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OF  CALIFORNIA 
AT    LOS  ANGEI 


FORNIA 

ill I 


CALIFORNIA- 
AND  BACK 


^ 


TO  THE  READER  OF 

*'To  California  and  Back.*' 

THIS  little  book  is  wholly  devoted  to  a  description  of  Western 
scenes,  and  nothing  in  the  nature  of  a  railroad  advertisement 
has  been  admitted.  It  is  a  trustworthy  descriptive  book  of 
travel,  undefaced  by  statistics,  itineraries,  or  reference  to  any  particu- 
lar line  of  railroad  beyond  a  brief  introductory  note.  It  is  hoped, 
however,  that  a  perusal  of  its  pages  will  create  a  desire  to  visit  the 
scenes  described,  and  the  reader  who  desires  to  know  something  spe- 
cifically about  the  cost  and  other  details  of  such  a  journey  is  hereby 
informed  that  at  all  times  of  the  year  excursion  tickets  for  the  round 
trip  to  California  and  back,  by  way  of  the  Santa  Fii  Route,  are  on 
sale  at  low  rates,  which,  under  ordinary  circumstances,  are  f  no  from 
Chicago,  f  I02  from  St.  bonis,  and  $90  from  Kansas  City,  and  from 
other  cities  in  a  corresponding  ratio.  These  rates  are  subject  to  vari- 
ation from  time  to  time.  The  final  limit  of  these  tickets  is  nine 
months  from  date  of  sale,  giving  amjDle  time  for  a  prolonged  stay  at 
the  many  points  of  interest  in  California,  and  stop-over  privileges  are 
allowed  west  of  the  Missouri  River.  Although  the  journey  is 
described  as  being  made  westward  over  one  line  and  eastward  over 
another,  in  order  to  afford  the  greatest  variety  of  scene,  excursion 
tickets  are  not  restricted  to  such  use,  but  ma}'  read  out  and  back  over 
the  same  line  if  desired,  or  the  trip  described  in  "To  California- 
AND  Back  "  may  be  made  in  the  reverse  order.  Pullman  Palace 
sleeping-cars  are  run  daily  from  Chicago  and  Kansas  City.  Tourist 
sleeping-cars  are  also  attached  to  the  daily  California  tj-ains.  These 
differ  from  the  Palace  sleepers  onljr  in  the  particular  that  they 
are  less  luxuriously  finished,  and  accommodations  therein  may  be 
had,  in  consequence,  at  a  lower  rate.  Either  first  or  second  class 
tickets  are  honored  in  tourist  sleepers.  A  list  of  the  principal  ticket 
offices  of  the  Santa  Fk  Routk  is  given  on  back  of  this  page,  and 
requests  for  further  and  more  specific  information,  made  either  in 
person  or  by  mail  upf)n  any  of  these  offices,  will  be  promptly 
attended  to. 

Note.— November,  1896.— When  this  book  was  publi.slied,  the  California  train, 
via  the  Santa  Fe  Route,  left  Chicago  at  a  late  hour  in  the  evening.  The  name, 
"California  Limited,"  has  since  been  transferred  to  a  much  faster  train 
which,  during  the  winter  season  of  1896-7,  will  leave  Chicago  at  6.00  P.  M., 
every  Wednesday' and  Saturday,  and  is  in  addition  to  the  daily  through  train 
which  leaves  Chicago  at  10.25  P- M.  The  "California  Limited"  is  now  a 
strictly  first-class  limited  train,  carrying  Pullman  Palace  sleepers,  dining  car, 
and  buffet  smoking  car.  The  daily  train  carries  tourist  sleeping-cars  in  addi- 
tion to  its  other  equipment,  and  on  the  latter  all  classes  of  tickets  are  honored. 
The  wording  of  page  seven  makes  this  explanation  desirable. 


SANTA  Fli   ROUTE  TICKET  OFFICES. 

AMirgUKUQUE.  K.  M H.8.  VAN  SLVCK.  (Jon.-ial  AkimI. 

HAKKHSKlKl.l).  Va\ R.  II.  HWAYNK,  I'll^.Bl•ll(f<•l    Ak'<  iH. 

IIOSTOS.  Mii,K»,S:t.'\Vn»hliigrtonSt 8.  W.  MANNlNCi.  (J.nrnil  N,«  Kim'land  Ak'<iit. 

HKUUKKT  A.  CI.AV.TiHV.IliiK'  Atf.iic, 

niKX).  t"ul   T.J.  DI'.NN.  lM!.H.'iit,'.i  At'<iit. 

C'HltWliO,  Ill.,5!12Cliirk  St J.  M.  «0.\NKI,1,.  ('ii.v  |•M^^.l■ll^,'l•l•  iiml  Tifk.l  A(feiit. 

(;.  C.  liAKVKV.  I'as.-cnu.T  Atfiiit. 

Doarborn  Station H.  DIWIIAM.  l'nss<ni,-.r  .Vjjciit. 

I'INCIXNATI.  Ohio.  417  Walnut  St HKO.  T.  (ilJNNU",  iliiuiiil  .Vmiit  I'ftsi^cnt;.-!-  D.'pt. 

IIILOUADO  SI'UINHS.  Colo C.  U.  HOYT.  Cit.v   I'a.ss.iit;,.!  ,\K<-iit. 

DALLAS,  Texas,  Onind  Windsor  Hotel CHA8.  L.  HOLLAND.  r.i>srii^'er  AMTiiit. 

Traveling  ra>siii(fi'i-  .-Vifcnt. 

DESVKU,  Colo.,  1700  Lawronce  8t .1.  !'.  II  ALL,  (li'iui  al  Ak'riu  I'assfn).'"'!'  IH'l'in'l  '"''"I 

.IXO.  .1  .'^1,  WIN,  rav>,.Mi;ci  .\i;,nt. 
DKS  MOINES, In. ,818  Kanitabl.'  nuil(ling..K.  L.  I'.\LMI;k,  ra>Mii>;.i  .Vk'hI. 
|)KTK<.)IT,  Mioh.,  0.1  IJilswoia  .St K.  T.  1 1 K  V I  Ht  V.  ( unc-ia  I  .\  ^;.•Ml  J'asscnifor  U,\,t 

J.  N.  H.VSTKIX).  I'ass.iin.r  Ani'iit. 
KL  I'ASO.Tex.,  Wells,  Fargo  &  Co.'.s  Bldp.  IC,  COl'I.ANI).  (i.iienl  Aavur. 

W.  H.  I'.HdWXE,  Tiav.liiiK'  KrciKlitand  I'ims'r  A^l 

KKESNO.Cnl.,  1828  Mariposa  St T.  II.  WAl<KIN(iTUN.  KnJk'lit  ami  I'ass'r  Airi-m 

KT.  WOKTH,  Te.\tts,  WS  Main  St W .  Doll  Kin"  V,  Hassc-iPK'ei-  Atfrut. 

UALVESTON",  Texas,  224  Tremont  St MAX  NAli.MANN.  I'asseiik'ii-  A^'ont. 

lilLKOY,  Cal JAS.  c.  ZUCK  .V  CO.,  ras..*fiijr.r  Agents. 

11 ANKOKI),  Cal .^.E.  WEISHAUM.  PasseutfiT  Auent . 

HOCSTON.  Texas.  OTS  Main  St J,  K.  GKEENHILL,  Passenger  Agent. 

KANSAS  CITY,  Mo..  10.">0  Union  Ave.  ami  N. 

E.  cor.  10th  ami  Main  Sts. . .  .GEO.  W.  H AGESBUCH.  Pass'r  and  Ticki-t  Acent. 
10.')0  Union  Av^  L.  F.  H.U'oN,  I'a.ssciik'ci  Aj;cnt. 

W.  .r.  .lANNEY.  I'asMimii-  A^'ent. 
LE  A  VEXWOUTH,  Kan. ,4-28  Delaware  St.... GEO.  .1.  CIl.Vl'l.lN,  (i.  m  lal  Atrint. 

LONDON.  En^fluud,  12a  I'all  Mall T.  V.  WILSON,  (ii  in  lal  i;iir..|aan  Agent. 

LOS  ANOKLES,  Cal.,  200  Spring  St E.  W.  MifiKK,  Citv  I'a^siiiir.  randTieket  Atreiit. 

l.oS  OAIOS,  Cal It.  V.  KOHKKTSON,  l'a.•is^•n^rer  Atfenl. 

.M.\l>KKA.('al GEO.  II.  SMITH.  r,isseii(,'er  Atrent. 

*lAKYsVlLLE,Cal.,a28D  .St A.  W.  HOLHHOOK.  Freight  aiul  Passenfrer  AgeiU. 

MEH«  'ED,  Cal ' J.  A.  McKENZl E,  Passenger  Agent. 

MINNEAPOLIS,  Mliia.,.')13  Guaranty  Loan 

Building C.  C.  CARPENTER, Pa.ssenger  Agent. 

MOPFSTO,  Cal JAMES  .lOHNSON.  Pa-isenger  Agent. 

MoNTKKAL.  Quebec,  136  St.  James  St D.  W.  II  ATt  11,  Traveling  Agent. 

NEWMAN.  Cal CHARLES  sT    CLAIK,  Passenger  Agent. 

NI.W   ORLEANS.  La..  642  Gravier  St M.  W.  .lOYCK.  Oemial  Agent. 

NEW  Y')RK  CITY,  2B1  Broadway CHAS.  1).  SIMoNSON.  General  Eastern  Agent. 

E.  F.  HL'HNKTT.  Eastern  Passenger  Agent. 

CHAS.  A.  MAKSII,  Pas:  enger  Agent. 

OTTO  FAAS.  Passenger  Agent. 

OAKLAND,  Cal.,  1118  Broadway J.  J.  WARNER.  Freight  and  Passenger  Agent. 

PKOKI.V.  111.,  41.">Woolner  Building GEO.  C.  CHAMl'.ERS.  Passenger  Agent. 

PKT.M.r.MA.Cal E.  C.  MII-LS,  Passenger  Agent. 

PlEISLi ).  I '..lo.  Triangle  Block ROBT.  YOUNG.  City  Ticket  Agent. 

S A(  'R A.MKNTO,  Cal..  f.l:;  K  St G.  W.  RAILTON,  Freight  and  Tassenger;Agent. 

SALT  LAKE  CITY,  I't.ih.  Ill  Dooly  Block. .J.  D.  KENWORTHY,  General  Agent. 
SAN    DIEGO,  Cal.,  Hortoii  House,   corner 

Fourth  and  D  Sts H.  B.KEELER.  Agent. 

SAN  FRANCISCO, Cal., 644  Market  St S.  H.  PERKINS,  Ticket  Agent. 

J.  L.  DLAIR.  Traveling  Agent. 

SAN  JOSE,  Cal..  7  West  Santa  Clara  St H.  R.  STERNE,  Freight  and  Passenger  Ag.-nt. 

SAN  LUIS  OBISPO,  Cal A.  F.  KlTZfiKK ALD.  Passenger  .\gent. 

SANIA   I'.ARHARA,  Cal.,  708  State  St JOHN   I..  TKISI.OW.  (ieneral  Agint. 

S\NTA  CRCZ,  Cal.,  22  Cooper  St H.  A.  MAKINNI;Y.  Passenger  .\gent. 

s.\  NT  A  ROSA,  Cal FRAN  K  CH  EUR  Y,  Freight  and  Passenger  Agent. 

SKLMA.  I'al JNO.  I '.  MOoKE.  P.issengei-  Agent. 

ST.  .losEPH.  Mo..  Board  of  Trade  BIdg L.  O.  STILKS.  Citv  Passeiigi-r  and  Ticket  Agent. 

ST.  Lol'IS.  Mo.,  420  Commercial  Bldg C.  A.  11  AKTWELf.,  Passenger  Agent. 

STOCKTON.  Cal.,  439  East  Main  St F.  E.  VALENTINE,  Freight  a  tid  Passenger  Agent. 

TILAKE.  Cal : N.  W.  ll.\LL.  Freight  and  Passengi'r  Agent. 

VISALI  A.  Cal L.  LAWKENCK.  Passenger  Agent. 

'.V  ATSi  IN  VILLE.  Cal H.  S.  FLE  TCH ER,  Passenger  Agent. 

WOODLAND. Cal L.  W.  IIILLIKER,  Passenger  Agent. 


To  California 
and  Back 


By  C.  A.  HIGGINS 


Illustrations  by 
J.    T.    McCUTCHEON 


PASSENGER   DEPARTMEN7 
SANTA    FE   ROUTE 
CHICAGO,   1893 


Copyright,  1893, 
By  Atchison,  Topeka  &  Santa  Fe  Railroad 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 


HAPTER  PAGE 

Advertisement S 

I.  Preliminary  Stages 7 

II.  New  Mexico 11 

LAS   VEGAS   HOT  SPRINGS I7 

SANTA   FE 20 

PUEBLOS 25 

PENITENTES oq 

III.  Arizona 31 

CHALCBDONY   PARK 34 

MOQUIS 35 

CANON  DIABLO 38 

FLAGSTAFF 39 

SAN   FRANCISCO   MOUNTAIN 40 

GRAND  CANON  OF  THE   COLORADO 44 

CLIFF  AND  CAVE   DWELLINGS 47 

CENTRAL  AND   SOUTHERN  ARIZONA 48 

IV.  Southern  California 50 

of  climate 53 

san  diego  and  vicinity 61 

capistrano 68 

story  of  the  missions 70 

los  angeles 77 

pasadena 81 

riverside  and  vicinity 82 

redondo  and  santa  monica 82 

santa  catalina  island 84 

santa  barbara 88 

OSTRICH   FARMING Qf 

WINTER   SPORTS f 

3 


9^3 


CHArrmii  pagb 

V.    NoimiKKN   CALlrONKIA Q4 

HAN   fKANCISCO 95 

tlllNATOWN          q8 

SANTA  CLAKA    VAl  1  I  \ Io8 

IJ\KR  TAHOK      .       .                                                        ....  113 

VI.  Nkvaua  and  Uiaii    .  113 

OGUKN 115 

SALT   LAKK   ClIV I16 

r.KKAT   SALT   LAKK 122 

VII.    COLUKAIX) 124 

GLBNWOOD  SPKINCS 12$ 

SEVEN   CASTLES   AND   RED    KOCK   CANON    ....    129 

IIAGEKMAN   PASS I29 

LEADVILLK 1 30 

ItUENA   VISTA 133 

GRANITE  CANON I34 

CRIPPLE  CREEK I34 

pike's   PEAK   REGION I39 

MANITOO  141 

ASCENT  OF  pike's   PEAK 144 

COLORADO   SPRINGS 147 

DENVER 149 

Mil.    HOMHWAKD 150 


J 


ADVERTISEMENT. 


The  proprietary  lines  of  the  Santa  Fe  Route  extend,  un- 
broken, through  Illinois,  Iowa,  Missouri,  Kansas,  southeastern 
Colorado,  New  Mexico,  Arizona  and  Cdlifornia  to  the  Pacific 
Coast,  and  compose  the  major  portion  of  a  through  return 
route  by  way  of  Nevada,  Utah  and  Middle  Colorado,  in  the 
following  o;  der: 

Between  Chicago  and  Albuquerque,  New  Mexico, 

Atchison,    Topeka   tf  Santa  Fe  Railroad   (Santa  Fe 

System). 
Between  St.  Louis  and  Albuquerque, 

St.  Louis  &=  San  Francisco  Railway  (Santa  Fe  Sys- 
tem) to  Burrton,  Kansas,  and  Atchison,   Topeka  b' 

Santa  Fe  Railroad  beyond. 
Bettveen  Albuquerque  and  Barstow  or  Mojave,  California, 

Atlantic  <V  Pacific  Railroad   (Santa  Fe  System). 
Bet-ween  Barstow  and  Los  Angeles,  San  Diego  and  all  points 
in  California  east,  south  and  -west  of  Los  A  ngeles. 

Southern  California  Railway  (Sattta  Fe  System). 
Between  Los  Angeles  and  San  Francisco,  California, 

Southern  Pacific  Railroad  by  way  of  Mojave. 
Between  San  Francisco  and  Ogden,  Utah, 

Central  Pacific  Railroad. 
Between  Ogden  and  Grand  function,  Colorado, 

Rio  Grande   Western  Railway  by  way  of  Salt  Lake 

City. 
Between  Grand  function  and  Colorado  Springs,  Colorado, 

Colorado  Midland  Railway  (Santa  Fe  System). 
Between  Colorado  Springs  and  St.  Louis, 

Atchison,  Topeka  is'  Santa  Fe  Railroad  to  Burrton, 

Kansas,   thence  St.  Louis  tf  San  Francisco  Railway 

(Santa  Fe  System). 
Between  Colorado  Springs  and  Chicago, 

Atchison,    Topeka   67"  Santa  Fe  Railroad    (Santa  Fe 

System) , 

The  circuit  of  these  lines  constitutes  a  comprehensive  tour 
of  the  West,  whose  merits  it  is  desired  to  bring  more  particu- 

5 


\u\y  to  the  tttcntion  of  tourists,  and  whose  attractions  nre  the 
siil>j''ct  i>(  ihe  follxuini;  pagc^  The  necrssity  of  compressing 
■  thcmr  of  larjje  pr'i'ortiim*  into  n  space  of  reasonable  bounds 
has  einbarrAMinrnts  whi^  h  are  only  in  pait  avoided  by  exclu- 
sion of  inniiinrritble  matters  well  worthy  to  be  included.  It 
would  be  a  simpler  task  ti>  fill  twice  as  many  panes.  Adcq  late 
ireatmrnl  of  a  tenth  of  the  number  of  admitted  topics  would 
exceed  the  limits  set  to  the  present  volume.  All  omissions, 
therefore,  nod  any  neglect  of  particular  localities,  must  be 
charged  to  a  plan  which  perforce  is  fraKmenlary  in  outline  and 
restricted  by  the  very  extent  of  its  scope  to  a  brief  setting 
forth  of  only  the  most  contrasting  of  the  more  notable  scenes. 

With  thlsa;ology  to  the  Gieat  West  the  bonk  is  tendered. 
It  isii  no  sense  n  guide-book,  but  ex;>licitly  an  attempt  to 
present  the  merits  of  a  relatively  few  selected  typical  features 
for  the  consideration  of  those  who  weigh  the  high  opportuni- 
ties of  travel. 

The  illustrations  are  from  original  sketches,  and  from  pho- 
tographs by  Curran  of  Santa  Ft',  Osbon  of  Flagstaff,  Sl^'cum 
of  Sao  Diego,  Tabor  of  San  Francisco  Aaijac/cson  of  Denver. 


PRELIMINARY     STAGES. 


JHE  California  Limited  pulls  out  of  Dear- 
born Station  in  Chicago  at  an  hour  of 
the  night  when  many  of  its  passengers 
are  already  tucked  away  behind  the  cur- 
tains of  their  berths.  There  is  Httle  to  be  seen 
through  the  darkness,  even  if  one  cared  to  keep 
awake.  By  day  the  adjacent  country  for  a  few  hun- 
dred miles  would  appear  a  level  or  mildly  undulat- 
ing region,  rich  in  agricultural  products,  and  relieved 
by  bits  of  stream  and  forest  and  by  small  villages, 
with  here  and  there  a  considerable  city,  such  as 
Joliet,  and  Streator,  and  Galesburg.  It  is  greater 
than  the  whole  of  England  and  Wales,  this  State  of 
Illinois,  but  a  very  few  hours'  ride  is  sufficient  to 
bring  one  to  its  western  boundary,  the  Mississippi 
River.  This  is  crossed  at  Fort  Madison,  and  the 
way  continues  across  the  narrow  southeastern  cor- 
ner of  Iowa  into  Missouri.  While  gliding  through 
the  State  last  named  the  traveler  awakes  to  sight  of 
a  rolling  country  of  distant  horizons,  swelling  here 
and  there  to  considerable  hills,  checkered  with  tilled 
fields  and  frequent  farm-houses,  divided  by  small 
water-courses  and  dense  groves  of  deciduous  trees. 
Not  one  whose  scenic  features  you  would  travel  far 
to  see,  but  unexpectedly  gratifying  to  the  eye;  full  of 
gentle  contrasts  and  pleasing  variety.  At  the  lofty 
7 


—-1^;,. 


SiMcv  bridv;c  crossing  of  the  Missouri  River  the  swift 
s;uiil-lailcn  volume  of  this  famed  stream  (lows  far  be- 
low the  level  of  the  eye,  and  there  is  wide  outlook 
upon  cither  hand.  On  the  farther  side  the  way  skirts 
bold  bluffs  for  a  considerable  distance  by  the  side  of 
the  broad  and  picturesque  river  that  is  reminiscent 
of  the  days  of  a  greater  steamboat  commerce.  Then 
comes  Kansas  City,  the  great  commercial  gateway  of 
the  Missouri.  The  Kansas  border  lies  just  beyond, 
the  entrance  to  that  State  leading  by  the  serpentine 
way  of  the  river  of  the  same  name,  generously  fringed 
with  groves  and  affording  glimpses  of  rugged  wood- 
land scenery  which  by  degrees  gives  place  to  the  open 
prairie. 

The  billowy  surface  of  Kansas  was  once  the  bed 
of  a  vast  inland  sea  that  deposited  enormous  quanti- 
ties of  salt,  gypsum  and  marbles,  and  its  rock  strata 
abound  in  most  remarkable  fossils  of  colossal  ani- 
mal life:  elephants,  mastodons,  camels,  rhinoceroses, 
gigantic  horses,  sharks,  crocodiles,  and  more  ancient 
aquatic  monsters  of  e.xtraordinary  proportions,  fright- 
ful appearance  and  appalling  name,  whose  skeletons 
are  preserved  in  the  National  Museum.  Its  eastern 
bound  was  long  the  shore  of  the  most  stubborn  wil- 
derness of  our  possession.  The  French  fur-traders 
were  the  first  to  establish  footing  of  civilization  in 
Kansas,  the  greater  portion  of  which  came  to  us  as 
part  of  the  Louisiana  purchase.  Sixty-five  years 
ago  Fort  Leavenworth  was  created  to  give  military 
protection  to  the  hazardous  trade  with  Santa  Fe,  and 
the  great  overland  e.xodus  of  Argonauts  to  California 
at  the  time  of  the  gold  discovery  was  by  way  of  that 
border  station.  The  first  general  settlement  of  its 
eastern  part  was  in  the  heat  of  the  factional  excite- 
ment that  led  to  the  Civil  War.  It  was  the  scene  of 
bloody  encounters  between  Free-soil  and  Pro-slavery 
colonists,  and  of  historic  exploits  by  John  Brown  and 


the  guerrilla  Quantrell.  In  the  space  of  one  genera- 
tion it  has  been  transformed  as  by  a  miracle.  The 
mighty  plains  whereon  the  Indian,  antelope  and  buf- 
falo roamed  supreme  are  now  counted  as  the  second 
most  important  agricultural  area  of  the  Union,  and 
its  uncultivated  tracts  sustain  millions  of  cattle, 
mules  and  horses.  Vigorous  young  cities  of  the 
plains  are  seen  at  frequent  intervals.  Topeka,  with 
broad  avenues  and  innumerable  shade-trees,  is  one 
of  the  prettiest  capitals  of  the  West.  The  neighbor- 
hood of  Newton  and  Burrton  is  the  home  of  Men- 
nonites,  a  Russian  sect  that  fled  to  America  from  the 
domain  of  the  Czar  to  find  relief  from  oppression. 

Burrton  is  the  junction-point  with  the  converging 
line  from  St.  Louis  through  Southern  Missouri  and 
Southeastern  Kansas,  whose  topograpliy  is  of  the 
same  general  description,  pleasingly  pictorial  in  fre- 
quent foliage  and  running  water,  with  villages  and 
cities  encircled  by  productive  fields,  gardens,  vine- 
yards and  orchards. 

At  Hutchinson  one  enters  Western  Kansas,  and 
from  this  point  for  a  long  distance  the  road  follows  the 
windings  of  the  Arkansas  River,  with  only  occasional 
digressions.  Dodge  City,  of  cowboy  fame,  and  Gar- 
den City,  the  scene  of  Government  experiments  in 
agriculture,  are  the  chief  centers  of  this  district. 

Colorado  first  presents  itself  as  a  plateau,  ele- 
vated 4,000  feet  above  the  sea.  Soon  the  land- 
scape begins  to  give  hint  of  the  heroic.  Pike's 
Peak  is  clearly  distinguishable,  and  the  two  beautiful 
Spanish  Peaks  hover  upon  the  horizon  and  reappear 
long  after  the  first-named  has  faded  from  view. 
Slowly  the  Raton  Range  gathers  significance  direct- 
ly ahead,  until  it  becomes  a  towering  wall,  at  whose 
foot  lies  the  city  of  Trinidad,  beyond  which  begins 
the  final  ascent  to  the  first  of  many  lofty  mountain 
gateways,  the  Raton  Pass.     The  grade  is  terrific, 


xft*»' 


and  two  pt>\vcrful  mountain  engines  are  required  to 
haul  llu-  tr.iin  at  a  pace  liardly  faster  than  a  walk. 
The  viiissiludes  of  tiie  pass  arc  sucli  that  the  road 
wiiids  liivc  a  corkscrew,  turning  by  curves  so  sharp 
the  wheels  shriek  at  the  strain.  From  the  rear  ves- 
tibule may  be  liad  an  endlessly  varied  and  long-con- 
tinued series  of  mountain-views,  for  the  ascent  is  no 
mere  matter  of  a  moment.  There  are  level  side 
caflons  prettily  shaded  with  aspen,  long  straight 
slopes  covered  with  pine,  tumbled  waves  of  rock 
overgrown  with  chaparral,  huge  bare  cliffs  with  per- 
jKndiiular  gray  or  brown  faces,  and  breaks  through 
which  one  may  look  far  out  across  the  lower  levels 
to  other  ranges.  A  short  distance  this  side  the  sum- 
mit stands  what  is  left  of  the  old  toll-house,  an 
abandoned  and  dismantled  adobe  dwelling  where 
for  many  years  the  veteran  Dick  Wooten  collected 
toll  from  those  who  used  the  wagon-road  through  the 
pass.  Both  ruin  and  trail  are  of  interest  as  belong- 
ing to  the  ante-railroad  period  of  thrilling  adventure, 
for  by  that  road  and  past  the  site  of  the  dilapidated 
dwelling  passed  every  overland  stage,  every  caravan, 
every  prairie  schooner,  every  emigrant  and  every 
soldier  cavalcade  bound  to  the  southwestern  country 
in  early  days.  Beyond  this  is  a  wide-sweeping 
curve  from  whose  farther  side,  looking  backward 
down  the  pass,  an  inspiring  picture  is  unfolded  to 
view  for  a  passing  instant — a  farewell  glimpse  of  the 
poetic  Spanish  Teaks  at  the  end  of  a  long  vista  past 
a  ragged  foreground  of  gigantic  measure.  Then  the 
hills  crowd  and  shut  ofT  the  outside  world;  there  is  a 
deep  sandstone  cut,  its  faces  seamed  with  layers  of 


coal,  a  boundary-post  marked  upon  one  side  Colo- 
rado and  upon  the  other  New  Mexico,  and  instantly 
following  that  a  plunge  into  a  half-mile  tunnel  of 
midnight  blackness,  at  an  elevation  of  something 
more  than  7,600  feet. 

At  such  a  Rubicon  the  preliminary  stages  may 
fairly  be  said  to  end. 


n. 

NEW  MEXICO. 

JLTHOUGH  your  introduction  is  by  way 
of  a  long  tunnel,  followed  by  a  winding 
mountain-pass  down  whose  steep  incline 
the  train  rushes  as  if  to  regain  the  low 
level  from  which  the  journey  was  begun,  you  will 
find  New  Mexico  a  Territory  in  the  sky.  If  its 
mountain-ranges  were  leveled  smoothly  over  its  val- 
leys and  plains  the  entire  area  of  more  than  120,000 
square  miles  would  stand  higher  above  the  sea  than 
the  summit  of  any  peak  of  the  Catskills  or  the  Adi- 
rondacks.  Its  broad  upland  plains,  that  stretch  to  a 
horizon  where  wintry  peaks  tower  high  above  the 
bold  salients  of  gray-mottled  foothills,  themselves  lie 
at  an  altitude  that  in  the  Eastern  States  must  be 
sought  among  the  clouds,  and  at  no  time  will  you 
fall  much  below  an  elevation  of  5,000  feet  in  travers- 
ing the  portion  of  the  Territory  that  lies  along  the 
present  route. 

II 


^*"''?W**'''^''' 


The  landscape  is  oriental  in  aspect  ami  (lushed 
with  color.  Nowhere  else  can  you  find  sky  of  deeper 
blue,  sunlight  more  dn/./ling,  shadows  more  intense, 
clouds  more  luminously  white,  or  stars  that  throb 


with  redder  tire.  Here  the  pure  rarefied  air  that  is 
associated  in  the  mind  with  arduous  mountain-climb- 
ing is  the  only  air  known;  dry,  cool  and  gently 
stimulating.  Through  it,  as  through  a  crystal,  the 
rich  red  of  the  soil,  the  green  of  vegetation  and  the 
varied  tints  of  the  rocks  gleam  always  freshly  on  the 
sight.  You  are  borne  over  mountains  above  forests 
of  pine  and  fir,  with  transient  glimpses  of  distant 
prairie;  through  caflons  where  fierce  rock- walls  yield 
grudging  passage  and  massive  gray  slopes  bend 
downward  from  the  sky;  along  level  stretches  by  the 
side  of  the  Great  River  of  the  North,  whose  turbid 
stream  is  the  Nile  of  the  New  World;  past  pictur- 
esque desert-tracts  spotted  with  sage;  and  past  mesas, 
buttes,  dead  volcanoes  and  lava-beds.     These  last 


-'J^_  V^,!^ 


are  in  a  region  where  you  will  see  not  only  mountain- 
craters,  with  long  basahic  slopes  that  were  the  an- 
cient flow  of  molten  rock,  but  dikes  as  well:  fissures 
in  the  level  plain  through  which  the  black  lava  oozed 
and  ran  for  many  miles.  These  vast  rivers  of  rock, 
cracked,  piled,  scattered  in  blocks,  and  in  places 
overgrown  with  chaparral,  are  full  of  interest  even 
to  the  accustomed  eye.  They  wear  an  appearance 
of  newness,  moreover,  as  if  the  volcanic  action  were 
of  recent  date;  but  there  has  been  found  nothing  in 
native  tradition  that  has  any  direct  bearing  upon 
them.  Doubtless  they  are  many  centuries  old. 
Geologically  their  age  is  of  course  determinable;  but 
geology  deals  in  rock  epochs;  it  talks  darkly  of  mill- 
ions of  years  between  events,  and  in  particulars  is 
careful  to  avoid  use  of  the  calendar.  It  is  well  to 
remember  that  the  yesterday  of  creation  is  singularly 
barren  of  mankind.  We  are  practically  contempo- 
raries of  Adam  in  the  history  of  the  cosmos,  and  all 
of  ancient  and  modern  history  that  lies  between  is  a 
mere  evanescent  jumble  of  trivialities.  Dame  Nature 
is  a  crone,  fecund  though  she  be,  and  hugging  to  her 
breast  the  precious  phial  of  rejuvenescence.  Her 
face  is  wrinkled.  Her  back  is  bent.  Innumerable 
mutations  lie  heavy  upon  her,  briskly  though  she 
may  plot  for  to-morrow.  And  nowhere  can  you  find 
her  more  haggard  and  gray  than  here.  You  feel  that 
this  place  has  always  worn  much  the  same  aspect 
that  it  wears  to-day.  Parcel  of  the  arid  region,  it 
sleeps  only  for  thirst.  Slake  that,  and  it  becomes  a 
garden  of  paradise  as  by  a  magic  word.  The  present 
generation  has  proved  it  true  in  a  hundred  localities, 
where  the  proximity  of  rivers  or  mountain-streams 
has  made  irrigation  practicable.  The  confines  of  the 
Great  American  Desert  are  narrowing  rapidly.  Do 
but  reflect  that  a  quarter-century  back  the  journey 
you  now  make  in  perfect  comfort  was  a  matter  of 
13 


wiUl  adventure,  at  cost  of  months  of  arduous  travel 
and  at  hazard  of  life,  not  only  because  of  human 
Iocs,  but  for  scarcity  of  food  and  water.  One  never 
appreciates  the  full  stride  of  American  progress  until 
he  has  traversed  such  a  Territory  as  this  in  a  Pullman 
lar.  whore  Valley  of  Death  and  Journey  of  the  I^ead 
.iti-  names  still  borne  by  waterless  tracts  and  justified 
bv  bleached  boms  of  cattle  and  of  human  beings. 
Rescued  from  the  centuries  of  horror  and  planted  in 
the  front  rank  of  young  rising  States  by  the  genius 
of  our  generation.  New  Mexico  is  a  land  of  broad 
ranges,  where  hundreds  of  thousands  of  sleek  cattle 
and  countless  flocks  of  sheep  browse  upon  the  nutri- 
tious grasses;  where  fields  of  grain  wave  in  the 
healthful  breeze;  where  orchard-trees  bend  under 
their  weight  of  luscious  fruits,  and  where  the  rocks 
lay  bare  inexhaustible  veins  of  precious  metals. 
Here  may  be  found  to-day  as  profitable  ranches  as 
any  in  the  country,  and  innumerable  small  aggrega- 
tions of  cultivated  acres,  whose  owners  sit  comfort- 
ably upon  shaded  verandas  while  their  servants  till 
the  field.  This  is  the  paradox  of  a  region  whose 
softer  scenes  will  often  seem  to  be  overborne  by 
bleak  mountain  and  desert  and  lava-bed;  that  if  you 
own  ten  acres  of  irrigated  land  here  you  are  that 
much-vaunted  but  seldom-encountered  individual,  an 
independent  farmer.  You  may  smile  in  a  superior 
way  when  you  hear  talk  of  the  profits  of  bank-stock. 
You  may  look  without  envy  upon  the  man  who  is 
said  to  own  a  gold-mine. 

Scattered  by  the  way  are  sleepy  Mexican  villages, 
ancient  Indian  pueblos,  still  inhabited,  and  those 
older  abandoned  ruins  which  give  to  the  region  its 
peculiar  atmosphere  of  mystery.  The  history  of 
New  Mexico  formerly  began  with  a  pretty  legend 
that  dated  back  to  a  time  in  Spain  when  a  sovereign 
fighting  amid  his  native  mountains  found  himself 
14 


hemmed  in  by  the  enemy,  and  would  have  perished 
with  all  his  army  had  not  one  of  his  enterprising  sol- 
diers discovered  an  unsuspected  pass,  the  entrance  to 
which  he  marked  with  a  bleached  cow's  skull  that  lay 
convenient  to  his  hand,  and  then  returning  led  a  re- 
treat through  the  pass  to  safety.  By  order  of  the 
grateful  king  the  family  name  of  the  soldier  was 
thereupon  made  Cabeza  de  Vaca — coivs  head — to 
celebrate  so  opportune  a  service.  It  is  to  be  hoped  he 
got  a  doubloon  or  two  as  well,  but  on  that  particular 
head  tradition  is  silent.  At  any  rate,  among  the 
soldier's  descendants  a  talent  for  discovery  became  a 
notorious  family  trait.  It  amounted  to  a  passion 
with  them.  You  could  not  get  into  any  difficulty  but 
a  Cabeza  de  Vaca  could  find  you  a  way  out.  Nat- 
urally, then,  when  Narvaez  set  sail  from  Spain  for 
the  Florida  coast,  three  and  a  half  centuries  ago,  he 
took  one  of  that  family  along  for  a  mascot.  The 
expedition  came  to  grief  on  the  Florida  reefs,  but  the 
mascot  survived,  and  with  him  three  others  who  had 
wisely  clung  to  his  legs  when  the  ship  went  to  pieces. 
Stranded  upon  an  unknown  coast,  menaced  by  hos- 
tile Indians,  an  ocean  behind  and  a  wilderness  be- 
fore, this  Cabeza  de  Vaca  felt  his  heart  strangely 
stirred  within  him.  He  gave  no  thought  to  the  dan- 
gers of  his  situation;  he  perceived  only  that  he  had 
the  opportunity  of  a  lifetime  to  discover  something. 
So,  remembering  that  in  far  Mexico  his  fellow-coun- 
trymen were  known  to  dwell,  he  pretended  to  pull  a 
long  face  and  told  his  companions  that  to  reach  the 
Mexican  settlements  was  the  only  hope  of  surviving. 
Then  brandishing  his  sword  in  a  becoming  manner 
he  called  to  them  to  come  on,  and  led  them  across  the 
unexplored  continent  of  North  America,  in  the  year 
of  grace  1536,  by  a  route  that  incidentally  included 
what  is  now  known  as  New  Mexico.  Thus,  in  sub- 
stance, runs  the  legend,  which  adds  that  he  had  a 
15 


queer  talc  to  toll,  on  arrival,  of  Seven  Cities  of  Cibola, 
and  outlandish  people  of  lieallien  appearance  and 
notions,  but  of  temperate  and  industrious  habits 
withal,  and  presumably  rich  in  treasures  of  silver  and 
gold;  which  incited  Coronado  to  send  out  an  expe- 
dition under  Marcos  de  Nizza  in  1539,  and  a  year 
later  himself  to  take  charge  of  the  first  real  invasion, 
conquering  native  towns  by  force  of  arms  on  his  way. 
But  in  the  light  of  modern  historical  research  Ca- 
beza  de  Vaca's  local  fame  dwindles;  his  head  dimin- 
ishes. It  is  denied  that  he  ever  saw  New  Mexico, 
and  the  title  of  discoverer  is  awarded  to  Marcos  de 
Nizza.  It  does  not  really  matter,  for  in  either  event 
the  conquest  was  by  Coronado,  in  whose  footsteps 
Spanish  colonization  was  first  enabled  to  advance  into 
the  Territory,  which,  it  should  be  remembered,  was 
for  a  long  time  thereafter  a  vaguely  defined  area  of 
much  greater  extent  than  to-day.  The  Franciscan 
friars  early  began  their  work  of  founding  missions, 
and  in  the  course  of  time  established  forty  churches, 
attended  by  some  30,000  native  communicants. 
These  natives  revolted  in  1680,  and  drove  the  Span- 
iards out  of  the  Territor}',  resisting  their  return  suc- 
cessfully for  a  period  of  twelve  years.  From  the  time 
of  their  ultimate  subjection  (1692)  the  country  grew 
in  population  and  commercial  importance  until,  early 
in  the  present  century,  its  trade  with  Missouri  and 
the  East  became  very  valuable.  The  route  traversed 
by  pack-mules  and  prairie  schooners  loaded  with 
merchandise  will  forever  be  remembered  as  the  Santa 
•/;>  16 

fc>'4 


Fe  Trail,  and  was  almost  identical  with  that  followed 
by  Coronado.  It  is  at  present,  for  the  greater  part 
of  the  distance,  the  route  of  the  Atchison,  Topekaic 
Santa  Fe  Railroad  between  the  Missouri  River  and 
Santa  F6 ;  and  through  Western  Kansas,  Southeastern 
Colorado,  over  the  Raton  Pass,  and  at  many  points  in 
New  Mexico  may  easily  be  seen  from  the  train.  The 
distance  was  800  miles,  and  a  round  trip  then  con- 
sumed 1 10  days.  Merchandise  to  an  enormous  value 
was  often  carried  by  a  single  caravan.  In  spite  of 
the  protection  of  a  strong  military  escort  the  trail  was 
almost  continuously  sodden  with  human  blood  and 
marked  by  hundreds  of  rude  graves  dug  for  the  muti- 
lated victims  of  murderous  Apaches  and  other  tribes. 
Every  scene  recounted  by  romances  of  Indian  warfare 
had  its  counterpart  along  the  Santa  F^  Trail.  The  am- 
bush, the  surprise,  the  massacre,  the  capture,  the  tort- 
ure, in  terrifying  and  heart-breaking  detail,  have  been 
enacted  over  and  over.  Only  with  the  advent  of  the ' 
railroad  did  the  era  of  peace  and  security  begin.  To- 
day the  Apache  is  decimated  and  harmless,  and  with 
the  Pueblo  Indian  and  the  Mexican  forms  a  romantic 
background  to  a  thriving  Anglo-Saxon  civilization. 
It  is  this  background  that  gives  New  Mexico  its 
peculiar  charm  to  the  thoughtful  tourist;  not  alone 
its  tremendous  mountain-ranges,  its  extensive  up- 
lands, its  fruitful  valleys,  or  its  unsurpafsed  equa- 
bility of  cHmate.  Its  population  includes  8,000 
Pueblo  Indians,  25,000  Navajoes,  1,300  Apaches, 
and  100,000  Mexicans;  and  among  the  last  named 
are  as  noble  types  of  cultured  and  progressive  man- 
hood and  womanhood  as  can  be  found  anywhere  in 
our  civilization. 


LAS   VEGAS    HOT   Sl'RINGS. 


The  little  Rio  Gallinas  issues  by  a  tortuous  path 
through  rugged  tree-fringed  caflon-walls  from  a  spur 
17 


of  the  Rockies  half  a  dozen  miles  northwest  from 
the  lily  i>f  l.as  Vej;as.  Upon  its  banks,  at  a  point 
just  above  where  it  debouches  upon  the  vegas,  or 
meadows,  numerous  springs  both  cold  and  hot  rise 
to  the  surface  in  close  juxtaposition,  their  waters 
char;;eii  with  a  variety  of  chemical  ingredients.  The 
medicinal  virtues  of  these  springs,  supplemented  by 
the  attractiveness  of  their  k)cation  upon  a  shoulder 
of  the  mountains,  and  the  mildness  and  purity  always 
characteristic  of  New  Mexican  air,  led  to  the  erection 
of  the  spacious  and  beautiful  Hotel  Montezuma,  and 
the  establishment  there  of  a  health  and  pleasure 
resort.  It  has,  moreover,  become  a  sort  of  half-way 
resting-place  for  transcontinental  travelers.  It  is  one 
of  the  few  places  in  the  Middle  West  where  a  stranger 
can  lind  contentment  day  after  day  in  comparative  idle- 
ness. The  immediate  scenery  has  not  the  prodigiously 
heroic  qualities  of  the  more  famous  Colorado  resorts, 
but  it  is  endlessly  attractive  to  the  lover  of  nature  in 
her  less  titanic  moods.  If  you  love  the  pine  and 
the  (ir,  here  you  may  have  your  till  of  them.  If  you 
are  fond  of  a  bit  of  precipitous  climbing,  you  can 
find  it  here  on  every  hand.  And  if  you  are  for  quiet 
shaded  nooks,  or  lofty  pulpit-perches  that  overhang 
a  pretty  clattering  stream  in  deep  solitudes,  here  they 
abound.  And  from  the  adjacent  hilltops  are  to  be 
had  wide-sweeping  views  eastward  over  the  7'egas  and 
westward  over  rocky  folds  to  where  the  blue  masses 
of  the  mountain-chain  are  piled  against  the  sky. 
There  are  wagon-roads  winding  over  hill  and  through 
glen,  past  the  verge  of  cafions  and  penetrating  deep 
into  the  forest,  and  narrower  branching  trails  for 
the  pedestrian  and  the  horseman.  Who  fails  to 
explore  these  intimately  will  miss  the  full  charm  of 
Las  Vegas  Hot  Springs.  It  is  a  place  in  which  to 
be  restfully  happy. 

The  merits  of  this  spot  and  of  New  Mexico  gen- 
i8 


'•''nil  ly-iii"'^ '■■».- 


erallv,  for  the  invalid,  are  more  specifically  treated  in 
"  I'hf  I.itnil  of  Siitis/iiiii-,"  to  wliicli  the  iiilorcstcd 
reader  is  referrcii.  Here  it  nuist  sut'licc  to  say  tluit 
every  known  form  of  batli  is  administered  in  the 
hatii-Iiouso  at  tlic  Springs,  antl  tlic  cqual)le  air  and 
almost  unbidl<en  snnliglit  of  the  long  peaceful  day 
are  tlicmselves  a  remedy  for  physical  ills  that  are 
incurable  in  the  harsh  climes  of  the  North  and  East. 
It  is  not,  as  might  be  inferred,  a  place  of  distressful 
heat,  but  a  land  of  soft  golden  light  whose  parallel 
is  the  most  perfect  day  of  a  New  England  spring. 
And  although  the  environment  of  the  Montezuma 
represents  the  climax  of  natural  remedial  conditions, 
joined  to  comfort  and  luxury,  the  wdiole  Territory  is 
a  supremely  iicalthful  region,  containing  numerous 
special  localities  that  differ  in  elevation  and  in  con- 
sequent adaptation  to  the  requirements  of  the  com- 
plications of  disease.  Raton,  Springer  (where  at 
Chico  Springs  a  sanitarium  has  been  established), 
Las  Vegas  proper,  Santa  Fe,  and  Albuquerque,  all 
are  health-resorts  of  high  merit  along  the  present 
route  through  New  Mexico.  South  of  Albuquerque 
are  several  admirable  resorts  of  lower  altitude,  such 
as  Las  Cruces,  in  the  Mesilla  Valley,  and  El  Paso, 
in  Texas. 


In  1605  the  Spaniards  founded  this  city  under  the 
name  La  Ciudad  Real  de  la  Satita  Fe  de  San  Fran- 
cisco (the  True  City  of  the  Holy  Faith  of  St.  Francis), 
which,  like  many  another  ponderous  Spanish  title, 
has  been  reduced  to  lower  terms  in  the  lapse  of  time. 
The  extraordinary  interest  of  its  early  days  is  kept 
alive  by  monuments  which  the  kindly  elements  pro- 
tect from  the  accustomed  ravages  of  the  centuries. 
The  territorial  governor  to-day  receives  his  guests 
in  the  same  room  that  served  visitors  in  the  time  of 
20 


f-} 


^  km 


ii 


21 


the  first  viceroy.  Seventeen  American  and  seventy- 
six  Mexican  and  Spanish  rulers  have  successively 
occupied  the  palace.  It  has  survived  all  those 
siranjjc  modulations  by  which  a  Spanish  province 
has  L>ecomc  a  territory  of  the  Union  bordering  on 
statehood.  The  story  of  the  palace  stretches  back 
into  real  antiquity,  to  a  time  when  the  Inquisition 
had  powers,  when  zealous  friars  of  the  Order  of  St. 
Francis  exhorted  throngs  of  dimly  comprehending 
heathen,  and  when  the  mailed  warriors  of  Coronado 
told  marvelous  uncontradicted  tales  of  ogres  that  were 
believed  to  dwell  in  the  surrounding  wilderness.  Be- 
neath its  roof  are  garnered  priceless  treasures  of  that 
ancient  time,  which  the  curious  visitor  may  behold. 
There  are  faded  pictures  of  saints  painted  upon 
puma-skins;  figures  laboriously  wrought  in  wood  to 
shadow  forth  the  Nazarene;  votive  offerings  of  silver, 
in  the  likeness  of  legs,  arms  and  hands,  brought  to 
the  altar  of  Our  Lady  by  those  who  had  been  healed 
of  wounds  or  disease;  rude  stone  gods  of  the  hea- 
then, and  domestic  utensils  and  implements  of  war. 
There,  too,  among  innumerable  relics,  may  be  seen 
ancient  maps  of  the  New  World,  lettered  in  Latin 
and  in  French,  on  which  California  appears  as  an 
island  of  the  Pacific,  and  the  country  at  large  is  con- 
fidently displayed  with  grotesque  inaccuracy. 

Nearly  a  mile  distant  from  the  palace,  on  an  emi- 
nence overlooking  the  town,  stands  the  old  Chapel 
Rosario,  now  neighbored  by  the  Ramona  school  for 
Apache  children.  In  1692  Diego  de  Vargas,  march- 
ing up  from  the  south,  stood  upon  that  hill  with  his 
little  army  of  200  men  and  looked  over  into  the  city 
from  which  his  countrymen  had  been  driven  with 
slaughter  a  dozen  years  before.  There  he  knelt  and 
vowed  to  build  upon  the  spot  a  chapel  for  the  glori- 
fication of  Our  Lady  of  the  Rosary,  provided  she 
would  fight  upon  his  side  that  day.  The  town  was 
I*  22 


M-^ 


carried  by  assault  after  a  desperate  contest  of  eleven 
hours'  duration,  and  the  chapel  was  built.  It  savors 
quaintly  to  us  of  a  less  poetic  age  that  those  royal 
old  adventurers  should  have  thought  themselves  hand 
and  glove  with  the  celestial  powers;  but  they  certain- 
ly made  acknowledgment  of  services  supposed  to  have 
been  rendered,  upon  occasion. 

There  areotherplacesof  antiquarian  interest,  where 
are  stored  Spanish  archives  covering  two  and  a  quar- 
ter centuries  and  numerous  paintings  and  carvings 
of  great  age;  the  Church  of  Our  Lady  of  Light,  the 
Cathedral  of  San  Francisco,  and  finally  the  Church 
of  San  Miguel  and  the  Old  House,  isolated  from 
everything  that  is  in  touch  with  our  century  by  their 
location  in  the  heart  of  a  decrepit  old  Mexican  village. 
Mere,  at  last,  is  the  real  Santa  Fe  of  the  traveler's 
anticipation;  a  straggling  aggregation  of  low  adobe 
huts  divided  by  narro  v  winding  lanes,  where  in  the 
sharply  defined  shadows  leathern- faced  old  men  and 
women  sit  in  vacuous  idleness  and  burros  loaded 
with  firewood  or  garden-truck  pass  to  and  fro;  and 
in  small  groups  of  chattering  women  one  catches  an 
occasional  glimpse  of  bright  interrogating  eyes  and  a 
saucy  handsome  face,  in  spite  of  the  closely  drawn 
tapelo.  If  now  some  sturdy  figure  in  clanking  armor 
should  obligingly  pass  along,  you  would  have  an  exact 
picture  of  the  place  as  it  appeared  two  centuries  and 
24 


a  half  ago.  Nothing  but  that  figure  has  departed 
from  the  scene,  and  substantially  nothing  new  has 
entered  in.  It  does  not  change.  The  hurrying  ac- 
tivities and  transitions  of  the  outer  world,  from 
which  it  is  separated  by  only  a  narrow  arroyo,  count 
for  nothing  here.  One  questions  if  the  outline  of  a 
shadow  has  altered  for  generations.  The  Old  House, 
where  Coronado  is  said  to  have  lodged  in  1540,  and 
the  Church  of  San  Miguel,  erected  soon  after,  sacked 
in  1680,  and  rehabilitated  in  1710,  are  not  distin- 
guishable from  their  surroundings  by  any  air  of 
superior  age.  All  is  old,  a  petrifaction  of  medieval 
human  life  done  in  adobe. 


More  than  a  score  of  these  many-storied,  many- 
chambered  communal  homes  are  scattered  over  the 
Territory,  three  of  the  most  important  of  which  may 
be  mentioned  as  lying  adjacent  to  the  present  route: 
Isleta,  Laguna,  and  Acoma.  Isleta  and  Laguna 
are  within  a  stone's-throw  of  the  railroad,  ten  miles 
and  sixty-six  miles, respectively,  beyond  Albuquerque, 
and  Acoma  is  reached  from  either  Laguna  or  Cubero 
by  a  drive  of  a  dozen  miles.  The  aboriginal  inhabit- 
ants of  the  pueblos,  an  intelligent,  complex,  indus- 
trious and  independent  race,  are  anomalous  among 
North  American  natives.  They  are  housed  to-day 
in  the  selfsame  structures  in  which  their  forebears 
were  discovered,  and  in  three  and  a  half  centuries  of 
contact  with  Europeans  their  manner  of  life  has  not 
materially  changed.  The  Indian  tribes  that  roamed 
over  mountain  and  plain  have  become  wards  of  the 
Government,  debased  and  denuded  of  whatever  of 
dignity  they  once  possessed,  ascribe  what  cause  you 
will  for  their  present  condition.  But  the  Pueblo  In- 
dian has  absolutely  maintained  the  integrity  of  his 
individuality,  self-respecting  and  self-sufificient.  He 
25 


J»be8Li 


;uccptcd  the  form  of  religion  professed  by  his  Span- 
ish conquerors,  but  without  abandoning  his  own;  and 
that  is  practically  the  only  concession  his  persistent 
conservatism  luis  ever  made  to  external  influence. 

Laborious  efforts  have  been  made  to  penetrate  the 
reserve  with  which  the  involved  inner  life  of  this 
strange  child  of  the  desert  is  guarded,  but  it  lies  like 
a  vast  ilark  continent  behind  a  dimly  visible  shore, 
and  he  dwells  within  the  shadowy  rim  of  a  night  that 
yields  no  ray  to  tell  of  his  origin.  He  is  a  true  pa- 
gan, swathed  in  seemingly  dense  clouds  of  supersti- 
tion, rich  in  fanciful  legend,  and  profoundly  cere- 
monious in  religion.  His  gods  are  innumerable. 
Not  even  the  ancient  Greeks  possessed  a  more  popu- 
lous Olympus.  On  that  austere  yet  familiar  height 
gods  of  peace  and  of  war,  of  the  chase,  of  bountiful 
harvest  and  of  famine,  of  sun  and  rain  and  snow,  el- 
bow a  thousand  others  for  standing-room.  The  trail 
of  the  serpent  has  crossed  his  history,  too,  and  he 
frets  his  pottery  with  an  imitation  of  its  scales,  and 
gives  the  rattlesnake  a  prominent  place  among  his 
deities.  Unmistakably  a  pagan;  yet  the  purity  and 
well-being  of  his  communities  will  bear  favorable 
comparison  with  those  of  the  enlightened  world.  He 
is  brave,  honest,  and  enterprising  within  the  fixed 
limits  of  his  little  sphere;  his  wife  is  virtuous,  his 
children  are  docile.  And  were  the  whole  earth  swept 
bare  of  every  living  thing,  save  for  a  few  leagues 
surrounding  his  tribal  home,  his  life  would  show  no 
manner  of  disturbance.  Probably  he  might  never 
hear  of  so  unimportant  an  event.  He  would  still  al- 
ternately labor  and  relax  in  festive  games,  still  rever- 
ence his  gods  and  rear  his  children  to  a  life  of  indus- 
try and  content,  so  anomalous  is  he,  so  firmly  estab- 
ished  in  an  absolute  independence. 

Pueblo  architecture  possesses  nothing  of  the  elabo- 
rate ornamentation  found  in  the  Aztec  ruins,  in  Mex- 
26 


ico.  The  house  is  severely  plain.  It  is  sometimes 
seven  stories  in  height  and  contains  over  a  thousand 
ftH.ms      In  some   instances  it  is  built  of  adobe — 


blocks  of  mud  mixed  with  straw  and  dried  in  the 
sun — and  in  others  of  stone  covered  with  mud  ce- 
ment. The  entrance  is  by  means  of  a  ladder,  and 
when  that  is  pulled  up  the  latch-string  is  considered 
withdrawn. 

The  pueblo  of  pueblos  is  Acoma,  a  city  without 
a  peer.  It  is  built  upon  the  summit  of  a  table-rock 
with  overhanging  eroded  sides,  350  feet  above  the 
plain,  which  is  7,000  feet  above  the  sea.  Anciently, 
according  to  the  traditions  of  the  Queres,  it  stood 
upon  the  crest  of  the  superb  Haunted  Mesa,  three 
miles  away,  and  some  300  feet  higher,  but  its  only 
approach  was  one  day  destroyed  by  the  falling  of  a 
cliff,  and  three  unhappy  women  who  chanced  to  be 
the  only  occupants — the  remainder  of  the  population 
being  at  work  in  the  fields  below — died  of  starvation, 
in  view  of  the  homeless  hundreds  of  their  people  who 
for  many  days  surrounded  the  unscalable  mesa  with 
upturned  agonized  faces.  The  present  Acoma  is 
the  one  discovered  by  the  Spaniards;  the  original 
pueblo  on  the  Mesa  Encantada  being  even  then  an 
28 


ancient  tradition.  It  is  i,ooo  feet  in  length  and  40 
feet  high,  and  there  is  besides  a  church  of  enormous 
proportions.  Until  lately  it  was  reached  only  by  a 
precipitous  stairway  in  the  rock,  up  which  the  inhab- 
itants carried  upon  their  backs  every  par.icle  of  the 
materials  of  which  the  village  is  constructed.  The 
graveyard  consumed  forty  years  in  building,  by  rea- 
son of  the  necessity  of  bringing  earth  from  the  plain 
below;  and  the  church  must  have  cost  the  labor  of 
many  generations,  for  its  walls  are  60  feet  high  and 
10  feet  thick,  and  it  has  timbers  40  feet  long  and  14 
inches  square. 

The  Acomas  welcomed  the  soldiers  of  Coronado 
with  deference,  ascribing  to  them  celestial  origin. 
Subsequently,  upon  learning  the  distinctly  human 
character  of  the  Spaniards,  they  professed  allegiance, 
but  afterward  wantonly  slew  a  dozen  of  Zaldivar's 
men.  By  way  of  reprisal  Zaldivar  headed  three-score 
soldiers  and  undertook  to  carry  the  sky-citadel  by  as- 
sault. The  incident  has  no  parallel  in  American  his- 
tory short  of  the  memorable  and  similar  exploit  of  Cor- 
t^z  on  the  great  Aztec  Pyramid.  After  a  three  days' 
hand-to-hand  struggle  the  Spaniards  stood  victors  up- 
on that  seemingly  impregnable  fortress  and  received 
the  submission  of  the  Queres,  who  for  three-quarters 
of  a  century  thereafter  remained  tractable.  In  that 
interval  the  priest  came  to  Acoraa  and  held  footing 
for  fifty  years,  until  the  bloody  uprising  of  1680  oc- 
curred, in  which  priest,  soldier  and  settler  were  mas- 
29 


♦acrcil  or  driven  fri)m  the  land  and  every  vestige  of 
their  ociupatiim  wasexlirpated.  After  the  resubjec- 
tion  of  tlic  natives  by  Diejjo  do  Vargas  tlic  present 
church  was  constructed,  and  the  Pueblos  have  not 
sintc  rebelled  ajjainst  the  contiguity  of  the  white 
tn.in. 

I'KMIKNTKS. 

All  the  numerous  Mexican  communities  in  the  Ter- 
ritory contain  representatives  of  this  order,  which  is 
peculiar  by  reason  of  the  self-flaj;ellations  inflicted 
by  its  members  in  their  excess  of  pietistic  zeal.  Un- 
like their  ilk  of  India,  they  do  not  practice  self  tort- 
ure for  long  periods,  but  only  upon  a  certain  day  in 
each  year.  Then,  stripped  to  the  waist,  these  poor 
zealots  go  chanting  a  dolorous  strain  and  beating 
themselves  unsparingly  upon  the  back  with  the  sharp- 
spined  cactus,  or  soap-weed,  until  they  are  a  revolt- 
ing sight  to  look  upon.  Often  they  sink  from  the 
exhaustion  of  long-sustained  sufTering  and  loss  of 
blood.  Among  the  Penitential  ceremonies  is  the 
bearing  a  huge  cross  of  heavy  timber  for  long  dis- 
tances, amid  the  exhorting  cries  of  onlookers.  The 
one  who  is  adjudged  to  have  punished  himself  most 
severely  is  chosen  chief  of  the  performance  for  the 
following  year;  and  the  honor  does  not  want  for 
aspirants. 

Attempts  have  been  made  to  abolish  this  annual 
demonstration,  but  without  avail. 
30 


III. 


ARIZONA. 

HE  portion  to  be  traversed  is  a  land  of 
-     prodigious   mountain-terraces,    extensive 


plateaus,  profound  canons,  and  flat  arid 
plains,  dotted  with  gardens  of  fruits  and 
flowers,  patched  with  vast  tracts  of  pine  timber  and 
veined  with  precious  stones  and  metals,  alternating 
with  desolate  beds  of  lava,  bald  mountainous  cones 
of  black  and  red  volcanic  cinder,  grass-carpeted 
parks,  uncouth  vegetable  growths  of  the  desert,  and 
bleak  rock-spires,  above  all  which  white  peaks  gleam 
radiantly  in  almost  perpetual  sunlight.  The  long- 
time residents  of  this  region  are  unable  to  shake  off 
its  charm,  even  when  no  longer  compelled  by  any 
other  consideration  to  remain.  Its  frequent  wide 
stretches  of  rugged  horizon  exert  a  fascination  no 
less  powerful  than  that  of  arduous  mountain-fast- 
nesses or  the  secret  shadows  of  the  dense  forest. 
There  is  the  same  dignity  of  Nature,  the  same  mys- 
tery, potent  even  upon  those  who  can  least  define  its 
thrall.  Miners  confess  to  it,  and  herdsmen.  To 
the  traveler  it  will  appear  a  novel  environment  for 
contemporaneous  American  life,  this  land  of  sage 
and  mesquite,  of  frowning  volcanic  piles,  shadowed 
cafions,  lofty  mesas  and  painted  buttes.  It  seems 
fitter  for  some  cyclopean  race,  for  the  pterodactyl 
and  the  behemoth.  Its  cliffs  are  flung  in  broad  sin- 
uous lines  that  approach  and  recede  from  the  way, 
31 


their  contour  incessantly  shifting  in  the  similitude  of 
f.ivcrns.  corriilors,  pyraniitls,  nionunicnts,  and  a  tliou- 
s;ind  other  forms  so  full  of  structural  idea  thrysccm 
to  bo  the  unlinishcd  work  of  some  gi.uit  architect 
who  had  planned  more  than  he  could  execute. 

The  altitude  is  practically  the  same  as  that  of  the 
route  through  New  Mexico,  umluiating  between 
5,o<)0  and  7,<ioo  feet  above  sea  level,  until  on  the 
western  border  the  hi^h  plateaus  break  rapidly  down 
to  an  elevation  of  less  than  500  feet  at  the  valley  of 
a  broad  and  capricious  stream  that  flows  through  al- 
ternate stretches  of  rich  .dluvial  meadow  and  barren 
rock-spires — obelisks  rising  against  the  sky.  This 
stream  is  the  Colorado  River,  wayward,  strenuous, 
and  possessed  of  creative  imagination  and  terrific 
energies  when  the  mood  is  on.  It  chiseled  the 
(jrand  Caflon,  far  to  the  north  and  east,  and  now 
complacently  saunters  oceanward.  Despite  its  quiet 
air,  not  long  ago  and   at   no  small  distance  toward 


ihc  iuuih,  it  cunccivcd   the  whim  to  make  a  Salton 

Sea,  and  the  affair  was  a  national  sensation  for  many 

months.     The  great  cantilever  bridge  that  spans  it 

32 


i 


here  was  made  necessary  by  the  restless  spirit  of  the 
intractable  stream.  Only  a  short  time  ago  the  cross- 
ing was  by  means  of  a  huge  pile  bridge  a  few  miles 
toward  the  north;  but  the  river  shifted  its  channel 
so  frequently  it  was  thought  desirable  to  build  a 
new  bridge  down  here  among  the  enduring  obelisks 
which  are  known  as  The  Needles.  It  is  a  pictur- 
esque spot,  full  of  color,  and  the  air  has  a  pure 
transparency  that  lends  depth  and  distance  to  the 
view,  such  as  the  bird  knows  in  its  flight.  The 
Needles  form  the  head  of  the  gorgeously  beautiful 
Mojave  Cafion,  hidden  from  view.  The  Colorado 
is  an  inveterate  lover  of  a  chaotic  channel.  It  is 
its  genius  to  create  works  of  art  on  a  scale  to  awe 
the  spirit  of  cataclysm  itself.  It  is  a  true  Helles- 
pont, isiJuing  from  Cimmerian  gloom  to  loiter  among 
sunny  fields,  which  it  periodically  waters  with  a  fer- 
tilizing flood;  and  while  you  follow  its  gentle  sweep 
it  breaks  into  sudden  uproar  and  hews  a  further  path 
of  desolation  and  sublimity.  One  who  does  not 
know  the  canons  of  the  Colorado  has  never  experi- 
enced the  full  exaltation  of  those  impersonal  emo- 
tions to  which  the  Arts  are  addressed.  There  only 
are  audience-halls  fit  for  the  tragedies  of  yEschylus, 
for  Dante  and  the  Sagas. 

The  known  history  of  Arizona  begins  with  the 
same  Mark  of  Nice  whom  we  have  already  accred- 
ited as  the  discoverer  of  New  Mexico,  of  which  this 
Territory  was  long  a  part;  and  here,  as  well,  he  was 
followed  by  Coronado  and  the  missionaries.  This 
is  the  true  home  of  the  Apache,  whose  unsparing 
warfare  repeatedly  destroyed  the  work  of  early 
Spanish  civilization  and  won  the  land  back  for  a 
time  to  heathenesse.  Its  complete  acquisition  by 
the  United  States  dates  from  1853,  and  in  the  early 
days  of  the  Civil  War  it  was  again  devastated.  After 
its  reoccupation  by  California  troops  in   1862,  set 


lirrs  |io};.in  ii>  in-iu-tiaii'  lis  iinitiKTii  portion.     Nearly 
^  ^ry  twenty  yrars  later  the  tirst  railroad  sixmncd  its  bound- 
/jv'  arics,   and  then    linally  it   became  a  tenable  home 
^/  /     f>ir  the  Saxon,  nlthouph  the  well-remenibered  out- 
^'vy  break  of  Cicroninio  occurred  only  six  years  apo.  To- 
day the  war-thirsty   Apaches  arc   widely   scattered 
amon^  distant  reservations,  and  with  them  has  de- 
parted the  last  cxistinjj  element  of  ilistuibance.    But 
Arizona  will  never  lose  its  peculiar  atmosphere  of 
extreme   anti<iuity,  for  in   addition   to  those  over- 
whelming chasms  that   have   lain  unchanged  since 
the  infancy  of  the  world,  it  contains  within  its  bor- 
ders the  ruins  of  once  populous  cities,  maintained  by 
an  enormous  irrigation  system  which  our  modern 
science  has  not  yet  attempted  to  rival;  whose  history 
was  not  written  upon  any  lasting  scroll;  whose  peo- 
ples are  classed  among  the  undecipherable  antiqui- 
ties of  our  continent,  their  deeds  unsung,  their  he- 
roes unchronicled  and  unknown. 

Yet,  if  you  have  a  chord  for  the  heroic,  hardly 
-hall  you  find  another  land  so  invigorating  as  this  of 
.Vrizona.  It  stiffens  the  mental  fiber  like  a  whifif  of 
the  north  wind.  It  stirs  in  the  blood  dim  echoes  of 
days  when  achievement  lay  in  the  might  of  the  indi- 
vidual arm;  when  sword  met  targe  in  exhilarating 
struggles  for  supremacy.  The  super-refinement  of 
cities  dissipates  here.  There  is  a  tonic  breeze  that 
blows  toward  simple  relations  and  a  lusty  selfhood. 

CHALCEDONY    PARK. 

The  town  of  Holbrook  stands  upon  a  gray  tree- 
dotted  plain  by  the  side  of  the  Little  Colorado 
River,  which  at  this  point  is  a  shallow,  sluggish 
flow,  lost  to  sight  here  and  there  in  the  depths  of 
thirsty  sands.  This  is  the  most  convenient  point 
from  which  to  visit  the  Chalcedony  Park  (which  lies 
at  a  distance  of  about  twenty  miles  toward  the 
34 


south),  by  reason  of  hotel  accommodations  and  facil- 
ities for  local  transportation.  One-half  the  distance 
can  be  saved  by  quitting  the  train  between  Billings 
and  Carrizo,  at  mile-post  233,  and  walking  a  mile  to 
Hanna's  Ranch,  where  a  team  can  be  procured;  but 
this  way  of  access  is  hardly  practicable  for  the 
transcontinental  traveler  incumbered  with  baggage. 
The  park,  so  called,  is  a  tract  of  2,000  acres  thickly 
strewn  with  chips,  fragments,  and  even  whole  trunks, 
of  trees;  the  detritus  of  some  prehistoric  flood, 
transformed  by  the  sybaritic  chemistry  of  nature 
into  chalcedony,  topaz,  onyx,  carnelian,  agate  and 
amethyst.  It  is  a  storehouse  of  precious  gems, 
measurable  by  no  smaller  phrase  than  millions  of 
tons;  a  confusion  of  splinters,  twigs,  limbs,  seg- 
ments and  logs,  every  fragment  of  which  would 
adorn  the  collector's  cabinet,  and,  polished  by  the 
lapidary,  would  embellish  a  crown.  Some  of  these 
prostrate  trees  of  stone  are  150  feet  in  length  and 
10  feet  in  diameter,  although  generally  broken  into 
sections  by  a  clean  transverse  cleavage.  One  of 
these  huge  trunks,  its  integrity  still  spared  by  time 
and  the  hammer  of  the  scientist,  spans  a  canon 
sixty  feet  wide;  a  bridge  of  jasper  and  agate,  over- 
hanging a  tree-fringed  pool;  the  realization  of  a 
seer's  rhapsody,  squandered  upon  a  desert  far  from 
the  habitations  of  man. 


MOQUIS. 

The  reservation  containing  the  Moqui  villages — 
fair  white  castles  cresting  the  cliffs  of  a  desert 
waste — lies  to  the  north  of  Winslow,  farther  away 
than  the  average  tourist  will  attempt  to  journey;  but 
the  Moquis  themselves  may  be  seen  about  the  sta- 
tion named.  Not  uncomely,  clad  in  picturesque 
costume,  and  representative  of  the  ever-interesting 
Pueblo  life,  they  merit  more  than  passing  mention. 
35 


^ 


^T;     Willi  tlicin  a 


lone  survives  the  revolting  but  fascinat- 
injj  s|H-it;ulc  of  the  snake-ihincc,  that  once  was 
common  to  ail  the  I'ucblo  peoples.  Upon  the  ques- 
tion of  l!ic  viiulency  of  the  rattlesnake's  bite  opin- 
ions arc  diverse.  There  are  those  who  claim  that 
there  is  positively  no  antidote  for  the  venom  of  a 
licilthv  full-jjrown  reptile  of  that  species,  yet  old 
ranchmen  will  tell  you  stories  of  many  a  prompt 
recovery  from  snake-bite  by  the  virtue  of  a  mysteri- 
ous weed  plucked  by  Indian  or  Mexican;  and  plain 
whisky  has  its  stanch  advocates  in  this  as  in  other 
vicissitudes  of  human  life.  It  is,  however,  certain 
that  the  bite  oicrotalits  is  often  fatal,  and  is  universally 
dreaded  except  by  the  Moquis  in  the  season  of  their 
dance,  at  which  time  they  handle  their  reptile  deity 
with  the  most  audacious  familiarity  and  without  dan- 
ger. The  secret  of  the  mysterious  antidote  used  by 
them  is  supposed  to  be  known  to  only  three  of  the 
tribe,  namely,  the  high  priest,  the  neophyte  who  is  in 
training  to  inherit  that  office,  and  the  eldest  woman. 
In  the  event  of  the  death  of  any  one  of  these  three 
it  is  imparted  to  a  successor,  and  under  any  other 
circumstances  its  betrayal  is  punishable  by  death. 
Every  year,  three  days  before  the  great  day  of  the 
ceremony,  the  intending  participants  enter  upon  a 
strict  fast,  which  is  not  broken  until  the  dance  has 
been  conclude'd.  In  the  intervening  period  the 
secret  decoction  is  freely  administered  by  the  venera- 
ble medicine-man,  and  the  dancers  employ  their  leis- 
ure in  capturing  rattlesnakes  in  the  desert.  Several 
hundred  of  the  hideous  reptiles  are  thus  collected 
and  imprisoned  in  a  little  corial.  Upon  the  morning 
of  the  fourth  day,  at  the  appointed  hour,  the  dancers 
boldly  e'ter  the  corral,  and  seizing  a  snake  in  each 
hand  rush  out  to  join  in  the  mystic  savage  rite. 
Unimpeachable  authority  vouches  for  the  fact  that 
the  rattlesnakes  are  not  unfanged  or  in  anywise 
N  36 


MOQUI    HAIRDRESSER, 

37 


:5r>i92(> 


^-» 


ilcprivt'd  of  the  exercise  of  their  deatlly  function. 
On  the  contrary,  the  dancers  arc  repeatedly  bitten  as 
tiiey  twine  the  reptiles  around  tlieir  necks  and  arms, 
ami  hold  them  in  their  mouths  by  the  middle  and 
swing  them  to  and  fro.  But  the  potency  of  the 
antidote  is  such  that  only  a  slight  irritation  or  small 
local  inflammation  ensues,  and  the  Moquis  give  no 
more  serious  thought  to  the  venomous  caresses  of 
their  squirming  captives  than  they  would  give  to  the 
sting  of  a  gnat.  At  the  conclusion  of  the  dance  the 
snakes  are   reverently  restored  to  freedom,  having 


been  prevailed  upon  to  use  their  influence  with  the 
beneficent  powers  for  the  space  of  a  whole  year  in 
behalf  of  their  dusky  worshipers. 

CASoN   DIABLO. 

This,  the  Devil  Canon,  is  a  profound  gash  in 
the  plateau,  some  225  feet  deep,  550  feet  wide,  and 
many  miles  long.  It  has  the  appearance  of  a  vol- 
canic rent  in  the  earth's  crust,  wedge-shaped,  and 
terraced  in  bare  dun  rock  down  to  the  thread  of  a 
stream  that  trickles  through  the  notch.  It  is  one  of 
those  inconsequent  things  which  Arizona  is  fond  of 
displaying.  For  many  miles  you  are  bowled  over 
a  perfectly  level  plain,  and  without  any  preparation 
whatever,  save  only  to  slacken  its  pace,  the  train 
38 


crosses  the  chasm  by  a  spider-web  bridge  and  then 
speeds  again  over  the  selfsame  placid  expanse.  In 
the  darkness  of  night  one  might  unsuspectingly  step 
off  into  its  void,  it  is  so  entirely  unlooked-for.  Yet, 
remarkable  as  is  the  Cafion  Diablo,  in  comparison 
with  those  grand  gorges  hereafter  to  be  mentioned 
it  is  worth  little  better  than  an  idle  glance  through 
the  car-window  in  passing. 

FLAGSTAFF. 

Gateway  to  most  remarkable  ancient  ruins,  to  one 
of  the  most  practicable  and  delightful  of  our  great 
mountains,  and  to  the  famous  Grand  Cafion  of  the 
Colorado  River,  Flagstaff  is  itself  pictorial  in  char- 
acter and  rich  in  interest.  It  stands  upon  a  clearing 
in  an  extensive  pine  forest  that  here  covers  the  pla- 
teau and  clothes  the  mountains  nearly  to  their  peaks; 
although  the  word  park  better  describes  this  sunlit, 
grass  carpeted  expanse  of  widely  set  towering  pines, 
where  cattle  graze  and  the  horseman  may  gallop 
at  will.  Couched  at  the  foot  of  a  noble  mountain 
that  doffs  its  cap  of  snow  for  only  a  few  weeks  of  the 
year,  and  environed  by  vast  resources  of  material 
wealth  in  addition  to  its  aggregation  of  spectacular 
39 


y  J' 


.m>l  arili.Tolojjical  features,  its  fame  has  already 
spread  widely  over  tlic  world,  and  will  increase  with 
time.  Space  can  here  be  given  to  only  its  three  most 
celebrated  possessions,  but  the  visitor  cannot  hope 
to  exhaust  the  number  and  variety  of  its  attractions. 
There  are  woodlanil  retreats  where  sculptured  rocks 
tower  many  hundred  feet  above  the  still  surface  of 
pools;  boxcafions  where  myriads  of  trout  leap  from 
the  waters  of  the  stream  that  flows  through  depths 
of  shadow;  thickets  where  the  deer  browses;  plains 
where  the  antelope  still  courses,  and  rocky  slopes 
where  the  bighorn  still  clambers  and  the  mountain- 
lion  dozes  in  the  sun. 

SAN    FRANCISCO    MOUNTAIN. 

Here,  as  in  many  other  parts  of  the  West,  the  act- 
ual height  of  a  mountain  is  greater  than  is  apparent 
to  the  eye.  The  ascent  begins  at  a  point  consider- 
ably above  where  the  Eastern  mountain-climber  leaves 
off,  for  the  reason  that  the  whole  region  is  itself 
a  prodigious  mountain,  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
square  miles  in  area,  of  which  the  projecting  peaks 
are  but  exalted  lookouts.  The  four  summits  of 
San  Francisco  Mountain  are  elevated  nearly  13,000 
feet  above  the  sea,  and  only  6,000  feet  above  the  town 
of  Flagstaff.  It  follows  that  more  than  half  the  actual 
ascent  has  been  made  without  any  effort  by  the  trav- 
eler, and  the  same  result  is  attained  as  if  he  had  climbed 
a  sheer  height  of  13,000  feet  upon  the  rim  of  the  sea. 
There  is  the  same  rarefaction  of  air,  the  same  wide 
range  over  an  empire  that  lies  flat  beneath  the  eye, 
limited  only  by  the  interposition  of  other  mountains, 
the  spherical  contour  of  the  earth,  atmospheric  haze, 
or  the  power  of  vision  itself. 

The  apex  of  Humphrey's  Peak,  the  only  summit 
of  this  mountain  which  is  practicable  for  the  tourist, 
is  little  more  than  ten  miles  from  Flagstaff,  and  an 
40 


excellent  carriage -road  covers  fully  seven  miles  of 
that  distance.  From  the  end  of  that  road  a  com- 
fortable bridle-path  leads  to  within  a  few  feet  of  the 
topmost  crag.  The  entire  trip  may  be  made  on 
horseback  if  desired,  and  one  who  is  accustomed  to 
the  saddle  will  find  it  a  preferable  experience,  for 
then  short  cuts  are  taken  through  the  timber,  and 
there  is  so  much  the  more  of  freedom  and  the  charm 
of  an  untrammeled  forest.  The  road  crosses  a  short 
stretch  of  clearing  and  then  enters  the  magnificent 
pine  park,  rising  at  an  easy  grade  and  offering  fre- 
quent backward  glimpses.  The  strained,  conscious 
severity  of  the  Rocky  Mountain  giants  is  wanting 
here.  It  is  a  mountain  without  egotism,  breathing 
gentlest  dignity  and  frankly  fond  of  its  robe  of  verd- 
ure. Birds  flit  and  carol  in  its  treetops,  and  squir- 
rels play.  Grass  and  fern  do  not  fear  to  make  soft- 
cushioned  banks  to  allure  the  visitor,  flowers  riot  in 
their  season,  and  the  aspens  have  whole  hillsides  to 
themselves;  soft,  twinkling  bowers  of  delicate  green, 
dells  where  one  could  wish  to  lie  and  dream  through 
long  summer  hours.  The  bridle-path  begins,  with 
the  conventional  zigzag  of  mountain-trails,  at  the 
foot  of  a  steep  grass-grown  terrace  that  lies  in  full 
view  of  the  spreading  panorama  below.  Above  that 
sunny  girdle  the  trail  winds  through  a  more  typical 
mountain-forest,  where  dead  stalks  of  pine  and  fir 
are  plentifully  sprinkled  among  the  living,  and  ugly 
swaths  show  where  the  avalanche  has  passed.  Above 
this,  for  the  remaining  few  hundred  feet,  the  peaks 
stand  bare — stern,  swart  crags  that  brook  no  mantle 
except  the  snows,  encompassed  by  a  quiet  which  only 
the  wind  redeems  from  everlasting  silence. 

The  outlook  from  Humphrey's  Peak  is  one  of  the 
noblest  of  mountain-views.     It  commands  a  recog- 
nizable territory  of  not  less  than  seventy-five  thou- 
sand square  miles,  with  vague  shadowy  contours  be- 
41 


!» Y  yt>nd  the  circle  of  definite  vision.  Categorically,  as 
Kk  pointeil  out  by  the  guide,  the  main  features  of  the 
landscape  are  as  follows:  Directly  north,  the  far- 
I  ther  wall  of  the  Grand  Cailon,  at  the  Bright  Angel 
Amphitheater,  fifty  miles  away;  and  topping  that,  the 
lUickskin  Mountains  of  the  Kaibab  Plateau,  thirty 
or  forty  miles  farther  distant.  To  the  right,  the  Na- 
v.ijo  Mountains,  near  the  Colorado  State  line,  200 
miles.  In  the  northeast,  the  wonderful  Painted  Des- 
ert, tinted  with  rainbow-hues,  and  the  Navajo  Res- 
ervation. Below  that,  the  Moqui  buttes  and  villages. 
Toward  the  east,  the  broad  plateau  and  desert  as  far 
as  the  divide  near  Navajo  Springs,  130  miles  east 
from  Flagstaff  by  the  railroad.  In  the  southeast,  the 
White  Mountains,  more  than  200  miles.  In  the 
south,  successively,  the  Mogollon  Plateau,  a  group  of 
a  dozen  lakes — unlooked-for  sight  in  the  arid  lands 
— Baker's  Butte,  the  Four  Peaks,  and  the  Supersti- 
tion Mountains  near  Phoenix,  the  last  named  160 
miles  distant.  In  the  southwest,  the  Bradshaw 
Mountains,  140  miles;  Granite  Mountain,  at  Pres- 
cott,  100  miles,  and  the  Juniper  Range,  150  miles. 
The  horizon  directly  west  is  vague  and  doubtful, 
but  is  believed  to  lie  near  the  California  line.  In  the 
northwest  a  distant  ran^je  is  seen,  north  of  the  Colo- 
rado River  and  east  of  the  Nevada  line,  perhaps  the 
Sheavwits  or  the  Hurricane  Mountains.  Among 
the  less  remote  objects  are  the  Coconino  forest  and 
basin  on  the  north;  on  the  east  the  Little  Colorado, 
traceable  by  its  fringe  of  cottonwoods,  beds  of  lava 
flung  like  the  shadow  of  a  cloud  or  the  trail  of  a 
conflagration,  and  Sunset  and  Peachblow  craters, 
black  cones  of  cinder  capped  with  red  scoria;  on  the 
south  and  southwest  Oak  Creek  Canon,  the  Jerome 
smelters,  and  the  rugged  pictorial  breakdown  of  the 
Verde,  and,  under  foot.  Flagstaff;  and  on  the  west 
42 


the  peaks  of   Bill  Williams,  Sitgreaves,  and   Ken- 

dricks,  neighborly  near. 

Yet,  in  spite  of  the  grandeur  of  such  a  scene,  San 
Francisco  Mountain  itself  soon  gains  and  monopo- 
lizes the  attention.  It  has  slopes  that  bend  in  a 
single  sweeping  curve  to  depths  which  the  brain 
reels  to  contemplate,  down  which  a  loosened  stone 
will  spin  until  the  eye  can  no  longer  distinguish  its 
course;  and  there  are  huge  folds  and  precipices  and 
abysses  of  which  no  hint  was  given  in  the  ascent. 
There  is,  too,  a  small  glacier.  Perhaps  its  most  at- 
tractive single  feature  is  a  profound  bowl-shaped 
cavity  between  Humphrey  and  Agassiz  peaks,  over- 
hung by  strangely  sculptured  cliffs  that  have  the  ap- 
pearance of  ruined  castle-walls  perforated  with  rude 
doorways,  windows,  and  loopholes.  It  is  called  The 
Crater,  and  is  almost  completely  boxed  in  by  steep 
but  uniform  slopes  of  volcanic  sand,  in  descending 
which  a  horse  sinks  to  his  fetlocks.  On  the  side 
toward  the  north  it  breaks  down  into  a  canon  lead- 
ing off  to  the  plain  and  set  with  tree,  grass,  fern  and 
flower.  Its  axis  is  marked  by  two  parallel  lines  of 
bare  bowlders  of  great  size,  that  seem  to  have  been 
thrown  up  from  the  underlying  rock  by  some  prodig- 
ious ebullition  of  internal  forces. 

This  mountain  has  always  been  regarded  as  a 
mass  of  lava  heaped  upon  the  plain  around  volcanic 
vents.  Recent  prospectors  now  claim  it  to  be  com- 
posed of  gray  and  red  granite  and  pure  white  lime- 
stone, diked  with  porphyry,  and  capped  with  meta- 
morphosed rocks  and  lava.  Many  mining-claims 
have  within  a  short  time  been  located  upon  it,  and 
the  outcroppings  are  reported  to  contain  free  milling- 
gold  ore  of  low  grade. 

The  round  trip  to  the  peak  is  customarily  made  in 
a  day,  but  arrangements  may  be  made  to  remain 
upon  the  mountain  over  night  if  determined  upon  in 
43 


,r*# 


advance,  and  such  a  plan  is  recommended  to  those 
who  have  never  seen  the  glories  of  sunset  and  sunrise 
from  a  mountain-hcijjht.  Among  the  mountains  of 
America  there  is  hardly  another  that  at  the  cost  of  so 
little  hardship  yields  so  rich  a  reward. 


GRAND  CANON  OF  THE  COLORADO. 

The  series  of  tremendous  chasms  which  form  the 
channel  of  the  Colorado  River  in  its  course  through 
Northern  Arizona  reach  their  culmination  in  a  cha- 
otic gorge  217  miles  long,  from  9  to  13  miles  wide, 
and,  midway,  more  than  6,600  feet  below  the  level 
of  the  plateau.  Standing  upon  the  brink  of  that 
plateau,  at  the  point  of  the  canon's  greatest  width 
and  depth,  the  beholder  is  confronted  by  a  scene 
whose  majesty  and  beautv  are  well-nigh  unbearable. 
Snatc'  in  a  single  glance  from  every  accustomed 
anchorage  of  human  experience,  the  stoutest  heart 
here  quavers,  the  senses  cower.  It  is  the  only  known 
spot  which  one  need  not  fear  approaching  with  an- 
ticipations too  exalted.  It  is  a  new  world,  compel- 
44 


ling  the  tribute  of  sensations  whose  intensity  exceeds 
tiu-  familiar  sijjnilication  of  words.  If  you  say  of 
Niagara's  gorjjc  that  it  is  profound,  what  shall  you 
say  of  the  Colorado's  chasm  that  yawns  beneath  your 
feet  to  a  depth  nearly  hfty  times  greater?  If  you 
iiave  looked  down  from  the  heigiitof  the  Eiffel  tower 
and  called  it  vertiginous,  what  shall  you  say  when 
you  are  brought  to  the  verge  of  a  gulf  at  points  of 
which  you  may  drop  a  plummet  five  times  as  far? 
And  when  you  face,  not  a  mere  narrow  frowning 
gash  of  extraordinary  depth,  but  a  broad  underworld 
that  reaches  to  the  uttermost  horizon  and  seems  as 
vast  as  the  earth  itself;  studded  with  innumerable 
pyramidal  mountains  of  massive  bulk  hewn  from 
gaudiest  rock-strata,  that  barely  lift  the  cones  and 
turrets  of  their  crests  to  the  level  of  the  eye;  divided 
by  purple  voids;  banded  in  vivid  colors  of  transpar- 
ent brilliancy  that  are  harmonized  by  atmosphere 
and  refraction  to  a  marvelous  delicacy  ;  controlled 
by  a  unity  of  idea  that  redeems  the  whole  from  the 
menace  of  overwhelming  chaos — then  the  pen  halts 
in  undertaking  its  description. 

Some  attempt,  however,  has  been  made  in  ''The 
Grand  Canon  of  the  Colorado  "  to  which  the  reader 
who  can  not  avail  of  the  magnificent  volumes  of 
Powell  and  Button,  and  desires  a  more  intimate 
knowledge  than  can  be  derived  from  the  graceful 
and  eloquent  pages  devoted  to  the  subject  in  Warn- 
er's "  Our  Italy,"  is  referred. 

The  Grand  Caiion  is  sixty-five  miles  distant  from 
Flagstaff,  by  a  nearly  level  road,  through  a  region 
that  presents  in  turn  nearly  all  the  characteristic 
features  of  Arizona.  Except  in  the  winter  months, 
at  which  time  the  journey  can  be  undertaken  only 
when  weather  and  roads  are  favorable,  a  tri-weekly 
stage  makes  the  trip  to  the  cafion  in  about  twelve 
stop  for  dinner  midway.  Passengers 
46 


quit  the  stage  upon  the  very  rim  of  the  canon,  at  the 
most  impressive  point,  and  so  long  as  they  may 
choose  to  remain  are  provided  with  comfortable 
lodgings  and  excellent  meals. 

CLIFF   AND   CAVE   DWELLINGS. 

This  region  abounds  in  scattered  ruins  of  the 
dwellings  of  a  prehistoric  people.  The  most  impor- 
tant yet  discovered  lie  within  a  radius  of  eight  miles 
from  Flagstaff,  and  are  easily  accessible. 

On  the  southeast,  Walnut  Cafion  breaks  the  pla- 
teau for  a  distance  of  several  miles,  its  walls  deeply 
eroded  in  horizontal  parallel  lines.  In  these  nat- 
ural recesses,  floored  and  roofed  by  the  more  endur- 
ing strata,  the  cliff-dwellings  are  found  in  great 
number,  walled  up  on  the  front  and  sides  with  rock 
fragments  and  cement,  and  partitioned  into  com- 
partments. Some  have  fallen  into  decay,  only  por- 
tions of  their  walls  remaining,  and  but  a  narrow 
shelf  of  the  once  broad  floor  of  solid  rock  left  to  evi- 
dence their  extreme  antiquity.  Others  are  almost 
wholly  intact,  having  stubbornly  resisted  the  weath- 
ering of  time.  Nothing  but  fragments  of  pottery 
now  remain  of  the  many  quaint  implements  and 
trinkets  that  characterized  these  dwellings  at  the 
time  of  their  discovery  and  have  since  been  exhumed 
by  scientist  and  collector.  At  least,  nothing  of  value 
is  supposed  to  remain  about  those  that  are  commonly 
visited.  Many  others,  more  difficult  toe.xplore,  may 
yet  yield  a  store  of  archaeological  treasure. 

Fixed  like  swallows'  nests  upon  the  face  of  a  preci- 
pice, approachable  from  above  or  below  only  by  de- 
liberate and  cautious  climbing,  these  dwellings  have 
the  appearance  of  fortified  retreats  lather  than  habit- 
ual abodes.  That  there  was  a  time,  in  the  remote 
past,  when  warlike  peoples  of  mysterious  origin 
passed  southward  over  this  plateau  is  generally  cred- 
47 


itfd.  Ami  tlic  existence  of  the  cliff-dwellings  is 
ascribed  to  the  exigencies  of  that  dark  period,  when 
the  inhabitants  of  the  plateau,  unable  to  cope  with 
the  superior  energy,  intelligence  and  numbers  of  the 
descending  hordes,  devised  these  unassailable  re- 
treats. All  their  quaintness  and  antiquity  cannot 
conceal  the  deep  pathos  of  their  being,  for  tragedy 
is  written  all  over  these  poor  hovels  hung  between 
earth  and  sky.  Their  builders  hold  no  smallest  niche 
in  recorded  history.  Their  aspirations,  their  strug- 
gles and  their  fate  are  all  unwritten,  save  on  these 
crumbling  stones,  which  are  their  sole  monument  and 
meager  epitaph.  Here  once  they  dwelt.  They  left 
no  other  print  on  Time. 

At  an  equal  distance  to  the  north  of  Flagstaff, 
among  the  cinder-buried  cones,  is  one  whose  sum- 
mit commands  a  wide-sweeping  view  of  the  plain. 
Upon  its  ape.x,  in  the  innumerable  spout-holes  that 
were  the  outlet  of  ancient  eruptions,  are  the  cave- 
dwellings,  around  many  of  which  rude  stone-walls 
still  stand.  The  story  of  these  habitations  is  like- 
wise wholly  conjectural.  They  may  have  been  con- 
temporary with  the  clifl-dwellings.  That  they  were 
long  inhabited  is  clearly  apparent.  Fragments  of 
shattered  pottery  lie  on  every  hand. 

CENTRAL   AND   SOUTHERN   ARIZONA. 

From  Ash  Fork,  west  of  Flagstaff,  the  Santa  Fe, 
Prescott  &  Phoeni.x  Railroad  extends  southward  over 
an  elevated  region  commanding  wide  views,  through 
canons  and  valleys  of  great  beauty,  and  past  some 
of  the  largest  copper-mines  in  the  United  States,  for 
sixty  miles,  to  Prescott.  This  city  is  to  the  northern 
half  of  Arizona  what  Denver  is  to  the  State  of  Colo- 
rado: a  distributing  and  shipping  point  for  a  large 
surrounding  country  in  which  mining  is  the  greatest 
activity,  with  horticultural  interests  rapidly  develop- 
ing in  pace  with  facilities  for  irrigation. 
48 


In  the  winter  of  1893  this  railroad  will  have 
reached  Phoenix,  the  capital,  which  is  located  in  the 
Salt  River  Valley,  140  miles  beyond  Prescott — a  mag- 
nificent level  floor,  walled  in  by  mountains,  and  con- 
taining a  million  acres  of  irrigable  lands.  Here,  in 
a  climate  where  snow  is  unknown,  nearly  every  va- 
riety of  fruit  and  nut,  except  those  that  are  absolutely 
restricted  to  the  tropics,  is  grown  in  extraordinary 
profusion,  in  addition  to  the  ordinary  cereals  and 
vegetables  of  the  North  Temperate  Zone.  The  list  is 
long,  and  includes  grapes,  quinces,  apricots,  peaches, 
nectarines,  pears,  plums,  prunes,  pomegranates, 
loquats,  guavas,  Japanese  persimmons,  figs,  oranges, 
lemons,  olives,  dates,  peanuts,  almonds  and  pecans. 
The  neighborhood  of  Prescott  yields  vast  quantities 
of  copper,  and  not  a  little  gold.  There  are,  among 
other  famous  deposits,  the  United  Verde  copper-mines 
and  the  Congress  and  Rich  Hill  gold-mines;  the  last- 
named  situated  upon  an  isolated  peak,  where  in  the 
early  days  free  gold  was  literally  whittled  from  the 
rock  with  knives  and  chisels.  Nowhere  has  nature 
been  more  lavish  of  her  treasures,  and  while  yet  the 
store  of  precious  metal  has  barely  been  explored,  the 
smaller  alluvial  valleys,  and  that  vast  one  around 
Phoenix,  have  become  widely  known  for  the  produc- 
tion of  multifarious  fruits  which  ripen  several  weeks 
in  advance  of  those  of  California. 

Hitherto  the  only  facile  communication  between 
the  Salt  River  Valley  and  the  outside  world  has  been 
by  a  roundabout  way  through  the  South.  Here- 
after there  will  be  a  direct  thoroughfare  by  way  of 
Ash  Fork,  both  for  tourists  and  for  exportation  of 
the  phenomenal  products  of  the  region. 
49 


yc.T.  Co,-.. 


IV. 


SOUTHERN     CALIFORNIA. 

r^^^^J^  I'KW  miles  beyond  the  Colorado  River 
Zw^^C  ♦crossing  at  The  Needles  is  the  railroad 
fk  (^.^  station  of  that  name,  where  the  remnant 
of  the  once  powerful  and  warlike  Mojave 
tribe,  now  become  beggarly  hangers-on  to  civiliza- 
tion, love  to  congregate  and  offer  inferior  wares  in 
the  shape  of  bows  and  arrows  and  pottery  trinkets  to 
travelers  in  exchange  for  coin.  Their  hovels  are 
scattered  along  the  wayside,  and  the  eager  congre- 
gation of  women  peddlers,  some  with  naked  babies 
sitting  stoically  astride  their  hips,  and  all  dubiously 
picturesque  in  paint  and  rags,  is  sufficiently  divert- 
ing. The  men  attain  gigantic  stature,  and  are  famed 
for  their  speed  and  bottom  as  runners;  but  their  abil- 
ity might  be  fairly  taxed  by  the  tourist  of  average  ca- 
pacity who  for  any  cause  felt  himself  in  danger  of 
being  compelled  to  share  their  abode  or  mingle  inti- 
mately with  them.  A  sound-heeled  Achilles  would 
fall  behind  in  pursuit  of  the  fleer  from  such  a  sorry 
fate. 

But  this  is  California,  the  much-lauded  land  of  fruit 
and  flower  and  sunny  clime,  of  mountain  and  shore 
and  sea-girt  isle;  land  of  paradoxes,  where  winter  is  the 
season  of  bloom  and  fruitage  and  summer  is  nature's 
time  of  slumber.  The  traveler  enters  it  for  the  first 
time  with  a  vivid  preconception  of  its  splendors. 
50 


By  way  of  introduction  you  are  borne  across  the 
most  sterile  portion  of  tiie  most  liopeless  waste  in 
America,  wliose  monotony  intercepts  every  approach 
to  California  except  that  roundabout  one  by  way  of 
the  sea.  But  here  you  are  screened  by  night,  and 
will  know  nothing  of  its  terrors  except  as  they  are 
told  you.  On  every  hand  lies  a  drear  stretch  of  sand 
and  alkali,  a  Nubian  desert  unmarked  by  a  single  hu- 
man habitation  outside  the  lonely  path  of  the  loco- 
motive; where  not  even  the  cry  of  a  wolf  breaks  the 
grim  silence  of  desolation.  Through  this  the  train 
hastens  to  a  more  elevated  country,  arid  still,  but  re- 
lieved by  rugged  rocks,  the  esthetic  gnarled  trunks 
and  bolls  of  the  yucca  and  occasional  growths  of  de- 
ciduous trees.     You  enter  the  Cajon  Pass. 

Did  not  the  journey  include  a  return  through  Col- 
orado, where  much  must  be  said  of  the  grandeur  of 
distinctive  mountain  scenery,  Cajon  Pass  would  bear 
extended  mention.  It  is  the  loveliest  imaginable 
scene,  a  gently  billowing  mountain-flank  densely  set 
with  thickets  of  manzanita,  through  whose  glossy 
green  foliage  and  red  stems  the  pale  earth  gleams, 
rising  here  and  there  in  graceful  dunes  of  white  un- 
flecked  by  grass  or  shrub,  and  overhung  by  parallel 
terraced  ridges  of  the  San  Bernardino  Mountains, 
that  pale  in  turn  to  a  topmost  height  far  in  the  blue 
Italian  sky.  Entirely  wanting  in  the  austerity  that 
characterizes  the  grander  mountains  of  loftier  alti- 
tudes, it  takes  you  from  the  keeping  of  plateau  and 
desert  and  by  seductive  windings  leads  you  down  to 
the  garden  of  California.  Typical  scenes  at  once  ap- 
pear. On  either  hand  are  seen  orchards,  of  the  peach, 
apricot,  prune,  olive,  fig,  almond,  walnut,  and  that 
always  eagerly  anticipated  one  of  the  orange. 

You  will  not,  however,  find  this  whole  land  a  jungle 
of  orange  and  palm  trees,  parted  only  by  thick  banks 
of  flowers.  The  world  is  wide,  even  in  California,  or 
51 


one  might  better  say  parficulany  Jn  California,  where 
over  an  arta  averaging  150  miles  wide  and  1,000 
miles  long  is  scattered  a  I'-opulation  no  greater  than 
that  of  the  city  of  Chicago.  It  is  true  that  at  River 
side  orange-trees  do  grow  tiirough  the  station  plat- 
form, and  at  many  places  along  your  route  you  may 
almo!  t  pluck  the  golden  fruit  from  the  car-window  in 
passing;  but  the  celebrated  products  of  California  lie 
in  restricted  areas  of  cultivation,  which  you  are  ex- 
I>ectcd  to  visit;  and  herein  lies  much  of  the  Califor- 
nian's  pride,  that  there  still  remains  so  much  of  op- 
portunity for  all.  There  is  everything  in  California 
that  has  been  credited  to  it,  but  what  proves  not  un- 
commonly a  surprise  is  the  relatively  small  area  of 
improved  land  and  the  consequent  frequency  of  un- 
fructed  intervals.  Only  a  moment's  reflection  is  need- 
ed to  perceive  that  the  case  could  not  be  otherwise. 
As  for  flowers,  even  here  they  are  not  eternal,  except 
in  the  thousands  of  watered  gardens.  In  the  dry 
summer  season  the  hills  turn  brown  and  sleep.  Only 
when  the  winter  rains  have  slaked  the  parched  earth 
do  the  grass  and  flowers  awake,  and  then  for  a  few 
months  there  is  a  enough  of  bloom  and  fragrance  to 
satisfy  the  most  exuberant  fancy. 

Now  past  pretty  horticultural  communities,  flanked 
by  the  Sierra  Madre,  the  way  leads  quickly  from  San 
Bernardino  to  Pasadena  and  Los  Angelts. 

From  the  last-named  city  you  pass  through  a  fruit- 
ful region,  and  within  a  stone's-throw  of  the  impres- 
sive mission-ruins  of  Capistrano,  to  a  shore  where 
the  long  waves  of  the  Pacific  break  upon  gleaming 
white  sands  and  the  air  is  of  the  sea.  Blue  as  the 
sky  is  the  Pacific,  paling  in  the  shallows  toward  land, 
and  flecked  with  bright  or  somber  cloud-reflections 
and  smurring  ripples  of  the  breeze.  It  is  not  only 
the  westerly  bound  of  the  North  American  Continent, 
it  is  the  South  Seas  of  old  adventure,  where  many  a 
52 


hulk  of  once  treasure-laden  galleons  lies  fathoms  deep 
among  the  queer  denizens  of  the  sea  who  repeat  wild 
legends  of  naughty  buccaneers.  There  is  challenge 
to  the  imagination  in  the  very  tracklessness  of  the 
sea.  On  the  wrinkled  face  of  earth  you  may  read 
earth's  story.  She  has  laid  things  to  heart.  She 
broods  on  memories.  But  the  sea  denies  the  past;  it 
is  as  heedless  of  events  that  were  as  the  air  is  of  the 
path  where  yesterday  a  butterfly  was  winging.  Its 
incontinent  expanse  is  alluring  to  the  fancy,  and 
this  sunset  sea  even  more  than  the  tempestuous  ocean 
that  beats  upon  our  eastern  shores,  for  it  is  so  lately 
become  our  possession  it  seems  still  a  foreign  thing, 
strewn  with  almost  as  many  wrecks  of  Spanish  hopes 
as  of  galleons;  and  into  its  broad  bosom  the  sun 
sinks  to  rise  upon  quaint  antipodean  peoples,  beyond 
a  thousand  mysterious  inhabited  islands  in  the  swirls 
of  the  equatorial  currents. 

Next,  swinging  inland  to  find  the  pass  of  the  last 
intervening  hills,  you  make  a  final  descent  to  the 
water's  edge,  and  come  to  San  Diego,  that  dreamy 
city  of  Mediterranean  atmosphere  and  color,  terraced 
along  the  rim  of  a  sheltered  bay  of  surpassing  beau- 
ty. Guarding  the  mouth  of  the  harbor  lies  the  long 
crescent  peninsular  of  Coronado,  the  pale  facades  of 
whose  mammoth  hotel  flash  through  tropical  vege- 
tation across  the  blue  intervening  waters. 


^~:3ss 


OF   CLIMATE. 

Here  the  sun  habitually  shines.  Near  the  coast 
flows  the  broad  equable  Japanese  ocean-current,  from 
R^hich  a  tempered  breeze  sweeps  overland  every  morn- 
ing, every  night  to  return  from  the  cool  mountain- 
tops.  Between  the  first  of  May  and  the  last  of  Octo- 
ber rain  almost  never  falls.  By  the  end  of  June  the 
earth  has  evaporated  most  of  its  surface-moisture,  and 
vegetation  unsustained  by  artificial  watering  begins 
53 


to  tanjuish.  The  midday  temperature  now  rises, 
but  the  same  breeze  swings  like  a  pendulum  between 
ocean  and  mountain,  and  night  and  early  morning 
arc  no  less  invigorating.  This  is  summer,  a  joyous 
and  active  season  generally  misconceived  by  the  tour- 
ist, who  not  unreasonably  visits  California  in  the  win- 
ter-time to  cstxipe  Northern  cold  and  snow,  and  in- 
fers an  unendurable  torrid  summer  from  a  winter  of 
mildness  and  luxuriance. 

With  November  the  first  showers  generally  begin, 
followed  by  an  occasional  heavy  downpour,  and  North- 
ern pastures  now  whiten  under  falling  snow  hardly 
faster  than  do  these  sere  hills  turn  beryl-green.  The 
rainy  season  is  so  called  not  because  it  is  characterized 
by  continuous  rainfall,  but  to  distinguish  it  from  that 
portion  of  the  year  in  which  rain  cannot  be  looked 
for.  Bright  days  are  still  the  rule,  and  showery  days 
are  marked  by  transcendent  beauties  of  earth  and 
sky,  fleeting  wonders  of  form  and  color.  Let  the 
morning  open  with  a  murky  zenith,  dark  tumbled 
cloud -masses  dropping  shower.  As  the  invisible  sun 
mounts,  he  peeps  unexpectedly  through  a  rift  to  see 
that  his  world  is  safe,  then  vanishes.  The  sky  has 
an  unrelenting  look.  The  mountains  are  obscured. 
Suddenly,  far  to  the  left,  a  rift  breaks  dazzling  white, 
just  short  of  where  the  rain  is  falling  on  the  hills  in 
a  long  bending  column,  and  at  one  side  a  broad  patch 
pales  into  mottled  gray ;  and  below  the  rift  a  light  mist 
is  seen  floating  on  the  flank  of  a  mountain  that  shoots 
into  sharp  relief  against  a  vapor-wall  of  slate.  At 
the  mountain's  foot  a  whole  hillside  shows  in  warm 
brown  tint,  its  right  edge  merged  in  a  low  flat  cloud 
of  silver,  born,  you  could  aver,  on  the  instant,  from 
which  the  truncated  base  of  a  second  mountain  de- 
pends, blue  as  indigo.  The  face  of  earth,  washed 
newly,  is  a  patchwork  of  somber  and  gaudy  trans- 
parent colors:  yellows,  greens,  sepias,  grays.  One's 
54 


range  and  clearness  of  vision  are  quickly  expanded,  as 
wlieu  a  Iclcscopc  is  titled  to  the  eye.  Now  begins  a 
wiMidcrf id  shilling  of  light  and  shadow ;  pcejis  through 
a  curtain  that  veils  unbearable  splendors  of  upper 
sky;  grailual  dissolutions  of  cloud  into  curls  and 
twists  and  splashes,  with  filling  of  blue  between. 
Again  the  sun  appears,  at  first  with  a  pale  burnished 
light,  Hashing  and  fading  irresolutely  until  at  length 
it  flames  out  with  summer  ardor.  The  clouds  break 
into  still  more  curious  forms,  into  pictures  and 
images  of  quaint  device,  and  outside  the  wide  circle 
of  brilliant  sunlight  all  the  hills  are  in  purple  shadow, 
fading  into  steel-blue,  and  about  their  crests  cling 
wisps  of  many-colored  fleece.  Here  and  there  a  dis- 
tant peak  is  blackly  hooded,  or  gleams  subtly  behind 
an  intervening  shower — a  thin  transparent  wash  of 
smoky  hue.  The  veil  quickly  dissipates,  and  at  the 
same  instant  the  peak  is  robbed  of  its  sunlight  by 
billows  of  vapor  that  marshal  in  appalling  magnifi- 
cence. Then  the  rain-mist  advances  and  hides  the 
whole  from  view.  A  strip  of  green  ne.xt  flashes  on 
the  sight,  a  distant  field  lighted  by  the  sun,  but  lying 
unaccountably  beneath  a  cloud  of  black.  Beyond, 
the  broad  foot  of  a  rainbow  winks  and  disappears. 
Among  all  the  hilltops  rain  next  begins  to  fall  like 
amber  smoke,  so  thin  is  the  veil  that  shields  them 
from  the  sun.  Then  the  sun  abruptly  ceases  to 
shine,  the  whole  heavens  are  overcast,  and  between 
the  fine  fast-falling  drops  the  ground  gleams  wet  in 
cool  gray  light.  By  noon  the  sun  again  is  shining 
clear,  although  in  occasional  caflons  there  is  night 
and  deluge,  and  at  the  close  of  a  bright  afternoon 
the  farthest,  loftiest  peak  has  a  white  cloud  wreath 
around  it,  as  symmetrical  as  a  smoke-ring  breathed 
from  the  lips  of  a  sefiorita ;  and  out  of  the  middle  of 
it  rises  the  fragment  of  a  rainbow — a  cockade  on  a 
56 


mist- laureled  Matterhorn.     Then  the  sun  drops,  and 
the  day  is  done. 

That  is  the  way  it  rains  in  California,  and  between 
such  days  are  unclouded  intervals  of  considerable 
duration.  They  call  this  season  winter.  The  tem- 
perature is  so  finely  balanced  one  does  not  easily 
decide  whether  to  walk  upon  the  sunny  or  the  shady 
side  of  the  street.  It  is  cool;  not  cold,  not  bracing 
in  the  ordinary  sense,  but  just  the  proper  tempera- 
ture for  continuous  out-of-door  life.  June  does  not 
define  it,  nor  September.  It  has  no  synonym.  But 
if  you  cared  to  add  one  more  to  the  many  unsuccess- 
ful attempts  to  define  it  in  a  phrase,  you  might  term 
it  constant  delicious  weather;  to-day,  to-morrow, 
and  indefinitely  in  the  future,  morally  certain  to  be 
very  much  as  you  would  have  it  if  you  were  to  create 
an  air  and  a  sky  exactly  to  suit  his  or  her  majesty 
yourself.  But  even  here  man  is  a  clothes-wearing 
anim.al.  There  is  a  coolness  pervading  the  most 
brilliant  sunshine.  Remembering  this,  the  most  ap- 
prehensive person  will  soon  discover  that  there  is  no 
menace  in  the  dry,  pure  and  gently  invigorating  air 
of  the  Southern  California  winter.  It  wins  the  inva- 
lid to  health  by  enticing  him  to  remain  out-of-doors. 

Ranging  from  warm  sea-level  to  peaks  of  frigid  in- 
clemency, this  varied  state  offers  many  climatic  grada- 
tions, whose  contrasts  are  nearly  always  in  view.  In 
winter  you  may  sit  upon  almost  any  veranda  in  South- 
ern California  and  lift  your  eyes  from  the  brilliant 
green  of  ornamental  trees  and  shrubs,  from  orchards 
where  fruits  ripen  in  heavy  clusters,  and  from  the 
variegated  bloom  of  gardens,  to  ragged  horizon-lines 
buried  deep  in  snow.  There  above  is  a  frozen  waste, 
an  Alpine  terror.  Here  below  is  summer,  shorn  of 
summer  languor.  And  between  may  be  found  any 
modification  that  could  reasonably  be  sought,  each 
steadfast  in  its  own  characteristics. 
57 


The  smallest  of  these  communities  is  great  in  con- 
tent. Literally  couched  beneath  his  own  vine  and 
tiij-tree,  plucking  from  friendly  boughs  deUcious 
fruits,  finding  in  the  multifarious  products  of  the 
soil  nearly  everything  needful  in  domestic  economy, 
and  free  from  most  of  the  ills  that  flesh  was  thought 
to  be  heir  to,  what  wonder  that  the  Californian  envies 
no  man,  nor  ever  looks  wistfully  over  the  sierra's 
crest  toward  the  crowded  cities  and  precarious  farm- 


ing regions  of  the  East?  An  uplifting  environment 
for  a  home,  truly,  fit  to  breed  a  race  worthy  of  the 
noblest  empire  among  the  States.  There  is  work  to 
be  done,  in  the  house  and  the  field,  but  in  such  an 
air  and  scene  it  is  as  near  a  transfiguration  of  labor 
as  can  well  be  imagined.  Here  it  is  indeed  a  poor 
boy  or  girl  who  has  not  a  pony  on  which  to  scamper 
58 


about,  or  lacks  liberty  for  such  enjoyment.  And 
every  year  there  comes  a  period  of  holiday,  an  inter- 
val when  there  is  no  planting  or  harvesting  to  be 
done,  no  picking  or  drying  or  packing  of  fruit,  a 
recuperating  spell  of  nature,  when  the  weather  is  just 
as  glorious  as  ever,  and  the  mountains  and  ocean 
beckon  seductively  to  the  poet  that  is  in  the  heart  of 
every  unharassed  man  and  woman  and  child.  Then 
for  weeks  the  canons  are  dotted  with  tents,  where  the 
mountain-torrent  foams  and  spreading  sycamores 
are  festooned  with  mistletoe;  and  the  trout  of  the 
stream  and  the  game  of  the  forest  have  their  solstice 
of  woe.  Or,  on  the  rim  of  the  sea,  thousands  of 
merry  hearts,  both  young  and  old,  congregate  and 
hold  high  carnival.  When  the  campers  return  to 
shop  and  field  it  is  not  by  reason  of  any  inclemency 
of  weather,  but  because  their  term  of  holiday  has  ex- 
pired. Then  come  the  tourists,  and  pale  fugitives 
from  the  buffets  of  Boreas,  to  wander  happily  over 
hillside  and  shore  in  a  land  unvexed  by  the  tyranny 
of  the  seasons. 

The  most  seductive  of  lands,  and  the  most  tena- 
cious in  its  hold  upon  you.  You  have  done  but  little, 
and  a  day  has  fled;  have  idled,  walked,  ridden,  sailed 
a  little,  have  seen  two  or  three  of  the  thousand  things 
to  be  seen,  and  a  week,  a  month,  is  gone.  You 
could  grieve  that  such  golden  burdenless  hours  should 
ever  go  into  the  past,  did  they  not  flow  from  an  in- 
exhaustible fount.  For  to  be  out  all  day  in  the  care- 
less freedom  of  perfect  weather;  to  ramble  over  ruins 
of  a  former  occupation;  to  wander  through  gardens 
and  orchards;  to  fish,  to  shoot,  to  gather  flowers 
from  the  blossoming  hillslopes;  to  explore  a  hundred 
fascinating  retreats  of  mountain  and  shore;  to  lounge 
on  the  sands  by  the  surf  until  the  sun  drops  into  the 
sea;  all  this  is  permitted  by  the  Southern  California 
winter. 

59 


SAN   DIEGO    AND   VICINITY. 

Fringing  a  bay  that  for  a  dozen  miles  glows  like  a 
golden  mirror  below  its  purple  rim,  San  Diego  stands 
upon  a  slope  that  rises  from  the  water  to  the  summit 
of  a  broad  mesa.  In  front  the  bold  promontory  of 
Point  Loma  juts  into  the  sea,  overlapping  the  low 
slender  peninsular  of  Coronado,  and  between  them 
lies  the  narrow  entrance  to  this  most  beautiful  of 
harbors.  One  may  be  happy  in  San  Diego  and  do 
nothing.  Its  soft  sensuous  beauty  and  caressing  air 
create  in  the  breast  a  new  sense  of  the  joy  of  mere 
existence.  But  there  is,  besides,  abundant  material 
for  the  sight-seer.  Here,  with  many,  begins  the  first 
leisurely  and  intimate  acquaintance  with  those  objects 
of  unfailing  interest,  the  growing  orange  and  lemon. 
Orchards  are  on  every  hand;  not  in  the  profusion  that 
characterizes  some  of  the  more  extensively  developed 
localities,  but  still  abundant,  and  inferior  to  none  in 
fruitage.  Paradise  Valley,  the  Valley  of  the  Sweet- 
water, where  may  be  seen  the  great  inigaling-fount 
of  so  many  farms,  and  Mission  Valley,  where  the  San 
Diego  River  flows  and  the  dismantled  ruin  of  the 
oldest  California  mission,  elbowed  by  a  modern  In- 
dian school,  watches  over  its  ancient  but  still  vigorous 
trees,  afford  the  most  impressive  examples  of  these 
growing  fruits  in  the  immediate  neighborhood.  El 
Cajon  Valley  is  celebrated  for  its  vineyards.  At  Na- 
tional City,  four  miles  away,  are  extensive  olive- 
orchards.  Fifteen  miles  to  the  south  the  Mexican 
village  of  Tia  Juana  attracts  many  visitors,  whose 
average  experience  consists  of  a  pleasant  railroad-ride 
to  the  border  and  a  half-hour's  residence  in  a  foreign 
country;  but  the  noble  coast  scenery  of  Point  of 
Rocks,  the  boundary  monument,  and  remarkable  hot 
sulphur  springs  are  reached  by  a  short  and  attractive 
drive  from  that  little  Lower  California  town. 
6i 


The  diverse  allurements  of  mountain  and  valley, 
anil  northward-stretching  shore  of  alternating  bt-ach 
ami  hijjii  ronunanding  blulT,  are  innumerable,  but 
the  calalojjue  of  tiicir  names  does  not  fall  within  the 
province  of  these  pages.  One  marvelous  bit  of  coast, 
thirteen  miles  away  and  easily  reached  by  railway  or 
carriage-drive,  must  however  have  specific  mention. 
It  is  l.a  JoUa  I'ark.  Here  a  plateau  overlooks  the  open 
sea  from  a  bluff  that  tumbles  precipitously  to  a  nar- 
row strip  of  sand.  The  face  of  the  cliff  for  a  dis- 
tance of  several  miles  has  been  sculptured  by  the 
waves  into  most  curious  forms.  It  projects  in  rect- 
angular blocks,  in  stumps,  stools,  benches,  and  bas- 
reliefs  that  strikingly  resemble  natural  objects,  their 
surfaces  chiseled  intaglio  with  almost  intelligible  de- 
vices. Loosened  fragments  have  worn  deep  sym- 
metrical wells,  or  pot-holes,  to  which  the  somewhat 
inadequate  Spanish-Indian  name  of  the  place  is  due; 
and  what  seem  at  first  glance  to  be  enormous  bowlders 
loosely  piled,  with  spacious  interstices  through  which 
the  foam  spurts  and  crashes,  are  the  selfsame  solid 
clifT,  carved  and  polished,  but  not  wholly  separated 
by  the  sea.  Some  of  the  cavities  are  mere  pockets 
lined  with  mussels  and  minute  weeds  with  calcareous 
leaves.  Others  are  commodious  secluded  apart- 
ments, quite  commonly  used  as  dressing-rooms  by 
bathers.  The  real  caverns  can  be  entered  dry-shod 
only  at  lowest  tide.  The  cliff  where  they  lie  is 
gnawed  into  columns,  arches  and  aisles,  through 
which  one  cave  after  another  may  be  seen,  dimly 
lighted,  dry  and  practicable.  Seventy  five  feet  is 
probably  their  utmost  depth.  They  are  the  culmi- 
nation of  this  extraordinary  work  of  an  insensate 
sculptor.  There  are  alcove-niches,  friezes  of  small 
gray  and  black  mosaic,  horizontal  bands  of  red,  and 
high-vaulted  roofs.  If  the  native  California  Indians 
had  possessed  a  poetic  temperament  they  must  cer- 
62 


tainly  have  performed  religious  rites  in  such  a  temple. 
It  would  have  been  a  godsend  to  the  Druids.  The 
water  is  as  pellucid  as  a  mountain-spring.  The  flush 
of  the  waves  foams  dazzling  white  and  pours  through 
the  intricacies  of  countless  channels,  tunnels  and 
fissures  in  overwhelming  torrents,  and  in  the  brief 
intervals  between  ebb  and  rise  the  bottom  of  rock 
and  clean  sand  gleams  invitingly  through  a  depth  of 
many  feet.  Sea-anemones  are  thickly  clustered  upon 
the  lower  levels,  their  tinted  petal-filaments  scintil- 
lating in  the  shallow  element,  or  closed  bud-like 
while  waiting  for  the  flood.  Little  crabs  scamper  in 
disorderly  procession  through  the  crevices  at  your 
approach,  and  that  univalve  with  the  ornamental 
shell,  known  everywhere  as  the  abalone,  is  also 
abundant.  Seaweeds,  trailing  in  and  out  with  the 
movement  of  the  tide,  flame  through  the  transparent 
water  in  twenty  shades  of  green,  and  schools  of  gold- 
fish flash  in  the  swirling  current,  distorted  by  the 
varying  density  of  the  eddies  into  great  blotches  of 
brilliant  color,  unquenchable  firebrands  darting  hither 
and  yon  in  their  play.  They  are  not  the  true  gold- 
fish whose  habitat  is  a  globular  glass  half-filled  with 
tepid  water,  but  their  hue  is  every  whit  as  vivid.  In 
the  time  of  flowers  this  whole  plateau  is  covered  with 
odorous  bloom. 

63 


Then  there  is  Coronado.  Connected  by  ferry  and  by 
railroad  with  the  mainland,  Coronado  bears  the  same 
relation  to  San  Diego  that  fashionable  suburbs  bear 
to  many  Kastern  cities,  and  at  the  same  time  affords 
recreative  pleasures  which  the  inhabitants  of  those 
suburbs  must  go  far  to  seek.  Here  the  business-man 
dwells  in  Elysian  bowers  by  the  sea,  screened  from 
every  reminder  of  business  cares,  yet  barely  a  mile 
distant  from  office  or  shop.  Locking  up  in  his  desk 
at  evening  all  the  prosaic  details  of  bank  or  factoiy, 
of  railroad-rates,  of  the  price  of  stocks  and  real  es- 
tate and  wares,  in  ten  minutes  he  is  at  home  on  what 
is  in  effect  a  South  Sea  island,  where  brant  and 
curlew  and  pelican  fly,  and  not  all  the  myriad  dwell- 
ings and  the  pomp  of  their  one  architectural  splen- 
dor can  disturb  the  air  of  perfect  restfulness  and 
sweet  rusticity.  From  the  low  ridge  of  the  narrow 
peninsular  may  be  seen,  upon  the  one  liand,  a  wide- 
sweeping  mountainous  arc,  dipping  to  the  pretty  city 
that  borders  the  bay.  Upon  the  other,  the  unob- 
structed ocean  rolls.  Upon  the  ocean  side,  just  be- 
yond reach  of  the  waves,  stands  the  hotel  whose 
magnificence  has  given  it  leading  rank  among  the 
famous  hostelries  of  the  world.  It  is  built  around  a 
quadrangular  court,  ox  patio — a  dense  garden  of  rare 
shrubs  and  flowering  plants  more  than  an  acre  in  ex- 
tent. Upon  this/a^/i?  many  sleeping  rooms  open  by 
way  of  the  circumjacent  balcony,  besides  fronting 
upon  ocean  and  bay,  and  a  glass-covered  veranda, 
extending  nearly  the  entire  length  of  the  western 
frontage,  looks  over  the  sea  toward  the  peaks  of  the 
distant  Coronado  Islands.  On  the  north  lies  Point 
Loma  and  the  harbor-entrance,  on  the  east  San  Diego 
Bay  and  city,  and  on  the  south  Glorietta  Bay  and 
the  mountains  of  Mexico,  beyond  a  broad  half-circle 
of  lawn  dotted  with  semi-tropical  trees  and  bright 
beds  of  flowers,  and  bordered  by  hedges  of  cypress. 
64 


i^-.  M 


,'><  ;^- 


^i 


m.^'/'^ 


U^^/ii^ 


66 


Here  the  fisherman  has  choice  of  surf  or  billow 
or  the  still  surface  of  sheltered  waters  ;  of  sailboat, 
skiff  or  iron  pier.  The  gunner  finds  no  lack  of 
sea-fowl,  quail  or  rabbits.  The  bather  may  choose 
between  surf  and  huge  tanks  of  salt-water,  roofed 
with  glass,  fringed  with  flowers,  and  fitted  with  de- 
vices to  enhance  his  sport.  The  sight-seer  is  pro- 
vided with  a  score  of  special  local  attractions,  and 
all  the  resources  of  the  mainland  are  at  elbow. 
These  diversions  are  the  advantage  of  geographical 
location,  independent  of  the  social  recreations  one 
naturally  finds  in  fashionable  resorts,  at  hotels  liber- 
ally managed  and  frequented  by  representatives  of 
the  leisure  class. 

The  climate  of  the  coast  is  necessarily  distin- 
guished from  that  of  the  interior  by  greater  humid- 
ity, and  the  percentage  of  invisible  mois.ure  i  i  the 
air,  however  small,  must  infallibly  be  greater  at  Cor- 
onado  than  upon  the  Heights  of  San  Diego,  and 
greater  in  San  Diego  than  at  points  farther  removed 
Irom  the  sea.  This  is  the  clue  to  the  only  flaw  in 
the  otherwise  perfect  coast  climate,  and  it  is  a  flaw 
only  to  supersensitive  persons,  invalids  of  a  certain 
class.  The  consumptive  too  often  delays  taking 
advantage  of  the  benefits  of  climatic  change  until 
he  has  reached  a  point  when  nicest  discrimination 
has  become  necessary.  The  purest,  driest  and 
most  rarefied  air  compatible  with  the  complications 
of  disease  is  his  remedy,  if  remedy  e.xist  for  him. 
And  the  driest  and  most  rarefied  air  is  not  to  be 
looked  for  by  the  sea.  Yet  tlie  difference  is  not 
great  enough  to  be  brusquely  prohibitory.  No  one 
need  fear  to  go  to  the  coast,  and  a  shoit  stay  will 
determine  whether  or  no  the  relief  that  is  sought 
can  there  be  found;  while  for  many  derangements  it 
is  preferable  to  the  interior.  I'"or  him  who  is  not  in 
precarious  condition  the  foregoing  observations  have 
67 


.,^' 


no  sipnificnnce.  He  will  find  the  climate  of  all 
SoiUlKin  California  u  mere  gradation  of  glory.  Hut 
jK-rhaps  around  San  Diego,  and  at  one  or  two  other 
coast  points,  there  will  seem  to  be  a  spirit  even  s:en- 
tler  than  that  which  rules  the  hills. 


.^^^yz^f^'m 


CAPISTRANO. 

A  tiny  quaint  village  in  a  fertile  valley  that  slopes 
from  a  mountain-wall  to  the  sea,  unkempt  and  mon- 
grel, a  jumble  of  adobe-ruins,  whitewashed  hovels 
and  low  semi-modern  structures,  straggling  like  a 
moraine  from  the  massive  ruin  of  the  Mission  San 
Juan  Capistrano.  The  mission  dominates  the  val- 
ley. Go  where  you  will,  the  eye  turns  to  this  co- 
lossal fragment,  a  forlorn  but  vital  thing;  broken, 
crushed,  and  yet  undying.  Swarthy  faces  are  min- 
gled with  the  pale  Saxon  type,  the  music  of  the 
Spanish  tongue  is  heard  wherever  you  hear  human 
speech,  and  from  behind  the  lattices  of  the  adobes 
come  the  tinkle  of  guitars  and  the  cadence  of  soft 
voices  in  plaintive  rhythm.  The  sun  makes  black 
shadows  by  every  house  and  tree,  and  sweeps  in 
broad  unbroken  light  over  the  undulating  hills  to 
hazy  mountain-tops;  ground-squirrels  scamper  across 
the  way,  wild  doves  start  up  with  whistling  wings, 
and  there  is  song  of  birds  and  cry  of  barnyard  fowls. 
68 


The  essence  of  the  scene  is  passing  quiet  and  peace. 
The  petty  noises  of  the  village  are  powerless  to  break 
the  silence  that  enwraps  the  noble  ruin;  its  dignity 
is  as  imperturbable  as  that  of  mountain  and  sea. 
Never  was  style  of  architecture  more  spontaneously 
in  touch  with  its  environment  than  that  followed  by 
the  mission-builders.  It  is  rhythm  and  cadence  and 
rhyme.  It  is  perfect  art.  Earthquake  has  rent,  man 
has  despoiled,  time  has  renounced  the  Mission  San 
Juan  Capistrano,  yet  its  pure  nobility  survives,  in- 
destructible. The  tower  is  fallen,  the  sanctuary  is 
bare  and  weather-beaten,  the  cloisters  of  the  quad- 
rangle are  roofless,  and  the  bones  of  forgotten  pa- 
dres lie  beneath  the  roots  of  tangled  shrubbery;  but 
the  bells  still  hang  in  their  rawhide  lashings,  and 
the  cross  rises  white  against  the  sky.  A  contemptu- 
ous century  has  rolled  past,  and  the  whole  ambitious 
and  once  promising  dream  of  monkish  rule  has  long 
since  ended,  but  this  slow-crumbling  structure  will 
not  have  it  so.  Like  some  dethroned  and  superan- 
nuated king,  whose  insistent  claim  to  royal  function 
cloaks  him  with  a  certain  grandeur,  it  sits  in  silent 
state,  too  venerable  for  disrespect  and  too  august  for 
pity. 

69 


--^^i- 


.4*rV' 


^  ^^ 


.  if 


ima^ 


Iff- <^  .p^l^  /^•^'iW|^^ 

■   ^"■':  ■■■■•   •■"•-■:v■./■;:!'Vw'^^:^'^^.^ 


STORY    OF   THK    MISSIONS. 

In  the  miildle  of  the  eighteenth  century  the  Span- 
ish throne,  desiring  to  encourage  colonization  of  its 
territory  of  Upper  California,  then  unpeopled  save 
by  native  Indian  tribes,  entered  into  an  arrangement 
with  the  Order  of  St.  Francis,  by  virtue  of  which 
that  order  undertook  to  establish  missions  in  the 
new  country  which  were  to  be  the  nuclei  of  future 
villages  and  cities,  to  which  Spani  h  subjects  were 
encouraged  to  emigrate.  By  the  terms  of  that  ar- 
rangement the  Franciscans  were  to  possess  the  mis- 
sion properties  and  their  revenues  for  ten  years, 
which  was  deemed  a  sufficient  period  in  which  to 
fairly  establish  the  colonies,  when  the  entire  prop 
erty  was  to  revert  to  the  Spanish  government.  In 
point  of  fact  the  Franciscans  were  left  in  undisputed 
possession  for  more  than  half  a  century. 

The  monk  chosen  to  tak;  charge  of  the  undertak- 
ing was  Junipero  Serra,  a  man  of  saintly  piety  and 
energetic  character,  who  in  childhood  desired  only 
70 


that  he  might  be  a  priest,  and  in  maturity  earnestly 
wishcil  to  l)c  a  martyr.  Seven  years  before  the  De- 
claration of  the  Independence  of  the  American  Colo- 
nies, in  the  early  summer  of  17^)9,  he  entered  the 
bay  of  San  Diejjo,  227  years  after  Cabrillo  had  dis- 
covered it  for  Spain,  antl  167  years  after  it  had  been 
surveyed  and  named  by  Viscaino,  during  all  which 
preceding  time  the  countrj'  had  lain  fallow.  Within 
two  months  Serra  had  founded  a  mission  near  the 
mouth  of  the  San  Diego  River,  which  five  years  after 
was  removed  some  six  miles  up  the  valley  to  a  point 
about  three  miles  distant  from  the  present  city  of 
San  Diego.  From  that  time  one  mission  after  an- 
other was  founded,  twenty-one  in  all,  from  San  Diego 
along  the  coast  as  far  north  as  San  Francisco.  The 
more  important  of  these  were  built  of  stone  and  a 
hard-burnt  brick  that  even  now  will  turn  the  edge  of 
the  finest  trowel.  The  labor  of  their  construction 
was  appalling.  Brick  had  to  be  burnt,  stone  quar- 
ried and  dressed,  and  huge  timbers  for  rafters 
brought  on  men's  shoulders  from  the  mountain  for- 
ests, sometimes  thirty  miles  distant,  through  rocky 
canons  and  over  trackless  hills.  The  Indians  per- 
formed most  of  this  labor,  under  direction  of  the 
fathers.  These  Indians  were  tractable,  as  a  rule. 
Once,  or  twice  at  most,  they  rose  against  their 
masters,  but  the  policy  of  the  padres  was  kind- 
ness and  forgiveness,  although  it  must  be  inferred 
that  the  condition  of  the  Indians  over  whom  they 
claimed  spiritual  and  temporal  authority  was  a  form 
of  slaver)',  without  all  the  cruelties  that  usually  pertain 
to  enforced  servitude.  They  were  the  bondsmen  of 
the  padres,  whose  aim  was  to  convert  them  to  Chris- 
tianity and  civilization,  and  many  thousands  of  them 
were  persuaded  to  cluster  around  the  missions,  their 
daughters  becoming  neophytes  in  the  convents,  and 
72 


^1'- •  -^t 


the  others  contributing  their  labor  to  the  erection  of 
the  enormous  structures  that  occupied  many  acres  of 
ground,  and  to  the  industries  of  agricuhure,  cattle- 
raising,  and  a  variety  of  manufactures.  There  were, 
after  the  primitive  fashion  of  the  time,  woolen  mills, 
wood  working  and  blacksmith  shops,  and  such  other 
manufactories  as  were  practicable  in  the  existing 
state  of  the  arts,  which  could  be  made  profitable. 
The  mission  properties  soon  became  enormously 
valuable,  their  yearly  revenues  sometimes  amounting 
to  $2,000,000.  The  exportation  of  hides  was  one 
of  the  most  important  items,  and  merchant-vessels 
from  our  own  Atlantic  seaboard,  from  England  and 
from  Spain,  sailed  to  the  California  coast  for  car- 
goes of  that  commodity.  Dana's  romantic  and 
universally  read  "Two  Years  Before  the  Mast"  is 
the  record  of  such  a  voyage.  He  visited  California 
more  than  half  a  century  ago,  and  found  its  quaint 
Spanish-Indian  life  full  of  the  picturesque  and  ro- 
mantic. 

The  padres  invariably  selected  a  site  favorable  for 
defense,  commanding  views  of  entrancing  scenery, 
on  the  slopes  of  the  most  fertile  valleys  and  conven- 
ient to  the  running  water  which  was  the  safeguard 
of  agriculture  in  a  country  of  sparse  and  uncertain 
rainfall.  The  Indians,  less  warlike  in  nature  than 
the  roving  tribes  east  of  the  Rockies,  were  almost 
universally  submissive.  If  there  was  ever  an  Arca- 
dia it  was  surely  there  and  then.  Against  the  blue 
of  the  sky,  unspotted  by  a  single  cloud  through  many 
months  of  the  year,  snow-crowned  mountains  rose  in 
dazzling  relief,  while  oranges,  olives,  figs,  dates, 
bananas,  and  every  other  variety  of  temperate  and 
sub-tropical  fruits  which  had  been  introduced  by  the 
Spaniards,  ripened  in  a  sun  whose  ardency  was  tem- 
pered by  the  dryness  of  the  air  into  an  equability  like 
that  of  June,  while  the  regularly  alternating  breeze 
73 


„..» 


tliai  daily  swept  to  and  from  ocean  and  mountain 
made  summer  and  winter  almost  indistinguishable 
seasons,  tlien  as  nt>w,  save  for  the  welcome  rains  that 
characterize  the  latter.  At  the  foot  of  the  valley, 
hetween  the  mountain-slopes,  and  never  more  than 
a  few  miles  away,  the  waters  of  the  Pacific  rocked 
placidly  in  the  brilliant  sunlight  or  broke  in  foam 
upon  a  broad  beach  of  sand.  In  such  a  scene 
Spaniard  and  Indian  plied  their  peaceful  vocations, 
the  one  in  picturesque  national  garb,  the  other  almost 
innocent  of  clothing,  while  over  and  around  them 
lay  an  atmosphere  of  sacredness  which  even  to  this 
day  clings  to  the  broken  arches  and  crumbling  walls. 
Over  the  peaceful  valleys  a  veritable  angelus  rang. 
The  mellow  bells  of  the  mission  churches  summoned 
dusky  hordes  to  ceremonial  devotion.  Want  and 
strife  were  imknown.  Prosperity  and  brotherly  love 
ruled  as  never  before. 

It  is  true  they  had  their  trials.  Earthquakes, 
which  have  been  almost  unknown  in  California  for  a 
quarter  of  a  century,  were  then  not  uncommon,  and 
were  at  times  disastrous,  /iio  de  los  Temblores  was 
the  name  of  a  stream  derived  from  the  frequency  of 
earth  rockings  in  the  region  through  which  it  flowed; 
and  in  the  second  decade  of  our  century  the  dreaded 
temblor  upset  the  120-foot  tower  of  the  Mission  San 
Juan  Capistrano  and  sent  it  crashing  down  through 
the  roof  upon  a  congregation,  of  whom  nearly  forty 
perished.  Those,  too,  were  lawless  times  upon  the 
main.  Pirates,  cruising  the  South  Seas  in  quest  of 
booty,  hovered  about  the  California  coast,  and  then 
the  mission  men  stood  to  their  arms,  while  the  women 
and  children  fled  to  the  interior  cafions  with  their 
portable  treasures.  One  buccaneer,  Bouchard,  re- 
pulsed in  his  attempt  upon  Dolores  and  Santa  Bar- 
bara, descended  successfully  upon  another  mission 
and  dwelt  there  riotously  for  a  time,  carousing,  and 
74 


destroying  such  valuables  as  he  could  not  carry 
away,  while  the  entire  population  quaked  in  the  % 
forest  along  the  Rio  Trabuco.  This  was  the  same 
luckless  San  Juan  Capistrano,  six  years  after  the 
earthquake  visitation.  Then,  too,  there  were  bicker-  -* 
ings  of  a  political  nature,  and  struggles  for  place, 
after  the  rule  of  Mexico  had  succeeded  to  that  of 
Spain,  but  the  common  people  troubled  themselves 
little  with  such  matters. 

The  end  of  the  Franciscan  dynasty  came  suddenly 
with  the  secularization  of  the  mission  property  by  the 
Mexican  government  to  replete  the  exhausted  treas- 
uries of  Santa  Ana.  .Sadly  the  fathers  forsook  the 
scene  of  their  long  labors,  and  silently  the  Indians 
melted  away  into  the  wilderness,  and  the  darkness 
of  their  natural  ways,  save  such  as  had  intermarried 
with  the  families  of  -Spanish  soldiers  and  colonists. 
The  churches  are  now,  for  the  most  part,  only  de- 
cayed legacies  and  fragmentary  reminders  of  a  time 
whose  like  the  world  will  never  know  again.  Save 
only  three  or  four,  preserved  by  reverent  hands, 
where  modern  worshipers,  denationalized  and  clad  in 
American  dress,  still  kneel  and  recite  their  orisons, 
the  venerable  ruins  are  forsaken  by  all  except  the 
tourist  and  the  antiquarian,  and  their  bells  are  silent 
forever.  One  can  not  but  feel  the  pity  of  it,  for  in 
the  history  of  zealous  servants  of  the  cross  there  is 
hardly  a  more  noteworthy  name  than  that  of  Junipero 
Serra,  and  in  the  annals  of  their  heroic  endeavor 
there  is  no  more  signal  instance  of  absolute  fail- 
ure than  his  who  founded  the  California  missions, 
aside  from  the  perpetuation  of  his  saintly  name. 
They  accomplished  nothing,  so  far  as  can  now  be 
seen.  The  descendar.ts  of  their  converts,  what  few 
have  survived  contact  with  the  Anglo-Saxon,  have 
no  discoverable  worth,  and,  together  with  the  greater 
75 


■■^' 


\^ 


""^'•mnH""'" 


I' 


'h' 


■'.  uUMfl 


e»S^-   M  •    -ij-^ 


part  of  the  orijjinal  Spanish  population,  have  faded 
away,  as  if  a  bliy;ht  had  fallen  upon  them. 

But  so  long  as  one  stone  remains  upon  another, 
and  a  single  arch  of  the  missions  still  stands,  an 
atmosphere  will  abide  there,  something  that  does  not 
come  from  mountain,  or  vale,  or  sea,  or  sky;  the 
spirit  of  consecration,  it  may  be;  but  if  it  is  only  the 
aroma  of  ancient  and  romantic  associations,  the  sug- 
gestion of  a  peculiar  phase  of  earnest  and  simple 
human  life  and  quaint  environment  that  is  forever 
past,  the  mission-ruins  must  remain  among  the  most 
interesting  monuments  in  all  our  varied  land,  and 
will  amply  repay  the  inconsiderable  effort  and  outlay 
required  to  enable  the  tourist  to  view  them.  San 
Diego,  the  oldest,  San  Luis  Rey,  the  most  poetically 
environed,  San  Juan  Capistrano,  of  most  tragic 
memor)',  San  Gabriel,  the  most  imposing,  and  Santa 
Barbara,  the  most  perfectly  preserved,  will  suffice 
the  casual  sight-seer.  These  also  lie  comparatively 
near  together,  and  are  all  easily  accessible;  the  first 
three  being  located  on  or  adjacent  to  the  railway-line 
between  Los  Angeles  and  San  Diego,  the  fourth 
standing  but  a  few  miles  from  the  first-named  city, 
and  the  fifth  being  almost  in  the  heart  of  the  famous 
resort  that  bears  its  name. 

Reluctantly  will  the  visitor  tear  himself  from  the 
encompassing  charm  of  their  roofless  arches  and  rem- 
76 


iniscent  shadows.  They  are  a  dream  of  the  Old 
World,  indifferent  to  the  sordidness  and  turbulency  of 
the  New;  one  of  the  few  things  that  have  been  spared 
by  a  relentless  past,  whose  habit  is  to  sweep  the  things 
of  yesterday  into  oblivion.  Almost  can  one  hear  4 
the  echoes  of  their  sweet  bells  ringing  out  to  heathen 
thousands  the  sunset  and  the  dawn. 


LOS    ANGELES. 

One  can  hardly  cross  this  continent  of  ours  with- 
out gaining  a  new  idea  of  the  immense  historical  sig- 
nificance of  the  westward  yearning  of  the  Saxon,  who 
in  two  and  a  half  centuries  has  marched  from  Plymouth 
Rock  to  the  Sunset  Sea,  and  has  subordinated  every 
other  people  in  his  path  from  shore  to  shore.  The 
Spaniard  was  a  world-conqueror  in  his  day,  and  mas- 
ter of  California  before  the  stars  and  stripes  had  been 
devised.  The  story  of  his  subjugation  of  the  south- 
western portion  of  the  New  World  is  the  most  brill- 
iant in  modern  history.  It  is  a  story  of  unexampled 
deeds  of  arms.  Sword  and  cross,  and  love  of  fame 
and  gold,  are  inextricably  interwoven  with  it.  The 
Saxon  epic  is  a  more  complex  tale  of  obscure  hero- 
ism, of  emigrant  cavalcades,  of  pioneer  homes,  of 
business  enterprise.  The  world  may  never  know 
sublimer  indifference  to  fatigue,  suffering,  and  death 
than  characterized  the  Spanish  invaders  of  America 
for  more  than  two  centuries.  Whatever  the  personal 
considerations  that  allured  them,  the  extension  of 
Spanish  empire  and  the  advancement  of  the  cross 
amid  barbarians  was  their  effectual  purpose.  The 
conquistador  was  a  crusader,  and  with  all  his  cruelty 
and  rapacity  he  is  a  splendid  figure  of  incarnate  force. 
But  the  westward-flowing  wave  of  Saxon  conquest 
has  set  him,  too,  aside.  In  this  fair  land  of  Califor- 
nia, won  at  smallest  cost,  and  seemingly  created  for 
him,  his  descendants  to-day  are  little  more  than  a 
77 


viitterctl  fringe  upon  the  edges  of  the  displacing  civ- 
ilization. He  has  lift  his  niaik  iii)<)n  every  mount- 
ain and  valley,  in  nanus  that  will  long  endure,  but 
himself  has  been  sup,. lanted.  He  has  not  lied.  He 
has  di  iiinished,  faded  away. 

In  1 78 1  he  named  {U\}i  c'\iy  J' uf/'/o  </i'  /a  A\/)i(r  t/<- 
li>s  Angi-/t-s  ('I'own  of  the  (,)ueen  of  the  Angels).  The 
."sa.von,  the  Man  of  lUisincss  no  v  supreme,  has  re- 
tained oidy  the  last  two  words  of  that  high-sounding 
appellation;  and  hardly  a  greater  proportion  remains 
of  the  original  atmosphere  of  this  old  Spanish  town. 
Vou  will  find  a  Sp.inish  (Me.\ican)  quarter,  unkempt 
and  adobe,  containing  elements  of  the  picturesque; 
and  in  the  modern  portion  of  the  city  a  restaurant  or 
two  where  English  is  spoken  in  halting  fashion  by 
very  pretty  dark  skinned  girls,  and  you  may  satisfy,  if 
not  your  appetite,  perhaps  a  long-slanding  curiosity 
regarding  tortillas,  and  frijolcs,  and  c/iili  con  came. 
As  for  ta males,  they  are,  as  with  us,  a  matter  of  curb 
stone  speculation.  Senores,  senoras  and  senori/as  are 
plentifully  encountered  upon  the  streets,  but  are  not, 
in  general,  distinguished  by  any  peculiarity  of  attire. 
Upon  the  borders  of  the  city  one  finds  more  vivid 
types,  and  there  the  jucal,  a  poor  mud-hovel  thatched 
with  straw,  is  not  quite  extinct.  The  words  Spanish 
and  Mexican  are  commonly  us:d  in  California  to  dis- 
tinguish a  racial  difference.  Not  a  few  of  the  ^  pan- 
ish  soldiery  and  colonists  originally  took  wives  from 
among  the  native  Indians.  Their  offspring  has  had 
its  charms  for  later  comers  of  still  other  races,  and  a 
complexity  of  mixture  has  resulted.  The  term  Mex- 
ican is  generally  understood  to  apply  to  this  amalga- 
mation, those  of  pure  Castilian  descent  preferring  to 
be  known  as  Spanish.  The  latter,  numerically  a  small 
class,  represent  high  types,  and  the  persistency  of 
the  old  strain  is  such  that  the  poorest  Mexican  is  to 
78 


O     .0    A    ^^^  ^ 


a  ciTtaiii  manner  horn.  I  le  wears  a  contented  mien, 
as  if  his  I  )iojjencs-tub  anil  his  imperceptible  larder 
were  reyal  possessions,  and  he  does  not  easily  part 
with  dijjnity  and  self-respect. 

The  existence  of  these  descendants  of  the  Con- 
querors side  by  side  with  the  exponents  of  the  new 
rtginif  is  one  of  the  charms  of  Los  Angeles.  It  has 
others  in  historic  vein.  After  its  first  overland  con- 
nection with  the  East,  by  way  of  the  Santa  Fe  Trail, 
it  rapidly  took  on  the  character  of  a  wild  border- 
town;  the  influx  of  adventurers  and  the  stimulation 
of  an  unwonted  commerce  transforming  the  Spanish 
idyl  into  a  motley  scene  of  remunerative  trade,  aban- 
doned carousal  and  desperate  personal  conflict.  Its 
romantic  career  of  progress  and  amelioration  to  its 
present  enviable  estate  is  marked  by  monuments  that 
still  endure.  Fremont  the  Pathfinder  here  first  raised 
the  stars  and  stripes  in  1846,  and  his  after- residence 
as  governor  of  the  State  is  well  preserved.  And 
Winfield  Scott  Hancock,  as  a  young  captain  of  the 
army,  had  quarters  in  this  historic  town. 

In  modern  interest  it  stands  for  a  type  of  the  ma- 
terial development  that  belongs  to  our  day.  In  i860 
it  numbered  4,500  inhabitants;  in  1880,  11,000;  in 
1891,  more  than  50,000.  Surrounded  by  hundreds 
of  cultivated  farms,  whose  varied  products  form  the 
basis  of  its  phenomenal  activity  and  prosperity,  it  is 
a  really  great  city.  It  is  well  paved,  well  lighted, 
and  abundantly  served  by  intramural  railways.  It 
has  parks  of  extraordinary  beauty,  and  avenues 
shaded  by  the  eucalyptus  and  the  pepper,  that  most 
esthetic  of  trees.  Outside  the  immediate  thorough- 
fares of  trade  the  streets  are  bordered  by  attractive 
homes,  fronted  by  grounds  set  with  palm  and  orange 
and  cypress,  and  blooming  with  flowers  throughout 
the  year.  It  is  backed  by  the  mountains  that  are 
always  present  in  a  California  landscape,  and  fifteen 
80 


miles  away  lies  a  vista  of  the  sea,  dotted  with  island- 
peaks. 

PASADENA. 

Just  outside  the  limits  of  Los  Angeles,  intimately 
connected  by  railway  and  street-car  lines,  is  Pasa- 
dena. For  the  origin  of  the  name  you  may  choose 
between  the  imputed  Indian  signilication,  Crown  of 
the  Valley,  and  a  corruption  of  the  Spanish  Paso  de 
Eden  (Threshold  of  Eden).  It  is  in  any  event  the 
crown  of  that  Eden,  the  San  Gabriel  Valley,  which 
nestles  warmly  in  its  groves  and  rose-bowers  below 
lofty  bulwarks  tipped  with  snow.  Here  an  Eastern 
multitude  makes  regular  winter  home  in  modest 
cottage  or  imposing  mansion,  and  nearly  in  the  cen- 
ter of  the  valley,  commanding  a  full  circular  sweep 
of  its  extent,  stands  an  eminence  crowned  by  the 
Raymond  Hotel,  of  tourist  fame.  Every  fruit  and 
flower  and  every  ornameni.al  tree  and  shrub  known 
to  Southern  California  is  represented  in  the  elaborate 
grounds  of  this  little  realm.  It  is  a  playg  ound  of 
wealth,  a  Nob  Hill  of  Paradise,  blessed  home  of 
happy  men  and  women  and  children  who  prefer 
this  to  vaunted  foreign  lands,  aside  from  the  discom- 
forts of  crossing  the  Styx  of  a  stormy  Atlantic. 

The  extensive  ranch  owned  by  Lucky  Baldwin  lies 
near  at  hand,  with  its  great  vineyards,  orchards, 
wineries  and  horse-training  grounds.  And  it  is  from 
Pasadena  one  makes  the  ascent  of  Mount  Wilson, 
and  Mount  Lowe. 

8i  ! 


fe||gM-;ji.  ^;:i;:..;;4-j., ':.;,r.r.n^Virrr 


y 


"vt,  *>. 


RIVKKSIDE    AND    VICINITY. 

A  locality  renowned  for  oranges,  and  oranges,  and 
still  more  oranges,  white  and  odorous  with  the  bloom 
of  them,  yellow  with  the  sheen  of  them,  and  rich 
with  the  gains  of  them;  culminating  in  a  busy  little 
city  overhung  by  the  accustomed  mountain-battle- 
ments and  pendant  to  a  glorious  avenue  many  miles 
in  length,  lineil  with  tall  eucalyptus,  drooping  pep- 
per, and  sprightly  magnolia-trees  in  straight  lines 
far  as  eye  can  see,  and  broken  only  by  short  lat- 
eral driveways  through  palm,  orange  and  cypress 
to  mansion  homes.  The  almost  continuous  citrus- 
groves  and  vineyards  of  Riverside  are  the  result  of 
fifteen  or  twenty  years  of  co-operative  effort,  sup- 
plemented by  some  preponderating  advantages  of 
location. 

It  is  the  clima.x  of  the  fair  region  that  lies  between 
Los  Angeles  and  Redlands,  through  which,  for  the 
convenience  of  tourists,  the  trains  of  the  Southern 
California  Railway  twice  make  daily  circuit.  The 
diagram  of  this  circuit  is  a  cross-belt  or  rough  fig- 
ure 8,  whose  shape,  associated  with  the  idea  of  a 
comprehensive  and  speedy  journey,  is  responsible  for 
a  name  greatly  relished  in  a  "horsey"  State:  the 
Kite-shaped  Track.  Starting  from  Los  Angeles, 
nearly  thirty  communities  of  this  famous  region  are 
thus  traversed,  the  most  celebrated  of  which  are,  in 
order,  Rivera,  Santa  F6  Springs,  FuIIerton,  Ana- 
heim, Orange,  Santa  Ana,  South  Riverside,  River- 
side, Colton,  San  Bernardino,  Arrowhead,  East 
Highland,  Mentone,  Redlands,  North  Ontario,  Po- 
mona, Monrovia,  Santa  Anita  and  Pasadena. 

REDONDO   AND    SANTA   MONICA. 

These  are  two  popular  beaches  near  Los  Angeles, 
to  both  which  frequent  trains  are  run  daily.   Equipped 
with  superb  hotels  and  furnished  with  the  many  minor 
82 


>^si.§^w 


Mi^iM>.i' 


83 


attractions  that  congregate  at  Iioliday-resorts,  they 
arc  tlie  HriglUon  ami  Manhattan  beaches  of  tliis 
coast,  enlianced  by  venlure  and  a  softer  clime,  and 
a  picturesquely  varied  shine.  Holh  are  locally  cele- 
brated among  lovers  of  bathing,  boating  and  fish- 
ing. Santa  Monica  is  the  California  home  of  polo. 
Redondo  is  the  point  of  departure  for  Santa  Cata- 
lina  Island. 


S.WrA    CATALl.N'A    ISLAND. 

'rwenty  miles  off  the  coast  it  rises,  like  Capri, 
from  the  sea,  a  many-peaked  mountain-cap,  varying 
in  witlth  from  half  a  mile  to  nine  miles,  and  more  than 
twenty  long.  Its  bold  cliff-shores  are  broken  by 
occasional  pockets  rimmed  by  a  semicircular  beach 
of  sand.  The  most  famous  of  these  is  Avalon,  quite 
the  most  frequented  camping-ground  of  Southern 
California.  In  midsummer  its  two  hotels  are  filled 
to  overflowing,  and  in  the  hundreds  of  tents  clus- 
tered by  the  water's  edge  as  many  as  3,000  pleasure- 
seekers  are  gathered  in  the  height  of  the  season. 
Summer  is  the  period  of  Santa  Catalina's  greatest 
animation,  for  then,  as  in  other  lands,  comes  vaca- 
tion-time. But  there  is  even  less  variation  of  season 
than  on  the  mainland,  and  the  nights  are  soft  and 
alluring,  because  the  seaward-blowing  mountain-air 
is  robbed  of  all  its  chill  in  passing  over  the  equable 
waters.  Here  after  nightfall  verandas  and  the  beach 
are  still  thronged.  The  tiny  harbor  is  filled  with 
pleasure-craft  of  every  description,  from  rowboats  to 
commodious  yachts,  and  hundreds  of  bathers  disport 
in  the  placid  element.  Wonderful  are  the  waters  of 
Avalon,  blue  as  a  Mediterranean  sky  and  astonish- 
ingly clear.  Over  the  side  of  your  skiff  you  may 
gaze  down  through  a  hundred  feet  of  transparency 
to  where  emerald  weeds  wave  and  myriad  fishes, 
blue  and  brown  and  flaming  red,  swim  over  pebble 


.fe^^.^^- 


and  shell.  Or,  climbing  the  overhanging  cliffs,  you 
gain  the  fish  eagle's  view  of  the  life  that  teems  in 
\vater-ile|iths,  anil  looking  down  half  a  thousand  feet 
upon  the  fisherman  in  his  boat  see  the  bright  hued 
fishes  flashing  far  beneath  him.  He  seems  to  hang 
suspended  in  the  sky. 

Notable  fishing  is  to  be  had.  The  barracuda  is 
plentiful;  likewise  the  yellow-tail,  or  sea-salmon, 
also  generally  taken  by  trolling,  and  frequently  tip- 
ping a  truthful  scale  at  fifty  pounds.  Jewfishing  is 
the  most  famous  sport  here,  and  probably  the  most 
e-xciting  known  anywhere  to  the  hand-fisherman.  It 
is  commonly  taken,  and  in  weight  ranges  from  2oo 
to  400  pounds.  The  fisherman  who  hooks  one  is 
frequently  dragged  in  his  skiff  for  several  miles,  and 
finds  himself  nearly  as  much  e.\hausted  as  the  fish 
when  it  finally  comes  to  gaff. 

Perhaps  the  greatest  novelty  of  a  trip  to  Santa 
Catalina,  for  most  travelers,  is  the  great  number  of 
flying-fish  that  inhabit  its  waters.  At  only  a  few 
miles'  distance  from  the  mainland  they  begin  to  leap 
from  beneath  the  bows  of  the  steamer,  singly,  by 
twos  and  by  half-dozens,  until  one  wearies  of  count- 
ing, and  skim  over  the  waves  like  so  many  swallows. 
The  length  of  flight  of  which  this  poetic  fish  is 
capable  proves  usually  a  surprise,  for  in  spite  of  its 
abundance  off  the  Southern  California  coast  its  pre- 
cise character  is  none  too  generally  known.  In  size, 
form,  and  color  it  may  be  roughly  compared  to  the 
mackerel.  Its  "wings"  are  muscular  fins  whose 
spines  are  connected  by  a  light  but  strong  mem- 
brane, and  are  four  in  number.  The  hindermost 
pair  are  quite  small,  mere  butterfly-wings  of  stouter 
fiber;  the  foremost  pair  attain  a  length  of  seven  or 
eight  inches,  and  when  extended  are  two  inches  or 
more  in  breadth.  Breaking  from  the  water  at  a  high 
rate  of  speed,  but  at  a  very  low  angle,  the  flying- 
86 


fish  extends  these  wing-Hke  fins  and  holds  them 
rigid,  like  the  set  wings  of  a  soaring  hawk.  With 
the  lower  flange  of  its  deeply  forked  tail,  which  at 
first  drags  lightly,  it  sculls  with  a  convulsive  wriggle 
of  the  whole  body  that  gives  it  the  casual  appear- 
ance of  actually  winging  its  way.  The  additional 
impulse  thus  acquired  lifts  it  entirely  from  the  water, 
over  whose  surface  it  then  scales  without  further 
efTort  for  a  long  distance,  until,  losing  in  momentum 
and  in  the  sustaining  pressure  of  the  air  beneath  its 
outstretched  fins,  it  again  touches  the  water,  either 
to  abruptly  disappear  or  by  renewed  sculling  to  pro- 
long its  flight.  Often  it  remains  above  the  waves 
until  the  eye  can  no  longer  distinguish  its  course  in 
the  distance. 

In  the  less-frequented  portions  of  the  island  the 
wild  goat  is  still  common.  But  not  long  ago  a  party 
of  hunters,  better  armed  than  educated,  wrought 
havoc  with  the  domestic  sheep  that  are  pastured  there; 
and  now  if  you  wish  to  hunt  the  goat  you  must  first 
procure  a  permit,  and  to  obtain  that  you  must  adduce 
evidence  of  your  ability  to  tell  the  one  from  the  other 
upon  sight.  This  precautionary  measure  tends  to  the 
preservation  of  both  sheep  and  goat,  and  the  real 
sportsman  as  well  as  the  herdsman  is  benefited 
thereby. 

Three  times  a  week  steamers  for  Santa  Catalina 
leave  the  pier  at  Redondo  Beach,  connecting  with 
trains  that  are  run  from  Los  Angeles.  The  exhila- 
rating ocean-ride  and  the  unique  pleasures  of  the  isl- 
and can  not  be  too  strongly  commended. 
87 


SANTA    HARUaRA. 

Saint  Harbaia  is,  in  Spain,  vcncrateil  astlu-  [lation- 
ess  of  gunpowder  and  coast-defenses,  and  the  invo- 
cation of  her  name  seems  to  have  occurred  in  the 
lijjht  of  a  desirable  precaution  to  its  founder,  who 
was  so  fond  of  building  missions  by  the  sea;  although, 
like  one  of  our  own  heroes,  who  supplemented  his 
trust  in  Providence  by  protecting  his  ammunition 
from  the  rain,  he  kept  here,  as  at  a  number  of  other 
points,  a  garrison  of  soldiers  and  a  few  small  cannon. 

It  was  long  known  the  world  over  as  "  The  Amer- 
ican Mentone,"  because  in  seeking  a  term  to  con- 
vey its  characteristics  some  comparison  with  cele- 
brated resorts  of  Europe  was  thought  necessary,  and 
this  particular  comparison  most  fitting.  Such  defi- 
nition is  no  longer  required.  Santa  Barbara  is  a  name 
that  everywhere  evokes  the  soft  picture  of  a  rose- 
buried  spot,  more  than  a  village,  less  than  a  city,  ris- 
ing gently  from  the  sea-rim  by  way  of  shaded  avenue 
and  plaza  to  the  foot  of  the  gray  Santa  Ynez  Mount- 
ains, above  whose  peaks  the  condor  loves  to  soar; 
where,  when  with  us  the  winter  winds  are  most  bitter 
and  ice  and  snow  work  a  wicked  will,  every  year  they 
hold  a  riotous  carnival  of  flowers,  a  unique  Arcadian 
holiday  of  triumph.  And  behind  all  that  lies  an  end 
less  variety  of  winsomeness.  Not  idly  does  the  brigh 
stingless  air  lure  one  to  seek  a  new  pleasure  for  each 
succeeding  day.  The  flat  beach  is  broken  by  rocky 
points  where  the  surf  spouts  in  white  columns  with 
deafening  roar,  and  above  it  lies  a  long  mesa  dotted 
with  live-oaks  that  looks  down  upon  the  little  dream- 
ing mission  city  and  far  oceanward;  and  on  the  other 
hand  the  mountain-slopes  beckon  to  innumerable 
glens,  and,  when  the  rains  have  come,  to  broad  hill- 
sides of  green  and  banks  of  blossom.  There  are 
long  level  drives  by  the  shore,  and  up  the  prolific 
88 


I 


valley  In  famcnis  orchard- ranches;  and  Montecito,  a 
fairylanil  of  lionics,  is  close  at  liand. 

Koiir  of  the  Channel  Islands  lie  opposite  Santa 
Barbara:  Anacapa,  Santa  Cruz,  Santa  Rosa  and 
San  Miguel.  The  last  three  are  only  less  attractive 
by  nature  than  Santa  Catalina,  of  which  mention 
was  made  in  its  place,  and  although  equal  facilities  do 
not  exist  for  the  tourist,  many  persons  find  their  way 
there  by  means  of  a  fishing-boat  which,  two  or  three 
times  a  week,  leaves  Santa  Barbara  for  the  island 
tishing-grounds.  These  islands,  now  permanently 
inhabited  only  by  sheep-herders  who  tend  flocks  of 
many  thousands,  were  once  populated  by  a  primitive 
people  whose  burial-mounds,  as  yet  only  partly  ex- 
humed by  casual  visitors,  are  rich  in  archxological 
treasures. 

Santa  Barbara  lies  northwest  from  Los  Angeles, 
on  a  branch  of  the  Southern  Pacific  Railroad.  It  is 
the  only  one  of  the  great  resorts  of  Southern  Califor- 
nia that  is  not  located  upon  a  proprietary  line  of 
the  Santa  Fe  Rottte. 


OSTRICH-FARMING. 

At  Coronado,  Santa  Monica  and  two  or  three  other 
points  are  exhibited  troops  of  ostriches  confined  in 
paddocks.  They  are  generally  regarded  as  a  mere 
curiosity  by  the  visitor,  but  really  represent  an  estab- 
lished California  industry.  The  original  farm  lies 
on  the  border  of  the  town  of  Fallbrook,  a  dozen 
miles  northeast  from  Oceanside,  beyond  the  poetic 
Mission  San  Luis  Key,  through  whose  incomparable 
valley  the  stage-road  leads.  Here,  where  he  roams 
with  scores  of  his  fellows  over  a  quarter-section  of 
hill  and  dale,  the  ostrich  ceases  to  be  exotic.  He  is  at 
home,  and  his  habits  and  personality  become  an  easy 
and  entertaining  study.  This  Fallbrook  ostrich-farm 
has  been  in  operation  since  1883,  the  locality  having 
90 


^"^ 


been  found  to  oflfer  conditions  closely  resembling  that 
portion  of  South  Africa  in  which  ostrich  farming  has 
so  long  been  a  source  of  wealth.  Breeding  has  been 
carried  on  until  it  has  been  definitely  established  that 
a  California-bred  ostrich  is  in  every  respect  the  equal 
of  the  imported  African.  There  are  about  one  hun- 
dred ostriches  on  this  ranch,  many  having  been  sold, 
and  others  being  absent  on  exhibition.  Every  phase 
of  this  remarkable  bird,  which  in  maturity  yields  ev- 
ery eight  months  2Co  of  those  costly  plumes  that  are 
coveted  by  maids  and  dames,  and  all  the  novelties  of 
its  manipulation,  are  exhibited  upon  a  large  scale. 

WINTER    SPORTS. 

Where  out-of-door  life  is  the  rule,  there  being  nei- 
ther frost  nor  chill  throughout  the  day,  recreation  be- 
comes a  matter  of  pure  selection,  unhampered  by  any 
climatic  prohibition  outside  the  relatively  infrequent 
rainstorm.  A  few  enthusiasts  make  a  point  of  tak- 
ing a  daily  dip  in  the  surf,  but  the  practice  does  not 
reach  the  proportions  of  a  popular  pastime  in  mid- 
winter. Cross-country  riding  finds  then  its  perfect 
season,  the  whole  land  being  transformed  into  a  gar- 
den, over  enough  of  which  the  horseman  is  free  to 
wander.  Happy  must  he  be  who  knows  a  purer  sport 
than  to  gallop,  either  singly  or  with  comrades,  in  fra- 
grant morning  air  over  a  fresh  sod  spangled  with 
poppy,  violet,  forget-me-not,  larkspur,  and  alfileria; 
bursting  through  dense  thickets  of  lilac  and  mustard 
to  cross  an  intervening  highway;  dipping  to  verdant 
meadow-vales;  skirting  orchards  heavy  with  fruit, 
and  mounting  tree-capped  knolls  that  look  off  to 
glimmers  of  sea  between  the  slopes  of  the  hills. 
Coaching  has  its  season  then,  as  well,  and  the  horn 
of  the  tallyho  is  frequently  heard.  For  such  as  like 
to  trifle  with  the  snows  from  which  they  have  fled, 
the  foothills  are  at  hand,  serried  with  tall  firs  in 
91 


//t^ltf* 


scattering  nmwths  or  dense  shadowy  jungles,  top- 
pinjj  lafions  where  the  wagon-trail  crosses  and  re- 
cros^es  a  stream  by  pleasant  fords  and  the  ciested 
monntain-tiuail  skulks  over  the  ridge  above  one's 
head.  There  may  be  had  climbing  to  suit  every 
taste,  touching  extremes  of  chaotic  tangle  of  chap- 
arral and  crag.  There  are  cliffs  over  which  the 
clear  mountain-water  tumbles  sheer  to  great  depths; 
notches  through  which  the  distant  virginal  cones 
of  the  highest  peaks  of  the  mother  range  may 
be  seen  in  whitest  eimine,  huge  pines  dotting  their 
drifts  like  petty  clumps  of  weed.  Underfoot,  too, 
on  the  northerly  slopes,  is  snow,  just  over  the  ridge 
from  where  the  sun  is  as  warm  and  the  air  as  gentle 
as  in  the  valley,  save  only  the  faintest  sense  of  added 
vigor  and  rarefaction.  So  near  do  these  extremes  lie, 
and  yet  so  effectually  separated,  you  may  thrust  into 
the  mouth  of  a  snow-man  a  rose  broken  from  the 
bush  an  hour  or  two  before,  and  pelt  him  with  or- 
anges plucked  at  the  very  mouth  of  the  canon.  And 
one  who  is  not  too  susceptible  may  comfortably  lin- 
ger until  the  sun  has  set  and  above  the  lower  dusky 
peaks  the  loftier  ones  glow  rose-pink  in  the  light  of 
its  aftershine;  until  the  moon  lights  the  fissures  of 
the  canon  with  a  ghostly  radiance  against  which  the 
black  shadows  of  the  cliffs  fall  like  ink-blots. 

If  barracuda,  Spanish  mackerel,  yellow-tail  or 
jewfish  should  not  be  hungry,  trout  are  plentiful  in 
the  mountain-streams.  Mountain  and  valley  quail, 
and  snipe,  furnish  the  most  reliable  sport  for  the 
average  gunner.  Good  shots  do  not  consider  it  a 
great  feat  to  bring  a  hundred  to  bag  in  a  day's  out- 
ing. Ducks  and  geese  are  innumerable.  Whole  vast 
meadows  are  sometimes  whitened  with  snow-geese, 
like  a  field  with  daisies,  and  the  air  above  is  filled 
with  flying  thousands.  Deer  are  easily  found  by 
those  who  know  how  to  hunt  them,  and  mountain- 
92 


lions  and  cinnamon  bear  are  not  infrequently  shot  in 
the  hills. 

The  grizzly  was  once  exceedingly  common.  One 
of  the  great  sports  of  the  old  niissiou  days  was  to 
hunt  the  grizzly  on  horseback  with  the  riala  for  sole 
weapon,  and  it  is  of  record  that  in  u  single  neighbor- 
hood thirty  or  forty  of  these  formidable  brutes  were 
sometimes  captured  in  a  night  by  roping,  precisely 
as  the  modern  cowboy  ropes  a  steer;  the  secret  of  the 
sportsmen's  immunity  lying  in  the  fact  that  the  bear 
was  almost  simultaneously  lassoed  from  different  sides 
and  in  tliat  manner  rigidly  pinioned.  But  Ursus 
horribilis  has  long  since  retreated  to  deep  solitudes, 
where  his  occasional  pursuers,  far  from  approaching 
him  with  a  rawhide  noose,  go  armed  with  heavy  re- 
peating-rifles,  and  even  thus  equipped  are  not  eager 
to  encounter  him  at  very  close  range. 

Cricket  is  naturally  a  favorite  diversion  among  the 
many  young  Englishmen  who  have  located  upon 
ranches;  and  yachting  and  polo  do  not  want  for 
devotees. 

93 


/<««i 


,r^- 


NORTHERN    CALIFORNIA. 


IV'  Northern  California  is  commonly  meant 
all  that  portion  north  of  the  six  lower- 
most counties.  The  distinction  has  yet 
no  political  significance,  but  is  generally 
recognized.  To  be  geographically  exact,  the  present 
stage  is  mainly  confined  to  the  middle  of  the  State. 
Upon  quitting  Los  Angeles  a  gradual  relapse  into 
aridity  soon  becomes  apparent,  until  again  you  are 
fairly  on  a  desert  over  whose  flat  dry  sands  the  water 
mirage  loves  to  hover,  although  it  no  longer  mocks 
parched  perishing  caravans  as  in  former  days.  Rail- 
roads have  robbed  these  wastes  of  their  terror,  and 
oases  here  and  there  mark  the  homes  of  irrepressible 
settlers.  This  barren  quickly  gives  place  to  the 
Tehachapi  Pass,  a  scenic  maze  of  detours  and  invo- 
lutions leading  down  into  vast  irrigated  lands  in  the 
fertile  valley  of  the  San  Joaquin.  At  Berenda  a  short 
branch  diverges  eastward  to  Raymond,  from  which 
point  stages  ply  to  the  renowned  valley  of  the  Sierra 
Nevada  Range,  whose  majestic  beauty  is  second  only 
to  that  of  the  Grand  Canon  of  the  Colorado. 

All  the  world  has  heard  of  the  Yosemite,  of  its 
cataract  that  plunges  1,500  feet  sheer  in  one  of 
its  three  downward  leaps,  of  its  thread-like  cascade 
that  bends  to  the  wind  through  goo  feet  of  descent, 
of  its  colossal  domes,  spires  and  arches  of  bare 
94 


granite  contrasted  with  soft  tones  of  green  forest 
and  silver  lake;  and  of  the  Big  Trees  of  the  Mariposa 
Grove,  where  more  than  three  hundred  specimens  of 
the  Sequoia  giganteiz  are  scattered  over  an  area  of 
several  thousand  acres.  This  is  the  regular  ap  roach 
to  those  scenes,  of  which  the  barest  mention  should 
surely  suffice,  their  description  having  passed  into 
the  literature  of  every  language. 

Beyond  Berenda  widening  meadows  slope  to  a 
placid  inlet  of  the  sea,  whose  winding  shore  leads  to 
Oakland  Pier.  Here  a  ferry  crosses  the  bay  to  the 
city  of  San  Francisco. 

Numberless  matters  of  interest  in  this  region,  more 
or  less  widely  known  and  certain  to  be  brought  to 
the  attention  of  the  traveler  en  route,  must  be  omit- 
ted from  the  present  account.  The  wise  traveler, 
blessed  with  leisure,  will  stop  by  the  way  and  look 
about  him.  Here  is  a  State  whose  seaboard  is  as 
long  as  that  which  stretches  from  Massachusetts  to 
Georgia,  whose  mountains  are  overtopped  in  North 
America  only  by  those  of  Alaska,  whose  mines  have 
astonished  the  world,  whose  wealth  of  cattle  and 
sheep  and  horses  is  nearly  half  as  great  as  that  of 
its  mines,  whose  vales  have  wrought  revelation  in 
gardening  and  fruit-culture,  and  whose  natural  prod- 
igies and  landscape  marvels  are  innumerable.  But 
San  Francisco,  the  region  of  the  Santa  Clara  Valley, 
and  Lake  Tahoe,  which  overlaps  the  borderline  of 
Nevada,  will  be  permitted  to  monopolize  the  remain- 
der of  the  space  allotted  to  California. 


SAN    FRANCISCO. 

The  bay  cf  San  Francisco  is  almost  completely 
encircled  by  land.  The  Golden  Gate  is  the  tideway, 
a  narrow  passage  between  the  extremities  of  two 
peninsulars,  upon  the  point  of  the  southernmost  of 
which  the  city  stands. 

95 


Here  too  the  Franciscan  mission-builders  were  first 
iipt>ii  the  field,  and  the  present  name  is  a  curtailment 
of  Mission  df  los  Dolores  t/t-  .Xut-slro  Padre  San  Fraii- 
lisio  de  Aisis,  an  ;ippellation  commemorative  of  the 
sorrows  of  tlie  originator  of  the  ortier.  The  Mis- 
sion Dolores,  founded  in  1776,  is  still  preserved  with 
its  little  campo  saiilo  of  the  dead,  a  poor  unsightly 
strangled  thing,  structurally  unimposing  and  wholly 
wanliTig  in  the  poetic  atmosphere  of  semi-solitude 
that  envelops  the  missions  of  Southern  California. 
A  modern  cathedral  overshadows  it,  and  shops  and 
dwellings  jostle  it.  So  nearly,  in  forty  years,  has  all 
trace  of  the  preceding  three-quarters  of  a  century  been 
obliterated.  Changed  from  a  Spanish  to  a  Mexican 
province  early  in  the  century,  then  promptly  stripped 
of  the  treasures  that  had  been  accumulated  by  monk- 
ish administration,  and  subsequently  ceded  to  the 
United  States,  California  had  on  the  whole  a  dreamy, 
quiet  life  until  that  famous  nugget  was  found  in  1S48. 
Then  followed  the  era  of  the  Argonauts,  seekers  of 
the  golden  fleece,  who  flocked  by  the  hundred  thou- 
sand from  Eastern  towns  and  cities  by  way  of  the 
plains,  the  Isthmus  and  the  Cape  to  dig  in  the  gravel- 
beds;  lawless  adventurers  in  their  train.  San  Fran- 
cisco practically  dates  from  that  period.  Its  story  is 
a  wild  one,  a  working-out  of  order  and  stable  com- 
mercial prosperity  through  chapters  that  treat  of 
feverish  gold-crazy  m  ^bs,  of  rapine  grappled  by  the 
vigilance  committee,  of  insurrection  crushed  by  mil- 
itary force.  And  in  this  prosperity,  oddly  enough, 
the  production  of  gold  has  been  superseded  in  im- 
portance by  other  resources;  for  although  California 
annually  yields  more  precious  metal  than  any  other 
State,  the  yearly  value  of  its  marketed  cattle,  wool, 
cereals,  roots,  fruits,  sugar  and  wines  is  twice  as 
great,  and  forms  the  real  commercial  basis  of  the  great 
city  of  the  Pacific  Coast,  where  the  railroads  of  a  con- 
96 


tinent  ami  the  fleets  of  two  oceans  clasp  hands  and 
complete  the  circuit  of  the  globe. 

As  if  it  were  fearful  of  being  hid,  it  is  set  upon 
not  one  but  a  score  of  hills,  overlooking  land  and  sea. 
As  you  near  it,  by  way  of  Oakland  Ferry,  it  appears 
to  be  built  in  terraceil  rows  rising  steeply  from  the 
water-front;  but  that  is  a  bit  of  foreshortening.  It 
is  St  11  rather  motley  in  architeciure.  Low  frame 
buildings  were  at  first  the  rule,  partly  because  they 
were  suflicient  to  the  climate  and  partly  in  deference 
to  traditions  of  earthquake;  but  at  length  builders 
ventured  taller  structures,  of  brick  and  stone,  and  now 
every  year  many  lofty  elegant  buildings  are  added. 
Certainly  no  one  of  them  has  been  shaken  down  as 
yet,  and  possibly  the  architects  have  authority  for 
believing  that  even  Vulcan  is  superannuated  and  in 
his  second  childhood  is  appeased  with  a  rattle. 

It  is  a  city  of  fair  aspect,  undulating  from  the 
water's  edge,  where  children  play  upon  the  broad 
sands  and  sea-lions  clamber  over  jutting  rocks,  to 
heights  of  nearly  a  thousand  feet.  Overlooking  the 
sands  ar.d  the  seal  rocks  from  a  considerable  bluff  is 
the  Cliff  House  resort,  and  towering  above  that  is  the 
magnificent  sky-battlement  known  as  Sutro  Heights 
— a  private  property  open  to  the  public  and  embel- 
lished by  landscape  gardens  and  statuary.  Other 
sights  and  scenes  are  the  Golden  Gate,  the  park  of 
the  same  name — a  thousand  acres  of  familiar  and  rare 
trees,  shrubs  and  flowers — the  largest  mint  in  the 
world,  not  a  few  magnificent  public  buildings,  innu- 
merable phases  of  active  commerce,  and  the  con- 
trasting life  of  races  representing  nearly  every  nation 
of  the  world. 

CHINATOWN. 

A  few  steps  from  your  hotel,  at  the  turn  of  a  cor- 
ner, you  come  at  once  upon  the  city  of  the  Chinese. 
It  is  night,  and  under  the  soft  glow  of  paper  lanterns 


A    STREET    IN    CHIN4[0WN. 

99 


and  through  the  gloom  of  unlighted  alleys  weaves  an 
oriental  throng.  Folicemen  doubtless  stand  upon  a 
corner  here  and  there,  and  small  parties  of  tourists 
pick  their  way  under  lead  of  professional  guides;  the 
remaining  thousands  are  Celestials  ail.  The  scene 
is  of  the  Chinaman  at  home,  very  John,  restored  to 
authenticity  of  type  by  the  countenance  of  numbers, 
and  so  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye  you  become  a  for- 
eigner in  your  own  land,  a  tolerated  guest  in  a  fan- 
tastic realm  whose  chief  apparent  hold  upon  reality 
is  its  substratum  of  genuine  wickedness.  It  is  a  gro- 
tesque jumble,  a  panopticon  of  peepshows:  women 
shoemakers  huddled  in  diminutive  rooms;  barbers 
with  marvelous  tackle  shaving  heads  and  chins,  and 
cleaning  ears  and  eyeballs,  while  their  patrons  sit  in 
the  constrained  attitude  of  a  victim,  meekly  holding 
the  tray;  clerks,  armed  with  a  long  pointed  stick 
dipped  in  ink,  soberly  making  pictures  of  variant 
spiders  in  perpendicular  rows;  apothecaries  expound- 
ing the  medicinal  virtues  of  desiccated  toad  and 
snake;  gold-workers  making  bracelets  of  the  precious 
metal  to  be  welded  about  the  arm  of  him  who  dares 
not  trust  his  hoard  to  another's  keep;  restaurateurs 
serving  really  palatable  conserves,  with  pots  of  de- 
lectable tea;  shopkeepers  vending  strange  foreign 
fruits  and  dubious  edibles  plucked  from  the  depths 
of  nightmare;  merchants  displaying  infinitude  of  cu- 
rious trinkets  and  elaborate  costly  wares;  worshipers 
and  readers  of  the  book  of  fate  in  rich  temples  niched 
with  uncouth  deities  ;  conventional  actors  playing 
interminable  histrionics  to  respectful  and  appreciative 
auditors ;  gamblers  stoically  venturing  desperate 
games  of  chance  with  cards  and  dominoes;  opium- 
smokers  stretched  upon  their  bunks  in  a  hot  atmos- 
phere heavy  with  sickening  fumes;  lepers  dependent 
upon  occasional  alms  flung  by  a  hand  that  avoids  the 
contamination  of  contact;  female  chattels,  still  fair 
loo 


and  innocent  of  face  despite  unutterable  wrongs,  yet 
no  whit  above  the  level  of  their  deep  damnation — 
such  is  the  Chinatown  one  brings  away  in  lasting 
memory  after  three  hours  of  peering,  entering,  as- 
cending, descending,  crossing,  and  delving.  A  very 
orderly  and  quiet  community,  withal,  for  the  Mon- 
golian is  not  commonly  an  obstreperous  individual, 
and  his  vices  are  not  of  the  kind  that  inflame  to 
deeds  of  violence.  He  knows  no  more  convivial 
bowl  than  a  cup  of  tea.  If  he  quits  the  gaming-ta- 
ble penniless,  it  is  with  a  smile  of  patient  melancholy. 
And  his  dens  of  deepest  horror  are  silent  as  en- 
chanted halls. 

All  except  its  innermost  domestic  life  may  be  in- 
spected by  the  curious.  The  guides  are  discreet,  and 
do  not  include  the  lowest  spectacles  except  upon  re- 
quest, although  it  is  equally  true  that  very  many  vis- 
itors, regarding  the  entire  experience  as  one  of  the 
conventional  sights  of  travel,  go  fortified  with  espe- 
cial hardihood  and  release  their  conductor  from  con- 
siderations of  delicacy. 

The  joss-houses,  or  temples,  are  hung  with  pon- 
derous gilded  carvings,  with  costly  draperies  and  rich 
machinery  of  worship.  The  deities  are  fearful  con- 
ceptions, ferocious  of  countenance,  bristling  with 
hair  and  decked  with  tinseled  robes.  A  tiny  vestal- 
flame  burns  dimly  in  a  corner,  and  near  it  stands  a 
huge  gong.  An  attendant  strikes  this  gong  vocifer- 
ously to  arouse  the  god,  and  then  prostrates  himself 
before  the  altar,  making  three  salaams.  A  couple  of 
short  billets,  half-round,  are  then  tossed  into  the  air 
to  bode  good  or  ill  luck  to  you  according  as  they  fall 
upon  the  one  or  the  other  side.  A  good  augury  hav- 
ing been  secured  by  dint  of  persistent  tossing,  a 
quiverful  of  joss-sticks  is  next  taken  in  hand  and 
dextrously  shaken  until  three  have  fallen  to  the  floor. 
The  sticks  are  numbered,  and  correspond  to  para* 


praphs  in  a  fatc-book  that  is  next  resorted  to,  and  you 
an-  ultimately  informed  that  you  will  live  for  forty 
years  to  come;  that  you  will  marry  within  two  years, 
and,  if  your  sex  and  air  seem  to  countenance  such  a 
venture,  that  you  will  shortly  make  enormous  win- 
ninj^s  at  poker  Whatever  of  genuine  solemnity  may 
cloak  the  Heathen  Chinee  in  his  own  relations  to  his 
bewhiskered  deities,  he  undoubtedly  tips  the  wink  to 
them  when  the  temple  is  invaded  by  itinerant  sight- 
seers. The  smooth,  spectacled  interpreter  of  desti- 
nies pays  $5,000  3  year  for  the  privilege  of  purveying 
such  mummeries,  and  hardly  can  the  Heathen  Chi- 
nee himself  repress  a  twinkle  of  humor  at  the  termi- 
nation of  a  scene  in  which  he  so  easily  comes  off 
best,  having  fairly  outdone  his  Caucasian  critic  in 
cynicism,  and  for  a  price. 

In  the  theater  he  will  be  found,  perhaps  contrary 
to  expectation,  to  take  a  serious  view  of  art.  You 
are  conducted  by  a  tortuous  underground  passage  of 
successive  step-ladders  and  narrow  ways,  past  innu- 
merable bunk-rooms  of  opium-smokers,  to  th^  stage 
itself,  where  your  entrance  creates  no  disturbance. 
The  Chinese  stage  is  peculiar  in  that  while  the  act- 
ors are  outnumbered  ten  to  one  by  supernumeraries, 
musicians  and  Caucasian  visitors,  they  monopolize 
the  intellectual  recognition  of  the  audience.  The 
men  who,  hat  on  head,  pack  the  pit,  and  the  women 
who  throng  the  two  galleries,  divided  into  respect- 
able and  unrespectable  by  a  rigid  meridian,  have 
been  educated  to  a  view  of  the  drama  which  is  hardly 
to  be  ridiculed  by  nations  that  admit  the  concert  and 
the  oratorio.  The  Chinese  simply  need  less  ocular 
illusion  than  we  in  the  theater,  and  perhaps  those  of 
us  who  are  familiar  with  the  grotesque  devices  by 
which  our  own  stage-veneer  is  wrought  perform  no 
less  an  intellectual  feat  than  they.  Their  actors  are 
indeed  richly  costumed,  and,  women  not  being  per- 

I02 


mittcd  upon  the  stage,  the  youths  who  play  female 
roles  arc  carefully  made  up  for  their  parts;  and  one 
and  all  tiioy  endeavor  to  impersonate.  Almost  no 
other  illusion  is  considered  necessary.  The  stage- 
manager  and  his  assistants  now  and  then  erect  a 
small  background  suggestive  of  environment,  and  the 
province  of  the  orchestra  is  to  accentuate  emotion— 
in  which  heaven  knows  they  attain  no  small  degree 
of  success.  It  is  highly  conventionalized  drama,  in 
which  any  kind  of  incongruity  may  elbow  the  play- 
ers provided  it  does  not  confuse  the  mind  by  actu- 
ally intervening  between  them  and  the  audience. 
The  plays  are  largely  historical,  or  at  least  legend- 
ary, and  vary  in  length  from  six  or  eight  hours  to  a 
serial  of  many  consecutive  nights'  duration.  There 
are  stars  whose  celebrity  packs  the  house  to  the  limit 
of  standing-room,  and  there  are  the  same  strained 
silent  attention  and  quick  rippling  response  to  witty 
passages  that  mark  our  own  playhouses;  but  such 
demonstrative  applause  as  the  clapping  of  hands  and 
the  stamping  of  feet  is  unknown.  The  Chinese 
theater-goer  would  as  soon  think  of  so  testifying  en- 
joyment of  a  good  book  in  the  quiet  of  his  home.  But 
as  for  the  orchestra,  let  them  write  its  justification! 
Such  a  banging  of  cymbals,  and  hammering  of 
gongs,  and  monotonous  squealing  of  stringed  in- 
struments in  unrememberable  minor  intervals  almost 
transcends  belief.  Without  visible  leader,  and  un- 
marked by  any  discoverable  rhythm,  it  is  nevertheless 
characterized  by  unanimity  of  attack  and  termina- 
tion, as  well  as  enthusiasm  of  execution,  and  histo- 
rians of  music  are  authority  for  the  statement  that  it 
is  based  upon  an  established  scale  and  a  scientific 
theory.  Be  that  as  it  may,  it  is  a  thing  of  terror  first 
to  greet  the  ear  on  approach,  last  to  quit  it  in  de- 
parture, and  may  be  counted  upon  for  visitation  in 
dreams  that  follow  indigestion. 
104 


CHINESE    RESTAURANT, 


105 


j'rin-  si'crct  society  known  as  the  Highbinders  was 
created  two  antl  a  half  centuries  ago  in  C'iiina  by  a 
banil  of  devoted  patriots,  anil  had  dcijenerated  into 
an  organization  employed  lo  further  the  ends  of  av- 
arice and  revenge  long  before  it  was  transplanted  to 
this  country.  Relieved  of  the  espionage  ihat  had  in 
sonic  measure  controlled  it  at  home,  and  easily  able 
to  evade  a  police  unfamiliar  with  the  Chinese  tongue, 
it  grew  in  numbers  and  power  with  great  rapidity. 
'I'hc  greater  portion  of  the  people  of  Chinatown  has 
always  been  honestly  industrious  and  law  abiding, 
but  the  society  rewarded  hostility  by  persecution, 
ruin  and  often  death.  Merchants  were  laid  under 
tribute,  and  every  form  of  industry  in  the  commu- 
nity that  was  not  directly  protected  by  membership  in 
the  society  was  compelled  to  yield  its  quota  of  reve- 
nue. Vice  was  fostered,  and  courts  of  law  were  so 
corrupted  by  intimidation  or  bribery  of  witnesses 
that  it  was  ne.xt  to  impossible  to  convict  a  High- 
binder of  any  criminal  offense.  A  climax  of  terror 
was  reached  that  at  last  convulsed  the  environing 
city,  and  by  the  pure  effrontery  of  autocratic  power 
the  society  itself  precipitated  its  downfall.  A  per- 
emptory word  was  given  to  the  police,  and  there  en- 
sued a  scene  which  the  astonished  Celestials  were 
forced  to  accept  as  a  practical  termination  of  their 
bloody  drama;  a  small  epic  of  civilization  intent 
on  the  elevation  of  heathendom,  no  inconsiderable 
portion  of  which  in  a  short  space  was  blown  sky- 
high.  The  Highbinders  were  scattered,  many  im- 
prisoned or  executed,  innumerable  dives  emptied, 
temples  and  secret  council-rooms  stripped  bare,  and 
the  society  in  effect  undone.  Yet  still,  for  one  who 
has  viewed  the  lowest  depths  of  the  Chinatown  of 
to-day,  the  name  will  long  revive  an  uncherished 
memory  of  two  typical  faces,  outlined  upon  a  back- 
ground of  nether  flame.  One  is  the  face  of  a  young 
1 06 


BALCONY    OF    JOSS-HOUbE. 
107 


wom.in  who  in  a  cell  far  underground  leans  against 
a  iiigh  couch  in  a  manner  half-wanton,  half-indiffer- 
ent, and  chants  an  unintelligible  barbaric  strain. 
The  other  is  that  of  her  owner,  needing  only  a  hang- 
man's knot  beneath  the  ear  to  complete  a  wholly 
satisfactory  presentment  of  irredeemable  depravity. 
And  that  is  why  one  quits  the  endless  novelties  of 
the  peepshow  without  regret,  and  draws  a  breath  of 
relief  upon  regaining  the  familiar  streets  of  civili- 
zation. 

SANTA   CLARA   VALLEY. 

Below  the  junction  of  San  Francisco's  peninsular 
with  the  mainland  the  Santa  Clara  Valley  stretches 
southward  between  the  Coast  and  Santa  Cruz  ranges. 
Along  this  valley  lies  the  way  to  San  Jose  and  the 
coast-resorts  of  Santa  Cruz  and  Monterey,  past  inter- 
mediate points  of  celebrity. 

Palo  Alto  is  the  site  of  the  Stanford  University, 
where  in  a  campus  of  8,000  acres,  an  arboretum  to 
which  every  clime  has  liberally  contributed,  stands 
this  magnificent  memorial  of  a  cherished  son.  The 
buildings  are  conceived  in  the  style  of  mission  archi- 
tecture— low  structures  connected  by  an  arcade  sur- 
rounding an  immense  inner  court,  with  plain  thick 
walls,  arches  and  columns,  built  of  buff  sandstone, 
and  roofed  with  red  tiles.  Richly  endowed,  this  uni- 
versity is  broadly  and  ambitiously  planned,  and  is 
open  to  both  sexes  in  all  departments. 

Hard  by,  at  Menlo  Park,  is  Mr.  Stanford's  horse 
breeding  and  training  establishment,  where  hundreds 
of  thoroughbreds  are  carefully  tended  in  paddock  and 
stable,  and  daily  trained.  Even  one  who  is  not  a 
lover  of  horses,  if  such  person  exists,  can  not  fail  to 
find  entertainment  here,  where  daily  every  phase  of 
equine  training  is  exhibited  from  the  kindergarten 
where  toddling  colts  are  taught  the  habit  of  the  track 
to  the  open  course  where  famous  racers  are  speeded. 
108 


^''^^^ 


Perhaps  there  is  not,  in  the  whole  of  Northern 
California,  a  town  more  attractively  environed  than 
San  Jose.  It  lies  in  the  heart  of  the  valley,  pro- 
tected by  mountain-walls  from  every  wandering 
asperity  of  land  or  sea,  a  clean,  regularly  platted  city, 
reaching  off  through  avenues  of  pine  and  of  euca- 
lyptus, and  through  orchards  and  vineyards,  to  pretty 
forest-slopes  where  roads  climb  past  rock,  glen  and 
rivulet  to  fair  commanding  heights.  The  immediate 
neighborhood  is  the  center  of  prune  production,  and 
every  year  exports  great  quantities  of  berries,  fruits 
and  wines.  The  largest  seed-farms  and  the  largest 
herd  of  short-horn  cattle  in  the  world  are  here. 

Twenty-six  miles  east  from  San  Jose  is  Mount 
Hamilton,  upon  whose  summit  the  white  wall  of  the 
Lick  Observatory  is  plainly  visible  at  that  distance. 
This  observatory  has  already  become  celebrated  for 
the  discovery  of  Jupiter's  fifth  satellite,  and  gives 
promise  of  affording  many  another  astronomical  sen- 
sation in  time  to  come.  Visitors  are  permitted  to  look 
through  the  great  telescope  one  night  in  the  week, 
and  in  the  intervals  a  smaller  glass,  sufficiently  pow- 
erful to  yield  a  good  view  of  the  planets  in  the  broad 
sunlight  of  midday,  is  devoted  to  their  entertainment. 
It  is  reached  by  stage  from  San  Jose,  the  round  trip 
being  made  daily.  Aside  from  the  attraction  of  the 
famous  sky-glass,  supplemented  by  the  multitudin- 
ous and  elaborate  mechanisms  of  the  observatory, 
the  ride  through  the  mountains  to  Mount  Hamilton 
more  than  compensates  the  small  fatigue  of  the  jour- 
ney. There  are  backward  glimpses  of  the  beautiful 
valley,  and  a  changing  panorama  of  the  Sierra,  the 
road  making  loops  and  turns  in  the  shadow  of  live- 
oaks  on  the  brink  of  profound  craler-Iike  depres- 
sions. 

Santa  Cruz  is  a  popular  resort  by  the  sea,  pos- 
109 


"^^/zJ^V- 


sessing  picturesque  rocks  and  a  fine  background  of 
the  mountains  that  bear  its  name.  Near  at  liand  is  a 
much-visited  grove  of  Big  Trees,  the  approach  to 
which  leatls  througli  oak  and  fir,  ])ast  caflons  fringed 
with  madrona  and  nianzanita,  antl  fern  and  flower. 

Monterey  was  the  old  capital  of  California  in  the 
earliest  period  of  Spanish  rule.  Here  the  forest 
crowds  upon  the  sea  and  mingles  its  odor  of  balm 
with  that  of  the  brine.  The  beach  that  divides  them 
is  broken  by  cliffs  where  the  cypress  finds  footing  to 
flaunt  its  ruggeil  boughs  above  the  spray  of  the  waves, 
and  in  the  gentle  air  of  a  perfect  climate  the  wild 
flowers  hold  almost  perpetual  carnival.  Upon  such 
a  foundation  the  Hotel  del  Monte,  with  its  vast  parks 
of  lawn  and  garden  and  driveway,  covering  many 
hundred  acres,  is  set,  all  its  magnificence  lending 
really  less  than  it  owes  to  the  infinite  charm  of  Mon- 
terey. Its  fame  has  spread  through  every  civilized 
land,  and  European  as  well  as  American  visitors 
make  up  its  throng.  Here,  as  elsewhere  upon  the 
coast,  foreign  travelers  are  seen  most  in  that  season 
when  the  extraordinary  equability  of  winter  allures 
them  by  contrast  with  their  native  environment,  but 
the  Californian  knows  its  summer  aspect  to  be  no 
less  winsome;  and  so,  from  the  year's  beginning  to 
its  end,  there  is  one  long  gala-day  at  Monterey,  its 
parks  and  beaches  and  forests  animated  by  wealthy 
and  fashionable  pleasure -seekers.  The  Del  Monte 
is  located  in  a  scattering  grove  of  200  acres,  a  little 
east  from  the  town,  and  for  lavishness  of  luxury 
and  splendor  in  construction  and  accessory  has  per- 
haps no  superior  Bathing,  boating,  camping  and 
driving  are  the  current  out-of-door  activities,  and 
specific  points  of  interest  are  the  Carmel  Mission. 
Pacific  Grove,  Moss  Beach,  Seal  Rocks,  Cypress 
Point  and  Point  Pinos  Lighthouse.  The  amount  of 
yearly  rainfall  at  Monterey  is  more  than  at  San 
no 


Diego  and  less  than  at  Santa  Harbara.  'Ihe  mean 
initisuninuT  tcntpcraturc  is  the  same,  namely,  65*^, 
but  in  winter  the  thermometer  averajjes  lower,  the 
mean  temperature  of  January  bein^so'^at  Monterey, 
56*^  at  Santa  Harbara  anil  57"  at  San  Diego.  These 
figures  compare  most  favorably  with  the  records  of 
European  resorts,  and  the  absence  of  humidity  works 
a  further  amelioration,  both  in  summer  and  winter, 
firmly  establishing  the  resorts  of  California  as  char- 
acterized by  the  most  equable  climate  known. 


LAKE    TAJIOE. 

More  than  6,000  feet  above  the  sea,  among  mount- 
ains that  rise  from  its  edge  to  a  further  altitude  of 
from  2,000  to  5,000  feet,  and  surrounded  by  the  deep 
forest,  this  lake  unites  the  highest  poetic  beauty  with 
definite  attractions  for  the  artist  and  the  sportsman. 
It  is  twenty-five  miles  long  and  half  as  wide,  and 
reaches  a  depth  of  1,700  feet.  Hotels  and  cottages 
sprinkle  its  shores,  little  steamers  ply  upon  its  silvery 
surface,  and  there  are  tents  and  boats  of  camping 
fishermen  and  hunters.  Here  to  the  aromatic  odor 
of  the  forest  come  lovers  of  pure  joys  for  compara- 
tive solitude  in  the  heart  of  nature.  In  the  adjacent 
wilderness  there  is  game  to  tax  the  address  of  the 
bravest  gunner,  and  mountain-streams  shout  in  tor- 
rent through  a  thousand  fierce  tangles  of  woodland 
dear  to  artists  and  unprofessional  lovers  of  untram- 
meled  beauty;  and  from  the  mountain-tops  one  may 
look  far  out  over  the  barriers  that  strive  to  secrete 
this  exquisite  spot  from  the  outer  world.  Fragments 
of  its  loveliness  have  been  copied  by  many  a  brush 
and  many  a  camera,  poets  have  sung  of  it,  travelers 
have  told  of  it  in  labored  prose;  but  Lake  Tahoe 
eludes  translation.  Have  you  ever  chanced  upon  a 
spot  where  Nature,  turning  from  gorgeous  pigments 
112 


and  heroic  canvases  in  a  swift  softening  mood  had 
spent  the  white  hr^at  of  inspiration  upon  a  picture  in 
which  was  permitted  neither  asperity  nor  want  of 
perfect  grace,  a  thing  finely  poised  between  grandeur 
and  gentleness,  wood  and  water  and  mountain  and 
sky  rhymed  in  every  line  and  tone  to  a  fine  exalta- 
tion such  as  the  Greek  knew  when  he  dreamed  a 
statue  out  of  the  marble?  Tahoe  is  of  that  category. 
It  is  reached  by  stage  from  Truckee,  on  the  line  of 
the  Central  Pacific,  our  returning  eastward  route 
from  San  Francisco. 


^-*^~' 


NEVADA    AND    UTAH. 

(EVADA  formerly  existed  as  part  of  the  Ter- 
ritory of  Utah,  and  having  leaped   into 
^i^     sudden  significance  with  the  discovery  of 
silver  sulphurets  in  1858  was  separately 
organized  an  1  admitted  into  the  Union  during  the 
Civil  War.    Trappers  were  its  pioneers  in  1825,  over- 
land emigrants  crossed  it  as  early  as  1834,  and  the 
113 


explorations  of  Fremont  bcpan  nine  years  later.  It 
is  a  land  of  silver  antl  sage-brush,  anil  steaming  min- 
eral springs;  of  salt  and  borax  and  sulphur;  of  par- 
allel mountain-ranges,  rolling  plains  aiul  Hat  alkaline 
sands,  of  limpid  lish  thronged  lakes  and  brackish 
sinkholes  that  suck  the  flow  of  its  rivers.  Its  com- 
position is  endlessly  diverse,  and  there  is  abundance 
of  noble  scenery,  but  this  does  not  generally  lie  ad- 
jacent to  the  railway-route.  In  its  transit  the  tour- 
ist will  not  unlikely  be  aware  of  a  few  hours  of  mo- 
notony— the  first  and  the  last  to  be  encountered  in 
the  entire  course  of  the  journey.  Reno,  Winnemuc- 
ca,  and  Elko  are  the  chief  cities  that  will  be  seen, 
and  Humboldt  River  is  followed  closely  for  the  great- 
er part  of  the  distance  across  the  State.  Nevada,  as 
everybody  knows,  means  suo'V)'.  The  name  was  de- 
rived from  the  range  upon  its  western  border,  and 
was  not  suggested  by  any  characteristic  of  the  cli- 
mate, which  is  dry  and  healthful,  and,  save  in  ex- 
treme altitudes,  notably  temperate. 

Crossing  the  Utah  line,  and  keeping  well  above 
the  edge  of  the  desolate  barren  noted  on  the  maps 
as  the  Great  Salt  Lake  Desert,  you  come  quickly 
into  view  of  the  Great  Salt  Lake  itself,  whose  shore 
is  approximately  followed  for  half  its  circumference 
upon  the  north  and  east.  Between  the  eastern 
shore  and  the  Wasatch  Range  the  southward-trend- 
ing valley  stretches  for  many  miles.  Ogden,  Salt 
Lake  City,  Provo,  Springville,  and  numerous  pretty 
Mormon  villages  are  scattered  along  the  line,  and 
there  is  a  large  body  of  fresh  water  known  as  Utah 
Lake,  linked  to  the  great  salt  inland  sea  by  the  Jor- 
dan River.  America  boasts  no  fairer  or  more  fruit- 
ful valley  than  this.  Beyond,  the  circular  eastward 
sweep  of  the  route  passes  Red  Narrows,  Soldier  Sum- 
mit, Castle  Gate,  Green  River,  and  the  Book  Cliffs, 
114 


^/^r 


JT^ 


and  leads  through  the  noble  valley  of  the  Grand  River 
to  the  Colorado  boundary  at  Utaline. 

Desert,  broken  by  innumerable  lovely  oases;  salt 
sea  and  fresh-water  lake;  monuments  of  an  institu- 
tion of  world-wide  notoriety  and  its  communities 
alternating  or  mingled  with  "  Gentile  "  population; 
mountain-passes,  canons,  noble  gateways,  and  mem- 
orable rock-formations  and  river-valleys — these  are 
the  distinguishing  features  of  Utah. 


Focal  point  of  converging  railroads  from  the  east 
and  west,  and  nourished  by  many  thousand  acres  of 
irrigated  land  immediately  surrounding,  Ogden  is  the 
second  city  of  Utah  in  importance.  The  Wasatch 
Mountains  protect  it  upon  the  east  and  north,  and 
form  a  background  of  exceeding  beauty  here  as  else- 
where. The  attractions  of  its  environs  include  lakes, 
springs,  rivers  and  parks,  and  Ogden  Cafion,  a  nine- 
US 


mile   stretch    of    ruggcil    rock-fissures   and    roaring 
waters. 

SALT    l.AKK   CITY. 

Here  in  1S47  came  Brighani  ^'oung  and  liis  band 
of  Latter  Day  Saints,  driven  from  the  States  by  the 
unpopularity  of  their  tenets  and  practice.  The  story 
of  the  Mormons  is  a  tragic  one,  difficult  reading  for 
a  dispassionate  reader,  like  that  of  the  Puritanic 
persecution  of  (Quakers  and  reputed  practitioners  of 
witchcraft  two  centuries  ago.  It  is  true  the  Mormon 
offered  an  affront  to  the  public  sense  of  morality,  but 
a  later  generation,  that  counts  so  many  avowed  ad- 
herents to  the  notion  that  even  monogamous  mar- 
riage is  a  failure,  should  have  only  commiseration 
for  a  sect  committed  to  utter  bankruptcy  in  that  par- 
ticular. In  any  event,  abhorrence  of  polygamy  can 
not  serve  as  excuse  for  the  cruelties  visited  upon  the 
early  Mormons  by  the  mobs  that  despoiled,  mal- 
treated and  murdered  them.  In  this  lies  our  dis- 
grace, part  sectional,  part  national,  that  their  one 
offensive  characteristic  was  counted  a  forfeiture  of 
their  every  human  right,  and  their  defiance  of  a  sin- 
gle law  made  pretext  for  the  violation  of  twenty  in 
their  persecution.  They  are  familiar  to  the  public 
mind  almost  solely  in  their  character  as  polygamists 
claiming  sanction  of  divine  authority;  yet,  although 
polygamy  no  longer  exists  in  Utah,  the  Church  of 
Latter  Day  Saints  having  formally  renounced  it,  the 
name  of  Mormon  still  has  power  to  awaken  prejudice 
among  those  who  know  the  sect  only  by  repute.  The 
abandonment  of  this  prejudice  is  demanded  not  by 
charity  but  by  common-sense.  The  patriarchal 
households  of  the  pious  old  Jewish  kings  are  not 
more  utterly  a  thing  of  the  past  than  are  those  of 
the  Mormons,  and  stripped  of  them  Mormonism  is 
not  opposed  to  tenets  that  are  current  in  other  reou- 
table  churches. 

n6 


The  putative  author  of  the  Book  of  Mormon  was  a 
prophet  of  that  name.  It  purports  to  be  an  abridg- 
ment of  the  book  of  the  prophet  Ether,  which  nar- 
rated that  the  Jaredites  came  to  America  in  the  great 
dispersion  that  followed  the  confusion  of  tongues  at 
Babel,  and  were  destroyed  for  their  degeneracy  in 
the  year  600  B.  C.  In  the  same  year  Lehi  led  a 
second  exodus,  from  Jerusalem,  which  landed  at 
Chili,  from  which  point  the  populating  of  North 
America  was  again  begun.  Ether's  book  was  dis- 
covered by  this  colony,  which  in  course  of  time  was 
divided  into  two  factions,  the  Nephites  and  the 
Lamanites.  The  former  were  eventually  extermi- 
nated by  the  latter,  who  relapsed  into  barbarism  and 
became  the  ancestral  stock  of  our  native  Indians. 
Mormon  was  a  prophet  of  the  Nephites,  and  to  the 
abridgment  of  Ether's  story  added  an  account  of  the 
history  of  the  second  colony,  and  hid  his  own  tablets 
where  they  were  found  by  Joseph  Smith  and  by  him 
miraculously  translated.  The  basis  of  the  religious 
teaching  is  Biblical;  the  exposition  constitutes  Lat- 
ter Day  sanctity. 

The  followers  of  Young  found  the  Salt  Eake  Val- 
ley a  desert  of  unproductiveness,  despite  the  beauty 
of  its  contour.  They  made  it  an  unprecedented 
oasis,  a  broad  garden  of  lovely  fertility.  A  band  of 
pauper  zealots,  they  camped  upon  a  barren  and  com- 
pelled it  to  sustain  them.  They  found  inspiration  in 
the  striking  topographical  resemblance  between  their 
Deseret  and  Palestine,  and  gave  the  name  Jordan  to 
the  little  river  that  joined  their  two  contrasting  waters 
as  old  Jordan  joins  the  Sea  of  Tiberias  with  the  Dead 
Sea.  They  chose  a  site  for  Zion,  and  in  its  center, 
in  1S53,  they  laid  the  foundations  of  the  Temple, 
which  the  predetermined  forty  years  of  building  will 
hardly  bring  to  completion.  And  as  the  government 
was  of  the  Church,  so  the  Temple  was  regarded  as 
117 


the  pivot  of  7-ion.  The  onlinal  numbers,  combined 
with  the  four  cardinal  points,  still  serve  to  distin- 
guish the  different  streets  of  the  city,  as  clearly  in- 
dicating the  exact  relation  of  each  to  the  location  of 
the  great  edilice.  Second  West  Street,  Kast  Fifth 
South  Street,  and  the  like,  are  finger-posts  that  guide 
the  stranger  infallibly  to  the  Mormon  niecca. 

It  was  a  curious  reversion  to  the  old  patriarchal 
idea  of  life,  foreign  to  the  spirit  of  our  time,  and  so 
foredoomed  to  failure;  but  the  dreamers  had  hard 
muscles  and  determined  souls.  They  grubbed  bush- 
es, they  dug  ditches,  they  irrigated,  they  fought  the 
grasshopper,  they  subsisted  on  the  substance  of  things 
hoped  for,  enduring  extremes  of  hunger  and  priva- 
tion in  the  first  years  of  their  grapple  with  the  des- 
ert. And  by  the  time  the  reluctance  of  earth  had 
been  overcome  and  material  prosperity  had  been  won, 
the  westward  flow  of  emigration  had  brought  about 
the  human  conflict  once  more.  The  records  of  that 
conflict  have  been  written  by  the  accustomed  parti- 
san hands,  but  the  plain  truth  is  that  whether  we  are 
Mormon,  or  Catholic,  or  Protestant,  or  Mohamme- 
dan, or  Gentile  pure  and  unalloyed,  we  are  intolerant 
all;  and  when  we  lay  hold  upon  an  issue  it  is  more 
than  a  meeting  of  Greeks,  it  is  savage  to  savage,  old 
Adam  himself  warring  against  himself  in  the  persons 
of  his  common  children.  Mormonism  was  a  dream 
of  religious  enthusiasm  mi.xed  with  earthly  dross, 
overthrown  by  dross  of  earth  that  invoked  the  name 
of  religion.  Yet  the  overthrow  was  plainly  plotted 
by  the  higher  powers,  and  the  conquerors  were  in 
their  employ. 

The  distinguishing  features  of  the  sect,  as  now  re- 
stricted, are  not  apparent  to  the  casual  traveler,  to 
whom  Zion  is  only  a  romantic  and  imposing  relic  of 
a  day  that  has  been  outlived.  But  the  organization 
still  endures,  and  there  is  no  reason  to  doubt  that  its 
IiS 


119 


distinction  is  vital  enough  in  the  sight  of  Mormons 
themselves,  as  it  is  to  any  clan  or  denomination.  In- 
dividually they  are  esteemed  and  respected  among 
the  "Gentiles"  that  have  invaded  Salt  Lake  City, 
and  Brigham  Young  himself,  in  the  fullness  of  his 
almost  autocratic  power,  manifested  many  of  the  qual- 
ities that  make  great  names  in  history.  That  he 
made  scandalous  misuse  of  that  power  is  generally 
believed,  and,  however  great  he  may  have  deemed 
the  danger  of  his  people,  it  is  certain  he  rebelled 
against  the  Government  of  these  United  States;  but 
he  was  essentially  a  great  leader  and  a  man  of  many 
broad  and  beneficent  conceptions.  As  contractor  he 
built  hundreds  of  miles  of  the  first  transcontinental 
railroad,  and  built  a  connecting  road  nearly  forty 
miles  in  length  to  place  Salt  Lake  Ciiy  in  commercial 
intimacy  with  the  outside  world.  The  first  telegraph- 
line  to  span  the  Rockies  was  principally  constructed 
by  him  as  contractor.  And  it  is  remembered  of  him 
that  he  furnished  a  Mormon  battalion  to  the  Me.xican 
War,  and  protected  from  Indian  depredations  the 
transportation  of  the  United  States  mails  through 
Utah  at  a  time  when  Government  troops  could  not 
be  spared  for  the  service.  The  establishment  of  the 
Territory  of  Utah  was  the  death-knell  of  the  State 
of  Deseret  which  he  had  founded,  yet  the  President 
had  enough  confidence  in  his  loyalty  to  appoint  him 
its  first  governor.  That  he  should  in  the  unavoida- 
ble ultimate  issue  take  positive  ground  on  the  side  of 
his  people  was  to  have  been  expected  of  the  Mormon 
leader. 

Young  is  the  personification  of  the  sect  to  the 
world  at  large,  and  his  memory  overhangs  Salt  Lake 
City,  perpetuated  in  the  broad  private  grounds  with 
their  high  walls  and  imposing  gateway,  where  so  long 
he  dwelt,  and  where  in  death  he  lies  buried.  And 
near  at  hand  are  the  erstwhile  palaces  of  his  favorite 
121 


du». 


wives,  and  miscellaneous  structures  that  liad  relig- 
ious ami  governmental  uses  in  the  singular  day  of 
his  prime. 

i;reat  salt  lake. 

Great  Salt  Lake  has  lost  nirieteentvventieths  of  its 
original  dimensions,  which  still  are  traceable.  Its 
area  was  once  equal  to  one-half  that  of  the  present 
Territory.  It  now  covers  an  extent  of  about  2,000 
square  miles,  in  which  are  included  a  dozen  or  more 
mountain-islands.  Its  waters  are  temperately  warm 
and  live  times  as  salt  as  the  ocean.  The  human 
body  floats  upon  their  surface  with  cork-like  buoy- 
ancy, without  the  slightest  sustaining  effort.  You 
may  double  your  knees  under  you  and  recline  upon 
it,  like  a  cherub  on  a  cloud,  with  head  and  shoulders 
protruding.  With  sun-umbrella  and  book  you  may 
idly  float  and  read  at  pleasure,  or  safely  take  a  nap 
upon  the  bosom  of  Salt  Lake  if  you  can  contrive  to 
maintain  a  suitable  balance  meanwhile;  for  you  will 
find  a  marked  disposition  on  the  part  of  this  brine 
to  turn  you  face  down,  which  position  is  anything 
but  a  pleasant  pickle  when  unexpectedly  assumed, 
for  the  membrane  of  eyes  and  nose  and  mouth  is  not 
on  friendly  terms  with  such  saline  bitterness.  The 
shore  of  the  lake  is  a  few  iniles  distant  from  the  city, 
and  Garfield  Beach,  some  eighteen  miles  away,  is 
the  most  popular  bathing-resort.  Here  a  pavilion 
and  whole  streets  and  avenues  of  dressing  rooms 
have  been  provided  for  the  hundreds  of  bathers 
who  every  day  in  season  flock  to  the  lake.  Every- 
body bathes,  and  the  scene,  novel  and  amusing  by 
reason  of  the  remarkable  specific  gravity  of  the  water, 
is  unlike  that  of  any  other  watering-place.  The  nat- 
122 


ural  aspect  is  full  of  soft  beauty,  not  unlike  that  of  the 
South  California  shore,  looking  off  to  the  coast  islands 
of  the  Pacific,  save  that  the  semi-tropical  vegetation 
is  wanting. 

Salt  Lake  is  a  Dead  Sea,  bare  of  fish  or  fowl  ex- 
cept for  a  minute  and  not  numerous  species  of  the 
former.  There  is  said  to  be  a  Mormon  tradition 
that  in  the  time  of  their  grasshopper  plague  an  enor- 
mous flight  of  gulls  issued  from  its  horizon  and 
cleared  the  fields  of  their  pest.  The  spectacle  of 
those  sea-scavengers  waddling  through  the  brown 
stubble  in  pursuit  of  the  grasshopper  must  have  been 
diverting,  at  least,  and  the  occurrence  was  doubtless 
miraculous  if  true. 

123 


VII. 


COLORADO. 

HIS  State  is  the  apex  of  North  America, 
c>yate^-^  the  crown  of  the  slopes  that  rise  from 
l-^^^g  Pacific  and  Atlantic  shores.  It  is  the 
heart  of  the  Rocky  Mountain  chain,  num- 
bering luindreils  of  individual  summits  that  rise  to  a 
height  of  more  than  13,000  feet,  and  many  whose 
altitude  exceeds  14,000.  Between  the  ranges  lie 
numerous  parks,  broad  basins  of  great  fertility  and 
surpassing  loveliness,  diversified  by  forest,  lake  and 
stream,  and  themselves  e.xalted  to  an  altitude  of  from 
eight  to  ten  thousand  feet.  The  precipitous  water- 
sheds of  this  titanic  land  give  birth  to  many  impor- 
tant rivers,  such  as  the  Platte,  Arkansas,  Rio  Grande 
del  Norte,  and  Grand,  whose  channels,  save  where 
they  occasionally  loiter  through  the  alluvial  parks,  are 
marked  by  fierce  cataracts  and  gloomy  gorges. 

This  Alpine  land  of  prodigious  scenery  and  inspir- 
iting air,  and  of  phenomenal  mineral  and  agiicultur- 
al  wealth,  we  now  enter  upon  the  west.  Every  suc- 
cessive scene  is  an  event,  every  turn  of  the  way  a 

The  canons  of  the  Grand  River  have  not  infrequently  been 
confounded  with  the  Grand  Canon  of  the  Colorado  River,  by 
tourists  who  have  not  visited  the  latter,  in  consequen<  e  of  an 
unfortunate  coincidence  of  names,  ;.r,d  further  confusion  has 
resulted  from  the  use  of  the  title  "Grand  Canon"  inconnection 
with  the  gorges  of  the  Gunnison  and  the  Arkansas.  The 
Grand  Cafion  of  the  Colorado  River  is  entitled  by  divine  right 
to  a  monopoly  of  the  name.  It  is  situated  in  Arizona,  and  was 
described  in  its  place. 

124 


revelation,  advancing  in  ascending  climaxes.  The 
first  stage,  120  miles  along  the  valley  of  the  Grand 
River,  past  Grand  Junction,  at  the  confluence  of  the 
Gunnison,  to  Glenwood  Springs,  serves  for  introduc- 
tion. From  that  point  on,  specific  mention  becomes 
necessary. 

GLENWOOD    SPRINGS. 

Where  the  Grand  River  issues  from  somber  cafion- 
walls  into  a  mountain-hemmed  valley,  just  above  the 
confluence  of  the  foaming  torrent  of  Roaring  Fork, 
numerous  thermal  springs  of  saline  and  chalybeate 
waters  boil  from  its  bed  and  from  its  grass  covered 
banks,  and  natural  caves  are  filled  with  their  vapor. 
Here  is  Glenwood  Springs,  lately  the  resort  of  Utes, 
and  the  home  of  deer,  elk,  and  bear,  which  latter 
have  retreated  only  to  the  bordering  forest.  Young- 
est of  the  great  watering-places  of  Colorado,  its  dis- 
tinction lies  in  the  extraordinary  character  and  volu- 
minous flow  of  the  springs,  the  unique  manner  in 
which  they  have  been  brought  into  service,  and  the 
superb  hotel,  bath-house  and  park  with  which  the 
natural  attractiveness  of  the  spot  has  been  perfected. 
In  the  middle  of  the  exquisite  park  the  largest  spring 
feeds  an  enormous  pool,  covering  more  than  an  acre, 
from  three  to  five  feet  deep,  paved  with  smooth  brick 
and  walled  with  sandstone.  A  fountain  of  cold 
mountain-water  in  the  center  tempers  the  pool  to 
gradations  that  radiate  to  its  rims.  Here  bathing  is 
in  season  throughout  the  year.  In  winter  or  sum- 
mer the  temperature  of  the  water  and  of  the  imme- 
diate atmosphere  has  the  same  delicious  warmth,  and 
all  the  snow  and  ice  that  Colorado  can  boast  in  Jan- 
uary at  an  altitude  of  over  five  thousand  feet  does 
not  interfere  with  out-of-door  bathing  at  Glenwood 
Springs.  The  bath  is  neither  enervating  nor  stimu- 
lating in  any  violent  degree.  An  hour  in  the  pool 
125 


is  not  followed  by  exhaustion;  it  is  a  thoroughly  en- 
joyalijc  pleasure,  bencruia!  in  effect.  Catarrh,  rheu- 
matism, diseases  of  the  blood,  and  many  ailments 
that  do  not  yield  to  medicine  are  either  wholly  cured 
or  relieved  by  these  waters.  The  bath-house  by  the 
side  of  the  pool  is  no  less  than  a  palace  in  architect- 
ure aiul  sumptuous  equipment.  Here  are  private 
bath-rooms,  with  attendants  and  ail  manner  of  ap- 
pliances, for  those  who  prefer  them,  or  to  whom 
the  public  pool  is  unsuited.  Radical  treatment  is 
given  in  the  vapor-caves,  which  have  been  divided 
into  compartments  and  fitted  for  the  purpose. 

The  park-grounds  rise  in  successive  terraces  to 
the  Hotel  Colorado,  which  was  conceived  in  the  same 
spirit  of  originality  which  created  the  improvements 
mentioned.  This  hotel  is  constructed  upon  three 
sides  of  a  large  court,  containing  a  miniature  lake,  fed 
by  cold  mountain-springs  and  stocked  with  trout  in- 
tended for  the  table.  In  summer  the  glass  partitions 
which  in  cold  weather  separate  the  main  dining-room 
from  the  broad  veranda  are  taken  down,  and  tables 
are  set  in  the  open  air;  and  the  guest  who  may  fancy 
a  broiled  trout  for  breakfast  is  privileged  to  capture 
it  himself,  in  this  particular  following  the  practice  of 
the  patron  of  restaurants  in  Mexico,  who  selects  the 
materials  of  his  meal  before  they  have  been  sent  to 
the  kitchen. 

The  State  of  Colorado  is  the  best  hunting-ground 
left  to  the  American  sportsman.  The  immediate  vicin- 
ity of  Glenwood  Springs  contains  great  numbers  of 
deer  and  an  abundance  of  elk  and  bear.  The  Roar- 
ing Fork,  a  succession  of  noisy  rapids  and  cataracts 
coursing  down  the  timber-clad  mountain-side,  affords 
excellent  trout-fishing,  and  Trappers  Lake  is  known 
to  thousands  of  gunners  and  fishermen,  either  by  ex- 
perience or  by  repute. 


126 


v.. 


SEVEN  CASTLES  AND  RED  ROCK  CANON. 

Leaving  Glenwood  Springs,  the  road  runs  by  the 
side  of  the  Roaring  Fork  for  twenty-five  miles,  to 
Aspen  Junction,  at  the  confluence  of  the  Frying  Pan, 
where  a  branch  line  diverges  to  the  mining-camp 
which  is  second  in  importance  only  to  Leadville. 
The  Elk  Mountains  and  colossal  separate  peaks 
make  a  near  horizon  upon  that  side.  Here  the  Roar- 
ing Fork  is  abandoned  in  favor  of  its  confluent,  and 
almost  immediately  the  splendid  cliffs  called  the 
Seven  Castles  are  seen.  These  are  semi-detached 
masses  of  red  sandstone,  varying  in  tint  from  a  deli- 
cate peachblow  to  dark  red,  and  towering  ponder- 
ously above  the  little  verdured  valley  of  the  Frying 
Fan.  They  are  the  portals  of  Red  Rock  Caiion, 
whose  commonplace  title  covers  a  long  stretch  of 
the  most  exquisite  scenery  ever  encountered  in  a 
narrow  mountain-notch.  The  white  flash  of  the 
stream,  interrupted  here  and  there  by  still  pools  that 
reflect  the  blue  of  the  sky,  marks  an  intricately  wind- 
ing upward  path,  disclosing  at  every  turn  new  love- 
liness of  woodland  bowers,  above  which  glimmer 
through  evergreen-trees,  or  flush  broadly  with  un- 
obscured  faces,  the  brilliant  masses  of  the  rock  for- 
mation. 

HAGERMAN  PASS. 

Red  granite  clifrs  follow,  and  scenes  of  widening 
grandeur.  Although  for  many  miles  the  grade  has 
been  steadily  upward,  the  real  ascent  of  the  Hager- 
man  Pass  now  begins.  This  crossing  of  the  Con- 
tinental Divide  is  the  loftiest  railroad-pass  in  Amer- 
ica. The  Frying  Pan  shows  the  way  nearly  to  the 
summit,  until  its  headwaters  are  reached  at  Loch 
Ivanhoe,  11,000  feet  above  the  sea.  There  is  a  far- 
ther climb  of  500  feet,  then  the  train  enters  a  long, 
tunnel,  and  the  Pacific  Slope  is  past.  When  the 
129  y>^ 


.^Mir«*fliailW 


travcliT  next  sees  tlic  li;;lit  of  day  a  lonjj  ilcscent  of 
the  backhinic  of  the  1  )iviilc  lies  before  him,  to  be 
acconiplislieil  liy  means  of  loojis,  trestles  and  other 
scientific  solutions  of  prndijrjoiisdiflieulties.  Numer- 
ous snow-sheds  of  heavy  limbers  cover  points  ex- 
poscil  to  the  avalanche  or  the  drift  of  snows,  and  in 
the  winter  season  rotary  snow-plows  and  a  large 
force  of  laborers  are  kept  constantly  on  hand  to  pre- 
vent any  delay  to  travel. 

In  this  unique  descent  of  a  seemingly  impassable 
barrier  the  grandest  of  mountain-views  are  inevitably 
afforded.  The  wide  detours  necessitated  by  grade 
and  topography  face  in  turn  every  point  of  the  com- 
pass, overhung  by  receding  summits  and  looking  off 
through  profound  notches  or  along  the  vertiginous 
downward-sweeping  slopes  to  a  world  below.  Alpine 
travelers  pay  the  price  of  extreme  fatigue  and  imperil 
their  lives  for  the  sensations  of  such  an  experience, 
which  for  the  American  tourist  is  only  an  incident, 
comfortably  enjoyed  without  exertion  or  danger. 

LEADVILLE. 

Just  beyond  the  foot  of  Hagerman  Pass,  upon  the 
swell  of  the  mountain-flank,  stands  the  great  min- 
ing-city, at  an  elevation  of  10,000  feet.  In  April, 
i860,  the  first  gold-claims  were  staked  out  in  Cali- 
fornia Gulch,  and  within  three  months  thereafter  10,- 
000  miners  had  located  there.  Two  claims  are  said  to 
have  yielded  $75,000  in  the  space  of  sixty  days,  and 
single  individuals  are  known  to  have  been  rewarded 
by  $100,000  for  the  work  of  one  summer.  In  a  lit- 
tle more  than  a  year  the  field  was  exhausted,  nearly 
$10,000,000  of  the  yellow  metal  having  been  carried 
away.  In  the  digging  of  ditches  to  facilitate  the 
washing  of  the  auriferous  gravel,  masses  of  a  heavy 
black  rock  were  so  commonly  encountered  as  to 
prove  a  considerable  annoyance,  but  they  were 
130 


\ 


i. 


&^^-^. 


-    ^  ^  /\\^^^^-^Ng;^  ^U'    // 


131 


\ 


thrown  asiilc  and  forjjoitcn.  These  were  the  famous 
silver  carbonates,  wliosc  value  was  later  revealed  by 
a  merely  curious  assjiy;  and  the  lirst  body  of  carbon- 
ate ore  to  be  worked  formed  the  entire  mass  of  a  cliff 
in  California  Clulch  which  had  been  execrated  by  in- 
numerable gold-diygers.  The  richest  ores  were  not 
amonjj  the  lirst  to  be  developed,  and  prospecting 
and  small  workings  were  increasingly  carried  on  for 
a  series  of  years  until,  in  1878,  two  prospectors  who 
were  "  grub-staked  "  by  Mr.  Tabor  (since  Senator) 
chanced  to  be  crossing  Fryer  Hill  and  sat  down  to 
imbibe  casual  refreshment  from  a  jug  of  whisky.  By 
the  time  they  had  become  satisfactorily  refreshed  all 
kinds  of  ground  looked  alike  to  them,  and  in  pure 
imbecility,  without  the  slightest  justification,  they  be- 
gan to  dig  where  they  had  been  sitting.  They  un- 
covered the  ore-body  of  the  famous  Little  Pittsburg 
mine,  which,  so  exuberantly  whimsical  is  occasional 
chance,  has  since  proved  to  be  the  only  point  on  the 
entire  hill  where  the  ledge  approaches  so  near  the  sur- 
face. Then  ensued  a  second  scramble  of  the  multi- 
tude for  place  in  this  marvelous  treasure-region,  and 
the  wildest  excitement  reigned.  In  the  fourteen  years 
that  have  passed  the  carbonate  ores  have  not  been 
exhausted;  on  the  contrary,  new  finds  are  still  of  fre- 
quent occurrence,  and  the  city  of  Leadville  is  now 
known  to  be  underlaid  with  bodies  of  that  ore.  But 
the  carbonate  era  has  probably  passed  its  climax,  and 
is  giving  place  to  the  sulphide  era,  millions  of  tons  of 
sulphide  ores  having  already  been  blocked  out  in 
Iron,  Breece  and  Carbonate  hills.  The  geological 
position  of  the  new  ores  promises  even  greater  extent 
and  value  than  the  carbonates  have  realized,  although 
they  are  less  cheaply  worked.  And  should  the  sul- 
phides at  length  be  exhausted  no  one  can  safely 
prophesy  that  this  extraordinarily  versatile  locality 
will  not  present  the  world  with  some  new  compound 
132 


which  on  analysis  shall  prove  unexpectedly  rich  in 
precious  metals. 

The  carbonate  discovery  revived  the  almost-de- 
populated camp,  and  for  the  space  of  a  few  years 
thereafter  Leadville  was  nearly  as  notorious  for  law- 
lessness and  personal  insecurity  as  for  the  richness 
and  number  of  its  mines.  That  phase  has  been  out- 
lived; order,  quiet  and  the  refinements  that  belong 
to  a  wealthy  city  in  our  day  having  long  been  per- 
manently established.  The  tourist  will,  however, 
find  it  distinctly  individual  and  full  of  present  inter- 
est, and  the  wonderful  romance  of  its  past,  which 
reads  like  a  tale  of  unbridled  imagination,  invests  it 
"with  an  imperishable  glamour. 


BUENA    VISTA. 

Stretching  southward  for  thirty  miles  between  the 
Park  and  Saguache  ranges,  at  an  equal  distance  cast 
from  Leadville,  lies  an  idyllic  valley  of  the  Arkan- 
sas River.  At  the  head  of  this  valley  stands  Buena 
Vista,  like  a  Swiss  village.  Harvard,  Yale  and 
Princeton  mountains,  each  loftier  than  Pike's  Peak, 
rise  close  behind  it  upon  the  west,  and  upon  the 
south  the  white  summits  of  the  Sangre  de  Cristo 
Range  are  discernible.  The  train  follows  the  sweep 
of  a  savage  rocky  salient  half  a  thousand  feet  above 
the  valley,  and  the  view  is  downward  upon  the  white 
town  and  over  the  far  stretch  of  sunlit  meadow,  whose 
penetrating  beauty  and  perfect  peace  is  enhanced  by 
the  grandeur  of  the  College  Peaks,  which  from  the 
grass-grown  and  timbered  slopes  of  their  feet  rise  to 
heights  and  forms  of  awful  sublimity.  Buena  Vista 
means  in  the  Spanish  a  comprehensive  outlook, 
rather  than  a  beautiful  scene.  It  is  a  euphonious 
name,  and  serves  well  enough  in  Colorado,  where 
among  so  much  that  is  superlative  one  learns  to  be 
temperate  in  the  use  of  adjectives;  but  anywhere 
133 


else  in  the  world  this  should  have  been  Vista  Gloriosn. 
It  is  a  peep  of  paradise,  a  lireani  of  a  happy  vale 
where  the  blessed  might  dwell  in  joy  forever. 


^^yT^ 


GRANITF.    CA^ON. 


After  leaving  Buena  Vista  a  ridge  of  9,500  feet 
elevation  is  crossed  to  the  broad  level  meadows  of 
South  Park,  a  fertile  tract  of  not  less  than  1,500 
square  miles  watered  by  the  forks  of  the  South  Platte 
River.  One  of  these  forks  is  followed  to  and  through 
an  impressive  gorge,  eleven  miles  long,  a  narrow, 
ruggedly  picturesque  channel  sparsely  timbered  with 
evergreen  and  walled  by  huge  granite-cliffs.  A  tow- 
ering rock-cone  stands  midway,  and  at  the  eastern 
end  lies  the  beautiful  sheet  of  water  known  as  Lake 
George. 

CRIPPLE   CREEK. 

The  famous  gold-camp  lies  eighteen  miles  south 
from  Divide,  a  station  thirteen  miles  east  of  Granite 
Canon,  but  tourists  commonly  find  it  convenient  to 
make  the  trip  as  one  of  the  numerous  excursions 
from  Manitou,  twenty-two  miles  farther  on.  Between 
Divide  and  Cripple  Creek  stages  run  daily,  but  a 
134 


( 


« 


135 


raUroad-branch  will  shortly  cover  the  distance.  It 
is  an  cxhiiaratinij  niountain-ridc  throujjh  forests  and 
poryes,  over  hillsides  ami  alon^  pleasant  intervales, 
♦o  an  elevation  of  10,000  feet,  above  which  the 
closely  neij;hborinji  Tike's  Peak  seems  to  shrink  to 
the  small  dijjnity  of  a  wind-swept  hill.  It  is  such  a 
ride  as  the  Western  traveler  commonly  knew  before 
railroads  relegated  the  stage  to  a  very  subordinate 
function.  The  ponderous  creaking  Concord  coach, 
lumbering  at  the  heels  of  half  a  dozen  spirited  horses 
and  driven  by  a  veteran  who  reeks  of  border  expe- 
rience and  reminiscence,  is  none  too  familiar  to  the 
modern  tourist.  One  finds  it  here,  and  it  unmistak- 
ably adds  zest  to  the  magnificent  changing  scenery. 
There  is  no  lack  of  passengers,  and  although  the 
talk  is  mainly  of  mines,  and  claims  and  prospects, 
just  as  in  other  parts  it  is  of  the  price  of  stocks  or 
lands,  the  high  romance  of  a  stage-ride  in  the  Rock- 
ies, which  custom  can  not  wither,  soon  sets  this  aside 
for  reminiscence  and  tales  of  adventure.  Your 
bronzed  unpretentious  companions  have  seen  vicissi- 
tude and  know  how  to  tell  a  story  of  dramatic  or 
humorous  interest. 

Fremont  is  believed  to  be  the  corporate  name  of 
the  Cripple  Creek  district,  which  includes  three  or 
four  aggregations  of  houses;  but  the  spirit  of  a  min- 
ing-camp is  against  any  but  names  of  distinct  flavor, 
and  Cripple  Creek  is  sanctioned  by  common  usage, 
although  Squaw  Gulch,  Poverty  Gulch,  Mound  City 
and  Barry  are  distinguishing  titles  of  immediate  lo- 
calities. The  first  glimpse  of  the  scene  is  from  the 
summit  of  a  last  high  hill.  The  topography  is  peace- 
ful and  somewhat  English  in  type.  Cattle  and 
burros  graze  on  smooth-turfed  slopes,  and  there  is 
no  sign  of  rock  save  what  has  been  excavated  from 
beneath  the  grass.  It  is  the  last  place  a  tyro  would 
look  for  gold-lodes,  and  experienced  prospectors 
136 


were  long  enough  in  finding  it.  The  leads  are  all 
blind,  concealed  like  subterranean  springs.  Men 
dig  through  the  thin  layer  of  soil,  and  drill  and 
blast  the  exposed  ledge.  Whether  they  shall  stumble 
upon  an  Anaconda  mine,  or  after  long  and  costly 
labors  possess  only  a  sink-hole  to  catch  the  fall  of 
rain,  is  wholly  a  matter  of  speculation.  The  explo- 
ration has  been  pursued  with  feverish  energy,  and 
the  green  slopes  are  heaped  with  the  debris  of  numer- 
ous excavations  until  they  resemble  a  scattered  vil- 
lage of  gigantic  prairie-dog  homes.  There  are  placer- 
claims  as  well.  Everybody  in  Cripple  Creek  owns  a 
claim,  of  the  one  sort  or  the  other.  Even  the  hotel 
porter  is  no  exception,  and  when  he  charges  you 
"two  bits"  for  blacking  your  boots  you  perceive 
with  admiration  that  you  are  contributing  to  the  cost 
of  his  assessment-work,  besides  ameliorating  the 
nature  of  his  employment  by  that  scale  of  remunera- 
tion. 

137 


The  shops  and  houses  of  the  main  street  have  the 
motley  aspect  that  belongs  to  younj^  mining-towns,  as 
if  they  had  been  fragments  cyclonically  torn  from 
stime  distant  original  anchorage,  plumped  down  here 
among  tlie  mountains,  and  preempted  without  any 
effort  at  rearrangement  or  resuscitation.  A  coherent 
structure  here  and  there  breaks  tiie  wild  jumble  of 
discordant  forms,  ami  a  neatly  painted  sign  or  two 
contrasts  with  the  multitude  of  advertising-legends 
that  have  been  grotesquely  lettereil  by  unskilled 
hands.  Yet  the  whole  has  pictorial  charm,  and  it  is 
the  inevitable  phase  of  a  purely  speculative  commu- 
nity, every  member  of  which  hopes  at  no  distant 
time  in  the  future  to  turn  back  upon  this  primitive 
life,  more  or  less  a  Croesus.  They  are  but  pilgrims 
here,  heaven  is  their  home.  And  they  have  no  time 
to  squander,  no  means  or  energy  to  waste,  upon 
refinements  in  such  an  hour. 

Naturally  there  is  no  restriction  upon  saloons  or 
gambling-houses;  and  in  the  dance-halls,  that  open 
directly  from  the  street,  gallants  waltz  with  cigar  in 
mouth,  and  between  the  numbers  their  partners  do 
not  disdain  the  refreshment  of  whisky  straight. 
Yet  the  town  is  singularly  free  from  boisterousness 
and  violence,  even  after  dark,  when  the  stranger 
must  fairly  grope  his  way,  and  the  neighborhood  of 
the  really  first-class  hotel  around  the  corner  is  silent 
and  peaceful.  The  wildest  period  in  the  history  of 
a  mining-camp  is  the  first  few  months  of  its  notoriety. 
Desperadoes  and  adventurers  of  every  sort  are  at- 
tracted by  the  high  fever  that  marks  the  earliest 
stage,  only  to  depart  when  the  recklessness  of  the 
scramble  for  place  has  given  way  to  legitimate  devel- 
opment of  the  relatively  few  valuable  finds.  The 
actual  prosperity  is  not  measured  by  excitement,  or 
inflated  population. 

138 


^^'^^  ■•■■  "....;: 


Of  the  twelve  or  fifteen  thousand  who  in  the  space 
of  a  few  months  thronged  to  the  two  lonely  ranches 
on  Cripple  Creek,  perhaps  one-third  have  remained; 
but  of  these,' the  number  who  w'ill  win  their  wager 
must  prove  pathetically  small,  although  not  a  few 
mines  of  enormous  determined  value  and  many  claims 
of  great  promise  have  been  discovered. 

There  is  no  hazard  so  seductive  and  inspiriting  as 
that  of  seeking  a  mine,  but  there  is  a  bleak  and  piti- 
ful side  to  it  all,  as  may  occur  to  you  in  the  occasional 
anguished  intervals  of  the  night  when  you  hear  a 
Cripple  Creek  jackass  pour  out  the  impassioned  mel- 
ody of  his  soul.  "  Haw  .  .  .  /  E-haw  .  .  ! 
E-haw!  E-haw  .  .  .  /"he  cries;  poor  devil  of  a 
poet  blurting  a  strident  night-piece  through  hiy 
Punchinello  visage;  or  Mephistophelian  commenta» 
tor  on  the  vanity  of  vanities;  or  what  you  will. 


PIKE  S   PEAK    REGION. 

After  Divide  comes  in  rapid  succession  that  extraor- 
dinary series  of  resorts  which  every  year,  between 
June  and  September,  attracts  unnumbered  thousands 
of  visitors.  The  list  is  included  in  a  distance  of 
twenty  five  miles  along  an  eastward  slope  from  8,500 
down  to  6,000  feet  elevation,  and  while  each  differs 
in  individual  allurements,  all  alike  are  characterized 
by  transparent  exhilarating  air,  vivid  tones  of  verdure 
and  myriad  flowers,  streams,  waterfalls,  small  lakes, 
fountains,  forests,  red  rock-sculptures,  gorges  and 
mountains,  always  mountains,  leading  the  eye  pro- 
gressively to  their  kingly  peak;  by  white  tents  in  the 
shade  of  pines  and  aspens,  neat  hamlets  and  esthetic 
caravansaries  hugging  Cyclopean  walls;  by  fashion- 
able equipages,  equestrians  and  an  animated  holiday 
throng  on  foot;  and  by  a  buoyant  breadth  which  all 
the  multitude  cannot  crowd  or  oppress.  Our  route 
leads  consecutively  through  Woodland  Park,  Mani- 


i''<lW^7^ 


toil  Park,  Green  Mountain  Falls,  Ute  Park,  Cascade 
Caftiiii,  Manitou  ami  Coloiailo  Sprinjjs,  by  way  of 
lie  I'ass,  tl>e  olil  stajje-routc  and  thoroughfare  of 
westward-faciny  fortune-liunters  through  the  heart 
of  tlio  Rockies.  Woodiaiul  I'ark  stands  at  the  iiead 
of  tlie  pass,  and  offers  the  noblest  view  of  Tike's  Peak 
obtainable  f.om  the  ///(•.>./.  Manitou  Park  (not  to  be 
confounded  with  Manitou  proper)  is  reached  by  way 
of  Woodland  Park,  the  nearest  railway  station,  a 
four-in-hand  Concord  stage-coach  conveying  the  vis- 
itor over  the  interval  of  six  miles.  Here  accommo- 
dations are  provided  on  the  cottage  system,  with  a 
centrally  located  casino  in  which  are  the  public  din- 
ing-rooms, parlors,  and  the  like.  Green  Mountain 
Falls  is  one  of  the  loveliest  of  the  group.  In  the 
heart  of  the  beautiful  valley  is  a  lake  surrounded  by 
hotels  and  an  annual  encampment  of  tourists  in 
tents  and  cottages.  Mountain-terraces,  with  brill- 
iant outlooks,  cascades  tumbling  over  the  cliffs,  and 
a  thousand  retreats  in  gorge  and  grove,  make  up  its 
special  charms.  Ute  Park  is  another  mountain-mead- 
ow, fringed  by  the  forest  and  tucked  snugly  up 
against  precipitous  slopes,  along  whose  base,  through 
the  shadow  of  spruce  and  pine,  a  boulevard  extends. 
It  is  called  the  Eden  of  the  Pass.  At  Cascade  Caiion 
the  mountain-stream  descends  2,000  feet  in  a  dis- 
tance of  three-quarters  of  a  mile,  by  a  series  of  falls 
through  a  gorge  that  is  filled  with  the  odor  of  wild 
flowers.  At  this  point  begins  the  carriage-road  to 
the  summit  of  the  peak. 

With  such  categorical  mention  must  these  five 
idyllic  resorts  be  dismissed,  each  of  which  is  worthy 
of  lengthy  description,  to  find  space  for  the  two  more 
celebrated  which  remain. 

140 


?*^ 


Descending  the  Ute  Pass  by  waj'  of  winking  rock- 
tunnels,  by  trestles  and  canon  brinks  and  bottoms, 
past  the  successive  bits  of  wonderland  already  speci- 
fied and  innumerable  ravishing  glimpses  of  forest- 
girt  mountain  and  stream,  you  come  to  Manitou,  a 
spot  of  such  supernal  beauty  that  even  the  Utes  rose 
to  the  height  of  poetic  appreciation  and  named  it 
after  the  Great  Spirit.  Placed  at  the  very  foot  of  the 
terrible  Peak,  in  the  opening  of  the  mountain-notch 
upon  the  broad  plateau,  every  essence  of  interior  land- 
scape loveliness  is  showered  upon  it.  It  is  without 
a  flaw,  a  superlative  thing  unpicturable  to  those  who 
know  only  the  plains  or  the  shores  of  the  sea;  a 
Titania's  bower  of  melting  sweetness  amid  Nature's 
savagest  throes.  Marvels  are  thickly  clustered. 
There  are  grottoes  hung  with  stalactites  and  banked 
with  moss-like  beds  of  gleaming  crystal-filaments, 
springs  tinctured  with  iron,  springs  effervescent  with 
soda,  plains  serried  with  huge  isolated  rock-sculpt- 
ures, narrow  gorges  where  at  the  bottom  of  hun- 
dreds of  feet  of  shadow  is  scant  passage-way,  long 
perpendicular  lines  of  white  foaming  torrent,  and  soft 
blending  flames  of  color  from  rosy  rock  and  herbage 
and  flower. 

The  waters  of  the  Soda  Springs  are  walled  in  the 
middle  of  a  dainty  park  in  the  heart  of  the  village, 
at  night  an  incandescent  lamp  gleaming  upward 
through  their  bubbling  depths.  Millions  of  gallons 
are  exported,  but  something  of  the  living  sparkle  on 
the  tongue  is  lost  in  separation  from  the  surcharged 
fount.  Here  it  is  more  exuberantly  crisp  and  re- 
freshing than  that  of  the  artificial  compound  which, 
in  Eastern  cities,  presides  over  the  counter  most  dear 
to  the  feminine  heart.  The  flow  is  unstinted,  and 
is  free  to  all.  The  Iron  Springs  are  upon  the  hill- 
141 


/i.iv» 


side,  within  easy  strolling-distance.  Both  are  dis- 
tinctly bcnclicial  to  healtli,  and  are  frequented  l)y  a 
merry  multitude  throuj^hout  the  day  and  early  nijjht. 
t'lrand  Caverns  and  the  Caveof  the  Windsare  near 
nciglibors,  diviiled  by  a  single  ridge  and  doubtless 
intercommunicating  by  undiscovered  passages.  Both 
are  elevateil  far  above  the  town,  the  approach  to  the 
one  climbing  past  the  Rainbow  Falls  along  a  steep 
slope  that  looks  off  across  the  entrancing  landscape 
of  the  valley  to  the  mountain  background,  the  other 
opening  in  the  side  of  Williams  Caiion,  through  the 
notch  of  whose  magnificent  upreaching  walls  there 
is  at  one  point  a  sharp  turn  where  an  unskillful  driver 
could  hardly  hope  to  pass  without  grazing  a  wheel. 
It  must  have  been  a  critical  place  in  the  old  days 
when  stages  were  "held  up,"  for  the  miscalculation 
of  an  inch  would  have  meant  catastrophe,  in  the  wake 
of  plunging  horses.  The  two  caves  are  very  similar, 
narrow  underground  corridors  opening  into  a  series 
of  high-vaulted  chambers  hung  with  stalactites  and 
glittering  in  magnesium  ligiit  like  the  jewel-caves  of 
the  Arabian  Nights.  The  floors  are  dry,  but  through 
the  limestone  walls  fine  moisture  oozes,  depositing 
the  stalagmite  in  strange  and  often  esthetic  forms, 
in  addition  to  the  pendent  icicles  of  rock.  There 
are  striking  suggestions  of  intelligible  statuary,  and 
innumerable  imitations  of  natural  objects,  animal 
and  vegetable.  There  is  the  Grand  Organ,  really  a 
natural  xylophone,  a  cluster  of  stalactites  of  varying 
proportions  upon  which  entire  tunes  are  played  with 
appro.ximate  accuracy,  with  occasional  tones  that  are 
as  mournfully  impressive  as  a  midnight-bell.  Jewel 
Casket,  Concert  Hall,  Bridal  Chamber  and  the  like 
are  names  bestowed  upon  different  compartments, 
and  numberless  particular  formations  have  individual 
titles.  Grand  Caverns  and  the  Cave  of  the  Winds 
each  requires  at  least  an  hour  for  the  most  casual 
142 


I 


M'  I 


143 


exploration.  Thousands  of  visitinp-cards  have  been 
left  u[y.m  the  walls. 

.\  park  of  500  acres  covered  with  protnulinjj  rock- 
fiyiircs  of  striking  form  anil  beauty  constitutes  the 
Cianien  of  the  Gods.  The  names  applied  to  these 
suj;^estive  forms  of  sandstone  and  gypsum  describe 
their  eccentric  appearance.  Toadstools,  Mushroom 
Park,  Hedgehog,  Ant  Kater,  Lizard,  Turtle,  Ele- 
phant, Lion,  Camels,  American  Eagle,  Seal  and  Bear, 
Sphinx,  Siamese  Twins,  Flying  Dutchman,  Irish 
Washerwoman,  Punch,  Judy  and  Baby,  Lady  of  the 
Clarden,  Three  Graces,  Stage  Coach,  and  Graveyard 
are  a  few.  There  are  others  which  rise  to  the  dig- 
nity of  pure  grandeur.  Pictures  of  the  Gateway,  a 
magnificent  portal  330  feet  high,  and  of  Cathedral 
Spires  and  Balanced  Rock  have  been  admired  all  over 
the  world.  Here,  as  elsewhere  in  the  West,  beyond 
the  eastern  bounds  of  Colorado  and  New  Mexico, 
color  is  an  element  of  charm  in  landscape  even 
greater  than  contour.  These  rocks  are  white  and 
yellow  and  red,  and  in  the  crystalline  air,  that 
scorns  a  particle  of  haze,  the  scene  is  indescribably 
clear  and  sharp  to  the  eye,  and  as  vivid  as  an  enthu- 
siastic water-color.  Drawings  in  black-and-white 
inadequately  communicate  them  to  a  reader. 

Contiguous  to  the  Garden  of  the  Gods  lies  Glen 
Eyrie,  the  private  estate  of  General  Palmer,  covering 
1,300  acres.  This  is  open  to  the  public  except  on 
Sunday.  Queen  Canon,  fourteen  miles  long,  the 
Major  Domo,  cliffs  of  blazing  color,  and  tree-em- 
bowered drives  and  green-houses  are  attractive  feat- 
ures of  Glen  Eyrie. 

ASCENT   OF   pike's   PEAK. 

The  majesty  of  the  Rocky  Mountains  can  not  be 
beckoned  wholly  into  intimacy.     There  is  a  quality 
that  holds  unbendingly  aloof  from  fellowship,  if  not 
144 


from  perfect  comprehension.  The  sea  is  sympathet- 
ic in  moods.  Soul-quaking  in  tumult,  it  softens  to 
moments  of  superficial  loveliness  that  would  have 
you  forget  the  murderous  hunger  that  lies  the  length 
of  your  stature  under  wave.  Not  so  the  mountain- 
peaks.  They  are  the  sublimest  personalities  known 
to  earth ;  the  hugeous,  towering  imperturbable.  They 
joy  not,  lament  not,  rage  not.  The  chill  seclian  of 
upper  air  and  the  roar  of  distant  avalanche  do  not 
stir  the  profundity  of  their  rapt  contemplation.  Pale, 
austere,  passionless,  and  effable  in  grandeur,  they 
rise  like  an  apotheosis  of  pure  intellect  over  the  spheres 
of  confused  emotion;  or,  if  you  like  it  better,  they 
stand  for  lofty  spiritual  reach.  It  augurs  well  of 
man  that  he  can  endure  their  proximity.  A  nation  of 
mountaineers  should  be  unequaled  in  the  qualities  of 
virtue,  intrepidity  and  clarity  of  brain.  Tlie  legend 
of  William  Tell,  though  but  a  legend,  is  a  true  ex- 
pression of  the  spirit  of  the  people  of  Switzerland, 
that  brooks  no  fetter  of  tyranny.  And  you  will  fear, 
not  love,  the  mountains  if  you  have  not  heights  within 
145 


■^ 


to  match  them.  So  every  genuine  lover  of  a  topmost 
pinnacle  lias  somethinji  sterling  in  him.  From  the 
knot  of  excursionists  you  will  see  him  steal  away  to 
he  albnc  in  the  solemn  exaltation  of  the  iiour. 

'I'iiere  are  many  summits  in  Colorado  more  ele- 
v.iteil  than  Pike's  Peak,  hut  they  are  difiicult.  and 
the  difTerence  in  height  is  not  appreciable  in  effect. 
Here  you  are  lifted  above  the  clouds  so  far  that  the 
world  lies  remote  beneath  the  eye,  the  neighboring 
towns  and  cities  shrunk  to  insignificance.  \'ast  is 
the  panorama  outspread  to  view.  The  plain  is  grown 
indefinite  and  unsubstantial,  like  a  subilued  picture 
floating  in  the  sky;  but  beyond  the  ranges  are  piled, 
tier  on  tier,  peak  after  peak,  white-draped  or  dun  in 
a  haze  of  blue.  The  storm  sweeps  below,  its  forked 
lightnings  under  foot,  its  rumble  of  thunder  echoing 
faintly  up  through  the  thin  cold  air;  and  while  bois- 
terous deluge  rolls  over  valley  and  plain  you  stand 
like  Phcebus  in  hischariot  of  morn,  bathed  in  radiance. 
And  there  is  an  hour  of  incommunicable  splendor, 
when  the  sun  rises  gleaming  like  a  burnished  yellow 
moon  through  dark  cloud-wrappings  on  the  rim  of 
fading  night,  and  again  when  it  sinks  behind  tlie 
fierce  tumbled  mountain-chain,  gilding  the  peaks 
with  ruddy  fire  the  while  dusk  spreads  beneath  like 
a  silent  submerging  sea. 

The  ascent,  for  very  many  years,  wasoftener  talked 
of  than  attempted.  Zebulon  Pike  himself  failed,  in 
1806,  and  half  a  century  passed  after  that  before  the 
first  trail  was  cut,  from  old  Summit  Park,  a  dozen 
miles  west  of  Manitou.  That  trail  was  little  used, 
because  of  its  difficulties  and  dangers.  In  the  sev- 
enties three  additional  trails  were  constructed,  and  in 
iSSg  the  carriage-road  from  Cascade  was  completed. 
In  i8qi  the  Cog-\Vheel  Railway  began  operation, 
running  directly  from  ^lanitou  to  the  summit,  and 
accomplishing  that  feat  in  a  distance  of  nine  miles. 
146 


././■ 


^A 


The  steepest  grade  on  the  road  is  one  foot  in  four. 
It  starts  near  the  Iron  Springs,  at  the  mouth  of  En- 
gleman's  Canon,  and  makes  the  round  trip  in  four 
and  a  half  hours,  allowing  a  stop  of  forty  minutes  on 
the  peak.  Several  trains  are  run  daily,  in  the  open 
season,  and,  moreover,  accommodations  for  the  night 
can  be  had  in  the  old  Signal  Station,  which  has  been 
made  over  into  a  tavern.  To  those  who  desire  to 
obtain  the  crowning  experience  in  the  easiest  manner 
and  in  the  shortest  possible  time,  the  ascent  by  rail 
is  recommended.  Many,  however,  prefer  the  greater 
personal  freedom  and  the  fuller  enjoyment  of  scenes 
by  the  way  offered  by  the  carriage-road  from  Cascade. 
Although  that  is  sixteen  miles  long,  it  has  ample  re- 
wards for  all  its  fatigues. 

The  altitude  of  Pike's  Peak  is  14,147  feet  above 
sea-level,  and  its  height  above  the  starting-point  of 
the  Cog-Wheel  Railway  in  Manitou  is  7,518  feet. 
The  altitude  of  Mount  Washington,  in  New  Hamp- 
shire, is  6,293  feet,  that  of  the  Rigi,  in  Switzerland, 
5,832  feet,  and  of  the  Jungfrau,  13,667  feet,  above 
the  sea. 

COLORADO    SPRINGS. 

Closely  backed  by  the  Rockies,  whose  eastern 
contour  is  a  protecting  semicircle  that  opens  to  the 
Great  Plains,  this  pretty  city  stands  upon  a  level  floor, 
divided  by  broad  tree-shaded  avenues  into  squares  as 
regular  as  those  of  a  chess-board,  which  it  strongly 
resembles  when  viewed  from  the  slopes  and  pinnacle 
of  Pike's  Peak.  There  are  attractive  drives  in  every 
direction,  out  upon  the  plains,  through  the  canons 
and  up  the  mountain-sides.  Only  six  miles  distant 
from  Manitou,  with  which  it  is  connected  by  an  elec- 
tric street-railway  in  additio"  to  the  steam-railroad, 
and  similarly  joined  to  Broadmoor  Casino  and  Chey- 
enne Canon  upon  the  other  hand,  Colorado  Springs 
147 


IN  pt'i  haps  the  most  fashionable  and  most  populous 
<  i|  the  s|H"cial  resorts  of  Colorailo.  1 1  is  a  city  of  homes 
1)1  the  wealthy,  witii  some  l2,oi>o  inhabitants. 

1  he  Casino  at  Hroadmoor  is  an  attractive  rendez- 
vous near  the  mouth  of  Cheyenne  Canon,  by  the  side 
of  a  pretty  lake,  where  almost  nijtjhtiy  a  brilliant  illu- 
mination may  be  seen  anil  the  sounds  of  music  and 
gaiety  heard. 

A  little  beyond  Piroadmocr  the  car-line  ends  at 
the  foot  of  the  canon,  whose  approach  lies  between 
a  swelling  grass-covered  rise  upon  tiie  one  hand  and 
a  shrubby  hillside  upon  the  other.  Mere  begins  a 
comfortable  carriage-road,  and  conveyances  and  bur- 
ros are  procurable.  The  road  gradually  ascends 
through  groves  of  evergreen  and  deciduous  trees, 
crossing  and  recrossing  a  clear  mountain-stream  by 
rustic  bridges,  on  through  the  gateway  of  the  Pillars 
of  Hercules  into  a  defile  where  rock-walls  rise  many 
hundred  feet  overhead,  and  needles,  spires,  cones, 
and  irregular  crags  lift  head  above  and  behind  one 
another,  some  bleakly  bare,  some  fringed  with  shrubs 
and  trees,  prodigious  rocks  serrying  the  mountain- 
side to  heights  where  details  of  form  are  lost  to  the 
eye  and  only  broad  effects  of  color  and  ebb  and 
swell  are  intelligible.  The  carriage-road  leads  direct- 
ly to  the  foot  of  Seven  Falls,  to  whose  head  the  vis- 
itor may  climb  by  a  long  stairway.  A  short  distance 
below  the  falls  a  circuitous  narrow  trail  diverges 
toward  the  left  from  the  carriage-road,  up  which 
burros  are  ridden  to  the  upper  level,  where  one  can 
look  down  upon  this  entire  series  of  brilliant  cas- 
cades. Arrived  here  many  diverging  paths  invite 
the  visitor.  The  log-cabin  where  Helen  Hunt  Jack- 
son loved  to  spend  much  of  her  time  in  summer  is 
at  hand,  and  the  former  site  of  her  grave,  marked 
by  a  huge  heap  of  stones,  may  be  reached  by  a  steep 
path  to  the  left.  Glens  and  rocky  eminences,  bushy 
148 


retreats  by  the  side  of  the  streams,  and  fern  and 
flower  decked  banks  entice  to  farther  exploration. 
Day  after  day  many  return  to  the  fresh  beauties  of 
the  spot,  each  time  discovering  some  new  delight 
among  the  thousand  charms  of  the  mountain-wilds. 

DENVER. 

To  visit  Denver  involves  a  side  excursion  from 
Colorado  Springs,  the  distance  being  seventy-hve 
miles.  It  is  a  queen  among  fair  cities,  standing  upon 
a  broad  elevated  plain  with  mountain  horizons. 
These  mountains  are  sometimes  white  ramparts  of 
unearthly  beauty,  and  there  is  an  ever-shifting  play  of 
h'ght  and  shadow  upon  them.  Its  enormous  smelters, 
with  towering  smoke-vomiting  stacks,  can  not  seri- 
ously deface  its  beauty,  and  themselves  are  an  in- 
teresting and  instructive  sight,  for  $25,000,000  of 
gold  and  silver  are  there  extracted  from  Rocky 
Mountain  ores  every  year. 

The  Queen  City  of  the  Plains  has  periods  of  win- 
ter cold  and  snow,  but  commonly  the  air  is  delight- 
fully temperate  when  Eas.ern  cities  are  ice-bound 
and  shivering.  Almost  every  part  of  Denver  can  be 
quickly  visited  by  electric  or  cable  street-cars. 


149 


VIII. 

HOMEWARD. 

[[ORTY  miles  below  Colorado  Springs,  in 
the  Arkansas  Valley,  thirty  miles  east 
from  the  mountains,  stands  Pueblo,  an- 
other city  of  smelters,  and  of  immense 
steel,  iron,  and  copper  works.  Here  is  the  Colorado 
Mineral  Palace,  a  iarj^e  and  costly  auditorium  of 
modernized  Egyptian  architecture,  whose  domes  are 
supported  by  gilded  columns,  around  whose  bases 
are  arranged  plate-glass  cases  filled  with  choice 
specimens  of  Colorado  minerals,  which  constitute 
the  most  valuable  collection  of  minerals  in  the  world. 
It  is  open  every  day  to  vistors. 

Si.xty  miles  east  from  Pueblo  one  comes  again  to 
La  Junta,  the  junction-point  in  Southeastern  Col- 
orado which  was  passed  on  the  outward  journey. 
From  this  point  to  Chicago  and  St.  Louis  the  scenes 
would  be  familiar  except  for  the  fact  that  many  lo- 
calities which  were  formerly  passed  in  the  night  are 
now  seen  by  day. 

The  marvels  of  the  West,  however,  have  now 
been  left  behind,  and  the  tourist  may  be  expected 
to  be  absorbed  in  pleasurable  anticipation  of  his 
home-coming.  He  returns  not  as  he  departed,  for 
such  a  journey  as  that  which  now  draws  near  its 
close  possesses  an  emphatic  educating  value.  He 
150 


knows  definitely  now  about  those  features  of  our 
Western  empire  whicli  before  were  to  him  a  vague 
imagining,  inadequately,  and  perhaps  wrongly,  con- 
ceived. 

And,  not  the  least  valuable  of  human  acquisitions, 
henceforward  he  will  have  a  story. 


^'li'/fiiof*'^ 


151 


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