ion^tay). In fact we have probably thought
that the famous Del Monte is a hotel in Monterey.
As a matter of fact, it is not, being at another station
entirely, and if we are wise we will take rooms in the
splendid Httle hotel at Monterey, and then view the
Del Monte as visitors only.

148 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

But we are anticipating, for we are still on the
train, and having seen that last mission, have wan-
dered into the dining-car with twilight, to indulge in
California artichokes and other western viands. In the
night and rain, we dismount at Castroville and there
take another train for Monterey. At the station of Del
Monte many people get out, but we are uninfluenced
by this and continue right on to the city. There, as
everywhere, we find the hotel rates include meals,
whether they be eaten in the hotel or not.

THE OLD WHALING DAYS AND THE NEW

Those of us who have visited Nantucket may recall
having heard the old whalers there speak of Monterey
whaling, for in its time this place was famous for its
whaling expeditions. So, being in Monterey, we shall
look up the old whalers.

For breakfast first, however, we again indulge
in local products — mackerel and barracuda (bahr-ra-
koo'da), preserved figs and sliced oranges. Then we
take a stroll in the main street of the town — a
very small town it is — and look in at the shops. We
note the tamale everywhere; in fact it and the curio
shops would seem to monopolize commerce. Pretty
slabs of red-wood, showing the hairy bark, queer
ornaments of carved whale-bone, little shell orna-
ments, etc., are the chief displays. At the upper
end of town the old custom-house, its second floor
enclosed with a projecting veranda, while the first
floor has no porch, is interesting. It was built long
ago, and is particularly famous from the fact that
it was over this building that Commodore Sloat

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND 149

hoisted the American flag in 1846, to signaUze the
passing of Cahfornia from Mexican nile.

Seated on the benches of cobble-stone under the
veranda of the old custom-house we meet a former
whaler, a Portuguese, who came here years ago to
engage in whaling. Unlike the grounds of the Nan-
tucket whalers, the whaUng grounds for these men
began right off this coast ; occasionally a whale would
be harpooned right in the bay itself. Seldom, however,
did the mariners await such luck as that, but instead,
if the weather was good, one boat would go out two
miles, and another perhaps a mile and a half and take
position, so that the first boat was within sight of the
other and yet was not in its path. Then they drifted
along and if a whale was seen, he would be driven
toward the whaling grounds of the particular com-
pany to which the ships belonged, and there taken.
Thirty-foot boats, holding six men apiece, would be
employed for the work, and these would carry a swivel
gun to shoot the harpoon, with from twenty to thirty
fathoms of rope attached, into the whale. When the
whalers met a cow, calf and bull whale the work was
somewhat simple. If the parent was harpooned, the
others would flee. But if the calf was first harpooned,
the parents would remain trying to protect it and
the whalers would secure all three.

As we had a good account of whaling given us
on our Nantucket trip, we do not think it necessary
now to jot down all the explanations received from
the old salt. We record only the fact that there has
been no whaling at Monterey since about the year
1893.

150

A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

We shall learn of other fishing here, for the
pomano, for example, which is taken in the barra-
€ua nets. There is no bait employed for this, the
fishermen going out by night, two in the net boats, and
when they feel that the net is heavy with the fish, they
take it up, sometimes three or four times in a night.

The Chinese hereabouts do a great deal of fishing
for the so-called rock-fish and smelt, which latter
are caught in a net and then drawn up. The Japanese,
too, are indomitable fishermen, frequently going out
to harpoon the sharks that are encountered in these
waters. Occasionally a boat will capsize and throw
the men into neighboring nets, a rather dangerous acci-
dent, but the Jap does not seem to mind in the least.

A BIT QF MONTEREY CHINATOWN

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND 151

Here at Monterey we are shown an interesting
relic, the anchor of the famous Natalia, the ship on
which Xapoleon escaped from Elba, which sank in
this bay. The anchor was uncovered but recently
and will probably be placed in a local park, if not
returned to France.

Across the ba}^, as we walk along, we see a Httle
jetty out from a grassy cape, and on this lawn the
famous Junipero [^lonument, with the priest standing
within a grating, that we have so often seen in pictures.
The foundation for the monument to the man who
raised the first flag here also is close by.

Returning to the heart of town, we now board a
street car for Del Monte and for what is claimed to
be the finest hotel in the world.

DEL MONTE

The cars taking us to the hotel have both ends open,
the center enclosed against rainy weather. On the
way we note the number of Japanese estabUshments
and their pretty names (''Sun Rise and Co., ^' for
example); then an old inn mth the yellow, sloping
roof and white verandas on the upper floor overhang-
ing the walk. Barbers here not only have their pole
at the curb, but also two bars of red and white stripes
on each side of the door. We pass through New
Monterey, a more modem place, and dismount finally
at Del Monte.

Across the road stretches a high, white-paUng fence,
lined 'wdth a still higher box hedge that recalls the
tale of Sleeping Beauty. Behind this rise tall pin-
oaks, the vanguard to the hundred and twenty-six

152

A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

acre preserve. Through the moss we see the stables
of the hotel. We pass through an arch in the hedge,
cross the road skirting it within and then proceed
through another hedge and up the lane. On our

DEL MONTE

right are conservatories and beds of violets and daisies,
fox-glove and salvias. On the left other green-houses
are built of wood scantlings instead of glass, and these
too contain rare plants. There is the red clianthus,
for instance, which has a flower like a lobster's claw,
and other unusual varieties.

A neat little store here sells cut flowers, cyclamen,
primulas and violets, and as we stop we note a sign
announcing the hotel's weekly fire drill, for a regular
fire company is maintained. Then we continue on

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND 153

over the famous park, where orchids and geraniums
and square-shaped flower beds continue to reveal
their beauties. We come to another road which
winds through a forest of bearded, gnarled oaks and
tall, equally bearded pines, beneath which the grass
and the buttercups sprout. This we cross, catching
a ghmpse as we do so of many curious rectilinear
flower beds in the forest, and observe that the pines
that shelter them have their trunks covered with ivy.

At last, however, passing the palm beds, we come
to the hotel, a three-story frame structure, red-roofed,
yellow-painted, with a veranda, glass-enclosed in places,
along the lower floor, and with an annex on one side
built in a style which recalls that of Swedish buildings.

We do not remain long in the hotel, but as we are
looking around we notice one very strange thing about
its arrangement: Directly facing the door, across
the lobby, seven broad carpeted steps lead to a narrow
landing on which are some palms. Ahead there is a
wall of mirrors. Why the stairs? we wonder, — ^but
only until meal time, when the mirrors part and re-
veal the dining-room behind. Another oddity is a
corridor which, like the one at Paso Robles, leads
off from the lobby through the entire hotel. We
take this corridor, and by and by we find it comes to
a parting of the ways, a partition down its length
making two halls instead of one. One of these slopes up
to another floor, the other down to the basement.

THE WHALE-BONE WORKER

On our way back to Monterey we drop in to visit
a curious little industry, the working up of the bone

154 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

of the whale (not the whale-bone of commerce) into
fanciful shapes, such as pictures of the mission, etc.
The bone for these was obtained from the old side-
walks of Monterey when these were condemned.
Owing to the accumulation of this material when they
were laid, they were composed of the bone of the
whale, which now is simply sawed into shape and then
given an artistic finish.

PACIFIC GROVE

In the afternoon we go by car to Pacific Grove, one
of the most delightful little spots on the coast. On
our way we pass a Chinese fishing village, to be visited
later on, the little frame huts huddling on the rocks
much as they do at Canton. The village is quite
different from any other Chinatown in the land.
At the Grove itself the neat frame houses all stand in
a dense cypress grove ; some of them have roses chmb-
ing up to their eaves and all have flower beds about
them. In fact the Grove is just a sort of park by the
sea with the addition of the California flowers and
climate to make it charming. At the end of the line
we wander out to a rocky cove where the wild,
beautiful surf beats high on the great rocks with such
force and continuous motion as to recall the whirlpool
at Niagara. There is a little Japanese tea garden
here, into which we step and enjoy the breakers
and the beauty of the site over a steaming cup of
Hyson.

We then stroll back along the coast to the
Chinese fishing village. We find it a most interesting
place, which we shall not soon forget. The huts

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND

155

are of wood, black and weatherbeaten. The people are
all fishermen, and being away from the beaten tourist
paths and not much troubled with sight-seers, they
are quite friendly. They let us wander as we will

CHINESE FISHING VILLAGE NEAR PACIFIC GROVE

and on closer inspection we find the houses to con-
sist of one or two rooms ; the only windows are at the
top of the roof; a single narrow door is left open to
the sea. Inside some of the houses there is cheap
wallpaper and in the gloom we detect a low cot covered
with blankets unfolded against the wall, a few
chairs, and general disorder. The men of the village
go about here in loose black satin trousers and light
blue satin coats over a ministerial-looking vest, the
hair done in a cue which is frequently wound about

156 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

the head. They are very careful of their cues, for
without them they can never return to China. The
women hobble about with nothing on their feet but
clogs. They have not the abnormally small feet we
read of as characteristic of Chinese women. It seems
that only the upper classes are thus deformed. They
wear circles of gold in their ears, from which hang
pretty green stones.

Several of the houses have on the outside of the
door a little shelf where joss-sticks are burned in tin
cans. Across the beach, on the rocks, the Cantonese
skiffs are drawn up. They are square at each end,
while from the middle rises a low mast, across which
an iron bar is fastened at right angles ; from the ends
of this hang iron nets. In these pieces of wood are
burnt at night in order to attract the fish. The
fishermen usually go out at two in the morning and
return about two in the afternoon.

PROFESSOR LOEB^S LABORATORY

A BIT farther down the beach we see two neat
frame houses on a well kept lawn, seemingly hidden
from the world. This is the laboratory and summer
home of the famous Prof. Loeb, who is working out
the mysteries of the origin of life. Often on a fine
day Mr. Loeb, a genial, middle-aged gentleman, may
be seen walking up and down for a bit of exercise,
while his assistants bring fresh sea-urchins from the
rocks.

If it chances to rain we will hurry back to China-
town, for the downpour will give us an excuse to take
refuge in one of the fishermen's huts and so see how

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND 157

they look inside. The tiny, foot-square windows
up in the peaked roof and the floor of dirty bare
boards recall the houses we visited on our Little
Journey to Iceland, although there we did not see,
as here, an opium outfit burning on the unmade cot.
There are twelve children in this family, and as the
girls wear trousers it is hard in the dark to tell
girls and boys apart. Some of the boys wear Ameri-
can attire, but the little babies are in the gay Chinese
costume, — green suits, little round caps and white
lace dresses over all. Against one wall, on a projection
like a mantel, is the joss. Red papers with black
lettering, forming three sides of a square, are on the
wall, and in front of this are pewter utensils like candle-
sticks into which the joss-sticks are placed. Then
there are two pewter bowls for sacrifices and a dish of
blooming narcissus and the food from which the
spirits of the ancestors are believed to take their
sustenance.

'^Here are my papa and mama,^' our host explains,
while his httle son Ughts some joss-sticks and sets
them burning in the cups.

By and by, they bring out a great wicker basket
and from it take a blue china tea-pot, pouring from
this into handleless cups weak Chinese tea, which
they take without sugar.

Again returning to Monterey, we chat with some
of her citizens about her past. The first theater
in California, we learn, was here, and in this Jenny
Lind sang. Here, too. General Sherman wooed a girl,
secured her promise to marry him and then never
came back to claim her. Here some of the scenes

158 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

described in ^^'Two Years Before the Mast^' took
place, and at Monterey Robert Louis Stevenson rested
awhile in his search for health before he became world-
renowned.

THE SEVENTEEN-MILE DRIVE

The famous seventeen-mile drive in this vicinity is
another of the many attractions which justify the
claim of Monterey to the distinction of possessing
more points of interest within its six-mile radius than
any other place of liT^e size. We have reserved the
next day for this, and start early. Our route lies
again toward Chinatown, and as we wish to take
some photographs we diverge to pay it another
visit. We pass through a portion not seen before;
and so reach the cemetery, where each lot is surrounded
by a board fence originally square; inside this are the
graves. A new grave is made conspicuous here by a
tall pole topped with a gilded piece of board to which
is attached a bit of spruce. From this board a pink
flag covered with black characters is draped. Near
this is a shorter pole on which is a broader pink flag
and a brown ribbon trailing to a third low staff which
bears a pink Chinese umbrella trimmed with green.
An old soap-box filled with edibles stands beside
the grave.

After having been buried several years, the remains
of the Chinese are shipped back to China, so that the
cemetery is far from full. Continuing our ride, we
come by and by to the forest lodge that admits to the
famous drive. As this is a private institution we pay
a quarter apiece for the privilege of driving along the

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND

159

road, and then skim down the avenue which leads
into the pretty pine woods and through the open
meadows. A catelo (kat-e-lo), a cross-breed of
bison and milch cow, roams here, taking to his heels

■■

CHINESE GRAVE IN MONTEREY CHINATOWN

at the sight of us. On the rocks by the sea we find
here still another, smaller, Chinese village, and then
ahead the famous Ostrich Tree comes in sight. Out
at the tip of a cape, it looks Uke an ostrich just about
to peck his way into the sea. As a matter of fact,
the Ostrich Tree really consists * of two trees, both
c}^resses, that have grown into each other and have
assumed this curious shape.

Again and again we dismount along the shore to

160

A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

gather the magnificent large abalone shells to be
found here in any quantity. We diverge from the
main path to pass through the cypress forest, strangely
wild and weird and reminding us of the- Mount
of Olives, to reach the Ostrich itself, that we may
take a near snap-shot of it. The cypresses here, it is
claimed, are unique, the wind having so blown their

MONTEREY PINE TREES

branches as to form regular shelves or layers smooth
as a hedge all up the trees. The sea runs in, forming
quiet httle bays, and there are more Chinese fishing-
huts, mere ^'wicki-ups,^' that fit well into the scene
and recall the South Sea Islands so forcibly that we
should not be surprised to see some pirate ship come
sailing in. It is a very lovely scene, and we feel as

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND

161

though we should be perfectly content to ride on
through these seaside forests forever.

By and by, however, we emerge from the drive and
continue on our way to Carmel.

CARMEL-BY-THE-SEA

This town is rather new, and the way to it is down-
hill through the woods, where the scene is one of pris-
tine wildness. In the pine forests, however, homes are
being built, principally of shingles and having a rustic
air that recalls the small towns of Wisconsin. On
the main street there are perhaps six stores in all,
and a hotel set among the trees on the seaside. We

CARMEL MISSION

162 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

drive by and on to the open forest-enclosed valley
in the mountains, to the old mission of Carmel. Be-
yond it are the ruins of the first mission, long since
passed away. This more recent one has a little yellow
dome and cross on one side, while to right and left
of the center the bells hang in small towers. From
here we return on the circuit of the drive to Mon-
terey.

While there is still time between trains at Monterey,
it does not hang heavy. We visit the marine labora-
tory of California University once more, and then enjoy
idling on the rocks above the bay, watching an oil
steamer from Honolulu come gently in, while the sun-
set falls on the picture.

Then with night we return by train to Castroville,
to continue on ten miles to Pajaro (Pah-hah-ro),
where another branch of the railroad takes us to
Santa Cruz.

SANTA CRUZ

We are now nearing the end of February and the
rainy season is on, and we are given a day of rest in
Santa Cruz by the rains. When one cannot take pic-
tures of what he sees, to perpetuate it, it is useless
to proceed on so long a journey as ours, for even the
best memory, as years go by, will fail to recall many
scenes. So we simply sit about the fire in a home-like
hotel and read of this region, — of the good salmon
fishing close by and of old Mission Santa Cruz, founded
by Father Salaza Lopez in 1791. We chat with
an old couple who are here to escape the rose-fever
(much like the hay-fever of the East), an orange seller,

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND 163

and the owner of a cafeteria in Los Angeles, where
each takes his own tray from a counter, helps himself
to what he wants, and before sitting down to eat,
has it checked up and pays for it. When the rain
holds off a bit, we walk through the great covered
bridge to the heart of town, where rain and the darkness
have compelled the neat little stores to Ught up as is
done during Christmas week in the East.

The day of rest does us good, and we rise next
morning all the better for it and eager to be off. It
is still raining, but we resolve to ''do'' Santa Cruz at
least. The gardens with their endless array of flowers
make us forget the rain. By and by we board a car
for Capitola (Kap-e-to-la), going out Pacific Avenue,
the main street, and passing the CathoHc Church, in
the mission style, which marks the site of old Santa
Cruz mission. Redwood lumber yards arrest our at-
tention by the almost scarlet color of the lumber
now that it is wet. At the end of the line we take
in the ^larine Casino, one of the features of summer
life at Santa Cruz, which is a great resort for Calif or-
nians. Now the place is well-nigh deserted and ducks
are swimming in the surf where in the summer thou-
sands bathe daily. All the attractions of a Coney
Island in miniature are here in the season, but now
the little sheds are closed and their attendants gone.
In the summer, too, there is a great tent city here,
but of that there is now no vestige. Ha\dng . ex-
hausted this section, we return to town and take the
cars to another point. This brings us to a queer old
place known locally as the ''Zoo," but in reality the
winter home of a small circus. On the porches the

164 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

poles and tents are stored, while inside the structure
are the cages, row on row, with no attempt to make
a show place.

Over the way is the Cliff Museum, from which one
may look out to the greyish-yellow sea breaking on the
cliffs, but this, too, is closed at this time of year and
only a desolate monkey remains outside on the porch.

THE BIG TREES

It is still raining, but we cannot delay any longer,
and in the afternoon take the train for the Big Trees.
The trip is a pretty one, out through dense tangles of
pines, oaks, blue gums, and tall redwoods, through
which one sees the opposite mountains with the vin-
yards, the vines cut down so low as to make them
look like little dots on a quilt. Lumber camps are
to be seen in the valley and six-horse teams dragging
the trunks go slowly by. The ride, however, is only
six miles long and we are soon at the Trees. Had
the weather been fair we should probably have driven
one way and returned by train, in order to see both
routes.

The station itself is of redwood shingles, a pictur-
esque little place, with the stupendous forest of giant
trees all about. Not that the trees are so great in
their circumference; it is the height which fairly
stupefies us. We can see their summits only by
bending way back. We are surrounded by a perfect
wilderness, all about rise the forest-clad Santa Cruz
Mountains, wild and beautiful, behind us is the grove
of the Trees, — that is all. We pass through the gate-
way in the tall board fence enclosing them and a guide

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND • 165

in rubber boots, coat and cap meets us. He tells how
the place was originally a Spanish grant dating back
to 1846, and consisted of three hundred and fifty-six
acres. When Fremont came it was the property of
a white man named Graham, who hved out here among
the Indians and who is supposed to have been a de-
serter from the crew of some vessel.

We pass the lodge of the guides and then to the
trees themselves. First we are shown the ^^ General
Fremont,^^ the tree beneath which Fremont camped
for part of the winter during the Mexican war, making
his home in a room 16x28x18 feet inside, — a chamber
into which not less than fifty people can crowd.
Later a shoemaker had his shop in this room, and
within it an American is now buried. The tree stands
just two hundred and eighty feet high.

None of the trees inside the fence now are allowed
to be cut, though outside lumbering of the great
redwoods continues. This we learn as we pass on
to the ' ^ Jumbo ^' tree, on which there is a knot like
an elephant's head. Close beside are the ^Three
Sisters,'' three trees connected by the root, where
they were partly burnt by the Indians prior to 1848.
One of the trees leans forty-two feet, othen^dse they
are in line. W^e pass a tree with a knot in the form
of a buffalo head, and then over the very wet ground,
covered with the decaying brown needles of the trees
and their tiny cones, to the '^ Giant Tree, ^'the greatest
tree in the world. This tree had seventy-five feet
broken from its top at some previous time, though
within the memory of man and recorded histor\^ none
of the trees have been struck by Ughtning, but it still

166 . A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

stands three hundred and six feet high and is twenty-
two feet in circumference. It would make in lumber
some two million feet which would sell at from eigh-
teen to twenty dollars a thousand feet. In awe we
look up through the wet limbs, the highest far up
indeed, to the top, arching like a cathedral spire.
Before Adam was, perhaps, this giant lived. On the
ground beneath us some of his seeds have taken root
and are sprouting and when we are long forgotten
they perhaps will be mere toddlers in the forest.

Here, too, is the ^^ General Grant,'' with a trunk
twenty-two feet through. The trunks of the trees are
covered with a yellow-green algae and moss. Some
of these trees, it is estimated, are three and five
thousand years old, some are even older.

To name all the big fellows would be tedious. There
is the ^'Roosevelt," which it takes nine people,
touching finger tips, to encircle (the General Grant
requires fourteen); then the ^^McKinley,'' the ^^ Sher-
man'' and the ^'Ingersoll." Strangely enough, the
roots of these trees are quite near the surface of
the ground; there is practically no tap root at all.
Very few birds inhabit the branches, and these
chiefly blue- jays, although squirrels are numerous.

Down beneath the redwoods, the baytrees and the
madrone, which latter sheds its bark annually like
a sycamore, and sometimes twice a year at the top
and once at the base, thrive lustily. We learn that
from the tops of these shrubs to the first limb of the
big fellows the distance is generally about one-third
the height of the entire tree and that the diameter
of a tree is one-third of the circumference. No per-

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND 167

ceptible difference in the height of the trees is no-
ticeable in a Ufe-time. It takes about sixty rings at
one ring a year to make an inch increase in height,
but as these rings are counted on both sides it takes
thirty years to increase the diameter of the tree an
inch. Some trees will have perhaps twenty-five rings
to the inch, others upward of sixty.

There is one place here in the San Lorenzo
(Lo-ren'zo) Canon where a tree was upturned and
the hollow has parth^ filled with needles and cones.
There it was, the guides tell the rustic, that Xoah
got the lumber for his ark. Maybe it was. Who
knows?

In cutting the redwoods outside the grove, a saw
ten to fourteen feet in length worked by two men
{one at each end) is employed. It will take the pair
about a day to cut a good-sized tree. First the tree
is cut perhaps a third of the way across, a wedge-
shaped incision. Then the men attack the tree on
the other side and by means of wedging make it fall
in the direction they wish. This is in order to avoid
breaking the others in its descent. A crew of men
then peel off the bark to use for souvenirs. This is
spongy to the touch, but not easily severed from the
tree. Then the log is cut into links of from twelve
to forty or fifty feet in length for the mill.

We have plenty of time to spare at the grove before
the train leaves and so see it thoroughly. Then,
finally, we return to Santa Cruz for our possessions
and again by railway to Pajaro. We have a forty-
nine-mile ride ahead of us to San Jose (Ho-zay'), the
Garden City.

168

A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

SAN JOSE, THE GARDEN CITY

San Jose, we read in the railway booklets as we spin
along, is famed for its prunes, apricots, peaches,
plums, apples, grapes, and nuts, its seed and its vege-
tables. It is the greatest beet cultivating center and
tool manufacturing place in the West, and the second

SAN JOSE, A TYPICAL SMALL CITY OF CALIFORNIA

city of fruitland in its general agricultural output.
Here are the great canneries and the green-fruit
packeries, and here from May to November unripe
or ripe fruits and after that dried fruits, are prepared.
This is the famous Santa Clara fruit section, named
for the mission of Santa Clara founded in this valley
in 1777, and to which at one time over fourteen hun-

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND 169

dred Indians came to worship. There are very nearly
nine thousand Indian names on its books.

It is almost one in the morning when we get to San
Jose and so hurry to the hotel and to bed. The next
morning we readily understand why San Jose is called
the Garden City. We are charmed with it at once.
Trees are set out along all the avenues with ivy cUmb-
ing up their trunks. Flowers, too, and plants and
palms ever}"where meet the eye.

When we get among the stores we find that very
nearly every one of these has a bicycle rack in front,
for so level is the valley that bicycling is the popu-
lar mode of locomotion here. We walk along to
the school-house, which stands in a fine garden, then
through the park before the City Hall and the State
Normal School, to take a peep at the first skyscraper
of San Jose, which is now rapidly going up. On the
sidewalks men peddle violets at a dime a bunch
and in the grocery windows all manner of nuts
are for sale.

Over the city there rises a very tall electric light
tower, the four piers of which are joined by a series
of twelve concentric steel rings. The globes are at
the top. Looking up toward them, we are reminded
of the Eiffel Tower of Paris. The tower stands
at the intersection of the two most important streets
of the city and from it we overlook the principal parts
of San Jose. It is such a clean, modern city that
there are few actual sights as such, excepting the great
Notre Dame Convent, past which we walk. On
the telegraph poles, too, we note ^'city directories,^'
tin boxes with a glass pane in the cover and a handle

170

A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

at the side, on the turning of which latter the names of
leading firms appear under the glass.

We walk over the city, peeping at its fruit stores and
canneries, and then engage a buggy to visit the largest
seed farm in the world.

THE LARGEST SEED FARM IN THE WORLD

This is out near the town of Coyote (Ki-o-te), and
embraces some three hundred and ninety acres. As
we ride out of the town we note the many foreign
names of shopkeepers. Here is a French laundry,
run by the Braiquets (Bri-ketts), and there are shops
kept by the Bercovichs (Bur-ko-vicks) and the Viseglias
(Viz-zee-glee-ahs) and goodness knows who not. Then

SEED FARMS, SAN JOSE

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND 171

there are Chinese laundries and there is a St. Patrick's
Church, built in imitation of the one in New York.
And ever}^^here there are flowers.

When we strike the open country we ride through
great bare orchards and pasture land, with here and
there a peach grove just beginning to bloom, and the
bees are singing in one great oratorio.

Finally, we come to the seed farm, — endlessly long
rows of green seedlings of vegetables stretching to
distant trees and still more distant clumps of build-
ings. Acres of vegetables, in various stages of growth,
are seen on all sides and in these both Chinese and
Japs are at work, using the same implements they do
in far Japan.

We, however, are most interested in the magnitude
of everything. There are two hundred acres in let-
tuce alone and it takes the men about two and a half
months to seed them. Six men and a horse are re-
quired to do the planting, and that with the most
modem tools. One acre of land will give from six
to eight hundred pounds of seed. The plants begin
to bloom in July and the seeds ripen in September.
The plants are then cut with a sickle and placed in
sacks to keep the birds from them. They are after
ward flailed and screened and the seed then put into
sacks for sale.

So it goes with the other things. Imagine a great
lettuce field in bloom ; hundreds and hundreds of acres.
Or the soft green rows of parsley and of oyster plant;
of carrots, leek, radish and parsnip, or anything else
you can think of in the way of vegetables. So large
is the place that it requires men to do nothing but

172 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

attend to the little things that we should almost think
insignificant. For example, just think of two men
being employed the year round simply to trap gophers
and vermin that get at the plants.

It gives us a new idea of the magnitude of the seed
industry and causes us to stop and think whence
really come the vegetables that grace our daily board.

MT. HAMILTON AND LICK OBSERVATORY

Of course every one who visits San Jose wants to
pay a visit to Mt. Hamilton and the famous Lick
Observatory. We have the choice of two excursions
— that by night on the given evening when tourists
are permitted to look through the telescope, or in the
day time when other wonders of the place are shown.
Unless we are well up in astronomy and can appreciate
the differences between what this glass shows and
what we have seen through other famous telescopes,
we shall do best to make the trip by day.

We leave at six by wagonette, with a great burly
western driver — ^who is himself a character — on the
box, and some chatty eastern ladies for company.

Some of these ^ ^Knights of the Lash'' were drivers
of the overland and other stages in the ^'days of '49,"
when gold was discovered in California, and if they
are in a chatty mood, can give many interesting and
exciting stories of their strange and thrilling exper-
iences.

The stage road over which we travel was built
by the Supervisors of Santa Clara County at great
expense. When James Lick finally decided to locate
his great observatory on the summit of Mount Hamil-

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND

173

LICK OBSEPvVATOHY

ton, he made the building of this road one of the con-
ditions, and the supervisors, recognizing the great
attraction such an institution would add to their
county voted the amount necessary- and duly con-
structed the road. It is well engineered and is one of
the fuiest mountain roads in the world.

]\Iount Hamilton was named after a popular Congre-
gational preacher of Oakland, California, who was
a great student of nature and often used to cUmb the
mountains of this region.

The teacher of one of the wa^^side schools rides a part
of the way with us and the children salute her as we
pass by. As we leave the mail at their parents' homes,
they throw poppies into the wagon to us, —a pretty
custom brought from the home count r}\

174 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

The great smiling valley which we traverse
reminds us greatly of the White Mountains in the
vicinity of Fabyans. We stop at the Grand View
House, eleven miles from San Jose, at an elevation of
sixteen hundred and fifty feet, and then come in sight
of the observatory on the top of the mountain.
Toward this we keep ever winding. Meantime the driver
tells of the observatory — ^how that James Lick of San
Francisco, left a million and a quarter dollars for its
establishment and then turned it over as a part of the
Astronomical Department of the University of Cali-
fornia.

Then we reach the half-way house. We lunch here
and peep into a queer little den entirely covered with
the skins of wild animals.

From this point on there is a turn in the road for every
day in the year, and a mile for every day of the week.
We continue through a canon of the bearded oaks
and see the mistletoe hanging in balls. We climb
steadily higher and higher, overlooking the Santa
Clara Valley. Then, finally, we come out on the top,
at the famous Lick Observatory, the buildings rising
about like some feudal castle on the crest of the hill.

Inside, the guides await us. They show us pic-
tures and rare old autograph prints in the visitors'
room; then the great library, leading off from it.
After that we climb the stairs into the great dome,
painted a rich green-blue, to peep at the large refract-
ing telescope with its thirty-six inch glass, the second
largest in the world, being second only to the famous
Yerkes glass. The object glass here is of two lenses,
one of common and the other of flint glass, these set-

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND 175

six inches apart. AVe look at these and at the eye-
piece at the other end of the tube; at the
oblong box-like instrument with which the stars are
photographed ; and then at the various apparatus for
clamping the telescope and adjusting it to the image.

The telescope, we learn, is fifty-eight feet long and
weighs three tons and a half. In spite of its great
size and weight it can be moved with the gentlest
touch of the hand. A clock-work arrangement
causes it also to revolve with the motion of what-
ever star the astronomer wishes to follow.

Then the great dome of steel, weighing a hundred
tons and moved so that any portion of the area may
be opened, is explained, as is also the floor, which can
be made to rise sixteen feet so as to be at a conven-
ient height under the instrument in observing. The
observation seat also slides up and down on a step-
line, so that the operator may be comfortable when^
using the eye-piece.

This e3'e-piece, we learn, can be made to magnify^
from three hundred to three thousand diameters,
though two thousand four hundred power is what is-
usually used. The glass cost about thirty-five hundred
dollars. The lens has a magnifying power of two thou-
sand six hundred diameters. It is scarcely larger
than a pin-head; the larger the lens, the less the
power.

Descending the stairs, we enter the open room be-
neath the dome. A black pier runs down it, this
pier resting on the tomb of Lick. Lick was a piano-
maker, rather than an astronomer, and died in Saa
Francisco in 1876.

176 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

We are shown some interesting photographs of the
moon and stars, and then allowed to adjust our watches
to exact time. After that, we step out upon a balcony,
and see the snow on the distant Sierra Nevadas, a
hundred and seventy-five miles away. These and the
Pyramid Peak of Lake Tahoe (Tah-ho) on the
Nevada line are plainly visible.

Then, we saunter about as we may, until time for
the stage to return.

THE OLD QUICKSILVER MINES

To MAKE the tour of California without visiting
the great quicksilver mines in the vicinity of San Jose
would be to miss one of its very interesting sights.
So we reserve the morrow for a drive out to the greatest
quicksilver mine on the continent and the second
largest in the world.

We pass the handsome Hall of Records of San Jose
on this trip and are soon out again among the orchards.
In harvest time great tables are set out in these, when
the fruit is peeled by scores of men and women and
laid on boards to dry in the sun, or else carted to the
neighboring canneries. Later we get in among the
ravines of the Almaden (Ahl-mah-den) creek and the
country takes on a wild, rather sad aspect. Then,
by and by, we pass the Casa Grande or man-
ager's house, among the trees, and are at the mines.
Oreat furnaces rise all about and wagons with the
curious metal flasks for the ore pass and repass. Since
long before 1850, when the present records begin, ore
has been taken out, and in that time the mines have
yielded something like nine hundred and thirty thou-

OUR- WESTERN WONDERLAND 177

sand flasks of seventy-six and a half pounds each.
There are over eighty-one miles of underground
passages in the mine, these nearly level, to every
hundred feet.

The process of securing the mercury or quicksilver
is interesting. The miners, principally Mexicans, drill
and blast, and then the dirt is hammered out into
half -ton cars, which convey it to the surface. Thence
it is taken to the head of the mountain and from
there by gravity railway to a smelter where it is
burnt. No alloy is used here, the mercur}^, or rather
the cinnabar (sin-nah-bar), as the rock containing the
quicksilver is termed, being literally roasted. The
mercury then rises in fumes due to the heat, and these
fumes pass into the condensers and there }deld the
mercur}\ Good cinnabar will peld about thirty-six
ounces of mercury to the ton. From these furnaces,
the mercury is then poured into iron hand-made
flasks, through which the metal will not eat its
way, the flasks weighing about ninety-three pounds
when full.

Frequently in charging the furnaces with this ore,
the miners here become what is known as ''sahvated,"
that is, poisoned by the fumes. The poison causes
them to shake all over, and frequently the head
swells badly.

What will especially interest us at this mine unhke
any other we have seen, are the little troughs or gutters
leading every^where. From the furnaces in which the
crushed ore is hterally burnt, these gutters lead the
quicksilver into the troughs and thence it trickles,
little by little, from all parts of the works to a Uttle

178 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

locked room, reminding us of the torture chamber of
a Turkish prison. There it gathers for weighing,
botthng and sale.

From the mine we step into the Uttle mining
town close by, for luncheon in the company dining-
room. We meet here the town teacher, and we learn
with surprise and pleasure that he uses the very
Little Journeys one of which we are now making.

SANTA CLARA MISSION

We now Idave San Jose, and two miles farther north
stop off for a few hours to see all that is left of the Santa
Clara Mission, founded in January 1777. Almost the
entire church has disappeared, the few walls that re-
mained of the old structure a few years ago being used
in the construction of the new church that occupies the
old site. The old garden, also, still remains and here,
each day, the fathers may be seen walking back and
forth reciting their breviaries as they used to do in the
old days. Pictures of the time when the Indians
lived and worked here crowd upon the mind and our
hearts are filled with sadness as we remember that there
are scarcely any of these interesting mission Indians left.
A few miles farther on we reach the town of Palo
Alto — ^the tall tree — ^near which is the

LELAND STANFORD UNIVERSITY

At the depot there are innumerable vehicles of every
sort to convey students and others to the grounds.
We leave behind us the town of Palo Alto, and
ride through the trees to the great entrance ahead.

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND

179

It is an open gateway of yellow and white pillars set
on each side the road, on which is inscribed the
tale of how the estate was acquired by the Stanfords
in 1876 and how the university was founded nine
years afterward. The road then leads on, lined on
the right and left by rows of great date palms and

AN ONION SEED FIELD NEAR SAN JOSE, CALIF.

beyond these is a broad cement path for pedestrians
and bicyclers. Nearly all the students here have
bicycles, so we grow quite accustomed to the whirr
of passing wheels.

Ahead the great buildings rise Hke a dream city,
or some fantasy of Moorish construction, — first the
huge g}Tnnasium, with the glass cupola over its center,

180 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

then the museum and then other buildings. These are
all large and they are all harmonious in style. Be-
yond them are the homes of the different depart-
ments of chemistry and so forth, and beyond these
the new library. At the head of the avenue is a
great central grass-plot on which stands an alle-
gorical statue of Fame, behind which rises the
famous Memorial Arch. From this an ivy-covered
arcade leads to the main buildings. These are two
stories high on each side, the center building having
three stories.

Ahead and beyond the arch, we now enter the me-
morial court, a quadrangle of lawn divided by cement
walks and surrounded by arcades of stone. To the
rear, these arcades raise themselves into buildings
and beyond those in turn there rises the spire of the
Memorial Church. In the quad itself there is a palm,
and a bronze figure of an eagle on a rock, another
bronze group of four elephants supporting a howdahj
also an excellent group of three members of the
Stanford family. Behind all these appears the church,
with its magnificent colored mosaic pictures. At the
upper end of the arcade surrounding the court are
hung notices of football, of articles lost by students
and a time-table of the railway, announcements of
debates, and the like.

Crossing the quadrangle, we find ourselves in the
great gravel court, with a broad cement walk leading
down the center to the Memorial Church, made es-
pecially handsome by three great arches in Moorish
style. From this church, to right and left, extends
still another covered arcade, of a one-story building,

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND

181

and there is still another single-story structure at the
corner of the court. These comer buildings^ then, are
connected with the arcade by lateral buildings, each
with a tower at the center.

The church chiefly claims our attention. It is of
yellow stone, as are all the rest of the buildings. The

r-- ■ '

-—"

THE ARCH, STANFORD UNIVERSITY

roof and spire are red, the clock showing that the hour
is just 9 :15. This red spire harmonizes with the mosaic
on the front of the church, a picture of Christ among
his people. Below it are the stained windows and
then the legend : ^'Memorial Church. Erected
to the glory of God and in loving memory of my hus-
band, Leland Stanford.' ' While we stop to admire,

182

A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

we hear the chimes playing plaintively every quarter
of an hour. The center of one side of the quad which
is toward the church forms a gateway to it by three
great Moorish arches, and above them Love and
Taith and Hope and Charity are represented each in

a colored rdosaic
on a background
of yellow, and sep-
arated by a gay
floral pattern.
Love has two
children in her
arms, Faith has a
cross in the one
hand and a cup
aloft, and so on
with the rest. We
have not the time
for a long look
now, but in com-
pany with some
students, pass
into the church.
We note that com-
paratively few of
the Stanford stu-
dents are of the ' 'dressy" type; they are evidently here
for hard work, and not for show.

We enter the church through three great open-work
bronze doors, reminding us of the bronze doors we
saw in Washington. We step into a vestibule of
mosaic, where stairs rise up to disappear behind glass

A stude:nt at Stanford university

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND 183

casings. Just opposite the door is a wall of marble
with three sets of great oak double windows divided
one from the other by the walls, in which there is a
series of wreaths enclosing queer gilt patterns, with
wavy circles of blue and of white inside; the whole
effect is a most brilliant one. Over the entry, by
which we proceed into the church itself, another of
Mrs. Stanford's inscriptions is seen :

^'Whoever thou art that enterest this church, leave
it not without a prayer to God for thyself, for those
who minister, for those who worship, and for those
you love!"

The walls inside are of a greenish-yellow with three
magnificent stained-glass windows adding rich color
and each of these separated from the next by an
equally fine large mosaic of Biblical scenes. Beyond,
opens the great central dome of the church and beyond
that the altar, a mass of color, the whole reminding us
greatly of the Greek churches visited on our Balkan
Journey.

From the church we continue up the arcade, past
more of the ornate square buildings in which are the
class rooms of different departments. To the rear of
these other courts open with more buildings, so that
there is what seems an endless compound. Looking
in through the windows we see the chairs with one
arm flattened into a desk, that are used throughout.
One of us has a friend at Stanford, and we now proceed
to look him up, here among the class rooms.

In his company, then, we ramble over the grounds.
We have been fortunate in that our Little Journey
has brought us here on the last day of February,

184 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

which is the anniversary of Mrs. Stanford's deaths
when memorial exercises are held. So we see the
Stanford tomb, in one corner of the campus, opened.
Here members of the family are placing flowers.
Meantime we learn of the inner workings of Stanford.
It is desired to keep the number of students down
to two thousand, and of these, according to the charter,
not over five hundred can be girls. So the entrance
requirements are very strict. The faculty consists of
about a hundred members.

By this time we have reached the University Tavern,
where, as in Memorial Hall at Harvard, we dine with
the students. The meal costs us fifty cents, but the
students pay only a quarter for theirs. The tables are
simple; boys and girls sit round them with here and
there a professor.

We are led into the dormitory of the students, or
^^The Hall,'' as it is called, a building of long halls
on which open the rooms, decorated by the inmates
with all manner of curious things, — fish nets and
the like, — some of which even hang on the transoms.
Peeping into these rooms, we see Indian rugs, posters,
couches and ornaments. Then we hear of the customs
of Stanford, how all the juniors wear a high hat and
rough brown corduroy trousers, and on the first oc-
casion of their donning these, the seniors rush in and
try to crush the hats. The freshmen wear no distinc-
tive hat, but the sophomores appear in soft red ones^
the juniors in green, and the seniors in great sombreros.

Of course we visit the museum, where are gathered
the innumerable treasures brought by various mem-
bers of the Stanford family from all parts of the world.

186

A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

There is an especially fine collection of ancient Egyp-
tian relics, and of Venetian glass, besides some very in-
teresting mementoes of old mission days in California.
As we wish to attend the memorial service in the
church, we cannot stay as long as we would, so leave at
a quarter to four, early enough to give us a chance to

STANFORD UNIVERSITY

see the Stanford students en masse and meet some
of the more distinguished members of the faculty.
The chiming of the bells throughout the service is
particularly impressive. From the church, after it is
over, the students file to the tomb and there, hats off,
in the sun-down sing the plaintive ^'Hail, Stanford,
Hail.^^

Before we have half finished hearing of the joys and
sorrows of Stanford college Hfe, evening comes on
and we must return to Palo Alto, which is our start-
ing-point for San Francisco.

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND 187

THE CITY OF THE GO*LDEN GATE SAN FRANCISCO

The ride from Palo Alto occupies only an hour and a
half SO that we are soon in San Francisco. - On our
former visit the train circled around the city and gave
us an outlook over the ocean, but the grade was heavy
and considerable time was lost thereby, so the railroad
officials and engineers sought out a new way of entrance.
This could be had only by tunneling through the ranges
of hills that came down to the very edge of the bay on
its western side. So five large four-track-wide tunnels
were made, at a cost of many millions of dollars, and
now we circle arcund by the bay and reach the city
through the tunnels.

And what a wonderful city it is ! Wonderful in the
marv^elous way it is already built up after the earth-
quake and disastrous fire of 1906. This earthquake
occurred one early morning in April of that year. It
was a severe shock, which injured many buildings and
sacrificed some hves, but its damage could have been
repaired in a few days so that it would soon have been
forgotten, had it not been that fire broke out, and to
the great horror of the people and the fire department
it was found that they could not draw water from the
mains. A brief and speedy investigation revealed the
awful fact that the earthquake had shattered the
pipes apart, destroying some of them, and that the
precious fluid which would speedily have put out the
fire was running to waste where it could be of no benefit
to any one. To add to the terror it was found that the
Fire Chief was one of the comparatively small number
who had been killed. A heavy cornice was shaken
from the roof of the hotel in which he lived, and,

188

A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

crashing through the ceiUng of his bedroom, injured
him so that he died almost instantly. For three
terrible days and nights the fire raged. General Greeley
and the federal forces were called upon for help and
dynamite was used to blow up whole rows of houses in
the hope of thus arresting the progress of the fire.
Thousands of people were rendered homeless, and as

THE REFUGEES AFTER THE SAN FRANCISCO FIRE OF 1906 TENTING
IN GOLDEN GATE PARK

the fire spread, they hastily gathered together a few
of their belongings and dragged them to a place of
safety. A continuous procession was thus formed
moving stoUdly toward the western hills. Another
procession moved towards the ferries. Every con-
veyance that could be pressed into service was brought

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND 189

into requisition, and large sums were paid by people
who found their houses in the pathway of the flames,
and who sought to save what they could.

At last the further progress of the flames was stayed,
and though an area larger than that of the combined
areas of the Chicago, Boston and Baltimore fires was
completely burned over, a great sigh of thankfulness
went up to heaven that it was no worse.

Tents were put up in all the parks for the refugees
who remained in the city, while thousands were carried
by the railroads free of charge to outside towns where
they were hospitably housed and cared for. Many of
these tents remained for a year, before all the homeless
ones were properly cared for elsewhere.

No sooner was the news of the fire flashed over the
countr}^ than trainloads of food, bedding, clothing,
medicines and ever^^ kind of needful suppUes began to
pour into the city. Congress made a large appropria-
tion, and so did nearly every state legislature in the
Union, and cities vied with each other as to which
should do the most and in the kindest and best way to
help the stricken city by the Pacific. It was such a
wonderful exhibition of lo\ing SAinpathy and generous
helpfulness as the world had never before seen.

One interesting and curious feature seen long after
the fire was the outdoor cooking kitchens that were
estabhshed on the streets in front of almost every
house. The earthquake had shaken down most of the
chimneys, cracked the walls of many, and also shaken
apart many of the gas mains. It was not possible,
therefore, to use gas until the mains had all been in-
spected and repaired ; nor was it safe to allow fires to

190 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

be built where chimneys might be cracked and thus
allow the buildings to catch fire.

Armies of men were at work on the gas and water
mains; every man that could handle a trowel and
bricks and mortar was engaged in repairing shattered
and cracked walls and chimneys, but work they all
faster than men ever worked before, it was necessarily
a long time before the inspectors declared it safe to
build fires. Hence, during all this time, all cooking
had to be done out of doors. The quaintest, queerest,
cutest, funniest, strangest little houses were built on
the streets, for all the world like play houses, and here
eveiy day, and three times a day, mamas and papas^
cooks and Chinamen, negroes and Japanese, cooked the
meals for the families. Sometimes the people ate on
the streets, and the remarkable thing was that never
before in the history of the city was there so Uttle
sickness as during these long weeks when all the cook-
ing and much of the eating was done out of doors.

The ashes of the fire were not yet cool before meet-
ings were held to plan for rebuilding the city. Organi-
zations were formed and plans perfected for a new San
Francisco. Immediate steps were taken for rebuilding
the burnt district on these plans, and now all traces of
the disaster of 1906 have been removed. In place of
the old buildings there has arisen a new business
district, covered with magnificent structures of steel
and stone, constructed after the most improved models.

San Francisco is one of the most up-to-date and pro-
gressive cities in the world, and as we travel her streets
and behold the wondrous changes that have been
wrought, we shall not fail to admire this remarkable

OUK WESTERN WONDERLAND

191

¥, J

' AND NAPA VALLEY

,. CELLO STEAMSniPlO

REPRODUCED BY KIND PERMISSION. MONTICELLO STEAMSHIP CO.
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIF.

192 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

example of pluck, courage and energy which character-
ize the American people.

THE LOCATION OF SAN FRANCISCO

Before we start out let us study the map and see the
exact location of San Francisco in reference to the
Pacific Ocean and to the Bay, as well as to the neigh-
boring cities. On another page is a beautiful relief
map of the Monticello Steam Ship Company (which by
their kind permission we are allowed to reproduce).
The point of land at the bottom of the map is the end
of the peninsula on which we rode coming in from Palo
Alto, and we reached the city not far from the docks,
almost in a line with the letter ^^S'^ in the word '^San^'
written near the inscription ^ ^Hunters Point.'' The
map shows that the residences of San Francisco now
occupy almost the whole of the end of the peninsula.
The tiny settlement that existed in 1848, when gold
was discovered in California, occupied only a small
area, a little to the left of the Clay Street Pier, and
ahnost opposite Yerba Buena Island. In those days
it was called Yerba Buena. The Mission of San
Francisco was located farther inland, and the only
way to reach it was by following a winding trail which
led through and over the sand-hills that no one at that
time ever dreamed would be covered by the streets of
an active, busy and progressive city. Owing to the
fact that all travelers who had visited this region spoke
of San Francisco, the Alcalde, or Justice of the Peace^
of Yerba Buena, Washington Bartlett, issued a procla-
mation in 1848, declaring the name to be changed to
San Francisco, and as such it has ever since been

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND 193

known. Many thousands of people all over the world
believe that San Francisco is built on the Pacific
Ocean. To a certain extent this is true since the city
has grown across from the Bay side to the Ocean side
of the peninsula. But the real city, the business heart
of it, is on the Bay side, beginning at the Water Front,
where the piers and docks are marked, and extending
for a number of blocks to the West and South. All
the rest may be called the residence sections of San
Francisco.

THE NEIGHBORING CITIES OF SAN FRANCISCO

It WILL be seen that the waters of the Pacific flow into
the Bay of San Francisco through the Golden Gate.
Just across the Bay is the little town of Sausahto
which is reached by ferry, from which point we take
the electric railway to Mount Tamalpais, the most
crooked railway in the world. A httle to the North-
east of Mount Tamalpais is San Rafael where another
of the Missions was estabhshed in 1817, and still
further to the North is Sonoma, where the last and
most northerly of the twenty-one Missions was estab-
lished on July 4th, 1823. A Uttle to the Northwest of
Sonoma is Santa Rosa, the home of Luther Burbank,
whose wonderful achievements in the improvement of
plants and flowers have made him world-famed. A
few miles above Santa Rosa is Blount St. Helena, so
named by the Russians when they occupied this part
of the country. From this it will be seen that the
Russians at one time came down from Alaska to a point
not very far from San Francisco, and the ^lission of
Sonoma, together with a small fortress, was estabhshed.

194 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

for the purpose of holding them in check and prevent-
ing their obtaining too strong a foot-hold in California.
Indeed, the historians tell us that it is very probable
that had not the Franciscan Missions been established
when they were, California today would be a Russian
possession. Would it not be strange to hear the pecu-
liar Russian names instead of the sweet Spanish ones
^nd those of our own tongue? Across the Bay to the
East from San Francisco lie the three cities of Alameda,
Oakland and Berkeley. The four long wharves that
^re seen reaching out from Alameda, Oakland and
Berkeley are piers built out into the Bay on which
passenger and freight trains run, discharging their
loads of human beings and freight to be taken across
the Bay in ferry-boats, which ply back and forth, like
the shuttles of a weaver^s loom, without ceasing day
^nd night.

THE OAKLAND MOLE

From the Oakland pier, the second from the top,
the overland trains that run across the continent to
the East are made up, so that when passengers leave
8!an Francisco, they really do not take their train in
that city, but have to be conveyed by ferry to the Oak-
land pier, where the train awaits them. This reminds
us of the way many of the trains leave New York. It
will be remembered that we have to take ferry in like
fashion across to Jersey City.

This big Oakland pier is always known on the
Pacific coast as the Oakland Mole. The Mole is a
pier, but far more solidly built, and at the same time
so arranged as to help form a harbor for vessels, or a

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND 195

protection for the city. It has been very interesting^
to watch the growth of the Oakland ^lole, as the popula-
tion of San Francisco and neighboring cities has in-
creased. When we first visited San Francisco many
years ago, this Mole was but a single pier, built on
ordinar}^ piles, around and about which immense masses
of rock had been dumped to keep it secure. Little by
Uttle this pier was broadened to allow for more tracks
and a larger ierry building, and at last a new pier was
built, parallel with the old one, but several hundred
feet distant. These two piers were connected at the
extreme end so that the space between them was en-
closed. It now became the work of the Railroad Com-
pany to fill in this area between the piers and drive
out the waters of the Bay. This was accomphshed in
a fashion as easy and simple as it was- interesting. It
was desired to deepen the water on the outside of the
piers, so the railroad brought here a suction dredge,
by means of which the earth at the bottom of the Bay
was stirred up into the water and then sucked up
through a large tube and discharged into the space
between the piers. In a short time the mud settled to
the bottom and the water ran off. With a rapidity
that is startling to those who are not familiar with
such work, the whole space was filled and now ten or
more trains can run abreast on the Oakland ]\Iole, for
it has thus been made a soUd pier connecting the ferry
sUp with the main land.

THE OLD SAN FRANCISCO AND THE NEW

Before we start on our fit tie journey through the city,,
let us take one more look at the map, for it will enable

196

A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

US to understand a little better what we are going to
see. It will be observed that there is a street that
runs obhquely from the terminal letter '^o" in the
word 'Trancisco'^ up to near the Clay Street Pier. This
is the main business thoroughfare of San Francisco
and is called Market Street. As late as the year 1850.

A GLIMPSE DOWN MARKET ST., SAN FRANCISCO, CAL

the site of this street was one vast high ridge of sand.
In order to make building possible, a steam shovel was
imported from the East and this ridge was shoveled
into, trains of cars which dumped the sand into the

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND

197

Bay. There were numberless other sand hills and
ridges which covered the present site of San Francisco
and these were treated in the same fashion until what
is now Market Street was extended into the Bay for
fully a mile, with a corresponding increase of dry land
both north and south of it. This ^^made-land^' is now
all densely built over with great stores, warehouses and
other buildings.

The lay of the streets of San Francisco have always
been confusing to a stranger, yet when once the
method by which they are laid out is understood, their
arrangement is seen to be verv^ simple. The map
shows the obhque angle of ^larket Street. South of
Market the streets run almost at right angles; north
of ^larket they run thus :

As the streets south of Market do not exactly cor-
respond to the streets north of Market, and the angle
is slightly different, this seems to add somewhat to the

198 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

confusion. Market Street is one of the noted streets
of the world. It is a hundred and twenty feet wide
and reaches from the Ferry Building (which is always
locally spoken of as ^Toot of Market") to Lone Moun-
tain, a distance of several miles.

The San Francisco of 1840 had a population of three
hundred. In 1848 and 1849 it speedily increased to
fifty thousand and more. In 1910 the population was
416,912, making it the tenth city in size in the United
States. In 1920 the number of inhabitants increased
to more than 500,000.

PUBLIC BUILDINGS

As we saunter along the streets our attention is
directed to many magnificent buildings. But we were
probably first impressed with the Union Ferry Building,
with its long extent on the water front and great tower
and clock. Within is an extensive exhibit of the agri-
cultural and mining resources of the State. The Federal
Building and Mint will also interest us, as will many
business blocks and banks.

In addition to these San Francisco has three hotels,
which, because of their size and palatial equipment, have
gained a world-wide reputation, and we must visit
them on our trip. They are the Palace, on Market
street; the Fairmont, on Nob Hill, and the Saint Francis
on Union Square.

Union Square, which this hotel overlooks, is one of the
smaller parks of the city. In it is located the beautiful
and graceful Dewey Monument, surrounded by a green
lawn and many waving palms.

A WALK DOWN MARKET STREET

Though we are located in the Palace Hotel, we decide

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND

199

to take our morning meal outside. So we patronize one
of the vegetarian cafes for our breakfast, where a regu-
lation twenty-cent meal is served, — stewed fruit, mush
and milk, two eggs, bread, butter and coffee. In the

DEWKY .Mr)XrMEXT IX UXTON SQUARE. AXD ST. FRANCIS HOTEL.
SAX FRAXCISCO. CAI.IF.

candy stores there are specialties of California candied
fruits in boxes, with pictures of the missions burnt into
their covers.

Cars jangle b}^ in long trains, and we note how cos-
mopolitan are the crowds. In the stores we observe
constantly local customs. All fowl save chicken, for
instance, are suspended by the feet with the heads
wrapped in browTi paper. Japanese stores are numerous,
and in all of these the three apes, signifying ^^hear
no evil, speak no evil, think no evil,'' are sold. We
are attracted by some very beautiful ivories here.

200 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

Off on a side street is the handsome square white stone
Post Office, and farther on, to the right, is the Pioneer
monument built by James Lick, behind which is the
Hall of Records. Just in front of this used to be the
City Hall, a picture of whose famous dome appears so
often in the school geographies.

Violets are hawked along the walks and there are
many buyers. In the drygoods stores there are post
office sub-stations. Phonographs accompany the bio-
graphs in the penny parlors. In the novelty shops
there are dressed fleas for sale. And m other shops
there are the endless souvenir postals.

Not far from the Palace Hotel is the Chronicle
Building, erected by the proprietor of one of the San
Francisco newspapers. Across the street used to be
the Examiner building. It is now rebuilt. A few
steps farther along is the Call building, one of the noted
steel-frame structures that stood through the fire,
though all its interior equipment was destroyed.
There are many large and fine buildings all the way
along up Market Street.

After walking about two miles we reach Van Ness
Boulevard, which was once one of the most fashionable
streets. It extends from Market Street to the North
Beach of the Bay, overlooking the passage of the
Golden Gate. It is one hundred and twenty-five feet
wide, and no heavy teams or street cars are allowed
upon it. But the fire reached up to its eastern edge,
and many of its fine mansions were blown up with
dynamite to help arrest the flames. After the fire
Van Ness Boulevard and Fillmore Street became the
chief business streets of the city and not until early in

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND 201

1910 did they begin to return to their former more
quiet condition.

By and b}^ we are in the section of the cemeteries
— Calvary the first, east of Lone Mountain. Four
graveyards in all surround this mount, and Laurel
Hill, where many of the forty-niners he, is the next
of these to come in sight. On the mountain-top there
is a great white cross to recall the Spanish mission-
aries. This is a landmark seen from all over the city.
San Francisco's Children's Hospital stands out here
and here twenty-five thousand volunteers of the Span-
ish War had their Camp Merritt.

Here, too, in the upper part of town is the south
boundary of the Presidio (Pre-sid'-e-oh), Uncle Sam's
greatest militar}^ reserve. It contains fifteen thousand
acres. Near by stands a five-hundred-thousand-dollar
home for the aged conducted by the Little Sisters of
the Poor.

THE REAL GOLDEN GATE

We have been going toward the Golden Gate and if
we had gone by car we should have been told how the
Gate is really three miles long, connecting the Pacific
with the Bay of San Francisco. It is five miles wide
in places, though just a mile at the inner entry. The
points are strongly fortified and as the channel is
from twenty-one to sixty-three fathoms deep and
the tide rises eight feet, ships can come through easily.
On the opposite side of the bay we see the hills of
Marine (Ma-reen) County and distant Mt. Tamalpais
(Tam-al-pie-iss), up which we shall go on the crooked-
est railway in the world, two himdred and eighty-one

202 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

curves in an eight-mile ride and a grade of seven per
cent in places.

San Francisco Bay, we learn furthermore, runs
inland for sixty miles, having a shore line of about
one thousand miles, making it the greatest land-
locked harbor in the world. All the navies of the
earth could be harbored here. The Gate was named

THE GOLDEN GATE, LEADING FROM SAN FRANCISCO BAY INTO
THE PACIFIC OCEAN

by Fremont in 1846, for the fertile country all about
and not as a gate of gold, as some might suppose.

We pass the old Italian cemetery hidden by spnice
hedges, and then the great vacant space held for a
mihtary reserve, to where on the right the Golden
Gate extends. We see the two forts on the points a
mile apart, then the green land-locked harbor, and

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND

one great sail coming in. Opposite is Alcatraz (Al-
ka-trass) the military prison island and then again
we note a light -house in the water, another sail and a
skiff. We are high up over the Gate here and as we
look at the scene with an eye to its beauty only we
also recall the sad wreck of the Rio Janeiro, a few
years ago. She went down close by with a hundred
and eighty passengers aboard. Ahead, where some
men are fishing on the rocks, is the great open Pacific.
And there, just sailing toward Cathay, a great four-
master passes out to sea.

High above the water we go to its very edge, just
opposite a point which juts out very much as does
Gibraltar. Then the entire Golden Gate comes into
view, and ahead the Chff House and the famous Sutro
(Soo'tro) Baths. The Seal Rocks, with the seals bask-
ing, small and yellow, on the boulders, are also in
sight. The Cliff House we find to be a grey stnicture
resembling some of the old Scandinavian legendary
castles, and is* set in a colony of amusement resorts.

This is the third building that has occupied this site,
the others having been destroyed by fire. In the
earlier years of San Francisco this was the chief pleas-
ure resort of the wealthy, for the drive was long enough
to be agreeable and excellent meals were serv^ed here.

Below the CUff House and away to the south stretches
the sandy beach where thousands come daily, and
especially on Sundays, to enjoy the ocean and its
roaring surf. A grand boulevard, fit for automobiles
has been made, which circles around into the heart of
the city so that all classes now enjoy the Pacific to the
full.

204 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

Golden Gate Park, with the Dutch windmill and
the beach and the sand dunes (which covered the

THE CLIFF HOUSE AND SEAL ROCKS, SAN FRANCISCO, CALIF.

entire site of the park only twenty-five years ago),
also unfolds to our view.

GOLDEN GATE PARK

This park is the second greatest in the country, being
exceeded in area only by Faimiount Park in Phila-
delphia, and in Europe only by the Bois du Boulogne.
It extends three and a half miles in one direction and
a mile in the other, embracing seventeen hundred
acres in all. Thirty-five years ago it was one barren
waste of sand hills. Seven per cent of the city's taxes
have been devoted to its maintenance, and already
over thirty miUions have been spent on it.

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND 205

Here are monuments to the mart>Tea McKinley,
Francis Scott Key, who wrote the Star Spangled
Banner, Thomas Starr Kmg, the eloquent and patriotic
minister who helped ^^save CaUfomia to the Union,"
and raised by his lectures and appeals over a milHon
dollars for the ''Sanitary^ Fund'' — used to help the
wounded soldiers during the Civil War — Juniper©
Serra, the pioneer Franciscan Missionar}", who really
began the ci\dnzation of Cahfomia, and others. There
is also a grand band stand, with seats for ten thousand
people, for San Franciscans love to come out on Satur-
day afternoons, Sundaj^s and hohdays to hear the ex-
cellent music provided by the miUtary and other bands.

Near by is the museum, built in the style of an
Eg>^tian Temple. This structure was allowed to re-
main after the California Mid-Winter Exposition, a
great World's Fair that was held some years ago to
show the wonderful winter resources of this growing
'^Land of the Sun-Down Sea" — as it has been poetically
called. In the museum are many distinctively western
objects of interest, art and nature, among then a fiiie
collection of Indian Baskets, showing how artistic and
skillful our native Indians were in this most primitive
and useful of arts.

Winter and summer alike the park is crowded; the
lawns and trees are always green; there is practically
no snow, and while rains occur during the winter — or
so-called rainy season — there is far less rain during this
period than falls in any Eastern City all the time.

Following the car line now, we strike back again
toward the heart of San Francisco.

206 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

THE CLIMATE OF SAN FRANCISCO

We are interested in the climate, which has been
largely responsible for the rapid growth of San Fran-
cisco. The average temperature here is 56, so that
people can wear the same weight of clothing the year
round. Generally, wraps are carried, and the overcoat
i^ as much in evidence in July as in January. As in
other parts of California there are two seasons, the rainy
and the dry ; the rainy season begins in November and
extends well on into March or April, although there
are occasional showers even in June, when the actual
dry season begins. In 1905 there were just one
hundred and ninety-five dry days. Many times in
the so-called wet season the city goes two or three
weeks without rain, and has sun all the time. As
for snow, the last time that it was seen was on March
3, 1896, and then there was little of it.

THE zoo AND AVIARY IN THE PARK

Before leaving Golden Gate Park, however, we must
visit the Zoo. Here are many strange animals, birds^
and reptiles, many of which are native to the western
mountains and deserts. We are especially interested
in the monster grizzly bears, and in the herd of buf-
faloes, those monarchs of the plains that used to roam
over the prairies of our middle west in such large num-
bers, but are now entirely extinct, except for a few
such groups as those found here.

The aviary is a monster cage where hundreds or
thousands of birds can be confined, and yet enjoy all
the freedom of the fresh air and bright sunshine, bub-
bling fountains and a thousand and one trees, shrubs.

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND 207

plants and flowers. It is a bower of beauty and song^
and we could spend days here in watching the dainty^
beautiful and gorgeously feathered little creatures and
listening to their exquisite songs.

THE PRESIDIO RESERVATION

The word presidio is Spanish for fort, and this was the
old fortress, estabUshed by the Spaniards on the 17th
of September, 1776, the very day that Lord Howe, of
the British Army, was rejoicing in the City of New
York at the thought that he was soon going to con-
quer the American revolutionists. But he was dis-
appointed as we all know. We must not forget that
it was the estabUshment of this presidio and, later of
the Mission of San Francisco that gave the name to
the great city we are now visiting, for had there been
no such presidio and mission there is Uttle doubt but
that the old name of Yerba Buena would have been
retained.

After the fire many tents were erected on the pre-
sidio reserv^ation for the refugees. It is now occupied
by the officers and soldiers of the United States. Our
government has owned it since 1847.

The hills above the presidio are such fine sites for
elegant homes, on account of the outlook over the
park-Hke reserv^ation, the Golden Gate, the hills of
Marin County, and the great Pacific, that some of the
finest residences of San Francisco are to be found there,

CHINATOWN

San Francisco's Chinatown is not far from the pala-
tial Fairmont Hotel. It occupies some twelve or
fourteen complete blocks, on the same site it held

208 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

before the fire, but every building is new and modem.
There are some wonderfully fine stores, where hundreds
of thousands of dollars worth of exquisite art treas-
urers from China and Japan are on exhibition and no
one thinks of going to San Francisco without visiting
these stores.

The Joss-Houses, theatres, Chinese newspaper offices,
restaurants, and the fine buildings of the Seven Com-
panies— a powerful organization of Chinese merchants
— have all been rebuilt, and Chinatown is as gay, as
active, as resplendent in tinsel and show as ever. Let
us enter one of the joss-houses. A ^^joss'^ is a famil}'
of Chinese coming from the same place, so each jost:
has its own house where its members go to worship.
There we see the great idol, smell the incense and see
the gay altars before which tinfoil money is burnt to
deceive the god, and then step out on the balcony
in the front of the main court. Varnished are the
mural decorations depicting earth and sea and sky, all
painted and carved and gilded, below them altars show-
ing China divided into four parts, before which the
Chinamen -bow their heads three times on the mat-
ting while gongs are beaten thrice to attract the
god's attention. Here in the joss-house all manner
of curious customs are observable. Rice and grain
are placed before the joss, that the spirit may eat their
spiritual essence. Another custom is to clap two
sticks together and then throw them on the ground;
if both fall right side up, it means good luck; if both
fall face down bad luck is foretold, and if one falls each
way the fortune is fairly good.

The joss-keeper has also a book of fortunes, — ^num-

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND 209

bers on the ends of little sticks, which are shaken from
a bag until one stick protrudes farther than the rest,
when you look up the number it bears in the fortime
book and see your fate.

SAN FRANCISCO STREET CARS

The original site of San Francisco was much more
hilly than the city is today. Hundreds of milHons 'of
tons of sand, earth and rock have been removed and
cast into the Bay. Yet it is still a city of hills. The
chief hills are named Telegraph Hill— from the top of
which the lookout used to watch for the approach of
vessels and then telegraph their arrival to the offices in
the city below — Russian Hill, and Nob Hill. All are
largely covered with residences.

To reach these it was imperative that some easy and
rapid means of conveyance be found. Electric cars
were not invented in 1873, at which time Mr. A. Hall-
idie, of San Francisco, invented, perfected and set in
motion the first street cable cars ever operated. At
the time of the fire there were two hundred and sixty-
four miles of street railway in San Francisco, eighty
one miles of which were cable. To-day the cable cars
have disappeared altogether, and there are between
350 and 400 miles of electric lines, operated in two
systems: the Municipal Street Railwa}^, owned by the
city, and the United Railways, owned by a private
company. The fare on both lines is five cents, with
universal free transfers, which allow patrons to go
from one part of the city to any other part T\dthout
extra charge. The municipal line is especially effi-
cient and well-managed, paying its employes a higher

210 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

rate of wages. than the private line and still operating
at a profit. An interesting feature of the municipal
line is the Twin Peaks tunnel, 23^ miles long, which
shortens the distance from the west side downtown.

THE OLD MISSION

When the presidio was established in 1776, on Sep-
tember 17, preparations were well forwarded for the
founding of the Mission, and on October 9, Padre
Palou read the mass of^ dedication. The old adobe
building, with its peculiar two-storied column-faced
front still stands, though a modem brick church close
by fell as the result of the earthquake and fire. This is
one of the interesting spots to visit and no stranger in
San Francisco should neglect it. To see the old altar,
with the figures of saints and archangels, and the var-
ious objects used by the devoted padres in their en-
deavors to Christianize and civilize the native Indians
always prove sources of great instruction and profit.
As the Mission was built close to a little lake called
Laguna Dolores (The Lake of Our Lady of Sorrows),
the Mission soon came to be called the Mission Dolores
(Doe-lo'-rays), though it is dedicated to Saint Francis,
the founder of the Franciscan order.

A ride on SAN FRANCISCO BAY

Before we say Good Bye to the region of San Francisco
we must take a ride on its spacious and wonderful Bay,
How we wish all our readers could have been present
as we were to see the Atlantic fleet and the Pacific
fleet of the United States battleships, crusiers and
torpedo boats sail into the Bay, through the Golden
Gate, one Februar}^ maroing a few years ago. Hun-

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND 211

dreds of thousands of people lined the shores and
cUmbed to the hills on both sides of the Golden Gate,
and it was a sight never to be forgotten.

The area of San Francisco Bay proper is two hundred
and ninety square miles; the area of San Pablo Bay,
Carquinez Straits, and Mare Island, thirty square
niiles ; the area of Suisun Bay, to the confluence of the
San Joaquin and Sacramento Rivers, is sixty-three
square miles. The total bay area is therefore four
hundred and eighty square miles ; and there are him-
dreds of miles of slough, river, and creek.

Though the waters are by no means smooth and easy
to navigate, for fierce winds often blow through the
narrow pathway of the Golden Gate, and vexing cross-
currents distress the unwary and unskilled boatman,
sportsmen fully enjoy yachting on the Bay. One may
sail a yacht from Alviso, at the southern end of the
bay, in one general direction one hundred and fifty-
four miles to Sacramento, before turning, and all of
this is in inland waters.

Going south on the western side of the bay from the
city, we see the great wharves, the Sugar Refinery and
the Union Iron Works, where the battleships Oregon,
01>Tiipia, Ohio, Monterey, California and South Dakota
were built. Then we see China Basin, which received
its name from its being the rendezvous of the Chinese
fishing boats. It is now being filled up for wharves
and railway f aciUties for the Santa Fe, and other great
railroad systems.

South San Francisco is the location of the slaughter-
houses and packing-houses of San Francisco, and in the
distance we can see, as we go farther south, the hills

212 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

behind the Leland Stanford Jr., University, the New
Jesuit College, which is being moved from Santa Clara,
and at last San Jose. Circling now at the south end
of the bay we turn and go up on the eastern side,
passing on the foothills in the distance the old Mission
San Jose, and as we approach nearer to Alameda, the
hill where Joaquin Miller, the poet of the Sierras, has
his home. He it was who wrote, that grand poem that
every school boy and girl should know how to recite :

COLUMBUS

Behind him lay the gray Azores,

Behind the gates of Hercules ;
Before him not the ghost of shores,

Before him only shoreless seas.
The good mate said : "Now must we pray,

For lo! the very stars are gone.
Brave Admiral, speak! What shall I say?

*'Why say, 'Sail on! sail on! sail on!"

•"My men grew mutinous day by day,

My men grew ghastly wan and weak."
The stout mate thought of home; a spray

Of salt wave washed his swarthy cheek.
^'What shall I say, brave Admiral, say.

If we sight naught but seas at dawn?"
"Why, you shall say at break of day,

'Sail on! sail on! sail on! and on!'"

They sailed and sailed, as winds might blow.

Until at last the blanched mate said:
"Why, now, not even God would know

Should I and all my men fall dead.
These very winds forget their way,

For God from these dread seas is gone.
Now speak, brave Admjral, speak and say" —

He >aid: "Sail on! sail on! and on!"

They sailed — they sailed. Then spake the mate;

"This mad sea shows his teeth to-night.
He curls his lip, he lies in wait

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND 213

With lifted teeth as if to bite!
Brave Admiral, say but one good word:

What shall we do when hope is gone?"
The words leapt like a leaping sword:

•'Sail on! sail on! sail on! and on!"

Then, pale and worn, he kept his deck.

And peered through darkness. Ah, that night
Of all dark nights! And then a speck —

A light! a light? a Ught! a light!
It grew; a starlit flag unfurled!

It grew to be Time's burst of dawn.
He gained a world; he gave that world

Its grandest lesson: "On! sail on!"

Oakland is one of the largest cities in California,
being the third in size after San Francisco, Los Angeles
being the first. Here lived Edwin Markham, the
author of another great and world-famous poem, ^The
Man with the Hoe," which was written here. Farther
aroimd to the east lies Berkeley, the location of the
state University of California, and where Joseph Le
Coute, the great geologist used to live. Then we see the
Hercules Powder Works, and finally arrive at Mare
Island, where the Government Arsenal is located.
We pass Benicia, Vallejo and come back to Yerba
Buena Island where the Naval Training School is
estabUshed, and Angel Island on which is the quaran-
tine station. Beyond, on the mainland of the north
shore is San Quentin, one of the State Penitentiaries of
California, and then the beautiful towns of San Rafael^
Tiburon and SausaUto. In the Uttle bays that indent
the north shore one may always see mmibers of house-
boats where people from the city come, especially
during the summer time, and hve, thus enjoying an
unique experience of actual life on the Ocean, within
sight of their homes on land.

214 OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND

We have not half exhausted all the sights either of
San Francisco proper, or of its neighborhood, but our
book is already larger than it ought to be, so reluc-
tantly we are compelled to bring its pages to a close
and thus end our interesting ^'Little Journeys to Our
Western Wonderland^' with the sincere hope that,
someday, every one of our readers may make the trip
for himself and thus personally enjoy all we have at-
tempted to describe.

The Panama- Pacific International Exposition

ORIGIN

The Panama-Pacific International Exposition held in
San Francisco in 1915, was authorized b}^ the Congress
of the United States as a fitting celebration of the com-
pletion of the Panama Canal. The funds were pro-
vided partly by the United States Government, partly
by the State of California, partly by the city and county
of San Francisco, and partly by private subscription.
The entire expense approximated $50,000,000. San
Francisco was selected as the exposition city, and both
the city and the State of Cahfornia discharged faith-
fully and well the responsibility wath which they were
intrusted by the National Government.

LOCATION

Harbor View, extending for over two miles along the
south shore of San Francisco Bay and just within the
Golden Gate, was selected as the site for the exposition.

^^Xo more picturesque location, nor one more appro-'
priate to the celebration of a great maritime event,
could be imagined. On the south, east and west the
grounds are encircled by towering hills, rising success-
ively from 250 to 900 feet above sea level, as the enfold-
ing walls of a vast amphitheatre.'^

Upon this ideal spot the exposition authorities pro-
ceeded to create a suitable home for the celebration of
one of the greatest events in the history of the world,

215

216 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

This was the fourth international exposition that had
been held in the United States and the twelfth in the
world, and the management felt that this exposition
must excel in size, magnificence and beauty all that had
preceded it. Their task was, indeed, no light one; but
the great leaders of the enterprise were in every way
equal to the responsibility.

They assembled the most noted architects, landscape
gardeners, sculptors and decorators of the world, and
these men brought their genius, skill and broad exper-
ience to bear upon the problem. The result was the
exposition grounds as they appeared on the opening
day, February 20, 1915.

GENERAL PLAN

The exposition grounds had an area of 635 acres and
extend eastward from Fort Point, which marks the
southern boundary of the Golden Gate, for a distance
of two miles. A narrow strip of 65 acres extends still
farther eastward, but it is separated from the harbor
by the mihtary post. Fort Mason. The greatest width
of the grounds is a little over a half a mile. The narrow
strip on the east was devoted to the amusement con-
cessions. The exposition buildings were set in three
groups, the twelve exposition palaces occupying the
center of the site. On the west, and nearest the Golden
Gate, were located the pavilions of foreign nations and
of the various states. Beyond these was the section
set apart for the livestock exhibit, and the great athletic
field, with its ball ground, tennis courts and race track,
occupied the extreme western part of the grounds.

The main exhibition palaces were set back about 350

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND 217

feet from the water^s edge, giving a space for a marine
promenade. This was named the ''Marina/' and upon
it was lavished all the skill of the landscape architect.
Myrtle, cypress, eucal^^ptus and other trees and great
beds of flowers were so placed as to form the most
effective contrast with the lofty colonnades of the great
palaces. The Marina was likewise an ideal spot from
which to view the many water carnivals that took place
during the exposition.

THE BUILDINGS

The eight palaces forming the center group of build-
ings were arranged in the form of a rectangle, four
facing the water front and four, the hills of the city.
The walls of these buildings were connected, forming an
outside wall which was unbroken, except by a series of
great archways and entrances giving access to the
buildings and courts. The buildings in this group com-
prised the palaces of Education, Varied Industries,
Manufacturers, Mines and Metallurgy, Liberal Arts,
Transportation, Agriculture and Food Products.

Seen from a distance, this group of buildings had the
appearance of "sl great Oriental city with flashing domes
and glimpses of briUiant, riotous colors. '^ A closer
view, however, showed them to be divided from north
to south by three great courts and their approaches —
the Court of the Universe, in the center; the Court of
Abundance, dividing the group upon the east, and the
great west court, kno\Mi as the Court of Four Seasons.
This central group of buildings and these courts con-
tained the richest treasures of the exposition in archi-
tecture, sculpture, harmony and color.

218

A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

Flanking this walled city on the east was the Palace
of Machinery, the largest single structure of the expo-
sition, and the Palace of Fine Arts flanked the group
on the west.

THE COURTS

The Court of the Universe was the great central court
of honor. Its dimensions were 700 by 900 feet. In
design and decoration it was made to represent the

ARCH OF THE RISING SUN. COURT OP THE UNIVERSE

meeting place of the hemispheres- In the center was a
sunken garden capable of seating 7,000 people. At the
northern end was a great lagoon, ornamented with
statues and fountains. Two great arches, the Arch of
the Rising Sun and the Arch of the Setting Sun, formed
respectively, the eastern and western entrances. Sur-

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND 219

mounting the Arch of the Rising Sun was a group of
statuary, 'The Nations of the East/' typical of the
Orient and representing the Far East; over that of the
Setting Sun was a similar group, 'The Nations of the
West/' ''In this group was shown the pioneers of all
races who have settled the western part of the American
continents from Alaska to the southern extremity of
South America.''

On the south the court was dominated by the great
Tower of Jewels, 435 feet high and surmounted by an
enormous globe, typifying the world. The shaft of this
tower was in the form of a pyramid, and it arose in lofty
terraces from a base 125 feet square, through which was
cut an archway 125 feet high. This tower was the most
striking feature of the exposition. It took its name
from over 100,000 hand-cut glass "jewels" or prisms
resembhng great diamonds, rubies and emeralds, and
so hung that the slightest breeze imparted a tremiulous
motion to them, "causing them to flash and change and
scintillate in a thousand different tints and colors."
The light thrown upon this tower at night produced a
remarkably brilliant effect.

The Court of Abundance was the east central court
and one of the most striking sections of the exposition.
The design of this court had for its purpose the showing
of the earth in its various stages of formation from the
dawn of creation to the present geological age. The
striking features embodied in this design held the visitor
spellbound.

The Court of the Four Seasons upon the west is said
to have been patterned after one of the historic Roman
palaces, Hadrian's Villa. It was surrounded by a

220

A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

beautiful colonnade, and in each of the four corners
were groups of statuary representing the four seasons.
This court was considered one of the most beautiful
sections of the exposition.

THE PALACE OF HORTICULTURE

THE STATUARY

Over 250 groups and hundreds of individual pieces
of statuary were used in decorating the buildings and
grounds. This statuary was of two classes — that which
symbolized certain ideals as '^Victory/' ' 'Abundance' '
and 'The Seasons/' and that which illustrated historic
events, such as 'Tizzaro," ''Cortez'' and 'The End of
the Trail/' Many of the groups and single pieces as
well were of large size, and no description can convey

OUR WESTERN WONDERLAND 221

an adequate idea of the impression made upon the
visitors by these remarkable works of art. They con-
stituted one of the strongest features of the exposition.

THE COLOR SCHEME

The color scheme formed the most striking distinc-
tion of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition,
and distinguished it from all its predecessors. The walls
of the buildings were covered with a mortar that re-
sembled cement. This was colored to represent traver-
tine rock, and had the appearance of smoked ivory,
giving a soft, cold gray for the prevailing color. Green,
blue, red, orange and their various combinations were
chosen for ornamental effects. The roofs of the palaces
were a reddish pink, the domes were green, and the
recesses in the towers were gold and blue. WHien seen
from the surrounding hills, the general effect was that
of "si giant Persian rug of soft, melting tones.'' It was
'^a poem of color that made words of description seem
du'mb and meaningless.''

The entire color scheme was carefully worked out by
M. Jules Guerin, who spent several years on the plan.

THE MURAL DECORATIONS

The mural decorations or paintings upon the walls
were of the highest order of excellence. Like the
statuary, they were of two classes — those representing
historic scenes and those that were idealistic and
mythological. Many of these paintings were remark-
ably impressive, like those decorating the Arch of the
Setting Sun. On one side was ^The Arrival on the
Pacific Coast," a pageant containing portraits of Father

222 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO

Serra, Bret Harte, William Keith and a number of other
early CaUfornians. Upon the opposite side was another
painting representing the youthful pioneer leaving his
New England home. These and a number of other
striking decorations were the work of Frank Vincent
Du Mond.

THE LIGHTING

The hghting constituted a part of the general plan
and was closely related to the color scheme. The in-
direct system was employed throughout the grounds and
no lights were visible, but thousands of electric bulbs
were so placed as to produce practically a daylight
effect in which all the delicate shades of the decorations
were brought out. The lighting scheme was a magnifi-
cent exhibit of the progress made in electric lighting
since the St. Louis Fair, in 1904.

THE EXHIBITS

But what about the wealth of material housed in these
palatial buildings? To enumerate the exhibits would
be impossible. However we can get some idea of this
great exposition by a general view of the chief depart-
ments. The exposition was world-wide in its scope, and
it represented the progress of the nations along all lines
of endeavor, giving special attention to the progress
made since the last great exposition in St. Louis in 1904.
The exhibits were classified under the great departments
for which the palaces already described were erected.
Each department was then classified as the nature of its
exhibits required. By this arrangement the visitors
were able to find at once those exhibits in which they
were specially interested.

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