UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA BY CHARLES FRANCIS SAUNDERS Author of "The Indians of the Terraced Houses," "A Window in Arcady," etc. ILLUSTRATED FROM PHOTOGRAPHS MAINLY BY C. F. and E. H. SAUNDERS NEW YORK McBRIDE, NAST & COMPANY 1913 Copyright, 1913, by , NAST & Co. Published, March, 1913 DEDICATED TO THE TENDERFOOT WHOM CALIFORNIA LOVES TO EDUCATE 267439 ACKNOWLEDGMENT Acknowledgment is made to the Editors of Travel, The Church- man, Country Life in America and the Sunset Magazine, for their permission to incorporate in this volume portions of articles contributed by the author to those magazines. PREFACE While the following pages touch upon some mat- ters with which the tourist who travels along con- ventional lines in California is familiar, the main concern of the author lias been to draw attention to an immensity of almost unexplored mountain, desert, canon and flowery plain, which the average tourist sees if at all from the car window. This is the real California; and but for man's un- ceasing battle with Nature, the artificial wonder- land of palms and roses and orange groves which his boundless energy and patient cultivation have evoked, would relapse almost in a night into this wild, majestic solitude. Like all genuine things, it has the compelling charm of the primitive and to the lover of the unartificial it appeals with fresh- ness and power. Hunters and anglers, forest-rangers and pros- pectors know this region ; the cowboy and the miner know it; above all, the Indian knows it, and when he is taken from it, he dies. To the thousands of travelers, however, who yearly visit the Golden State, this California of Nature's doing is an un- known country; and however much some of them might wish to become better acquainted with it, their mortal frames, accustomed to trains de luxe and dining cars, would be absolutely helpless if sub- jected to the rough conditions which are accepted PREFACE as a matter of course by the miner, the cow-puncher or the iron-framed camper. Yet with some foreknowledge of how to go about seeing this lesser-known California, the task is not difficult of accomplishment even for men and women of delicate frame to whom some daintiness of living is inseparable from enjoyment. This book, written out of the personal experience of man and wife of very limited physical strength, is designed to com- bine with some hint of the beauties and interests which lie outside the regulation sights, certain prac- tical directions for travelers who may desire with comfort and safety to taste something of Cali- fornia's wilder side. CONTENTS THE DESERTS CHAPTER PAGE I INTRODUCTORY 1 II THE MOJAVE 3 III THE COLORADO DESERT OF CALIFORNIA 19 IV Iw PALM CANON 31 V SPRING FLOWERS OF THE DESERT 41 THE MOUNTAINS I UNDER THE STARS AT CROCKER'S 49 II CAMPING IN THE YOSEMITE 63 III SUMMER IN THE CANONS 71 IV AMONG THE ACORN EATERS OF SAN DIEGO COUNTY ... 78 SPRING DAYS IN A CARRIAGE I PRELIMINARIES 103 II CAMULOS, THE HOME OF RAMONA 105 III CAPISTRANO 110 IV RANCHO SAN FULANO 117 V SAN Luis REY, GUAJOME AND PALA 125 VI THE PRACTICAL SIDE OF IT 134 THE FRANCISCAN MISSIONS I AFOOT ON THE PADRES' PATHWAY 140 II IN THE SANTA BARBARA BACK-COUNTRY .161 WINTER ON THE ISLE OF SUMMER I UNEXPLORED CATALINA 175 II AVALON IN WINTER 190 CONTENTS TOURIST TOWNS CHAPTER PAGE I SAN DIEGO AND SANTA BARBARA 200 II TOURIST TOWNS OF THE ORANGE BELT 212 III MONTEREY 223 RESIDENCE IN THE LAND OF SUNSHINE I LIFE IN A BUNGALOW 236 II MAKING A LIVING IN THE LAND OF SUNSHINE .... 246 III SOME CALIFORNIANISMS 256 CONCERNING THE CLIMATE I THE CLIMATE IN GENERAL (with specific reference to Southern California) 262 II THE INVALID AND THE CLIMATE 275 CAMP COOKERY FOR THE NON-PROFESSIONAL CAMPER I WHAT OURS is NOT (with apologies to Mr. Stewart Ed- ward White) 280 II THE COMFORTS OF HOME WHEN CAMPING 282 III SOME RECIPES TO FIT THE WILDS 287 IV THE DUTCH OVEN 295 POSTSCRIPT . 299 THE ILLUSTRATIONS Hidden Lake Frontispiece Facing page The desert claiming its own 2 At the desert's edge 8 Grotesque tree yuccas 15 The Colorado Desert 20 The bisnaga 24 The Conchilla Desert 29 Dutch Jake, the prospector 34 Our Conchilla Desert camp 42 The Palisades, San Jacinto Mountain 47 Our camp near Crocker's 64 A camp in the Yosemite . 64 Long Valley 74 One of the old-time ranches . .81 A San Diego home 88 A wayside inn . 88 San Diego Mission 96 The Night of the Candles 96 A wagon, a good team and a camp outfit 104 Ramona's home 108 A cattle ranch 115 Typical California valley 120 San Luis Rey Mission 126 A vineyard In winter 133 Wandering workmen 140 Mission San Antonio de Padua 149 At Santa Barbara Mission 156 The bean planter 161 Santa Ynez Valley 168 THE ILLUSTBATIONS Facing page Santa YnSs Mission 172 The hills at Avalon 176 The pier at Avalon 181 Crescent Beach 181 Interior of Santa Catalina 184 The beach at Santa Catalina 188 Avalon 192 Golf links at Avalon 197 San Gabriel 204 The Matilija Cafion 209 San Juan Capistrano Mission 214 The patio of the rancho at Camulos 219 Where Kobert Louis Stevenson lodged in Monterey .... 225 Carmel Mission 232 A bungalow court 240 Typical California bungalow 245 A cozy home 252 An attractive house 259 Almond orchard in bloom 270 "Palms take the place of the shade trees of the east" . . .277 A beautiful ranch entrance 284 The Dutch oven .296 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA THE DESERTS I. INTEODUCTOBY WHILE your average Califomian is talkative to the verge of garrulity about most things in his State, there are two features of it which he does not voluntarily bring up. One is fleas, the other is deserts. Of the fleas there is no authorita- tive count; of the deserts there are two principal. The one best known is the Mojave, which occupies much of the southeastern part of the State, and lies at an elevation of about 3,500 feet above sea-level. To the south of this again, that is in the extreme southeastern corner of California, is another whose borders reach to the lower waters of the Colorado Eiver, and is, therefore, known as the Colorado Desert a most confusing name, as people hearing of it for the first time naturally think of it as situated in the State of Colorado. There are numerous local names for small sections of this region, such as the Yuma, the Coachella and the Conchilla Deserts, the Salton Sink, and so on. Part of this great waste is the bed of an ancient sea, and some of it lies below the level of the ocean. IN CALIFORNIA It is from a strip of the Colorado Desert that the productive Imperial Valley has been reclaimed. These desert-stretches of California covering an area about equal to the State of Pennsylvania, far from being the monotonous, gray level of sand which the word desert conveys to the popular mind, are diversified with mountain ranges, clustered and solitary buttes, gravelly valleys and plains dotted with clumps of shrubbery, as well as heaving hum- mocks of pure sand all sun-scorched and moisture- less, but clothed in a wonderful charm of color and permeated with a life-giving quality of air. Appreciation of the desert's charm is inborn, if it exists at all. To one who is alive to its beauty, who feels the fascination of its solemn silences and its luring distances, no hardship is too great to de- ter him from visiting it; no beating of wind or scorching of sun experienced there too severe to prevent his return to it. We once met at a little desert post-office an old prospector who had " packed " his burros up and down the barren rocks of the desert ranges for thirty years and who now held an open letter in his hand. His brother, a well-to-do bachelor in New York, had just died, and a firm of lawyers there had written the prospector to come East, as his presence was needed to settle the estate to which he was sole heir. "Gosh!" he said disgustedly, "I reckon I'll have to go, but you bet your life I'll be back p. d. q. New York! Say, I was there once, and if it come to 2 THE DESERTS choosin' between livin* in that place with a million to spend, and prospectin' the desert with old Jack and Jinny on a grubstake, me for the desert V 9 There is a host, however, to whom the desert does not appeal, who scout the idea of visiting so dull and comfortless a spot, and what is more disturb- ing, who will absolutely doubt the honesty or the sanity of the desert enthusiast. "You want to stay in the desert?" such a one says to you. "What under heaven for? Why, man alive, it's a hundred and twenty in the shade, and no shade ! I could hardly stand it crossing on the railroad, though I read and slept and played cards the whole time. That anybody should take his wife, and go by choice and live in that red-hot, God-forsaken waste for even a day, shows a screw loose here," and he complacently taps his own hard head. It is useless to argue with those who feel thus, and the best advice to any who are otherwise than positively drawn to this magic region, is by all means to stay away. To one, however, who from the car windows or through books has felt the drawing cords of its grave beauty and its mystery, these ges are designed to offer some practical help. II. THE MOJAVE At the outset, it is essential to the enjoyment of a desert outing that you have some definite purpose in view, other than mere pastime. You 3 UNDEB THE SKY IN CALIFOENIA cannot repair there successfully as you do to the beach, for a stroll along the sands and then to your hotel for a bath and a good dinner. You may go to trace the still visible shore-lines of that prehis- toric sea of the Salton Sink and to indulge your fancy in a walk upon that beach which is now but the ghost of a beach ; or to collect baskets from some remnants of an Indian tribe ; to study the plant life of the desert, or its mineralogy, or its animals; to paint or to sketch; or you may go just for the sake of a trip to the Pickaninny Buttes and back, with Mo- jave Jim for guide but unless you know what you are on the desert for, you are going to be badly fretted inside of twenty-four hours. Of our own visits to the Mojave Desert, taken for the primary purposes of studying the flowers and painting them, two may be taken as typical of the sort that is entirely practicable for the average traveler to undertake and enjoy. Both visits were made during the season of the spring blossoming which in that region extends, roughly speaking, from mid-April to the latter part of May. Our first sojourn was for four days, spent at Victor- villa, a mining-supply village on the Santa Fe Kail- road. Here we found a plain and fairly comforta- ble hotel patronized by prospectors, miners and railroad men, and were able to engage a horse and light wagon which enabled us to take daily ex- cursions out upon the illimitable waste that lay all about us. Such a trip as this is comparatively easy 4 THE DESEBTS and requires little preparation; but it should be borne in mind when packing for it, that the desert sun will even in a few days destroy any fineness of wearing apparel therefore take your plainest clothes; and that the desert air will impart an ap- petite, which if you are none too strong can be but poorly satisfied with rough fare therefore take in your trunk a few of the good things of civilization. On this experimental trip we learned some simple fundamental facts about the desert. Its most beau- tiful hours are from dawn until ten in the morning, and from four or five in the afternoon until night- fall. During these periods at the season of the year when we were there, the atmosphere was more of heaven than of earth. The glowing sky, radiant with sunrise and sunset glories; the unspeakable opalescent tints on distant mountains ; the brilliant flowers blooming upon the sands at one's feet; a sense of largeness and indifference to petty things these are gifts of the desert's mornings and even- ings never to be forgotten. Then, to crown all, there is the night serene, starlit, full of peace, its solemn stillness broken only by the lament of some owl far or near, or the cry of coyotes hunting. And over and beyond these recitable matters there is an un- utterable something that tugs at the heart of the true desert lover, and makes him long evermore for its silent places. For it is not merely what the out- ward eye takes in that urges us on to visit certain regions it is the residence there of intangible in- 5 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA fluences that feed our spirits with manna from the secret storehouses of the universe, making us for the time partakers of an unseen feast of life with the Master Himself. During these night watches on the desert, the veil between this world and the spiritual seems thinner than elsewhere, and one in some measure comprehends why prophets of all time have found inspiration and strength in desert regions. Here in these waterless wastes, the wine of a spiritual kingdom is poured abundantly and the awakened soul hears the summons to a new life. The desert day, however, is apt to be another matter. About ten in the morning we are speak- ing of the spring days down comes the heat, and often by noon the wind has begun to blow a per- sistent, intrusive, irritating wind. From then on until the sun is well down the western sky, one ap- preciates as never before the comfort of the shadow of a great rock in a weary land; and after prepar- ing dinner in its shade one is content to remain quietly there reading, or watching the play of light and shadow on the far-off mountain ranges, or en- joying a nap, until the elemental fierceness of the midday melts into the evening coolness. It is a rare experience, that first picnic in the shady crevices of the Mojave rocks. Dobbin has had his keg of water, which was brought along in the spring wagon, and he is munching his truss of alfalfa, making an occasional side nip at a sprig of desert green; in the old mine-shaft that yawns THE DESEETS below us, some birds with open bills and drooping wings pant and rest, refugees from the noontide heat too dejected to bicker ; before us stretches, mile upon mile, a shimmering expanse of brown and gray earth, dotted with glistening upheavals of igneous rock and clumps of dull-green shrubs, with here and there a tree yucca thrusting up its bristling, shaggy arms. Far to the westward the desert plain rises to meet the great mountains stooping down ma- jestic peaks of eight, nine and ten thousand feet, clothed in mysteries of pink and amethyst and pur- ple, and crowned with dreamy fields of snow that seem in those pure heights against the pale noon sky, as parts of a spiritual landscape, the rest of which lies beyond mortal ken. Off to the north a slender green strip marks the sinuous course of the Mojave Eiver, that strange stream which has its source in the pure springs and snow crevasses of the San Bernardino summits, but is without a mouth, its waters being swallowed up in the in- satiable sands not far from Victor. The mythical region of the mystic's dream "Where Alph, the sacred river, ran Down to a sunless sea" has a real existence here. Then when the sun has gone to his setting, there is the drive home in the. quiet afterglow, with the palpitating light of the first star burning in the twilight sky, and all the 7 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA earth baptized for a brief space into a heavenly peace, before the night shall shut in. In these desert outings even the little trips of a day which we took around Victorville there lies one special danger. This is not rattlesnakes, of which we caught sight of one, now and then, as much frightened at sight of us as we of it; nor "bad men," of whom we saw none; but it is the ease with which one may lose one's way even within a short distance of human habitations. There is a "Deadman's Point" almost anywhere on the desert, and lost men have died of thirst within calling dis- tance of Victor. We have more than once stepped aside to explore some spot a few rods from the trail, and spent a good part of the morning searching for the road again. The inequalities of the ground are continually hiding what lies even a little way be- hind, and bringing into view fresh glimpses ahead so like every other part of the desert that the sense of relation becomes confused, and one is lost before he knows it. Even well-marked trails are not to be counted upon, for the sand storms that may come up any time, may obliterate them in half an hour. The only safety is to fix thoroughly in your mind the points of the compass, and carefully to note large, well-defined landmarks as you travel such as a mass of rocks identifiable by some peculiarity of formation, some solitary butte, a jutting promon- tory or a particular snow-capped peak; and never in any case venture many miles from your base on 8 THE DESEETS an unknown way without an experienced guide. Familiarized somewhat with desert conditions by this brief Victorville excursion, we decided another year to go to the Mojave for a longer sojourn, camping remote from the haunts of men and there- fore undertaking to carry with us from home every- thing needed to sustain life for a period of three weeks, except water. We are not of the iron-framed class of campers, and the Mojave is no respecter of persons, but piti- less alike to weak and strong. So here was a prob- lem. There is upon this desert a small town called Hesperia, on the Santa Fe Kailway. Years ago it had been "boomed," and the boom having burst in due course of time, the place now abides amid the pieces, weed-grown and silent. Eight miles from this incipient Tadmor, we learned of a spot beside the beautiful Mojave River, where we might pitch our tent undisturbed, and look across the desert sands to the grandeur of snow-capped mountains. There we would make our camp. So when the winter rains were over, we got to- gether our tent and blankets, packed a couple of boxes of provisions,* put the cat out to board, and *As a guide to the novice desiring to duplicate such an experi- ence, a statement follows of the preparations: We purchased a camp outfit in Los Angeles which should be suf- ficiently strong to answer for this and many another camping trip to follow. This outfit will be found described in the chapter en- titled "Under the Stars at Crocker's." For convenience of handling, the stove, dishes and many smaller articles were packed in two medium-sized boxes with rope handles the handles made them 9 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFOENIA with sufficient variety of clothing in our bag- gage to provide for both extreme heat and extreme cold for the desert can dispense you both within thirty minutes we locked the door behind us, and checkable as baggage each weighing about one hundred pounds; and the tent with its especial belongings, including the folding- chairs, axe, shovel, etc., was rolled into a snug bundle, covered with burlap and stoutly roped. This also was checkable as baggage. It is advisable to divide your luggage into numerous small packages rather than to have it consist of one or more bulky ones, especially if transportation by burro is part of the program, as is often the case through the West. As to provisions, a visit to a first-class grocery and the confession of the nature of our trip to an obliging clerk enlisted his sympathetic interest, for like all Californians, he liked the same sort of thing himself. With his cooperation we had the following list of articles securely packed in a strong box, and w found by experience that they just about supplied the physical needs of man and wife for a three weeks' outing. Flour * 10 Ibs. White Corn Meal 10 Ibs. Crackers, various kinds 1 dozen boxes Shredded Wheat Biscuit and Triscuit 6 boxes each Soups, (Franco- American) assorted 1 dozen small cans Bacon, not sliced 2 Ibs. Dried Beef, in chunk 2 Ibs. Corned Beef, Deviled Ham and Tongue, boned Chicken and Turkey 2 cans each Salmon and Sardines 2 cans each String Beans, Asparagus Tips, Corn, Ripe Olives 2 cans each Tomatoes 6 cans Rice and Lentils 2 Ibs. each Dried Lima Beans, Navy Beans and Pink Beans (Frijoles) 2 Ibs. each Small Hominy, Macaroni, Spaghetti 1 lb. each Potatoes (More if you have room) 12 Ibs. Grape Fruit, Oranges and Lemons 1 dozen each Dried peaches, apricots and apples 1 lb. each Prunes, Fard Dates, Raisins and Dried Figs.. 2 Ibs. each English Walnuts 2 Ibs. Eggs 4 or 5 dozen 10 THE DESERTS one April morning set forth. Noon found us landed with our boxes around us at the nearest station to our camp-site. The place had been selected through the advice of a friend who knew the region, for in venturing into the wilderness it is essential that you should be assured in advance of a good situa- tion, either through personal investigation or the advice of one who knows the spot. We had engaged beforehand the services of a man to transport us from the station, where he met us with a Studebaker wagon and a stout team of horses. Of course it would have been more like a book if his outfit had been a string of burros, but we set down the fact as it happened. He proved to be a fatherly old soul from Pike County, Missouri, for which his unweaned heart was pining; and as he drove, he began to gossip of brother Pete who would be seventy-six come next Fourth, and son Abner who was farming the place now, and Aunt 'Mandy, bless you what a woman she was to spin home-spun! she's dead now, these twenty year; until he became quite unconscious that just now we Butter (packed in tumblers) 7 Ibs. Sugar 6 Ibs. Salt 1 package Pepper, Magic Yeast and Baking Powder .... 1 box each Soap 2 cakes Candles Conserves, Canned Fruits, Cereals, Evaporated Cream and Milk, and Sweets, according to liking. In passing it may be remarked that provisions are not checked as baggage on the railways, and must be shipped by express. 11 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA were all traveling a troublous road in California. The wagon blessed be its honest maker banged and bounded airily over rocks and clumps of sage- brush, now two wheels in the air while the other two were down to the hub in a wash-out; now dropping us bodily into a cross-gulch with a stun- ning thump that made our anatomies cry out and brought loose bits of baggage flying about our ears. Finally we crossed a stony arroyo at a hand gallop, and after tugging up a ridge of sand beyond, our wheels buried in it halfway to the hub and raising a suffocating dust, we came out into the open desert dotted with sage-brush and tree yuccas. Our Jehu pointed with his whip to a thin line of green trees a mile away. ' l That 's the Moharvy River, ' ' he remarked, ' ' and when the boys was fencin' in the range last year they camped down there under them sycamores. It's shady there, and water's handy. I reckon you'll like it." We reckoned so, too; for the leisurely old trees and the strip of green vegetation by the still waters of the shallow, broad flowing river, made an oasis spot that for "homeyness" and comfort exceeded our most sanguine hopes. There our driver dumped us out, piled our boxes and blankets in a heap beside us, remarked that he reckoned he would turn up again that day three weeks and tote us back, if we did not get tired be- fore, and if we did maybe we could let him know 12 THE DESEBTS by Jim Johnson who looked after the cattle on that range, and so long, good luck to us. It was four o'clock in the afternoon, and camp was to be made, goods unpacked and supper cooked before nightfall; but we devoted a few preliminary moments to looking over the place we had come so far to see. First in point of practical utility, there was the river of pure mountain water within a stone's throw, with driftwood for our fire scattered along the shore. A short distance behind us, the ground rose abruptly in the form of a tableland promising protection from the worst of the winds which our Missouri friend had told us came "abilin* now and agin" out of Horsethief Canon and Eattlesnake Draw. Back of this mesa rose the snow-capped range of the San Bernardino, while in front of us, under a cloudless sky, the desert lay, silent, mys- terious, vast the afternoon heat hovering low upon it in quivering waves, through which far across sagey plains we saw as in a dream a distant range of amethystine granite hills. Somewhere doves were cooing, a flock of restless sparrows twittered in the wild plum bushes by the river, and a valley quail whistled from the tip of a cactus near by. A breath of cool wind out of the mountains came mingled with the drowsy hum of buccaneering bees ravaging a clump of flowers. The night closed in still and brilliantly starlit, and we decided that it would be flying in the face 13 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA of Providence to sleep in a tent when we might lie under the stars. All the preceding winter we had slept outdoor under the gentle skies of Santa Cata- lina Island; and, following our practice there, we now laid our blankets lightly upon the cots in that quiet twilight hour, and tucked them in, as one would prepare a bed at home. Memory will never fail us regarding that first night in the desert. By nine o'clock Horsethief Canon and Rattlesnake Draw had wind of us, and bore down upon us with a shrewd blast right off the ice. It was as eager and as nipping an air as ever blew on the ramparts at Elsinore, and it traveled fast. Our clothing took on the similitude of thin expanses of ice. The blankets which we thought heavy when we packed them at eighty in the shade in Pasadena, flapped in the gale like gos- samer. An old down-quilt laid across the foot of our cots, arose and skimmed away to a clump of sage-brush out on the illimitable sands. The tent strained furiously at its pegs and threatened to fol- low the quilt at any moment. A pack of coyotes set tip a shivering chorus in the distance. Even the motherly old sycamore above our heads lost the pro- tecting air which we had felt in it earlier in the day, and creaked and groaned ominously in the blast, brandishing its great branches threateningly over us. Fortunately neither of us was nervous or easily alarmed, and though very sleepy and very cold, the abiding sense of humor which had borne us through 14 THE DESERTS other emergencies, remained with us still. Holding down the covers with both hands, we patiently awaited the morning, which, when it came, with one of those magical changes inseparable from desert life, aroused us from a belated snatch of sleep with a windless radiance of sunshine, and a musical chorus from the boughs above. All the birds in the desert seemed assembled there to give us a welcome. We arose and, greeting our little brothers of the air, set our house in order. Warned by the first night's experience, we sewed the blankets up into sleeping bags and reinforced the two heavy Navajo rugs, on which we lay, with layers of newspapers. By moving the cots at night so that the foot of each was within the tent-door and the head out, we secured the coveted freshness of night air for our lungs without risking having our covering blown off. Then the wind, after the perverse fashion of inanimate things, finding itself foiled, never afterwards blew upon us so fiercely. Life in the desert is an adaptation to conditions. To take up arms against the obstacles is less wise than to submit to the inevitable. The old-time poet who wrote, "To bear is to conquer our fate," had the making of a good desert dweller. If the cook- stove will not burn because of the wind, the wise man digs a hole in the ground, and sets his Dutch- oven going. When the thermometer runs up to a breezeless hundred in the shade, he takes a hint 15 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA from the breeze and stops work, too. Our main ad- vice, for a desert trip of this nature, provided al- ways that you are not of the tough kind that can stand anything, would be this: Be sure to take enough material for emergencies. During this stay on the Mojave, for instance, we had one furious but short-lived rain storm, some spits of hail, a little snow, one night so cold that our camp was white with frost, some days of heat so intense that the thinnest clothing at midday was necessary for com- fort, and others when all these material considera- tions were of no importance in the absolute comfort and tranquillity of the atmosphere. In planning for a desert camp, the question of how to get about after you are settled, is one that requires serious attention. It happened that our work was such that we could ordinarily pursue it close to camp, but when we needed to move about we found a neighboring ditch-tender's burros to be the ideal motive power. While slow, the burro is pref- erable to a horse in being more easily cared for, and in standing the shortcomings of desert life with patience and even with good humor. He requires a minimum of water, and lives contentedly enough on a browse of shrubs and wild flowers, though if you can include in your camp stores enough crushed bar- ley to afford the little animal a quart of it once a day, he will do better work for you. The whims of burro appetite we found rather entertaining. Paper, for instance, is quite a tidbit, be it tissue or 16 THE DESERTS rnanila ; even cardboard, if it is thin, such as is used in making confectioner's ice-cream boxes, has its devotees in burrodom; while to all a bit of news- paper is choice. We made a note of what one of our desert burros had for lunch upon a picnicking occasion. He had been standing indifferently up to his knees in grass, without so much as nibbling at it, and we thought he could not be hungry, but here are the items in the order of consumption: Tissue paper and eggshells ; plain white wrapping paper; brown paper and some crusts of zwieback; bread and butter; one boiled egg in the shell, and two prune seeds wrapped in tissue paper (he spat out one prune seed and the yolk of the egg, but later ate the shell) ; steeped tea leaves and tissue paper; a few bran crackers ; a slice of cake ; a bit of cheese ; and two orange skins, keenly relished. Having exhausted the scraps from our luncheon, he topped off with a demi-tasse of dry cottonwood leaves, picked up from the ground. One day our neighbor, the ditch-tender, stopped at our camp to pass the time of day, and the talk fell on burros. ' ' Some folks say a burro never dies, ' ' he gossiped, "and to prove it they'll ask you if you ever seen a dead one. But, gosh, that ain't so. To be sure, a burro mighty seldom gets sick, but if he does git sick, you bet he kicks the bucket quick. How old will a burro git to be? Lord, I don't know. Now that black burro of mine, he was twenty years old 17 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA when I got him and I've had him fifteen year. How much does add up? Thirty-five year old? Well, he's all of that, you bet, and he's as good as ever. Why, gosh a 'mighty, he'll run like a deer, if he finds he's loose. "Yes, sirree," he continued, " there's nothin' like 'em for the desert. Some folks say they don't care much for water, but I know they like a good drink of fresh water all right, same as any animal ; but if it ain't to be had, they're reasonable they don't go to pieces for want of it like a horse does. I've known a burro to go three days without water, but I don't want no burro of mine to have to go dry- longer than that. I guess that's pretty near the limit. "Eating? Yes, you're right about that they're purty permisc'ous eaters purty much ev'ything from shoe-strings to sagebrush goes with them. When I clear up after a meal, the burros come in right handy ; they clean up all the scraps, the potato parings, and beans that's left over and so on, and old Black Jack there thinks he's cheated bad if I don 't give him the frying pan to lick clean. You got to watch how you leave things layin' loose around camp, though ; I had a burro wunst eat a good straw hat for me brand new, cost me six bits in San Ber'- doo eat it all up so's you couldn't tell whether what was left was a necktie or a hat band, and I don't know why he left that." From Sancho Panza's day and doubtless from 18 THE DESEETS an earlier men have fellowshiped affectionately with donkeys, and the average Californian, in com- mon with all who know the burro intimately, has a weak spot in his heart for him. The little beast would be only a joke, if he were not so useful if he had not so often stood between the life of his mas- ter and death. His cat-like quality of clinging to the skirts of existence till the last strand parts, and the habit of bearing with superhuman patience the buffets and privations of a frontier career, more than offset the burro's exasperating pigheadedness and blundering, stupid ways, that contrast so sharply with the nervous, clean-cut, intelligent ac- tion of a good horse. Moreover, your burro train is a sort of traveling vaudeville show in the wilder- ness, and furnishes an element of unpremeditated humor in a weary land. When Jack and Jenny rub noses after a day's separation, or lift up their ri- liculous, labored voices in raucous salutation to ich other, or raise their great ears in interested tttention when something happens on ahead, or ip them out like horizontal bars in dejection when lere's nothing doing, you laugh in spite of your- self and think, "What, after all, is life without a burro !" III. THE COLOBADO DESERT OF CALIFOBNIA As different from the Mojave as one race of men >m another, is the Colorado Desert of Southern 19 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA California. To the lover of the artistic it appeals as far more picturesque than the more northern desert, and its floral life is very different. While the Mojave may not be visited until early May to be seen in the glory of its spring, the Colorado Desert offers its best in March, though if it is pos- sible to remain longer, the glorious display of mul- titudinous cactus blooms, of the tree-dalea in its floral robe of royal purple, and the palo verde be- spangled in gold, will reward the heat-proof lin- gerer until April and May^or even June. The Colorado Desert being in a low sink, its air possesses at seasons a quality of enervation that is not noticeable on the Mojave's elevated plateaus, and the time when it may be visited with pleasure by the unacclimated is therefore shorter. For com- fortable conditions of living and ease of access to a typical part of this region 's beauties and wonders, there is no more satisfactory headquarters than Palm Springs, a small settlement at the eastern base of San Jacinto Mountain, adjacent to some warm sulphur springs frequented from time immemorial by the Indians. It is situated upon a shelving edge of the desert, which, here between the San Jacinto and the San Bernardino ranges, thrusts in a long sandy tongue to which the early Spaniards gave the name of the Conchilla Desert that is, the Desert of the Little Shells because of the myriads of tiny shells that strew it in places. Palm Springs village is reached by private con- 20 THE DESERTS veyance from the station of the same name six miles distant on the Southern Pacific Railroad, and from November till the first of May is resorted to by suf- ferers from respiratory troubles, for whom sani- tariums are maintained embowered in palm, fig, and orange trees. The casual visitor may board at one of them if he will, or with one of the few resident families, or and this is the more cheerful way he may keep house in a rented room, tent or cot- tage, eking out the scanty supplies of the local store by sending to Banning, twenty-five miles away, or to Los Angeles, one hundred miles distant, for needed comforts and luxuries. He should by all means arrange to sleep in the open his cot set di- rectly under the stars, or at least upon an open porch. In no other way can one enjoy the tran- scendent freshness and sweetness of the desert air, which especially during the dewless night and early morning hours is the very breath of heaven. Stim- ilating as a tonic, without dampness or harshness, dmply to inhale it gives a new joy to living. The feature at Palm Springs that offers a special ittr action to sojourners, is the great San Jacinto fountain, which towers immediately back of the lit- le settlement. Its rugged sides are cleft with many inons extending for miles in their sinuous courses far back into the mountain's recesses, opening up new vistas of noble scenery and affording endless >pportunities to the lover of mountain climbing, [ere he finds the freshness of a new experience in 21 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA scaling the desert's sunburnt heights. The pre- cipitous range of barren rocks, glistening in the sun like burnished metal, and appearing like a flat wall rising sheer halfway to the zenith, seems at first glance an impossibility to climb, but to one pos- sessed of average strength and wind, the task once entered upon resolves itself quickly into a delight- ful pastime. The rocks, smooth-shining in the sunlight, are rough enough as a rule to afford a good foothold, and you step from one to another, zigzagging this way and that but always mounting higher, as though ascending a giant's staircase. Lovely blooms of the cactus look hospitably out at you from snug corners of the rocks, and golden suns of the desert encelia beckon to you to come yet higher. The seemingly flat wall that confronted you from the desert floor, now that you are scaling it, proves to be neither flat nor a wall, but a succession of re- ceding rock ridges, each higher than the one in front of it. As you climb and see above you the jagged crest of the ridge far up the sky, you are convinced that that is the mountain's summit, but it never is another is just beyond. Between each ridge there are sequestered hollows arid flats and coves and little greenish vales, waterless always save for a day or two after some winter storm, when shallow basins in the rocks hold pools of gathered rain. Into these resting places undreamt of by the trav- 22 THE DESEETS elers on the desert that gleams far out and below, the foot of man never comes, unless it be in quest of gold or game for his gun; though in other days the Indians had trails up these steeps, as weather- worn shards of a broken pot now and then attest. The desert birds however find here somewhat to their liking and the air is musical with their twit- ter ; while in the dust of the shelving pavements and sloping walls of these dry parks, many varieties of flowers blossom and smell sweet beloperones, en- celias, trixis, hosackias, eriogonums, kramerias like purple butterflies caught in thorns here and there a blue brodiaea, and the canes of a strange, leafless milkweed rising like slender reeds six or eight feet, their creamy umbels of bloom dangling naked from the tip. If it be afternoon, white four-o 'clocks are opening their snowy corollas to the cooling air. Here in the hollows of the rocks the wild bee es- tablishes its kingdom of sweetness and light, the quail comes to feed upon the harvest of wild seeds, and bob-cats and coyotes make their silent way. From these hidden vantage grounds there are glo- rious outlooks upon the mysterious, fascinating desert. In the foreground are the gleaming sands, shadow-flecked and dotted with millions of bushes looking from this height like pinpoints ; and farther off is another mountain barrier draped in ethereal >lor, extending from the snow-capped peaks of the Ian Bernardino Sierra at the north, south to the usty pass that leads into the Coachella Valley. 23 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA Each of the San Jacinto canons adjacent to Palm Springs is deserving of as much time for its ex- ploration as one can spare to it. The main ones nearest the village number six, named respectively, Chino, Tauquitz, Andreas, Murray, Palm and Ca- thedral. Each of these may be visited within the limits of a day, if one have no longer time to spend upon them. Palm Canon, however, can only be glanced at in so short a time, as its mouth is seven miles distant by an arduous road, and the visitor should arrange to spend at least one night there if he desires to get any idea of what it holds. To this end, all needful, except water, must be carried, as no one lives within its confines. The first of the canons to engage attention, be- cause the nearest, is usually Tauquitz. This opens out upon the desert just south of Palm Springs settlement, and pours for eight months of the year into an artificial waterway a crystal flood of delicious mountain water that supplies the needs of the white villagers and the handful of Agua Caliente Indians whose reservation is close by. A half day will suffice for a surface exploration of Tauquitz, though if you put a bite of lunch in your pocket and devote an entire day to the jaunt, it will well pay you. Of all the canons, Tauquitz is the only one com- fortably accessible on foot. Leaving the waterless sands of the desert floor, and ascending the gravelly rock-strewn incline that spreads like a huge fan out 24 K&&m The bisnaga THE DESEETS of the canon's mouth, we pass into one of Nature's cactus gardens. Here are bright purple-flowered cereuses whose clustered upright stems bristle from the crevices of rock; here are opuntias of various kinds one gray, spineless sort covered with a mass of glorious pink blossoms lovely as roses, cheek by jowl with a burly, silvery-spined variety whose dis- carded joints strew the ground like chestnut burs and draw blood with their barbed spines if you touch them ever so lightly. Here, too, are the ro- tund cylinders, rosy-spined, of the curious bisnaga or barrel cactus natural water casks, filled from root to flower-encircled tip with a drinkable fluid that has saved many a human life. By and by we cross a low ridge of rock and sud- denly the sound of rushing water strikes gratefully upon the ear it is the escaping stream, whose source is ten thousand feet above in the melting snows of San Jacinto's summit. Then following the trail across a sandy wash, we scramble through a narrow gateway of fragrant wild plum bushes in bloom, where bees hum and butterflies flutter, and we are fairly within the canon. The great barren walls of granite rock incline upward and away so that the canon is filled with sunlight, yet cool with a gentle breeze that is drawn down and through the gorge from the snowy heights of the mountain. Up through thickets of clambering white ellisia and blue phacelia and scarlet-flowered beloperone where humming-birds suck, the trail winds, bordered with 25 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA fragrant wild mints, and skirting now and then great bowlders in whose shadow small ferns spread their lusty green fronds, and selaginellas creep, until at last we reach a lofty barrier of rocky wall set athwart the canon. Here the mountain says to the desert, "Thus far thou comest, but no fur- ther." Through a narrow cleft at this wall's top the stream from above emerges and plunges down- ward in a ribbon-like fall. This is the head of Tau- quitz Canon, so far as the average visitor is con- cerned though if one have the abilities of the wild goat in climbing, it is possible to scale this wall and enter the gorge again above the fall. The Indians of Palm Springs, though they are " civilized" now out of practically all semblance to Indians, have an hereditary dread of Tauquitz Canon; its recesses are regarded by them as the especial haunt of an ancient god, whose name it bears, and they fear his anger, should they trespass on his preserves. When a thunder storm rumbles and flashes on the upper heights, a great wind roars down this inner canon and belches out into the desert; and the red man who doubts that God Tau- quitz is raging within must either be both deaf and blind or a fool. It was the postmaster who first told us of Chino Canon. "You ought to go there, sure," he remarked, "it's the best of the bunch, I think. A little far to walk, but you can hire my buggy and the gray mare. 26 /in THE DESEETS Stay all day, if you like, and come back in the cool of the evening. You can't lose the old horse on the road home, even if there ain't no moon not on your life. Cost you two dollars, but you'll never regret the money." We spent the two dollars and found the postmas- ter's enthusiasm well grounded. Chino Canon is a titanic cleft in the mountain the approach to which, a couple of miles north of Palm Springs village, is a superb upward sweep of sand, rocks and bowlders, rising gradually and ma- jestically from the desert into the shadows of the mountain's fastnesses. The gateway to the canon, formed by two projecting, verdureless promontories of the mountain, is two miles in width ; and skirting the base of one of these a fairly good road enables the visitor to drive or ride a few miles into the canon. Amid the chaos of scattered rocks through which the road winds, thousands of cactuses flour- ish, and the air is filled at times with the honeyed fragrance of a myriad diverse wild blossoms that dot the gravelly spaces among the bowlders. As we pass within the great entrance broad as the gates of another Inferno but flooded with the blessed sunlight we see the precipitous sides fur- wed with smaller side canons, and across the west end, like a rocky screen, the sierra lifts its jagged crest, dotted with what looks, these eight or nine ousand feet below, like a stubble of scrub growth ut which in fact are mighty forest trees. White 27 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA lines that seam those alpine sides are gorges filled with snow which, in the deepest, will linger well into the summer. We may think Chino ends at the foot of this great barrier where the sides close in, but as we follow up the ribbon of verdure that lines the stream issuing from the canon, we come shortly to a little green oasis cradled at the mountain's base like a sheltered Swiss vale. Here is an excellent camp-site, unique in being supplied with water cold and warm the latter from a huge sulphur spring gushing up near a small grove of palms. Beyond this all trails end, and the canon, turning sharply to the left, is lost to us here below in a maze of heaven-aspiring granite walls. Into this sequestered spot, now and then, comes a man to pitch his camp and rest from the labors of the outer world. One such a prospector had been there just before us, when we visited the place one March day, and had left neatly tacked upon the branch of a tree a board bearing the following leg- end: HERMAN LUHRMAN CAMP SIMPLE LIFE JAN. 16 TO MARCH 16, 1908. A considerate man was this lover of the simple life, leaving for the next comer his stock of well- 28 THE DESEBTS thumbed magazines in a box protected from the weather, and beside the fireplace of rocks a pile of kindling and dry wood in readiness for the firing. His kindly spirit quickened us to try to leave the camp in equally good condition for the next adven- turer. Murray, Andreas and Cathedral Canons have each special features that make them worth a visit, if one have the time to spare to it; but let us now leave the canons for a time, and wander out into the open desert toward the sunbaked wash of the Whitewater which lies three miles or so eastward from San Jacinto's base. In this brief distance we pass through several distinct zones of plant life. The cactuses at least most of them cease to be as we leave the foot of the mountain, and are re- placed by a belt of creosote bushes set with much precision, like shrubs in a park. The yellow forsy- thias of spring gardens in the East are hardly more yellow than these bushes when in full bloom their flowers like golden stars set in the foliage of glis- tening green. In the liberal interspaces among the bushes, there are gay conventions of pink wild ver- bena, white chaenactis red of stem, and the yellow suns of malocothrix, each with a crimson spot at its glowing center. Passing from these, as the sands grow heavier, low desert sun-flowers and delicate ox-eyes begin to appear, and by and by, we find ourselves in the home of the fragrant evening primroses. Here we 29 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA are in the sand dunes of the mid-desert, and curi- ously enough something in the look and feel of things brings up thoughts of the sea. A cool fresh breeze blows from farther out and it is hard to be- lieve that just across yonder heaving ridge of sand where the short-trunked shrubs are blown far to one side by constant winds, we shall not see the ocean surging upon the shingle. Perhaps the spirit of that ancient sea which once covered this part of the desert and left to it its legacy of little shells, still walks its old-time haunt. How the humanity of us is perpetually seeking the companionship of the mortal! Here in this vast solitude of sand and sun and wind, where the in- tense silence, the far-off dome of the boundless sky, the long, long views that nothing intercepts until they melt into colors of another world, all speak of infinity, exhausted thought drops sooner or later to earth and finds relief in engaging itself with the tracks upon the sand which mark where finite life has passed. This is the desert's daily public print its newspaper. Last night, we read, a coyote passed this way it must have been last night, the tracks are so fresh. We trace them to a badger's hole which he has dug out to the size of his body in quest of the badger. We think he did not find the gray beast at home, as there is no evidence of a struggle, and our feelings are mixed there is gladness for the badger, but what about that empty coyote-stomach which hungered to be filled? Birds 30 THE DESERTS by the hundred have left their tracks everywhere, as they fed on fallen seeds and improved their di- gestion with grains of sand or sheltered themselves from the noonday heat in the shade of various plants. This smooth band that wavers heavily out- ward from a clump of greasewood is where a snake has moved his sluggish length; here where the trail is broader and confused, he has coiled in rest. These delicate lines are where darting lizards have dragged their tails. Around the base of that hum- mock some dainty-footed prowler has dimpled the sand with its trotting feet, its captured prey hang- ing from its mouth, as we know by a lengthening mark paralleling the animaPs trail. Under the shadow of this shrub, a dish-like depression marks the resting place of a jack rabbit, and here are the impressions of his flying feet when something frightened him from his retreat. IV. IN PALM CANON One afternoon of early March, Dutch Jake, the prospector, blew into Palm Springs from the Little Morongos. He undid the packs of his three burros, turned the animals loose in somebody's abandoned field back of the school-house, and set up his cone- shaped miner's tent among the mesquits near the post-office. Then he borrowed a Dutch-oven from a man who was camping near the same center of life and news, and prepared to enjoy the sweets of 31 TJNDEB THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA civilization for a season. He was a stout, little fig- ure of a man, and his English was a cross between that of Weber and Fields and Hans Breitmann. "I haf located some purty goot prospects in dem Leetle Moronkos," he remarked comfortably, as he crossed his short legs and loaded his pipe, "unt I might haf vent oop to Los Angeles unt sold out at a purty fair figger; ofer I always make von damn fool of myself in dot town unt lose money; so I fought I'd yust come here unt gif de burros a chance to browse a bit, unt soak myself in dem In- jun Springs yonder for my rheumatism. It only costs two bits efery time you go in, unt you can shtay as long as you please, unt, mein Gott, I can afford dot." So it happened when we decided to visit Palm Canon and camp there for a day or two, we were referred to Dutch Jake as the man likeliest to trans- port our outfit. "Pollum Canon, eh? Yes, I haf been oop Pollum Canon already a goot many years ago. It vasn't no goot den unt it ain't no goot now dot is for min- eral, unt de vater gets bad in summer time, ven de snow has all run off de mountain ; ofer now you can drink it veil enough. You vants to make some pic- tures, eh? Veil, some peoples does dot. All right, I take you. It'll be fifty cents a day apiece for de burros, unt my time is wort' somet'ing to tend camp for you, ain't it? We make it two dollars unt a halluf a day for de whole outfit; I pack your stuff 32 THE DESEETS on Jinny and Chappo, lint de lady can ride old Jack. Me unt you vill valk, mister. Vot you fink?" The price did not seem out of the way for what we were to get, so the bargain was closed; and by seven the next morning the kyacks of the two pack donkeys were filled with three days' provisions; the blankets and Sylvia's little mattress were roped se- curely on top; the shovel, the axe, the rifle and the canteen were hung ready to the hand if needed ; and we were off. "I feel as though the bottom of thirty centuries had dropped out and we were back in the time of the patriarchs," laughed Sylvia when, perched upon old Jack, she saw the desert open before her ; I, staff in hand, trudging along in the sand at her side as she rode. What a morning it was ! The dewless coolness of the spring night was still in the air and the sun felt good upon our backs ; birds were singing in the boughs of the mesquits upon which the first tender green leaves of the year were just appearing; the subtle fragrance of the pink abronias which covered the ground in places with sheets of vivid color, filled our nostrils with delight. Sylvia and I sang to- gether the duets of our teens, and Chappo in whom eight years of desert life had not quenched the frolicsomeness of youth, cantered playfully down every declivity of the trail and kicked up his in- fantile heels at the bottom. Even Jake, stumping along in the rear of the cavalcade, smoked the pipe 33 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA of contentment, and found nothing to grumble about. Except for those occasional ebullitions of friski- ness on Chappo's part, the donkeys were deliberate travelers, and Jake being rheumatic and sixty was not the man to hurry them; so the sun was well up the sky when we finally left the open desert behind us and passed into a sandy gulf that swept in be- tween gradually narrowing walls of burnished gran- itic rock toward Palm Canon's mouth. The trail steepened, the sands grew heavier and heavier to the foot, and the intense midday heat, unrelieved by any breeze, not only blazed down with torrid fierce- ness upon our heads but was reflected upward from the scorching sand into our blistering faces. The burros drooped their patient heads; even Chappo forgot that he was young, and devoted himself strictly to the business of "getting there. " Jake, perspiring at every pore, mopped his red face with his redder bandanna and swore softly. "Gott in Himmel, dis is disagree 'ble," he ob- served. Then we climbed a final ridge of rock and sand, and descending a broad sunny way, all glorious with purple lupines and crimson monkey-flowers, with golden eriophyllums, white desert daisies and mot- tled mohaveas, we came to the mouth of the canon of the palms, where a cool breeze fresh from the snowy summit of the great mountain came out to greet us, and the sound of water flowing amid reeds 34 THE DESEETS fell like music on our ears. In another moment, the dripping canteen was passing from lip to lip, and the burros, lined up at the edge of the stream, had plunged three white noses deep in the flood. It is an impressive sight that confronts us, when, our thirst relieved, we begin to look about us a sight more suggestive of the Orient than of the United States. Palms, palms, everywhere, varying in size from the seedling growths of a single leaf or two clutched like fans in the fist of earth, to stately veterans of centuries, whose slender, tapering trunks rise straight as arrows into the air to a height of ninety or a hundred feet, each summit crowned with a great tuft of green fan-shaped leaves rippling and glistening in the sunshine which habitually pervades this open canon. The older trees are bare of trunk to within a few feet of the verdant crown, where a fringe of dead foliage hanging head downward forms a picturesque brown thatch beneath the green. The young palms are thus thatched to the ground, looking as though clad in brown petticoats. Here, as beneath a mother's protecting skirt, the small animal life of the canon "shnakes unt varmints," in Jake's classification is prone to hide itself. For a distance of nearly two miles these tropic groves fill the bed of the gorge, which is so tor- tuous, however, that to get an idea of them in any- thing like their entirety, one needs to clamber up the canon's bare side no very difficult matter. There from some vantage point, one may look down 35 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA and watch the winding procession of the palms as they crowd out from the mountain's inner solitudes and follow the course of the hurrying torrent till trees and water alike are swallowed up by the all- consuming desert. Few other trees besides these grow in the alkaline soil of the stream *s marge, and none at all on the barren, rocky sides of the canon which rise steeply towards the pines and snowfields of the mountain's summit, ten thousand feet above. With the scorching memory of the desert still fresh within us, we find it a heavenly place in the cool shadow of the palms and beside these crystal waters, which drop now in musical cascades and now are gathered in still pools reflecting their sedgy fringes; now flow in open sunlight, and again are lost in quivering beds of cat-tails and rushes and thickets of groundsel. Wild flowers of brililant hue brighten the tiny, sandy beaches that form here and there in the shelter of the great rocks flowers of compelling charm, yet in this out-of-the-way part of the world so unknown to men that most of them are nameless save in the harsh lexicon of science. A faint fragrance like tuberose fills the air the per- fume from millions of tiny blossoms of a leafless mistletoe that makes witches' brooms in the mes- quite. In such an environment we made our camp. Botanists have given to the palm which is so char- acteristic a feature of this canon, the name of Washingtonia, in honor of our country's first Presi- dent, and it has been extensively introduced as an 36 THE DESEETS ornamental tree throughout Southern California where it is a familiar object along public highways and in private grounds. To the Indians, in the old days, it served a number of purposes ; the leafstalks furnished material for bows, the leaves themselves made a staple thatch for wickiups, and were utilized to some extent also in basket weaving ; but the great service of the palm to the redmen was as a yielder of food. The fruit is a small berry-like body con- sisting of an exceedingly thin layer of sweetish pulp enveloping a stone that is almost the whole thing. It is borne in slender clusters depending from long, pendulous stalks thrust out from amid the leaves, re- minding one of gigantic bunches of chicken grapes. A forest ranger, who dropped into our camp one evening, a graduate of some Eastern university and exceedingly pleased to have someone to talk to, had a good deal to say about the palm and the Indian. "You see," he remarked, sipping with extreme relish a cup of tea which Sylvia had brewed for him, adding, to his astonishment, a slice of lemon, " be- fore the Government got to cooping them up in res- ervations and making up their resultant deficiency of food with charity rations of bad flour and what- not, the Indians on the root-hog-or-die principle, had developed the food value of the desert flora to a wonderful degree. The Coahuilla Indians, for in- stance, who occupied this part of the desert, dis- covered a way to get nutrition out of these palm berries which a white man wouldn't think fit for his 37 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA pigs. As I understand it, each family owned a cer- tain bunch of trees, and every year when the fruit was ripe, the whole lot of them from the grand- father to the latest papoose would go on a picnic to the canon and camp under their trees just as the Piutes do in the central Sierra Nevada when pine- nuts are ripe. Then with long poles made by splic- ing shorter ones together, they battered down the hanging clusters by the bushel, and gathered them into baskets. Some of the fruit was consumed fresh on the spot, but there is not much to eat outside the stone, and most of the harvest was carried home, dried in the sun, and then pounded in a stone mor- tar until the kernels of the pits were ground to meal. "Now there was a queer thing about this Indian business, " he continued, lighting his pipe, while Jake threw some fresh wood on the fire, and we all watched the cheerful glow rise and fall against the blackness of the night. "You may have noticed that every big palm you have seen in the canon has the trunk more or less blackened and charred, indicat- ing that at some period in its life, it has been on fire. That was Indian work. For some reason or other, the Coahuillas had a fashion of periodically firing the trees, which could be easily accomplished by putting a spark to the hanging dead leaves, and that is why the older trees are all bare of trunk, while the young ones are thatched with the dead leaves as Nature intends them to be. Now the ques- 38 THE DESERTS tion is what were those trees fired for? Some say, it was simply with a view of increasing the fruitful- ness of the trees, just as my old grandfather down in Maine used regularly to burn over his blueberry patch to improve the crop. Maybe it was. There's nobody to tell us now." The ranger paused while he puffed hard at his pipe which had almost gone out. " There are some old Indians in the reservation at Palm Springs," remarked one of us; "why doesn't somebody ask them?" "Maybe somebody has, and maybe they told him what IVe just told you. But after a man has knocked about the Southwest for a few years, he finds that an Indian doesn't tell every Tom, Dick and Harry of a white man all he knows. This is particularly the case with anything touching his re- ligious views and rites, and fire is very closely as- sociated with these, in the life of the desert Indian. Now there is another explanation of these burnt trunks, which connects them with a religious rite, and which, foolish as it may seem, is to my mind entirely in keeping with the Indian's attitude to- ward the world of spirit. When a man dies, the Indian thinks his spirit has a long journey to take in order to reach his^final home his happy hunting- grounds. This, in a desert Indian's view, is natu- rally a hard journey, sandy, sunny and hot, in the progress of which the soul will cry out mightily for shade. So, on the occasion of a man's death, what 39 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA more natural than to set fire to one of Ms trees in order that its spirit, thus released, may accompany the spirit of the man and refresh him with its cool- ing shade as the burning sands are crossed? I have always been friendly, myself, to this explanation of the burnt trees; for Indians, when it comes to the question of spirits, go the whole figure, and believe that even the inanimate objects of Nature have per- sonal souls within them." "And why shouldn't they be as near right as we?" said Sylvia sympathetically. A strange, tremulous sigh shivered down the canon, and the wind which had suddenly risen, swept in a gust like an impalpable football kicked by some invisible jinnee of the mountain, past our camp. It stirred the fire into a momentary fever of brightness, and rolling on down the gorge, died away in the distance. Instinctively I put out my hand toward the gun. The fire flame, unduly stimulated, sank down and out ; and again that tremulous sigh was uttered from the upper darkness. "Doesn't that convert you to the Coahuilla re- ligion?" asked the ranger, rising to go had the light been better we could have seen a twinkle in his eye. "It is the voice of Tauquitz, demon of the night wind, demanding a victim. Now you know why no Indian can be persuaded to be out on San Jacinto after dark." "Dot's all imaxination, " remarked Dutch Jake, 40 THE DESERTS shaking out his blankets, and hanging his hat on a bush he was ready for bed " don't you peoples know an owl ven you hears him?" V. SPEING FLOWEES OF THE DESEET When the first alder catkins by Eastern brooks are shaking themselves free from the bonds of win- ter, and hepaticas push furry buds up through the brown leaves in sunny pockets of their native woods, when field and forest are rejoicing in the impulse of a re-awakening life, God smiles upon His desert, too. Then for a few brief weeks, the pallid sands blush with a varied floral life of rare loveliness. At least it is usually thus early that is, in the first days of March that the Colorado Desert breaks into bloom. The flowers of the desert are both perennial and annual. The former include shrubs, the yuccas, the multitudinous cactuses and the few stunted trees the period of their blooming extending further into the burning year than that of the annuals. It is these latter which are responsible for much of the evanescent glory of the springtime wastes. They bloom, mature their seeds, sow them and perish in the oven of the sun's heat, all within a period of three or four weeks. Then for months their scat- tered seeds lie dormant upon the desert, buried now and now uncovered, and again caught and borne hither and yon upon the wings of wind storms, un- 41 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA til the rains of the latter year quicken them into life. Though there are myriads of these annuals in bloom every spring, so that in places the sands are radiant with their colors, this gray background set- ting off their brightness rarely, each plant usually stands isolated from its neighbor with much barren space about it. The soil is so deficient in moisture that two might die in dividing what one could live on. Sometimes, to be sure, a few plants in a wide circle of sand form a communal clump of inter- mingled stems about the base of some shrub, and sharing one another's shadows, make common cause against the remorseless sun. Thus, perhaps though each one's share of moisture is reduced, the evapo- ration from the leaves is less rapid. Then, too, the leaf-droppings from these little societies tend to form a humus, by which the life rooted in it is the better nourished. So though the desert in spring is a garden of bloom, the blossoms are but infre- quently to be expected thick over the ground like violets or buttercups in an Eastern meadow, but more usually they are dotted about, like separate jewels each in a generous width of setting, enhancing its individual beauty. One can hardly regard these exquisite creations, conceived and brought forth under a pitiless sun, without feelings of awe, as for purified unearthly presences born of elemental fire. Some of them are of such delicacy of hue and texture that they seem created less for the gardens of earth than for the 42 THE DESEBTS lornment of that "far, spiritual city," where only Galahads of our race may touch them. Of all none, perhaps, is more ethereal than an evening primrose a few inches high, which lives in pure sand and of afternoons spreads to the light its great, creamy white flowers, glowing with yellow at their hearts. Seen from afar, they are like flecks of foam resting upon the long ridges and billows into which the wind whips the desert sands, and their delicious fragrance is one of the few sweet smells of the arid regions. Hardly less delicate are the silky banners of the mohavea, which might be taken by the un- initiated for an orchid's flowers two-lipped and yellowish-white, splashed with purple and with a purple palate. The blossoms of the desert aster, clothed in lavender and gold, belong to the same rare fellowship, in which are to be included, too, certain gilias in tender blue, and one of so shy a shade of pink that your very look seems to make the lowly blossoms shrink into the sand on which they rest. And here in a lilac garb is a larkspur, of all flowers the least looked for in these desolate wastes, associated as it is in our minds with the cool gardens of "God's country," with memories of home and of mother's love. The abronias or wild verbenas, among the most abundant of the desert annuals, are of a less fine clay. Their trailing hemispheres of bloom are sometimes the daintiest of pinks, but quite often an earthy strain is present, which develops into a dull, 43 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA spiritless magenta. Quite a different touch given to this kaleidoscope of refined color by th< waxy fruit of the desert mistletoe berries whic] are like exquisite rosy pearls, paling to a delicate cream-color. But in many of the desert flowers it is not so much the delicacy of the tints, as their brilliancy that attracts the eye. On the Mojave in May comes an orange-scarlet tulip, so vivid that no ordinary paint of man's concocting can reproduce its fieri- ness. Its glowing cups of flame sit close to the ground, each usually with its one grass-like leaf dead beside it, shriveled up by the persistent sun- shine in which the flower luxuriates. The tenacity of life in these flowers is remarkable. Eight days after we had plucked and packed a number of them in a press to dry, we found one perfectly fresh. It had been a bud when packed up, and, in spite of the suffocating darkness of its captivity, had gone on with its work and opened. Only a little less fiery are the blossoms of the beloperone clumps. Early in the year the tangle of their white, sinuous branches bursts into hundreds of narrow tongues of mock flame, all the more realistic, because the stems are then leafless, and in appearance a mass of in- flammable brush. Composites on the desert are as characteristic of spring as in the East they are of autumn, and are of almost every hue. The yellow of some of these, such as the desert ox-eye, rising out of clusters of " 44 THE DESERTS ashen-gray leaves, is as a burst of sunshine out of a cloud. Most wonderful of all, perhaps, though not at all showy, is a small composite like a dwarf aster with white rays and a golden disk. It has no common name but botanists have burdened it with the title of monoptilon bellidiforme. Each flower head is composed of perhaps fifteen or twenty florets, each of which produces a single dry seed; and every spring tens of thousands of these little plants come into being, making myriads of seeds thus produced. Now the marvel of it is that on the per edge of each of those countless seeds is borne ne tiny bristle which drops with the seed. No man knows what that bristle is for, though your man of science will learnedly explain it as a degenerate pappus, of which the down of a thistle represents the perfect development; but is it not wonderful at Nature, with all she has to do in this workaday rid crops to raise and all the machinery of the universe to keep in order never forgets to set that solitary bristle on each of those little florets out there on the Mojave Desert? tMany of the desert flowers are odd as well as autiful, showing forth in this pure wilderness of the desert unlooked-for resemblances to many things of man's complex civilization. There is the sala- zaria, for instance, with velvety blue-and-white- hooded corolla emerging from a loose, papery calyx and looking in outline astonishingly like a bonneted Quaker lady of the olden time. And there is calyp- 45 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA tridium monandmm (we would write its English name if it had one) a Wild West cousin of the fa- miliar "pusley." It does not drop its petals, but when the seed vessel is set, lo and behold! the withered corolla appears like a limp liberty cap swinging at the tip of the slender red pod. There is, too, a remarkable milkweed with blossoms of im- perial purple so smothered in white wool that the individual flowers suggest rubies lying in a bed of jeweler's cotton. And there is nama demissum, which grows in a circle flat upon the sand and re- sembles a floral wheel with green spokes and a Tyrian purple tire. The list might be continued in- definitely. The struggle for moisture in the desert leads the roots of many plants straight downward. Those of the spiny dalea, a shrub or little tree whose in- tricacy of slender branchlets becomes clothed in spring with a royal garment of a myriad purple blossoms, are said sometimes to descend twenty feet or more in quest of water. An old desert dweller once told us that, desiring one of these trees as an ornament near his house, he set an Indian to dig it up, cautioning him on no account to break the tap root. As he rode to and fro on various errands he noticed the Indian patiently digging deeper and deeper, his body gradually getting lower and lower in the big hole, until a couple of days afterward the black head of the child of the desert was just visible at the level of the ground. Thinking the tree had 46 ca p& THE DESERTS earned a right to its station, he told the red man to let it stand. The cactuses, on the other hand, those best known of desert plants, have but a scanty root system, and one can without much difficulty topple some sorts over with his foot. Their aqueous reservoirs being within their succulent joints and stems above ground, they do not need long roots to fetch and rry for them. There is a great variety of the cactus blooms, and some that are not particularly beautiful in themselves possess a charm in their ar- rangement. Of these latter the greenish-yellow flowers of the strange, cylindrical bisnagas or bar- rel cactus, are examples. They form a circle upon the spiny top of the keg-like plant a chaplet set upon those repellent brows by the hand of a Love that must indeed be divine. The spines of the cac- tuses are a fascinating study. There is much va- riety in them, and often great beauty. Their placing upon the surface of the plants is no hap- hazard arrangement, as might appear to the unob- serving, but is in accord with an orderly plan. Those of the bisnaga consist of regularly disposed bundles, the central spines of each of which are very prominent, four in number and transversely ridged, one of the four being usually curved in the shape oft a great fishhook. These spines are remarkably charming, with colors that hold something of the desert's own fascination pinks and amethysts and creamy yellows. Strike them with your finger as 47 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA you would a jew's-harp, and they return melody, different tones issuing from different sorts of spines. Miles upon miles of the desert plains are staked with that strange Ishmael of plants, the tree-yucca, whose shaggy arms, clutching a thousand bunched daggers of leaves, are raised against the world. As* one rides across the Mojave, where these trees grow, they outline themselves against the sky in a score of fantastic shapes pitchforks, tridents, mailed fists and colossal battledores whose meshes are branches. Sometimes they resemble writhing, misshapen crosses, as though marking the uneasy graves of men whom the sands have swallowed up. A sullen tree, this, which moves stiffly and grace- lessly when the wind shakes it, like a stubborn man in the hands of adverse fortune yielding indeed, but only because forced to yield. Nevertheless, to the tops of this forbidding tree, the gentle doves of the desert trustfully fly and lodge and find comfort there, uttering thence, to the desert's mystery, the mystery of their own melancholy notes. From the midst of the cruel leaves, too, there rise, in season, panicles of bloom, creamy white bells adroop, pure as the spirits of ^triumphant mortals who, out of the valley of affliction, have come up into the sun- light of heavenly peace. THE MOUNTAINS ; ti, 5 I. UNDER THE STABS AT CROCKER'S HE differences between camping in Eastern woods and Western are great and must be rne in mind by all who attempt an outdoor life in alifornia. In the East even in summer the camper .ust be prepared for stormy days, sudden showers, ot waves and cool snaps, gnats and mosquitoes, amp ground and malaria. In California woods, hile the long rainless summer and the equable imate make it needless to consider these particular atters, there are other things to be provided inst: thought must be had for the water supply, od springs being much less frequent than in the ast; unremitting care must be exercised against ring the forest, which by midsummer has become veritable tinderbox of dryness ; and in some locali- ties where the inexperienced Easterner would look r pleasant coolness on account of elevation or her feature of situation, there is an excessive dry heat which is a bar to camping with any comfort. All things considered, however, the California rest is a paradise for camping, and it is not neces- sary that one have any great store of money or rength to make a success of it ; but some judgment 49 UNDEE THE SKY IN CALIFOENIA and good advice are needful in the selection of a site. No more charming spot for a summer camp can be found than the neighborhood of Crocker's Station on the Big Oak Flat Stage route, Tuolumne County, among the sugar pines of the Sierra mid- region. From this point as a base it lies at an altitude of forty-five hundred feet above sea level numerous trips may be taken : to the small grove of Tuolumne Big Trees, six miles ; to the Yosemite, twenty-three miles ; to the Hetch Hetchy, a less known but almost equally beautiful Yosemite upon a smaller scale, about seventeen miles ; or along the old Tioga Eoad fifty-six miles to the Tioga mine, or further by trail and pack animals across the High Sierra, snow-clad even in midsummer, and down ftie eastern slope to the Mono country an alluring land of desert, extinct volcanoes, lost mines and Piute Indians. This is the land of the pedestrian and the moun- tain climber; and all summer long parties big and little and of both sexes, their blankets and camp kits slung upon their backs, come gaily up from the cities of the coast and the plain, from the schools and counting houses and shops, living Arcadian days and weeks in shady canons by never-failing waters, and sleeping beneath the sky. The prose poet who has written this region into enduring literature is John Muir, and to go mountaineering through the Sierra country with his " Mountains of Calif ornia" 50 THE MOUNTAINS or "Our National Parks" in one's satchel is a liberal education. Stopping at such a place as Crocker's for a few weeks, one has an opportunity to make the acquaint- ance of men of national reputation writers, scien- tists, college professors, artists as they call and linger here in outing garb on their way in and out of the higher mountains; to say nothing of others of lesser note, men and women of culture and knowl- edge of the great world. This makes the homelike hostelry a peculiarly pleasant abiding place for those who like their scenery mixed with well-bred human companionship and intelligent talk. There is a railroad that starts in at Oakdale on e Southern Pacific, and climbs the lower slopes of the Sierra, passing close to Columbia where Bret Harte taught school, and Tuttletown where Mark Twain "tended store." It has stations at Angel's and Jimtown, and puffs along within hailing dis- tance of Murphy's, all of which classic spots are still as much alive as when "The Luck of Soaring Camp" was written, though their modern life flows with a more subdued current than in the fitful days of the Gold Fever. Those who want to get the most out of the mountains, may start in at Chinese Camp on this same railroad, and follow the old stage road as it winds through a corner of Bret Harte 's coun- try from the bare and gullied foothills honeycombed ith the exhausted pockets left by oldtime gold 51 UNDEE THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA miners, upward through belts of pale-leaved Dig- ger pines and mossy-boled black oaks, corky-barked and hung with mistletoe, into the majestic sugar pines amid which is Crocker's, forty miles from Chinese. There are numerous stopping places scat- tered along these forty miles, so one may do as he chooses about carrying a camp outfit, unless he in- tends to essay the High Sierra. Then, as it is pure wilderness beyond Crocker's, he will need to fit out either there or at Chinese with everything requisite, including a burro or two to carry the packs. So much for the class of restless campers, who are ever on the move; but to him who wishes rest and quiet, who has papers to write or drawings to make, or who would spend the summer in study ab- solutely uninterrupted and untrammeled, the Sier- ras offer an ideal situation, too. Establish your camp, as we did, sufficiently near a spring, high enough upon a hillside to have some outlook and daily view of the sunset glow and the blush of dawn if you can get it, deep enough in the woods to be shaded from the ardors of the midday sun ; and not too far from some place where provisions may be bought. Crocker's afforded us all these desiderata. Home people wrote to us inquiring with anxiety as to bugs and snakes. They referred tremulously to the bears and wildcats which in their mind's eye, were ever ready to spring upon us. Devoted rela- tives shuddered to think of the consequences to us of a thunderstorm striking those giant trees. In- 52 THE MOUNTAINS deed the mere fact of our lonely camp in that dark and gloomy forest (as it seemed to their conven- tional fancies, three thousand miles away) caused distress enough to these tender hearts. The truth about the sugar-pine belt however, is this: Except for about half an hour near sunset, there are no mosquitoes, and then for only part of the summer, and there are no flies at all. Snakes of any kind are practically never seen, bears and wild- cats are too timid to venture so near human habita- tions, and though one may occasionally catch a glimpse of a coyote or a little gray fox, such are more afraid of the camper than he of them. Thun- der storms there are none at this altitude, but one may spend many a happy summer hour watching the massing of the cumulus clouds over the distant High Sierras, where indeed at ten to thirteen thou- sand feet above the sea, electric storms are frequent, the muttering of their thunder being heard as far down as Crocker's. Instead of darkness and gloom under the mighty trees, sunlight floods the forest, whose floor is gemmed with myriads of wild flowers and relatively free of under-brush. The trees are set well apart, their trunks rising fifty, seventy-five or a hundred feet before a branch puts out, the blue of heaven showing among their tops. The ever- present sunlight sending cheerfulness into every nook of the great woodlands, makes an effect o$ brightness quite unthinkable to one who knows only the half-light of the very different forest of the 53 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA damper East. And the nights ! nights of the gods, indeed. Our camp was on a dewless knoll, and as we lay in our blankets under the open sky, we looked up at stars like jewels set in the crowns of the gigantic pines and cedars over us, or tipping the branches like candle flames upon titantic Christmas trees. Occasionally a gentle breeze passed through the forest stirring the leaves to music ; but of tener the nights were absolutely still, save occasionally for the faraway yap-yap-yap of coyotes, or the crashing downward of an enormous dry cone from a sugar pine. As we are not of the physical make-up that makes a camp equipment pared down to a cotton com- fortable and a frying pan endurable, the practical details of our forest menage may be of value to those nature lovers, who like ourselves delight in life in the open and in meals taken under green boughs, but require somewhat of the comforts of home therewith. Our tent is of the sort pointed at the top and round at the bottom like an Indian tepee, and known as a miner's tent. There being but two of us, we find the size, which is twelve feet in diameter at bottom, answers our purposes. In the rainless summer of California, we use it chiefly for storage and as a dressing-room, sleeping being pleasanter in the open air. A small wall-tent of the same con- tent would in some ways be better. To sleep on, we use two army canvas cots which are so strong 54 THE MOUNTAINS that one can thoroughly relax upon them without fear of collapse. When not in use or when they are to be transported, they are capable of being folded into a compass not much greater than a closed cot- ton umbrella. With a bed of pine needles spread upon the cots newspapers over and under the needles to keep out the cold Navajo blankets laid over all, and the bed covers on top of these, there is nearly the comfort of a "real city bed." We use light-weight all-wool blankets and an old down- quilt. We take also with us a few muslin sheets, for on mild summer nights no words can tell the comfort to a sensitive skin of not being sandwiched directly between the woolly blankets that are so de- lightful in really cold weather. If the camp is to be for many weeks, it pays to carry a few brown linen pillow cases to save washing, as the dust of the woods shows very promptly on white ones. "And what about chairs?" asked the Professor, when we were packing our things in Pasadena for our first trip of this kind, the Professor too is a believer in comfort in camping. We thought we could knock up a rustic thing or two in the woods, I modestly observed. I rather pride myself on my skill in rustic carpentry. "Kustic fiddlesticks," the Professor replied, and then instructed us to buy a couple of easy chairs with high, generous, canvas backs like steamer chairs, and canvas seats, the whole folding snugly up into an insignificant compass when packed for 55 UNDEE THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA transporting. Any campers' supply store keeps them. We obeyed the Professor and have blessed him because of them, as often as the day. For week in and week out of a protracted camp, the only repose you get when not stretched out on your cot, is in a chair, and to have one in which you can re- lax even while cleaning fish or taking stitches, is in- valuable. The main place, however, where comfort in camp- ing comes in is in the kitchen department. The camp stove to begin with, must be good. Maybe you are thinking of the poetic camp-fire as good enough for you; but it is not, in any camp of over a week's duration. For the permanent camp, it is absolutely necessary to comfort to have a sheet- iron cook stove. The right sort to meet the case can be bought of any camp outfitter and is light, cheap and compact, so as to be readily transported either in a trunk or on burro back. We use one with two holes and an oven, and it answers all practical pur- poses, if you understand cooking. And it may be said here, never attempt to camp at all, unless some one of your number understands how to cook and thoroughly enjoys the art. The stove-pipe should be in two sections so that the smoke may escape at a point high enough not to blow in your eyes when at work. If the stove is low, have it placed on a box sufficiently high, so that you will not have to stoop. Maintain in addi- tion to the stove a camp-fire where water may be 56 THE MOUNTAINS heated, and where green corn, apples and eggs, if you are in reach of such luxuries, may be roasted in the ashes. A stone fireplace such as is de- scribed in another chapter,* will be found more sat- isfactory than an open camp-fire, unless you are in a region where large logs are obtainable. In a settled camp, too, an immense amount of time and trouble may be saved by making what is known as a hay-box a small box tightly packed with hay, straw or even newspaper if you can get nothing else, a hole being left in the center of the packing for a small, tightly covered kettle. The principle is that of the fireless cooker, the article to be cooked being brought thoroughly to a boil on the stove, then placed in the hay box with the lid of the kettle tightly fastened to ensure no escape of steam. A hay pillow is laid on top, and the box closed with a tightly fitting lid. This will save time and fuel in preparing dishes which are improved by long steaming. It is well to take as many cooking utensils as you can pack into the space allotted to such matters. Working with too few, one spends an endless amount of time washing and rewashing these few, and the results after all are poor. For a two- months' camp we have found useful the following list: Dish pan, soup kettle, muffin-pans, teapot, coffee * "The Practical Side of It," in the section, "Spring Days in a Carriage." 57 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA pot, tea-kettle, pitcher, six small tin plates, six large tin plates, ten or twelve tin lids of different sizes, cake griddle, cake turner, dish mop, two milk pans, kitchen spoons and forks, whisk broom for brushing around stove, six jelly tumblers with tops for packing butter, a water bucket, and some cheese- cloth bags for enclosing meat. Of course this list could be greatly condensed if needful; one can bake cakes in the frying-pan and dispense with the griddle, live without muffins and keep milk in the soup-kettle if need be, but since we are dealing with comfort in camping, such econo- mies of space do not enter into our present con- siderations. All utensils ought to be of granite or aluminum and of the best quality ; you have to work with them yourself, and must save time and strength. The tin lids are constantly needed for the covering of all cooked articles, as the outdoor air cools hot things very quickly; and the tin plates are invaluable, as hot pans from the stove can be placed on them and carried to the tables with no danger of soil from the smoky bottoms, and an immense amount of labor saved by serving direct from the pan. For table-dishes we use the German white enamel ware edged with blue, which may now be found at any house furnishing store. It is charming in its cleanly, dainty appearance, yet as unbreakable as the conventional camp tin plate, and it can be put upon the stove or in the hottest oven to reheat with- 58 THE MOUNTAINS out harm no small consideration on a cold day when the wind chills your soup quickly. Take sev- eral extra plates, cups and saucers, besides the num- ber allotted each person. We always take our own silver spoons and forks, and a few table napkins ; they are restful to use, and thoroughly pay for the little extra trouble. Besides they furnish such excellent texts for the Bohemian camp visitor to lecture from, that we should miss a great deal of instruction and entertainment were these left behind. "Silver in camping ! ' ' says the visitor. * 'Why, my dear woman, you don't know how to camp at all! Let me give you some of the main points, so that you will not burden yourself with all these foolish traps another time. Of course being from the East you don't know, but here you want to be really com- fortable in camp; just an old tin pan or kettle or iron spoon or any old thing to cook with and eat with, and throw it away afterward no trouble at all! 9 ' Vainly do we explain that this entire outfit is the result of months of camp experience ; that weeks on the pitiless desert were rendered to a frail physique possible and even delightful by these very comforts ; that we see no reason for leaving silver with our servants and eating with tin ourselves for three painful months. Our visitor continues firmly to en^ lighten us, and, failing to convince, moves on to the next camp, whence come fragments of sentences 59 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA descriptive of a curious form of tenderfoot snob. Unless you are willing to wash out your table nap- kins occasionally for the sake of the comfort they afford and in most summer camps there will be enough unescapable washing without this an ample supply of Japanese paper ones may be laid in. Table cloths are not to be recommended in any case ; white ones soil too quickly, and the conventional red cloth becomes painfully unattractive after some days of use. A pretty green and white oilcloth, which can be kept spotlessly clean, has been a great com- fort in our camp life. Take rather more than you will use on the table, as extra covers and mats are sometimes useful. After the kitchen comforts, those most needed are camp furniture. This means rude tables, rough chairs, shelves nailed to trees, boxes on legs for hold- ing provisions which must be kept from the damp- ness of the ground, and any articles that the men of the camp will knock together. These can be made of packing boxes, tree branches or old boards ; and should be put together as quickly as possible after you go into camp, bringing thereby unlimited com- fort without delay into the commissary department. For the making of such things, it will be needful to take with you a small saw, a hatchet, spade, small axe, nails, wire and pincers. Take also a number of old gunny-sacks or pieces of burlap for spreading upon the ground, or using as a floor covering if you have no wooden floor for the tent. If the ground is 60 THE MOUNTAINS dusty or at all damp you will be very glad to have these. In a warm country, boxes sunk in the ground for keeping meat, butter, eggs and milk (if you can get these luxuries), are most valuable. Concerning comfortable clothing for camping, while we wear outfits perfectly satisfactory to our- selves, it has never seemed necessary to secure this comfort by looking like i ' freaks. ' ' Hobnailed boots, skirts to one's knees, bloomers and a general soiled air of wildness may mean comfort to some women campers, but they certainly do not to all. In the wildest and most remote haunts of Nature, a woman, unless a professional mountain climber, rarely has need for any heavier shoes than the average stout walking boot, nor for a skirt above the ankles ; but this should be full and light, well fastened to the shoulders, and every garment should be loose and comfortably adjusted. Soft colors that will not frighten the birds and small animals about camp, will add to their comfort and your own pleasure; and plainly made linen-colored waists with pretty collars, will be found welcome. A man can well make camp-life the occasion to use up his old clothes; and will find leather or canvas leggins, a soft hat, an outing shirt and a handkerchief about the neck instead of a collar, the only changes necessary from his ordinary dress. It may be said, in passing, that the wearing of clothes reasonably clean and neat and devoid of 61 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA freakishness, combined with a generous supply of baggage, will cause you invariably to be set down as a tenderfoot. This, however, you will find to have distinct advantages ; people will be constantly giving you points and entertaining you with facts and fancies which otherwise you would not hear of; for the average Calif ornian is somewhat reticent about volunteering information to one who, he thinks, may know as much as he himself knows. Then there is this further advantage in keeping the outward ap- pearance of a lady or a gentleman it frequently secures you the entree to desirable places irrevoca- bly closed to those whose gentle breeding is not apparent. As a final word in the interests of comfort in camp, establish the habit of doing as little complain- ing as possible even to your dearest and most com- prehending friend. For some inscrutable reason, a sensitive nature is apt to feel itself to blame for most of the hardships and untoward developments of a trip ; and to have these dwelt upon by the person whom one most desires to relieve of discomfort, makes the situation doubly hard. It is not neces- sary to ignore with drawing-room politeness ills that are perfectly patent ; but neither is it needful to take too seriously what cannot be helped. Nowhere is the common, everyday virtue of cheerfulness more appreciated than in camp life. Being out for a good time, have it ! 62 THE MOUNTAINS II. CAMPING IN THE YOSEMITB The most independent and least expensive way to see the Yosemite Valley is to camp there, and every year thousands spend their vacations thus in this enchanting wonderland, seeing its magnificences as the dweller within hotel walls can never hope to see them. Along the sunny meadow lands skirting the Merced Eiver as well as in the shady pine woods, both below and above the little village of Yosemite, are hundreds of camp sites absolutely free to visitors who may wish to pitch their tents upon them, sub- ject only to certain simple regulations imposed by the United States Government. Water is dipped out of the near-by river, clear and cool from the snow-ranges of the High Sierra, firewood may be gathered in the woods of the valley, and provisions may be had from the village store, if the camper has not brought his own. Entire camping outfits from tent to frying-pan (though exclusive of linen) may be hired in the valley at a reasonable charge fifteen dollars per month would amply cover the rent of such an outfit for two persons ; but most campers bring their own, for your Californian dearly loves a vacation by camp-wagon, and if he lives anywhere within a radius of a couple of hundred miles of "the Valley," he is apt to make this trip several times in his life. There is a butcher in the village, and a general store ; good milk, butter, bread and eggs may be pro- 63 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA cured, and from the Indians one may occasionally buy chickens, fresh fish or wild strawberries. Prices in the Yosemite are about one-fourth higher than in the large towns, owing to the expense of transporta- tion. Deliveries of goods are made to all campers by the store wagon. Our expenses for the best ob- tainable food supplies during the two weeks of our stay were $14 for two a weekly average of $3.50 each person, or less than one day's expenses would have been at the hotel. The time of our visit to the Valley was the middle of June, at which season we found the nights cool, but the days were warm enough for thin summer clothes. On the horse-trails women are expected to ride astride, and if one has not a riding habit, a skirt sufficiently full to admit of this requirement should be taken. There is practically no rain from June to October ; but in case of a possible shower and chiefly as a protection against dust, women will find a light rain-coat desirable. No firearms are permitted in the Valley, and no trapping or hunting is allowed; but trout fishing in season is permitted, and at times is fairly good. All the Yosemite trails are free to pedestrians, and are kept in good order for climbing. Our own experience leads us to conclude, however, that owing to the fatigue consequent upon making the ascent of the precipitous walls of the Valley, it is a wise economy for all but the very vigorous to pay for animals to carry them. The trips to Glacier Point, 64 A camp in the Yosemite, with a view of the famous Falls THE MOUNTAINS to the head of Yo Semite Falls, and to Vernal and Nevada Falls, are the three regulation ascents of the Valley walls which most visitors make, and they should all be taken by the camper. Each requires a day for its accomplishment, and no guide is needed for any one of them, as the trails are perfectly plain and safe. Mirror Lake at the east end of the Valley and the lovely Bridal Veil Falls near the western end, are also unforgettable sights not to be missed. Each may be visited in half a day. As there is no climbing, the walks to these two points through the woodlands and flowery meads of the Valley floor, will prove delightful jaunts. These five excursions need not here be dwelt upon in detail, as they are in the province of the conven- tional sightseer to whose class this book does not profess to cater. But there are some longer trips to be taken, with which one's Yosemite camp life may well be varied. For these more extended out- ings it will be needful to engage a guide, who will be furnished by the stableman from whom the ani- mals for the trail are procured. And in passing, let it be said that your happiness on these rougher trips depends largely upon your limiting the party to yourselves and your guide. The chances are ninety-nine in a hundred that any stranger included from charitable or mayhap economical motives, will develop qualities that will cause you to wish him in Jericho before you have been out half a day. Among these trips there is for instance, that to 65 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA Cloud's Rest, eleven miles distant, which is possible of accomplishment by the energetic within a day, if a very early start be taken ; though a better plan for the lover of easy stages is to arrange to camp over night and return the next day. Cloud's Rest peak is close to ten thousand feet above sea level (six thousand above the Valley floor) and affords a su- perb bird's-eye view of the Valley, as well as a glorious outlook along the High Sierra. On the re- turn, a short side trip of a few hours may easily be made by means of a trail diverging near the head of the Nevada Fall, into the sequestered vale known as the Little Yosemite. Twenty-five miles by trail northeastward from the Yosemite are the beautiful Tuolumne Meadows at the head of the Grand Canon of the Tuolumne River and in full view of the High Sierra which rises to the height of a mile above them. For a compre- hensive variety of Sierra mountaineering experi- ence in comparatively small compass, this trip is one of the finest out of the Yosemite. The trail takes in the lovely glacial Lake Tenaya; while a few miles beyond the Meadows, Mount Dana, one of the loftiest peaks of the Sierra Nevada, offers a com- paratively easy back to clamber upon and look down on the wonderful mountain scenery of this part of California. A week is none too much to allow to this trip, which to quote the words of John Muir, whose classic book "The Mountains of Calif ornia" should be part of your baggage, whatever else you 66 THE MOUNTAINS leave out will lead you "through regions that lie far above the ordinary haunts of the devil and of the pestilence that walks in darkness. " If, how- ever, you are too limited in time to allow yourself to steep leisurely in the subalpine glories, it is quite possible to make the round from the Valley and back without undue fatigue, in four days. We had been camping in the Yosemite for over a week before we became acquainted with its Indian life. This is so unobtrusive a feature of the Valley that the conventional tourist " doing " the Valley in three or four days will hardly know of its existence at all; for one may almost count upon one's fingers these present-day descendants of the once numerous and proud race that formerly dwelt here. The quest of wild strawberries one June day led us well over toward the base of the northern wall of the Valley, and there close by some black oaks we caught our first sight of a Yosemite chuck-ah. This is an outdoor receptacle for storing acorns in shape like a huge hamper, and made of branches and twigs closely interwoven. It is mounted on four posts that lift it several feet above the ground, and hold it thus out of the reach of ground-dwelling rodents, while a covering of thatch or bits of board and old cloths protects the contents from the weather. Three of these odd looking objects stood in a row, and penetrating the thicket beyond them, we came upon the present homestead of old Fran- cisco and his wife and Wilson's Lucy an unpic- 67 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA turesque frame shack near a great oak tree and within sound of the rushing waters of Indian Creek as they bound down out of Indian Canon to join the Merced River. Wilson's Lucy made baskets, it ap- peared, for we got a glimpse of a partially finished one over which she had hastily thrown her apron when we unexpectedly broke in upon her seclusion. Old Francisco was frankly basking in the sun; his working days were over, and rheumatism had him by the legs. He was a little, wizened old man, with a cheerful outlook upon life for all, as we afterwards found, quite content to let others run the race though he could not. He responded smilingly to our salutation, and en- tered briskly into conversation, marshalling his little stock of English into all sorts of queer combinations. From him we learned the name and uses of the chuck-dh, until then an enigma to us, and he ex- patiated upon the merits of acorn meal, the way of preparing which from the bitter acorn he endeav- ored to explain, but the method of manufacture as set forth in his pigeon English was more than we could follow. He did, however, make plain the be- ginning of the process by convoying us a short dis- tance through the chaparral to a great, sunny, flat- topped granite rock, pitted with a score or more of small depressions or mortar holes, which it seems the Indian women of past generations had worn, beating acorns there into meal with granite pestles. In this way the fruit of the oak was reduced to flour, 68 THE MOUNTAINS but bitter and unpalatable as the original nut. The endeavor to tell how by some system of leaching, this bitterness was subsequently extracted, was the rock upon which old Francisco's limited stock of English met disaster. After several ineffectual at- tempts to clarify the subject, he finally laughed pleasantly, and remarked: "You no savvy?" Then changing the subject, he inquired affably: "You got some match?" I proffered him a box of them always an espe- cially acceptable gift to the old-time Indian, who re- members the days when fires were arduously kindled by rubbing sticks of wood and old Francisco put it in his pocket with a look of satisfaction. Then sitting down in the sunshine, he looked up and watched the cumulus clouds float up from behind the Valley wall out into the blue heavens. Thus resting from his labors, we left him. The able-bodied men and younger women of the Yosemites, find employment at day's labor at the hotel, the livery stable, and with resident white families ; while the older women attend to the house- hold duties of their rancherias, and at odd times make baskets for sale to the tourists. Like all the California Indians, this remnant of the Yosemites entirely lack the picturesqueness which is so notice- able a feature of the red men in their native estate to the east of the Sierra Nevada. Nevertheless the reason for their being in the Valley at all at this 69 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA day, lends a certain romantic interest to their pres- ence. Their story is briefly this : Shortly after the discovery of gold in California, the Sierra foothills were overran with a more or less lawless horde of white gold-hunters, who treated the resident Indian in the usual cavalier manner of the frontier. ^Elis hereditary rights ruthlessly tres- passed upon, and himself cheated right and left in trade, the red man finally retaliated, stole horses and set fire to miners' cabins. Bloodshed followed and the Government was appealed to, to rid the earth of "the marauding savages." Then ensued an Indian war resulting, of course, in the defeat of the Indians, and the transference of all the sur- vivors of the foot-hill tribes from their native homes to a Government Reservation near Fresno in the San Joaquin Valley. The Yosemites, dwelling in the mountains, were not so easily handled, and it was in pursuing them to their Sierra fastnesses that in 1851 a company of white soldiers discovered the marvelous valley which the world still calls Yosemite. These Indians, too, however, were eventually captured and carried to Fresno ; but life in a lowland reservation proved so much of a hardship to the mountain-bred tribes, that at the expiration of a few years of misery, disease, and induction into frontier white vices, the remnant of them begged to be allowed to go back and live in their old home, promising to be self-supporting and in no way to molest the white population. Their pe- 70 THE MOUNTAINS tition was mercifully granted, and during the half j century that has elapsed since their return to the land which was the cradle of their race, they have faithfully kept their promise. They have accumu- lated no property, they have dwindled in numbers, but they have been free they have kept the faith of their fathers. Under the slouchy clothing of metropolitan sweat-shops, in which their bodies are clothed, something of the old proud spirit still burns. "Why don't you work for me?" a man who had little respect for Indians, but wanted laborers, asked Yosemite Tom one day. "You work for George Smith. Isn't my money as good as his?" "Yes, me work for George, " the old red man re- plied; "when George have pie, me have pie; when George have cake, me have cake. You say, 'Any- thing good enough for damned Indian.' " III. SUMMER IN THE CANONS As I sit by my open window this morning of mid- July, the soft pitty-pat of a burro's unshod hoofs greets my ears, and the murmur of pleasant voices. Looking up I see passing along the street in front of our house, our neighbors, the Professor and his wife, starting on their three weeks' summer vaca- tion in the mountains, and chatting with all the buoyancy of spirits that goes with the early hours of a day's outing. They have three burros. One is bidden by Madam 71 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA Professor; the other two are packed with the camp equipment and provisions. The Professor in high- laced shoes and a khaki suit is walking and with the skillful application of his chamise stick keeps the burros in the middle of the street. Their destina- tion is one of the canons of the Sierra Madre, whose cool, green, rugged sides lift themselves five or six thousand feet against the blue heaven to the north of our little city. Five miles of gradual ascent will bring the small cavalcade to the foot of the moun- tains and the mouth of the canon it may be Mil- lard's or the Canon of the Arroyo Seco or another. There they will halt at noon for a siesta, and a cup of tea made with water obtained at one of the ranch houses that dot the upper edge of the mesa under the foot-hills. From that vantage ground there will be a superb view of the great valley of the San Gab- riel with its busy towns and great ranch-lands, and far off across a low bank of fog to the southward the blue Pacific with the twin peaks of Santa Catalina Island rising above the haze. Beyond them, per- haps San Clemente's hulking back will be visible. And there will be a pleasant breeze blowing in from the sea, still cool and refreshing after its thirty-odd miles of travel across the land. Then, after an hour or two of this delicious far niente, the donkeys will be wakened to fresh en- deavor; the cinches will be tightened; the smolder- ing remains of the bit of camp-fire will be quenched with earth for in this dry summer weather a neg- 72 THE MOUNTAINS lected ember might set fire to a whole mountain and the climb into the canon will begin. The burros spread their ears to a picturesque horizontal, drop their noses to the ground, and arrange themselves en queue upon the white dusty trail, Madam on burro number one and the Professor bringing up the rear. The air is filled with a dozen pungent aromas, as the packs brush against the shrubbery that crowds upon the trail fascinating, unforgetta- ble odors of artemisia and California bay, white sage and black sage, monardella and what-not. Ground squirrels frisk about at a safe distance, and gray lizards look inquiringly out from the top of sunny rocks as the procession passes. Noble California sycamores, great-leaved maples and alders cast a grateful shade in the canon ? s lower reaches, but the tinkle of water in the rocky stream-bed of the arroyo is missing. That will come higher up. Water is too precious in Southern California to be suffered to run at large in summer, and the iron pipe-line that follows this canon trail tells the story of the water caught at its source in the Sierra's upper springs and conveyed to the valley to be meted out there to consumers at so much per inch. Nightfall will find the little party beneath the Douglas spruces and live-oaks of the mountain's higher slopes. The tent, if tent there be, will have been pitched, supper eaten, the blankets spread on a fragrant bed of springy boughs, the burros staked out, and the Professor and his wife lovers still 73 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA after two and twenty years of companionship in a rough world sit with their hands in each other's, silently watching the night mists gathering in the purple coves and canons below them. The rosy tints of the sunset once almost gone from the sky, flash up again for a moment, then die finally away. Hesper glows like another sun, above one black western peak and slowly sinks behind it. An owl goes chittering by in the dusk, and a cool breeze awakening somewhere and taking wing through the night, makes the thought of the blankets a very pleasant thought. The Professor and his wife are glad they have come. Perhaps this is their permanent camping ground for the three weeks, or it may be that they will better themselves by proceeding further on the mor- row. When, however, they are settled, they will want to be under immemorial trees and near enough a trout stream for the Professor to keep his hand in as an active member of the Ancient and Honorable Fraternity of Temperate Anglers; and they will want to have an outlook across tree tops to the south and west, for thence come the cooling influences of the blessed trade-winds of the Pacific, which con- tribute so essentially to the summer comfort of Southern California. All summer long from June until September, the canons of the California mountains are resorted to by camping-parties small and large, and to meet the demand for this healthful recreation many public 74 THE MOUNTAINS camps, plain but comfortable, are established, where for ten or twelve dollars per week those who want such an outing but, unlike the Professor and his wife, do not care for the labors incident to main- taining a private camp, may go, indulge their souls and be happy. Within seventy-five or a hundred miles of San Francisco, for instance, both north and south, there are among the redwood forests scores of such public camps, where the visitor sleeps in a tent and eats his meals at a public table under the trees. This appears to be Arcady enough for a cer- tain portion of our population, though the lover of unadulterated nature is apt to find such an out- ing with its permanent floors and deal tables, to- gether with more or less boisterous companionship of people, too conventional for him. In the gen- erous length and breadth of the California moun- tains, however, there is room enough for all. Many camping resorts are advertised in the folders issued by the railroads, but just as there are as good fish in the sea as ever were caught, so there are countless choice nooks in this empire of a State, never dreamt of in the philosophy of the railroad man. Any old-time Californian, as he smokes his pipe under the vines of his porch of a summer night, will delight to give you points about his especial happy hunting grounds, and the best way to get there. To mention a few in many of the more publicly known, there is the Shasta country in the extreme 75 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA northern part of the State, to which a number of stations on the Southern Pacific Railroad serve as gateways. This region offers almost everything in the way of camping out, from marquees under the wing of a fashionable hotel to the wildest kind of wilderness, attainable only by the use of guides and pack animals. Ukiah in the Russian River region somewhat further south is a starting point for many camps, and the visitor having an interest in the basketry of the California Indians or in these In- dians themselves, will find himself there within com- paratively easy access of a great deal of Indian life. And there are the redwoods of the Santa Cruz Moun- tains. In the southern half of the State, every city and town from San Diego to Monterey has its summer camps in the canons at its back, so that it seems in- vidious to mention one and not another. One, how- ever, cannot go amiss in Strawberry Valley on the western slopes of San Jacinto Mountain, or in Bear Valley in the San Bernardino Mountains, or in the great San Gabriel Canon of the Sierra Madre ac- cessible from Azusa. Then if one have a month or two to give to it less time seems an insult to such grandeur there is the glorious wild region of that comparatively little visited rival of Yosemite, the King's River Canon in the lower Sierra Nevada, to which one attains by wagon and horseback and foot from Visalia in the San Joaquin Valley. Here one may camp beneath giant sequoias which were old 76 THE MOUNTAINS while the Koman Empire was still undreamt of; may gather wild flowers by glacial lakes, or climb out above the timber line upon some of the noblest peaks of the High Sierra, and experience the doubt- ful enjoyment of weathering out a thunder storm in the clouds in the very factory of the lightning. The advertisements of many of the "camper's paradise " regions contain the announcement "Out- fits must be taken." In such cases, if you are not over-strong and not only desire but need to be com- fortable and this, it is to be remembered, is the class to which these hints are especially addressed do not hearken to the voice of the athletic tempter who is continually urging folk to "travel light. " Let him if he like, go as John Muir does, with a sack of bread, a packet of tea and a tin cup ; but as for you, hire an extra burro if need be, but by all means carry everything your reasonable comfort requires, except firewood and water. You may find yourself with some unnecessary things when you get there, but that is infinitely 'better than being short-sup- plied. Many travel by wagon to the road's end, and there leaving the vehicle, pack their camp outfit and provisions upon the horses' backs and proceed by trail to the sequestered spots that suit them, transporting thus even the family sewing machine and baby carriage, and leading the family cow. Only time and experience can show each camper the exact measure of his or her own needs. 77 JJNDEB THE SKY IN CALIFOBNIA IV. AMONG THE ACOKN EATEES OF SAN DIEGO COUNTY We had been to the Mission and had photographed the ancient date palms at Old Town ; we had bought curios at Ramona's renovated marriage place, and had motored to Lakeside for a chicken dinner. We had promenaded in and out of the Coronado's mag- nificence as nonchalantly as though we were regis- tered there, and had looked on at archery meets and polo. Point Loma and the purple domes of the theosophical Tingley, we had done with the prole- tariat in a " rubber-neck " automobile, and we had tripped it to Tia Juana for a taste of Old Mexico. Yet there remained the feeling of an unfulfilled want. There was a disappointing sense of arti- ficiality about it all; we were only tourists in a tourist town, and we somehow felt that, as soon as we and the rest of our ilk departed, all San Diego would return to the dust and adobe whence it had arisen. "What you need," said the Old Calif ornian, "is to take a pasear into the back-country and have a look at California as it was before tourists became a staple crop. There's some of it left the real thing thirty and forty thousand acre cattle ranches with vaqueros and all that Indians, too. I know a rancher fifty miles northeast of here, who takes boarders. It's three quarters of a mile up in the air in the mountains, just this side of the desert, 78 THE MOUNTAINS and, if you fix it so as to be there November second, you'll see the Indian candle lighting ceremonies on All Souls' Night at Mesa Grande." That struck our fancy, for we have a weakness for Indians when they are out of school; and so, one brilliant autumn morning, we shipped aboard a rickety little train that wheezed and snorted by devious ways a matter of twenty-five miles up into the foothills, through a chaparral-clad, bowlder- strewn country, barren looking in the main but with occasional pleasant valleys in the dimples of the hills where lemon raising and other agricultural pursuits are possible, and by and by we came to the village of Foster. Here the railroad ended and an automobile stage carried us fifteen miles farther to Ramona, there to be handed over to a two-horse stage of the conventional back-country type with "U. S. Mail" lettered on the side. Now followed another fifteen miles through an ever-rising mountain region of cattle-ranges and bee-ranches, with here and there orchards of apples, pears and cherries, and views of distant peaks to which Spanish names lent the charm of mystery and romance Corral, Volcan, the Cuyamacas, Palomar and San Jacinto 's pallid bulk, anchored in mist. At ranch gates, Dick the driver dropped the morning paper in the mail box and grinned a "Que hay, hombre" to the occasional Mexican who loped by us on horseback. Once an athletic lady in khaki and sombrero, driving a buckboard, halted us to ask with 79 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA winningness of manner not to be denied by any gentleman, if Dick would mind waiting while she wrote a postal to her husband, as she might not have another chance soon to catch the mail! Of course, we waited, Dick meanwhile rolling a ciga- rette, and, as he smoked, watched the clouds streak- ing the sky over Volcan. "I believe we'll have rain before spring, " he observed with a wink, as he thrust the finished post- card into his mail sack, and saying, "So long, missus," to the lady, resumed the journey. At a certain cross-road, three young horsemen bright-faced and brown, with a led saddle-pony, awaited our coming. They had expected a friend from Los Angeles on the stage ; but got only a pos- tal card, which they read, and then cantered on ahead of us until they struck a trail that led off through the chamise to some mountain ranch. They were a picturesque trio in their straight brimmed Stetson hats and leather chaps, the ends of their blue neck handkerchiefs fluttering behind them in the breeze types of a young America that often comes for a year or two into these wholesome, open spaces to get into their systems the spirit of the great Western out-of-doors and a taste of clean, demo- cratic living, as one gets it nowhere except upon a ranch. "It does them young town fellows good to rough it awhile," said Dick, "if there's anything to 'em at all. I worked in the Arizona cow country before 80 THE MOUNTAINS I come up here, and there was a good many of them used to blow in there from back East to learn somethin' honest after they was through college. They learned all right, or if they didn't, they was throwed off the range. You wouldn't believe what poor cusses some of these fel- lows is that's had fortunes spent on education. Why, last summer there was a widow lady and her son come up to one of these here boarding-houses to spend a month near Palomar, where I was work- ing with the stock. She was a haughty sort, just because she 'd all sorts of money in bank ; but, gosh ! do you know how she come by it? I know. Why, her husband was a sheepman and once when he was in Los Angeles about twenty years ago, and drunk, as he always was when he was not out in the country about his business, he bought a bunch of good-for- nothin' land in what is now the heart of Los Angeles. And when he sobered up and seen what he'd done, he was game and stayed with the goods; but he turned right around and rented it out on a twenty years' lease to some fellows who wanted to make bricks so he couldn't gamble it away, you see, when he got drunk again sometime. And that's how he kep' the land in the family, and, all the time, Los kep' growing around it. So, when he passed in his checks and his estate was settled up three or four years ago, there was a considerable bunch of money and somethin' doin' for the widow and boy, you bet you. Well, as I was goin' to say about the boy. 81 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA He was twenty year old and he was just plum no good. He'd set around on the piazza and smoke cigareets and read novels when the Sunday papers wore out, and was always on the bum, and all the time he was more ignorant than an Injun. Of course, he'd been to college; but that don't cut no ice in real life, you know. Why, will you believe me," and Dick took the quid of tobacco from his mouth and threw it bitterly into the dust of the road, "that damn fool didn't savvy nothing- couldn't even cook a meal or saddle a horse, and the way he talked to women was a disgrace. He couldn't open his mouth to a girl without being fresh to her, and he was plum impudent to his mother hardly ever give her a decent answer. He used to come down loafing around the barn some- times when I was working over the stock, and one day I give the boy a piece of my mind about the way he talked to the women folks. " 'Why,' says I, 'if you was over in Arizona and talked to the women the way you do here, the boys would poke you in the face about four times a day. You'd just have to learn to behave.' Well, do you know, it surprised him? He'd just had no bringing up and nobody had ever spoke right out to him be- fore. He studied over it quite a bit and it done him good. He stayed on here a couple of months after his mother went home, and him and me went hunting together, and, by gosh, at the end of the time, he could skin a rabbit and flip a flapjack pretty 82 THE MOUNTAINS good, and once he shot a ky-ote. Yes, sir," con- tinued Dick, with the unction of the unco guid, "I figure that mebbe in the Day of Judgment, the Lord will give me credit for startin' that boy on the straight and narrow path of duty." And so, with pleasant discourse, we came in the afterglow to Mesa Grande, hemmed in with moun- tains whose peaks, facing two ways, looked out upon two great elemental mysteries, a sea of waters to the west, and to the east an ocean of desert sands. Past some vineyards and through a cherry orchard we drove, and drew up before the hospitable veranda of a white adobe ranch-house, beside which roses and two colossal live-oaks grew. Our host, who held out a welcoming hand to us, though we were strangers to him, was the reverse in looks of the typical husky ranchman of drama and romance ; for he was of delicate frame, though wiry, with a poet's sensitive face and eyes. A quar- ter of a century ago he had come in impaired health to California from a New York studio and selected this spot, as he told us, not as a practical man would choose, but as an idealist, for its beauty and its in- spiration. Had he hit upon any one of a dozen other places along the coast, the rise in land values by this time would have made him a hard-worked coupon clipper. To-day he has to show for his in- vestment with the cooperation of his wife who has shared the adventure with him from the first no great bank account, perhaps, but rugged health, three 83 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA strapping sons well educated and at home anywhere under the sky, and a soul still sensitive to the appeal of life's poetry and beauty. Yet his life has not been a mere dreamer's, but, in the best sense, prac- tical, as his well-kept ranch buildings and produc- tive orchards betoken ; while the captaincy which he holds in the Indian tribe whose reservation adjoins his ranch, testifies to his sympathetic, intelligent friendship with the vanishing race whom most white men notice only to plunder or to pauperize. After supper a delicious memory yet with its tender cottage-cheese and pitchers of sweet cider, its heaped-up dishes of fresh figs and luscious bunches of Black Hamburg grapes straight from the vineyard on the hill everybody gathered about the open fire-place with its glowing backlog in the liv- ing room. There was in the company the make-up of another series of " Tales of a Wayside Inn" so varied and racy of the soil was it. There were our host's cultured family; his kindly ranch-partner who had once been a desert prospector; a stoutish apple-packer from San Diego, two weeks unshaven; three young chaps of the Government Survey, who, on the morrow were to begin some work at the In- dian Reservation; a wealthy mine-owner's vale- tudinarian wife from Mexico; and a cheerful lady from Long Island who had come on a visit a couple of years before and had never gone back. "I know a good thing when I see it," she had written East, "I've had snow enough give me roses for the rest 84 THE MOUNTAINS of time!" Above the piano and over the book- shelves, hung a few fine pictures of Indian life and many specimens of local Indian basketry, and across the whitewashed face of the adobe fire-place was draped the brown tangle of a reda, or net of native fiber, in which Indian women used to carry their burdens. So the talk fell naturally on In- dians. " There are several reservations of Mission In- dians within a radius of twenty-five miles from here," said our host, " no, thanks, I don't smoke but the California red men are not picturesque subjects nowadays and probably never were, com- pared with their history-making brethren of the plains and eastern forests; and to look at them, fat and lethargic in their white-man's clothing and clipped hair, you wouldn't think there was much Indian left in them. A century and a half of pa- ternalism, under the Padres first and then Uncle Sam, has certainly made them commonplace enough ; so that the tourist, here to-day and gone to-morrow, can't even get a snap-shot of anything about them worth a film. But just the same, under the blue- jeans jumper and the calico dress, the old Indian nature exists, and if you had wintered and sum- mered them for twenty-odd years, as I have, you would find a lot, even in a Mission Indian, to respect and to love. For the Indian nature is there, with all its childlike appeal and fundamental virtue, if you once get its confidence. But, of course, the old 85 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA ways are rapidly disappearing. Pottery making is a lost art, and the basket weavers are almost en- tirely old women, who will be gone in a few years, carrying out of the world the secrets of a wonder- ful and beautiful handicraft. There are still oc- casional mescal roasts on the desert; and the acorn harvesting still goes on, though in a prosy way, with barley sacks and horses instead of the pic- turesque burden baskets and the reda of the old days; and their few remaining native ceremonies are three-fourths Catholic." "But they still play peon," put in one of the Government boys, whose views of Indians were purely materialistic. "Oh, yes, they'll gamble the shirts off their backs ; but it's among themselves and the luck may turn, and they'll get them back again. Now, I tell you what we'll do," turning to Sylvia and me, "you are interested in the primitive things. It is four days till the candle-lighting; and, if you say the word, we'll hitch the colts to the buckboard to-morrow, pack along grub and blankets, and put off mananita in the little morning, as the Spanish people say for some rancherias I know of, twenty or thirty miles over by the desert. We'll have to camp out; for there isn't a white soul living over there, but that's part of the sport and the weather's fine. It's in such out-of-the-way spots that you see the last stand of the California Indian. What do you say?" We said yes, with emphasis, and early the next 86 THE MOUNTAINS morning we were off for San Ygnacio. There had been a hard northeast wind for two days previously but it had stilled, leaving the atmosphere dry and clear as crystal and cold as Christmas. The colts tossed their heads in sheer joy of life, and with our light rig, up-hill and down-hill were all one to them. Past Mesa Grande store, where before the still un- opened door a couple of chilly Indians sunned them- selves; past Ysidro Nejo's little house he is a character in "Kamona"; past Government School and Indian blacksmith shop, and finally the ranch- eria itself, where smoke from morning fires was rising straight into the still air we showed a clean quartette of heels. Then the road, rounding the toe of a hill, slipped into the mountains where small sign of man was and the wilderness closed in about us. Our host pointed with his whip to a distant ridge covered with the yellowing foliage of deciduous oaks. "There," said he, "are the ancestral granaries of the Mesa Grande Indians, oak forests where for unnumbered generations they and their fathers' fathers have gathered the acorns that are a staple of their diet. There are a dozen sorts of oaks in the country and the Indians have discovered that of them all, the acorns that are least bitter and so most easily made palatable are those of a particular species of black oak. And though the Indians have only unwritten laws, the rights of the different UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA tribes throughout Southern California in their re- spective black oak lands are sharply defined and thoroughly understood, so that no Mesa Grande Indian, for instance, would think of gathering acorns in a forest which the San Ygnacio people had pre- empted. "This whole region," he continued, as our road wound among majestic trees, "has the touch of the Indian everywhere upon it; but you have to stay with the country year in and year out really to learn much. That's why the chance traveler, par- ticularly if he has no active sympathy with the red brother and he rarely has is so ignorant of the Indian life and its impress on the land. Why, every prominent object in the landscape around us, every hill and rincon and canon, every oak-wood and spring and arroyo, almost every tree that dif- fers markedly from another, has its Indian name descriptive of its physical character or commemo- rating some event of Indian history that has hap- pened there. Indians know these names and can direct one another by them quite as accurately as one man can direct another about city streets. "And here is the Indian's impress in another way;" he pulled up the horses and, leaping out, picked up a flat, oblong stone from the roadside. Though weather-beaten, it showed artificial fashion- ing. "This is not just a stone; it is an implement of human use. Indian hands shaped this and em- ployed ithands that are now doubtless returned 88 "Maria Juana Segunda . . . lives in an upland valley" A wayside inn amon the mountains of the Santa Barbara back-country THE MOUNTAINS to primordial dust. You can see it is ancient. It is a rubbing stone, useful in a dozen ways to the man of the Stone Age, which the Indian, in his native estate, even to-day, really is such as* for smooth- ing roughness from wood or dried skins, for rubbing meal to fineness, for cracking acorn hulls and so on." We were now trotting down a grade that wound in and out of the folds of the mountain side, and opened up vistas of a wide, peaceful valley, where cattle, tiny specks in the distance, were grazing. It was a portion of the famous Warner Kanch, which came rather prominently into the public eye nine or ten years ago, when its white claimants caused the eviction of the resident Indians from this their ancient domain. The Government forcibly removed them across the mountains to alien Pala, where the ancients of the tribe are still unreconciled and mourn for Cupa, the old home of their people, and for the healing waters of its hot springs. "There's many a hidden nook around this coun- try," our host went on, with a longing look up a canon, "where a fellow with sharp eyes is liable to stumble on relics of the old days. I have often found earthenware jars of Indian make set away in caves or in the niches of rocky cliffs, where mes- quite beans or acorns were once c cached' for safety in troublous times when the raiding of home stores by enemies was feared. They were usually empty, because the squirrels had cleaned up the contents, 89 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA but others I have found containing hechicero things, that is, articles of one kind or another that the hechiceros, or medicine men, made use of in their ceremonies. Such relics, as well as the jars them- selves, which are of ancient make, are, of course, very interesting to scientific collectors, but they are rare nowadays, and about the known ones that are still left in place the present-day Indians are very reluctant to tell anything. They are afraid that if they help the white people to remove them, the spirits of the dead-and-gone hechiceros may get angry and make trouble for the informant. Old Joe, a Mesa Grande man who will do anything for me, came to me quietly one day and said that a Santa Ysabel man had bragged to him about know- ing where a fine hechicero jar was, and Joe had been 'muy coyote' with him, and, by skilful questioning, had found out where it was. So Joe and I set out for the place; but when we got there the jar was gone. The other Indian on second thought had evidently grown suspicious that foxy Joe meant mischief about the jar and so had removed it. 'Joe, him muy coyote, but Santa Ysabel man him more coyote,' is the way Joe sized up the incident." After a frosty night beneath the stars, our blankets spread on springy beds of pine needles, with hot rocks rolled in barley sacks at our feet, we came in the sparkling morning to San Ygnacio, a rancheria of Luiseno Indians in an upland valley of the desert's rocky rim. Here Maria Juana Se- 90 THE MOUNTAINS gunda, plump of body and good-humored of spirit, dwells with her mania, maker of baskets and of acorn-meal, and in a meadow close by their house we were permitted to make our camp. Beyond stretched a wet cienaga fenced in, where Indian cattle fed and where a little stream, assembling its waters beneath an outcropping of tumbled rocks, issued doughtily forth and flowed valiantly away through a thicket of rustling carrizo reeds, to quench the desert's thirst as quixotic an adventure as ever a bit of mountain-stream set out upon. Now, the fashion of San Ygnacio is not unpic- turesque, hidden from the world beyond the moun- tains, as in a bowl. Here and there perched upon the valley's tilted side are set the Indians' cabins, each one-storied of a room or two, the material in the better sort being adobe with American-made doors and windows, and roof of shingles, or of cedar shakes split in the near-by mountains. Others have shaggy walls of brush and stout sunflower-stalks, their roofs a thatch of tule rush and carrizo reed; and against almost every house is built the ramada or roofed shelter of brush, a sort of open-air living- room where, on warm days, the household work is carried on and meals are eaten. Like huge bee- hives, dome-shaped baskets for the storage of acorns sit upon platforms lifted safely a man's height or more above the ground, for the discom- fiture of pilfering rodents; and dominant over all is the little Catholic chapel with its squat steeple 91 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA beneath the cross. Close by, enclosed in a tight paling fence, is the campo santo, where, side by side and even on top of one another, departed San Ygnacians are packed to the very fence corners, each grave marked with a wooden cross. As ground is cheap in San Ygnacio, we are for extend- ing the fence so as to do away with such unseemly crowding of the helpless dead, but Juan Capistrano Siva, who is showing us about, enlightens our American darkness about that. "Big campo santo, mala suerte," says he, "very bad luck; much people have to die to fill it up. Little campo santo, all filled up, no die." Not far away, among some huge bowlders, a woman is pounding acorns with a stone, a shallow cavity in the rock serving as a mortar. Acorn-meal is both bitter and astringent as it comes from the mortar; but the Indian, who has as little taste as you or I for the bitter in life, has found a way to eliminate these qualities. Old Angelita's cabin is just around the rocks and she is at the process now old Angelita, whose name means "little angel," lingering echo of her far-away babyhood. Now she is bent and rheumatic, and her withered brow is swathed in a blue bandanna handkerchief. By a rill of water under some bushes she has a large, shallow Indian basket, cradled in a pile of sticks. Across the basket is stretched a cloth of loose weave, and upon it is spread some fresh acorn- meal. Dipping water from the stream, she pours 92 THE MOUNTAINS it over the meal and as the liquid seeps through the straining cloth, more is added. So at intervals will the wetting and seeping go on for, perhaps, a day, until the bitter nature be all strained away. The result of this treatment is a dough, to be either boiled as a mush, or baked into bread. Don't commiserate old Angelita, and say, "Poor thing!" for having to live on acorn-meal; for it is famously nutritious, rich in fat and carbo-hydrates, and makes fat Indians. To civilized palates it is at first rather insipid; but many white folk acquire a fondness for it and find acorn-mush as tasty as a manufactured breakfast food. It helps towards re- spect for the acorn to remember that botanically the chestnut is its first cousin. At Martina's house, over the way from Ange- lita 's, we find a basket for sale, and from bartering we drift easily into chatting, the more easily be- cause fat Bartolome, her husband, is at home and has a tongue that runs. Their place is a good ex- ample of what the Mission Indian can make with his own hands from the native products of the coun- try roundabout. The house, with its brush walls packed tight to keep out the wind, its thatched tule roof, and its stool seat, carved from a single block of wood, by the doorway, is as picturesque as an Irish peasant's cottage. It and the barn, with its storage basket on the roof, the thatched hog-pen and the temescal, or sweathouse for baths, are all the work of Bartolome 's own hand. Bartolome is 93 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA a handy man ; possibly his father may have been a neophyte at San Luis Rey in the Mission days, and passed on to his son somewhat of his Padre-taught skill. Bartolome 's feet are shod in leather sandals of his own cutting-out, and he speaks only Spanish and Luiseno. He was born in the desert most of these mountain Indian families spend their winters in the lowlands and was a boy when Los Angeles was still a little pueblo; so he has seen much his- tory made. He had worked as vaquero for Spanish rancher os when any ranch was a day's journey across, and when any traveler was welcome without a peso in his pocket, and a cup of wine was always to be had for the asking; not that Bartolome was anything of a tippler madre de Dios, no but at a fiesta, or of a Sunday now and then, a sip of wine feels good in the throat, and makes no man crazy like this cursed whiskey. And, of course, he had seen the coming of the Americans, first one or two, then swarms of them like flies; and then the rail- road and the hard times, and now every man has his hand in your pocket and all the world is for the dollar. These Americans, they are smart traders, no? You have to sell; oh, yes, they buy, but very low price ; you have to buy, oh, yes, they sell to you, but muy caro, very dear. And, as for land, there is no more any land in all California an Indian can call his own. Why, when the Americans want San Ygnacio, will they not come and take it? Did not Bartolome know? Had he not seen them drive the 94 THE MOUNTAINS Indians out of Temecula when he was a young man, and from the hot springs of Cupa when he was old? We present Bartolome with a sack of tobacco and Martina with a pocketful of grapes, and, parting good friends, we sally forth to further adventure. Our eyes turn wistfully to the chaparral-covered slopes of the mountains to the east and scan them to the bowlder-strewn crest that looks, we know, down upon the desert; and Juan Capistrano Siva, who loves the desert and came from it but yester- day, says if we would like to see it from that dizzy ridge, he knows a good trail. So we mount horses, and following Juan's lead we are soon hidden head and heels in the brush, now plunging down into dry arroyos, now gingerly picking our way along nar- row shelves of rock above some canon's yawning jaws, now scrambling up sandy steeps down which our ponies' sliding heels push loose stones, cracking and bounding into depths behind. Our legs are pricked with cactus spines and yucca daggers, and our faces whipped by the thorny branches of grease- wood and buck-brush that stretch across the trail that would be no trail to any but an Indian's keen sight; and so we come by and by to the last pitch of all, where a chaos of gray rock, belched up in some fiery geologic day, is not negotiable by horses. Here dismounting and tying the animals, we clam- ber, hand and foot, tooth and nail, up the rest of the way until we stand upon the ridge that divides desert and coast country. Before us the mountains 95 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA fall sharply away, and there below us spread out as a map, in the stillness of the waning afternoon, lies that co-equal with mountain and sea and sky in elemental majesty, the desert "the country of lost borders, " "the land of little rain," "God's garden " what you will. Purple shadows flung down by our mountain's height were laying cool hands upon the shimmering sands, and through a palpitating mist that hung upon it, gleamed the waters of the Salton Sea. Far beyond dimly rose the bastioned walls that are the southern boundary of the Mojave Desert; to the east and southeast, above the haze, swam peaks we could not name, glowing in the late light like islands of a dream peaks of Arizona, doubtless, and some of Old Mexico. Juan's eyes glistened as he looked, and his Indian reserve gave way to real enthusiasm as he told of his sixty-mile ride the day before on horseback from Indio, alone across the sands to Rattlesnake Canon, where it cuts into the shoulder of San Jacinto ; then by this trail and that Juan pointed them out as he talked, and was very patient with our white stupidity when we could not see twenty miles away what was as plain to him as the nose on your face then down into Coyote Pass and around by Lost Valley into San Ygnacio; and how he had seen a deer at Pinon Flat and moun- tain-lion tracks near Horsethief Creek; and he de- scribed minutely where all the water holes were. From the white man's point of view, really nothing 96 The ruined San Diego Mission still marks the early activi- ties of the padres The Night of the Candles in the little campo santo at Mesa Grande THE MOUNTAINS noteworthy had occurred on Juan's long ride; but to the Indian all nature is of intensest interest. He marks the flight of a bird and is not satisfied till he has identified the kind; he hears a twig crack his old nature is alert to solve the problem of what broke it ; a fresh track across the trail he travels is as vital to him as to us a telegram is it a coyote, or a deer or a rabbit? Other business of life stops till he has found out. So the sixty miles between Indio and San Ygnacio had given Juan matter enough to discourse about for a month or two. "And do you know any place, Juan," asked our host as we descended the mountain towards San Ygnacio, " hereabout or in the desert, where old ollas are hidden away?" And Juan returned the usual answer of the young school-taught Indian to questions about the old days and their ways: "No, seiior, the old people they knew about old thing like that ; the young people they do not know about it." The night was chilly even by our camp-fire, when supper was over, and we repaired to Maria Juana 's cabin for a bit of chat before retiring. A fire was burning in her ample fire-place, and Maria Juana 's mama was a-squat on the hearth, working up her basket material by the flickering flame. Maria Ju- ana herself, as became one who had dwelt among white folk, sat properly in a chair by a table on which was a kerosene lamp. She gossiped pleas- 97 UNDEE THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA antly in English, in a soft, motherly voice, trans- lating, from time to time, into Luiseno such tidbits of what we told as she thought her mama would enjoy. Mesa Grande is Diegueno country and like a foreign land to Luiseno San Ygnacio, and Maria Juana and her mama would laugh heartily when our host would give them the Diegueno word for one of theirs it was so strange that words of such di- verse sound should mean the same; and, when he sang them a Diegueno song, dramatically illustrated with the motions of the dance and as though he held g, rattle, the two women's eyes sparkled and their faces were aglow in their interest. "That is funny words," said Maria Juana, "but it is nice, too, I think," and her mama's eyes had a reminiscent look as of a bygone day when she, too, sang the songs of her people. We coaxed her to sing one to us now, but she would not she had forgotten, she said; but perhaps she was only shy. So the talk turned on other things on poor Teofilo who was died long time ago and Natividad, who was marry did we not know? And of how Bautista killed the mountain sheep one time, and of who was got sick and who was got well. So many sick peoples now in Coahuilla country ; they got the consumption, the doctor calls it. Maria Juana could not understand what makes them so sick. "That consumption now," she says in quaint won- derment, "I don't know what makes it it did not use to be." And did we know that old Jose was 98 THE MOUNTAINS died in Los Angeles, and before he died, he told the peoples he could not be happy for afterwards, un- less he was bury in the campo santo of the old rancheria at San Felipe where he was born ; and so his people brought his body and now it was bury just as he wanted, there in the old campo santo by the desert in the sun; so he would be happy, old Jose. Day comes to San Ygnacio 's tiny valley in an ex- quisiteness that city dwellers know not of first, a flush of red in the east, then all about is a feeling of virgin light as mysterious and pure as though a Holy Grail drew near, and, in the twinkling of an eye, the wan peaks of the chalky mountain barrier to the west leap into vivid life, reflecting upon San Ygnacio the warmth of glory of the risen sun come through the shining gateways of the desert. And soon we are rolling up our blankets and tossing flapjacks over the campfire and eating them, and bidding good-bye to Maria Juana and her mama; and then the colts, bursting their very jackets with the thoughts of home, are hitting the high places with us along the Indian road through the chapar- ral, and San Ygnacio is a tale that is told. The sun was just nearing the western rim of mountains when we came in sight of Mesa Grande, in its bowl-like valley, and people were wending their way singly and in families to the little campo santo, fenced about with white palings beside the church at the edge of the rancheria. All day, work- 99 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA ers with hoes and brooms, had been busily clearing it of weeds and litter, in preparation for this La Noche de las Velasihe Night of the Candles. We tied our team to a fence, and joined the gathering throng, which included, besides the Indians, many white visitors from the surrounding country, to whom any Indian " doings" are a recreation, like the circus, not to be missed. Just as the sun dis- appeared below the mountains, and shadow filled the valley, men, women and children passed through the gate into the cemetery and began setting candles upright in the earth about the graves, and lighting them; each being cared for by the surviving rela- tives of the departed. Everywhere in the rapidly falling dusk, stooping figures passed slowly about amid the graves and wooden crosses, making sure of the resting places they were in search of, and then bending to shield the candles' incipient flicker from the wind, waited till the flame was set. Here a mother teaches her little child to stand the lights about its father's grave; and next to them is the bent figure of an aged woman with many mounds to dress like the widow of Scripture, cast- ing in of her penury perhaps all the living that she had, for candles run into money when you have to buy them by the dozen ; and over here is old Joe, bareheaded and clad in a second-hand overcoat, fix- ing, with unsteady hand, four tallow tapers upon his dead wife's resting-place. The faces of all are grave; but we notice no assumption of sadness. 100 THE MOUNTAINS The Indian may hide his feelings; but he is not hypocrite enough to put on the semblance of grief to suit an occasion. Yet this is serious business and it is conducted seriously. About the center of the campo santo where a great cross stands, a con- siderable knot of people are gathered placing lights so thickly that the spot glows like a campfire. They are for those remembered dead who have been buried away from the old home. It is quite dark when all the graves are alight, and now grouped before the candles of the absent dead, kneeling figures chant a litany of the Church, strikingly solemn in the open air in the midst of the enveloping blackness of night ; and this finished, the air is suddenly filled with that most heartbreak- ing of human sounds, the quavering, sobbing death- wail of the elder Indian women, mourning for the lives that have entered within the veil. It lasts but a short time, and then slowly and quietly the crowd files out of the cemetery, leaving its dead in a world of lighted candles, to be as lamps to the feet of them who tread the dark trails of purgatory for this is the significance of the ceremony. As we drove out of the valley, we drew rein on the ridge and looked back. In the houses of the rancheria fresh fires were gleaming, and suppers were being eaten; the living were again taking up the joys of living, and, by and by, would be playing peon till morning. On the dark hillside, the while, the little campo santo bore its glowing testimony of 101 UNDEE THE SKY IN CALIFOENIA light like a seed of faith in a benighted world; and just outside its circle of brightness in a black hol- low, in ground unconsecrate, shone two tiny sparks the flames of candles set, we were told, upon the unsanctified grave of one who had murdered a United States constable and himself been murdered in return. The Church could not receive such, dy- ing unshriven and in crime, so he was laid without the pale; but, as each recurring year brings around La Noche de las Velas, two candles are lit for him, also. He needs the light, if any does, and his people do not forget. 102 SPRING DAYS IN A CARRIAGE I. PKELIMINAKIES IT is safe to say that ninety-nine out of every hun- dred visitors in California miss one of its pleas- antest possibilities, the little driving trip. When you ask one of the ninety-nine just returned from the Coast, "Did you take many carriage trips?" You get for an answer, "Why, no; you see the rail- roads and the electric cars take you into all the sights;" or "Of course not, we had our automobile shipped out and went everywhere in that." Yet to our mind, the trip par excellence is the carriage trip. Its leisureliness comports particularly with the spirit of this land of the afternoon, and it pos- sesses the practical advantage over motoring of per- mitting many an interesting short cut and detour from the best-roads districts, not feasible with com- fort in an automobile. In California, and particularly in Southern Cali- fornia, the traveler by unbeaten ways meets with a minimum of difficulties. The roads as a rule are good; the weather, after the rainy season is past, say in April or May, settles down to a succession of heavenly days as fresh and balmy and sparkling as those first-created days of time's dawn must have 103 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA been; accommodations for man and beast may readily be had at the end of each day's journey; and the country through which one travels is not only radiantly beautiful in its fresh green and wealth of wild blooms, but filled with much of his- toric interest. The prospect of such a trip extending over a period of about two weeks, appealed to us vigor- ously one April day, after reading "Kamona," and we decided unanimously to lay our itinerary through some of the country made famous by that romance. It was our first year in California and we knew little of its geography, but with the aid of the ac- curate maps of the United States Geological Survey we planned a route in advance that should find us every night in some settlement where there should be a roof to shelter us. Then, too, we set on foot dili- gent inquiries among our friends as to the available comforts and general characteristics of each place. The data thus secured we set down in orderly fashion in the note-book for reference as we trav- eled. The next step was to engage a strong, gentle horse tested in many drives during the previous winter and known to be fearless of electric cars and automobiles never start with a strange horse on a protracted trip and a stout top-buggy roomy enough to hold the needful baggage and supplies which will be referred to in detail in a subsequent chapter. We made our preparations to cook the noonday 104 SPRING DAYS IN A CARRIAGE meal under the sky by the roadside, stowing in the back part of the buggy-box the provisions for sev- eral meals, and the cooking utensils, packed sepa- rately in two chip baskets, so as to be conveniently lifted in and out. This plan was partly to insure one substantial meal each day amid the culinary uncertainties of a country which, it may as well be frankly said, has much to learn in the cook's art; and partly for the benefit of a good rest and noon- tide grazing for the horse. While such a procedure in the East would be apt to stamp the participants as gypsies, it is taken quite as a matter of course in California, where people whom one passes on highway or trail dressed in dusty khaki and driving their pack animals before them, are, as likely as not, personages whose next appearance may be in faultless evening dress at some social function. II. CAMULOS To be in harmony with the "Ramona" motif, it seemed fitting to start from Santa Barbara, from the serene shades of whose beautiful Mission Father Salvierderra was wont to set out on foot upon his periodical visits to the Senora Moreno's ranch. The highroad follows the sea to Carpinteria, thence through the lovely Casitas Passes to Ventura, an- other Mission town; then turning inland takes one, an easy day's travel, by the Camulos Rancho, well known as the place of which Mrs. Jackson made a 105 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA special study for the local color of the Moreno es- tate in her novel. The courteous Spanish family who owned and lived on the ranch when the novel- ist made her two-hour visit there, are still occu- pants and if approached with the consideration to which their station entitles them, are glad to show and explain points of interest about the place. Time was when in true Spanish fashion, hospitality was extended in a princely manner, and all visitors, whatever the number, were treated as guests; but the inability on the part of average American tour- ists to receive such attention in the spirit in which it was given, and their outrageous disregard of the family's rights and feelings, have led to a discon- tinuance of the freedom of the house to the unin- vited. The nearest public accommodation to Camulos is a plain but comfortable hostelry at Piru, two miles distant, which we made the terminus of our day's drive from Ventura. Next morning as we drove along the road that winds up the little valley of the Rio Santa Clara, whose waters flow through Cam- ulos, all the earth seemed one great jewel sparkling in the bright sunshine. The fragrance of a myriad flowers sweetened the dewy air, and the meadow larks and red-throated linnets raised their cheery carols from fence post and telegraph pole. Now and again we drove through thickets of wild mus- tard, higher than a man, as in Ramona's time, and covered with golden bloom. The great, swelling 106 SPRING DAYS IN A CARRIAGE lills, so characteristic of the coast region of South- ern California, treeless but verdure clad, lifted their rounded heads on both sides of our valley road ; and on the summit of one, outlined against the blue sky ahead of us, stood a slender wooden cross. We re- membered the Senora Moreno's reminders for heret- ical Americans and knew that Camulos must be near. Shortly the white walls of the rambling ranch house shone through a screen of trees, and hitching our horse without the gate, we walked across a bridge spanning a little stream where white ducks were swimming, and in another moment we were looking into the courtyard of Ramona's home. The sunlight lay warm and bright in the peaceful en- closure; there was a fragrance of roses in the still air, and far away somewhere beyond the house the harsh, insistent cry of a pea-fowl. Across the patio a door banged and a Japanese boy walked briskly along the far corridor and disappeared within the house. At the kitchen window near us a Mexican man-cook glanced indifferently at us. Evidently Old Marda was dead. The front of the house, as readers of "Ramona" will remember, is turned away from the highroad. It faces a shady garden and the cultivated lands of the rancho with its orange and almond groves, its vineyards and pomegranate hedges; and as we stood before the wide veranda speculating as to Ramona's window and the Father Salvierderra's, 107 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA there stepped from the house a bright-faced young girl, whose black hair, olive skin and vivacious eyes proclaimed her Spanish blood. Evidently it was she to whom we should speak. " Maybe you would like to see the chapel," she suggested. "Yes? Then the little girl will show it you. O Frasquita, ven aqui!" A little Mexican maid came running from within, bringing a jingling bunch of keys, and piloted us into the garden. "When you are through, " called the senorita, "maybe you would like to eat your lunch under the big walnut tree. It is cool there. " So we were let into the little rustic chapel within the garden's shade, and saw an altar cloth as white and fresh as though just from Ramona's hands. And Frasquita told us all the news about the chapel, how they had to keep it locked now, for the American visitors they would have carried everything away for what you call? keepsake, yes; and once they did Mother of God, the here- tics! steal a holy crucifix that had been the fam- ily's for a hundred two hundred yes, two hun- dred years maybe; and how they still hold services in the chapel once a month, and Father John comes up from Ventura, and there is mass, and everybody attends from the rancho, and sometimes some of the neighbors, too. yes, a gift for the chapel T Many, many thanks ; and adios, Senora ; adios, Senor. As we sat under the shade of the huge walnut tree 108 The south front of Ramona's home is bright with sunshine SPRING DAYS IN A CARRIAGE which is a special pride of Canmlos, at the end of the ranch house, the Senorita came by and smiled. " We work at the orange packing," she remarked, with an apologetic glance at her workaday attire, " maybe you would like to see? Over there in that building we are, where the teams are unloading the boxes. They have just come in from the trees, and I must hurry;" and off she ran. We followed at leisure, and entering the long barnlike building, had our first sight of an orange- packing. The golden balls were tumbled from the wagons into a great hopper, out of which they ran by gravity in a long single file down a narrow trough the bottom of which was perforated by holes of vari- ous sizes, permitting the oranges of the correspond- ing sizes to fall through into compartments beneath. Each compartment thus was fed with fruit all of the same size. A half dozen laughing girls, of whom the senorita was one, sat deftly wrapping the assorted oranges in thin paper and packing them in their boxes for shipment. The wrapping and pack- ing went forward as rapidly as the fruit dropped, and as each box was filled, it was lifted away by a man and nailed up, ready for transportation to the car that lay upon the siding a hundred rods away. The Senorita smiled brightly upon us and enjoyed our enjoyment in the novel sight. "Yes, I like the packing, too; it is pretty seeing the oranges roll along and drop each down into the box with the others of just their size. It is like life, 109 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA no? the great folks gathering together by them- selves and the humble little people by themselves, too. ' ' And she laughed merrily at her fancy. "But there isn't much money in the business for the poor orange raiser. There is the scale to fight always, and the pruning to do, and the help to pay for the picking, and the packing, and the freight to the railroads oh, the robbers that they are and after it all, if we have twenty-five cents a box left for ourselves we are lucky. That's just enough to keep us from getting far from home, and I should so like to travel. Oh, to see the world New Or- leans and New York and old Mexico would it not be beautiful! But we may as well be as happy as we can and it is a beautiful world right here, eh, Pedro, you rascal!" stroking a big black cat that rubbed up against her "for oh, we shall be a long time dead!" III. CAPISTKANO From Camulos, the Santa Susana Mountains crossed, it is a pleasant road through the olive or- chards, the barley-fields and the berry ranches of the San Fernando Valley, past the ruined Mission of San Fernando, homely of aspect in its present low estate but interesting to the Mission enthusi- ast; through Pasadena, and San Gabriel, through the walnut groves of Whittier to Santa Ana and thence to Capistrano, where we arrived on the even- ing of our fourth day out. 110 SPRING DAYS IN A CARRIAGE Fair in the evening light, the crumbling walls of the most poetic of all the Missions, "the Melrose of the West," outlined themselves against a back- ound of hills clothed in living green. The shad- s lay long in the old deserted garden with its hite oleanders and scarlet geraniums, where once e Padres walked in the cool of the day and medi- ted; and instead of the spiritual songs that as- nded a century ago from worshiping congrega- ons in the great church, the air was filled with e whir and twitter of hundreds of swallows flying and out of their mud nests built far up on the alls of the roofless ruin. Time has laid a kindly nd on the broken pillars and buttresses, mellow- ing the color of the plaster to soft pinks and yellows, d brightening the gaps with tiny gardens of wild loom, sown by the winds and the birds. In one of the rooms opening off the cloistered quadrangle we found a Mexican wood carver at work, patiently piecing together parts of broken, wooden saints for the chapel; brightening up their time-dimmed fea- tures, and gilding their halos anew. He was a so- ciable child of the sun, none too well pleased with the dim light of his thick-walled cell, and glad of ! some one to talk to. "Yes, senor cdballero," he observed, rolling the inevitable cigarette, "it's pleasant work enough, and it's good for the soul to be doing something for the Church; but it's dull business seeing nobody for days together." Then he shrugged his shoulders, 111 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA before adding, "Of course, some days too many come these American tourists pardon me, senor, but you are not their kind and then, santa Maria purisima! you must watch or they will carry off the last stone. Pieces of the wall, branches of ivy torn from the pillars,- tiles from the roof, brick from the cloister pavement everything would go, if we let it. Why, sefior, will you believe me, once they stole the gold crown from the Blessed Virgin's head at the altar ; but the heretics were caught and had to give it back. Hombre! Some people when they go sightseeing, have neither manners nor religion. " On every hand were subjects appealing to the ar- tistic sense, but the descending night made any sketching or photographing out of the question un- til morning. We would spend the whole of the next day, however, in the enchanting spot, and so, agog with enthusiasm, we sought our room and went early to bed. Sometime in the night, a sound awakened me, the patter of rain upon the roof. By morning there was a steady downpour without a rift in the leaden sky. We made some remarks to the chambermaid about having understood that it never rained in Southern California after the middle of April. She said she didn't know much about this climate, having been here only a few months she was from back East herself but she had heard the boss say he thought we were in for a three days' storm. We sighed. Accommodations were exceeding!; 112 SPEING DAYS IN A CAEEIAGE poor. Our room was cold, of course; no dyed-in- the-wool Southern Californian would think of sup- plying fire in your room it would be an insult to the climate. There were leaks in the ceiling. The public sitting-room, normally cheerless and dark, was made more so that morning by the concentrated gloom of an assemblance of three or four other storm-stayed travelers who had nothing to do but read back-number literature and grumble about the weather. Even the prospect of a good dinner was denied us, for never elsewhere, East or West, had we encountered the like of the bill-of-f are offered by that rustic hostelry with its fried onions, boiled cab- bage, rank butter, and bloody bones of bull steak served on cold, greasy plates upon a grimy table cloth. Alas for the sunshine of Camulos, the radi- ance of the San Fernando Valley, the happy gypsy meals by the flowery roadsides ; alas for our carriage trip was it to end like this? The day dragged wearily on. Sylvia, wrapped in a shawl and coat, attempted to work at a dejected sketch in our chamber; while I sat drearily writing up my notes in a corner of the public sitting-room where there was a shred of fire smoldering in a rusty grate. Matters were not helped any by the cheerful assurance of our hostess that a rain like this would cause all the rivers between there and in Diego, several of which were on our map to be mossed, to rise so as to be unfordable for at least week. 113 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFOKNIA "But it won't wash away the bridges/' said I anxiously. "Caramba!" she replied, startled into Spanish by such crass ignorance, "there are no bridges!" She would advise our staying where we were till the waters went down; or for, bless you, she did not want us to think she was seeking to profit by our misfortune we might ship the team home by freight and go back ourselves on the train. Only she felt it her duty to warn us about those rivers. It was a dreadful dilemma, either horn of which it was out of the question for us to consider; and after a glance at an equally impossible supper, we again sought our room. The Government map was spread out on the table, and gone minutely over with a view to discovering some road that went in- land whereby we might go around the dreadful riv- ers, but the mountain range that hedges in the coast country set a veto upon any such program. There was but the one road and we were on it. Under such circumstances the man of the party naturally felt the responsibility of procedure, and as I tossed the map into the satchel, I observed savagely: "It was folly anyhow to undertake a trip of this kind through a half-settled country. These outdoor trips are lotteries even in a civilized land, but here there's nothing to fall back on if you come to grief. The idea of there being no bridges ! In my opinion, there's not much to California anyhow except its climate and even that is not what it is cracked up 114 SPRING DAYS IN A CARRIAGE to be. If those idiots in Santa Barbara who sent us on this carriage trip, had only warned us of what we might expect, we'd have known better than to come." I saw a look of sympathetic comprehension come into Sylvia's face. To the eternal feminine the spring of the trouble was evident. "Here are the rubbers, put them on," she ob- served; "take the umbrella, and go down to the buggy. There are some things to eat in the right- hand basket ; please bring them all up here, and the tea-pot, too." In half an hour there was a spread upon the table worthy of a college impromptu. The alcohol lamp which goes with us on every trip, burned merrily; the tea-pot purred; the frizzled beef sent out an aroma of comfort; the bread was like mother's, for it was home-baked, supplied us by a discerning friend in Pasadena who had "roughed it" and knew ; and the butter was sweet it had been laid in fresh at Santa Ana, the day before. There was a crown- ing touch from somewhere of canned peaches. Our starving stomachs returned practical thanks in a quiet tide of serenity that took possession of our frames. What matter that the rains descended, and that overcoats and capes had to be donned in a fire- less room? A happy inspiration brought the hot- water bags to mind, and these were fished up from the baggage, filled, and one laid in each lap. So with this heat without, and the joyous radiance of 115 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA our normal life restored within, whence it shone out into the little room lighted by one smoky lamp, we looked forward to the developments of the mor- row with the proverbial serenity of one who has dined to-day. Recall if you can the cool, crisp mornings of your childhood's Octobers when the air sparkled like an elixir, and you know the sort of morning that greeted us when we opened our eyes to the sun next day. The tender blue of the California sky, the dazzling green hills, flower-bedecked here and there, the look of everything as if Nature had washed her face and hands and come out to play all these things called to us to be up and make an early start. "But hombre, the rivers V 9 said our anxious host- ess. Nothing, even risen rivers, we felt, could be very dreadful on such a day, but in order to be on the safe side, we engaged Cipriano Morales for two dollars to ride ahead of us on horseback and pilot us across the San Mateo ford, seventeen miles away, which would be the worst of all. If we could cross that, we could surely cross the others. So with Cipriano as an outrider, spurs jingling, som- brero flapping, and saddle strings streaming on the breeze, and Gypsy Johnson, our sorrel mare, tossing her blond mane in high spirits, we drove out of Capistrano in some style. The road, after following the line of surf for a while, turned inland and upward upon a great mesa 116 SPRING DAYS IN A CARRIAGE with a glorious view of emerald hills and sparkling sea; and at noon after the dangerous fords had been safely crossed and we made our midday camp amid wild flowers and nodding mustard in yellow bloom, and the bacon sizzled cheerfully in the pan, the delight of life overcame me and I launched forth enthusiastically : "This is one of the loveliest places on earth. I defy Italy to show anything equal to this superb view of green, rounding hills and blue ocean and bluer sky. Then the soft touch of this breeze, and the stimulus of this heavenly sunshine. This is something like! I wouldn't have missed it for the world." To each statement individually and to all collec- tively Sylvia gave joyous assent, checking them off with the fork that turned the bacon. Then with a merry twinkle in her eyes, she observed very softly : "If only those idiots in Santa Barbara who sent us on this carriage trip " IV. RANCHO SAN FULANO "I don't see why in the name of common sense," I can remember saying testily, "no Calif ornian can give you directions that can be followed. That fel- low at Capistrano said it was a straight road and we couldn't possibly get off it, and now look at lis!" All the sunny afternoon we had driven cheerfully 117 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA along a grassy highway that wound due south mile after mile across a great cattle-ranch, and was guar- anteed by the last white man we had seen, some fifteen miles back, to lead without fork or deviation to Oceanside, where we had designed to pass the night. It was now six in the evening, and on a lonely mesa bounded on one side by the distant sea and on the other by a line of bare, monotonous hills without sign of human habitation in any direction, we found ourselves at a dividing of the road, where a weather-worn guide-post stated dimly on one finger that San Diego was fifty-six miles distant, while the legend upon the other finger was illegible entirely. We anxiously scanned the country in every direc- tion for sight of some one who might direct us, but in vain. It was exactly the situation where the old- time writer of romance would have set "a solitary horseman" jogging along, but though we waited for a bad quarter of an hour for one to turn up, none appeared. The sun was rapidly descending to the horizon, and a decision could no longer be post- poned. The speculative possibilities of the un- known seemed preferable to the certainty of fifty-six miles to San Diego, and we turned our tired horse into the unmarked fork which led into the foothills. Our hope was that it might take us to some hamlet where we could secure a lodging for the night and where in the morning we might be started right for Oceanside. The road, after ascending gradually through the 118 SPEINO DAYS IN A CAKEIAGE chaparral for a mile or so, turned sharply around the base of a knoll where suddenly there opened be- fore our eyes a view which made us pinch each other to assure ourselves that we were not in a dream. At our feet stretched a long green valley glorified with the last warm rays of the setting sun, and down its length of emerald meadow-lands a little silver river flowed, with red cattle feeding on the banks or standing knee-deep in the quiet waters. And far away at the upper end of this secluded vale there gleamed in the sun a cluster of red roofs and white walls, like some castle of old romance, rising from the midst of tree-tops. A wonderful stillness was over all, and of humanity there was no sign. The scene seemed more a pictured page from an ancient tale than a bit of our noisy, practical America, and we half expected to see at any minute some "gentle knight pricking across the plain, " or a band of squire-attended damosels on dappled palfreys issu- ing from the castle gates. But at any rate, if the romance of our souls was not to be indulged, here was surely an opportunity to have our physical requirements for the night sup- plied; and so, shaking out the reins, we started Gypsy Johnson down the road that led into this val- ley of peace. That the red roofs were of some ham- let of the hills, we did not doubt ; yet it was a most foreign-looking village for the United States even for Southern California. As we descended to the floor of the valley, the red 119 UNDER THE SKY IN CAI VORNIA roofs and white walls became lost to sight; but a road led in their direction, and we took it. By and by we came to a gate closed across the road. "A most inhospitable village, " observed Sylvia. Opening the gate, we passed through, and shortly caught the gleam of white again through an envelop- ing olive orchard. The bright walls were now seen to be of one building, low and rambling, its roof of old-fashioned red tiles. There were vine-covered verandas and deep cool windows about which roses climbed, and a white-walled garden with pomegran- ates and olive trees and grape vines visible within. The fragrance of honeysuckle was in the air, and a mocking-bird hidden somewhere was singing its ves- per song. A short distance from the great house was a long adobe barn, also glistening white, and beyond it a row of laborers' cottages each with its bit of garden in front and rear. A Mexican stableman leading a horse gave us the first chance we had in twenty miles to ask questions, and we learned that our sup- posititious village was no village at all, but the Eancho San Fulano, over part of whose two hun- dred and fifty thousand acres we had been driving since noon. So the problem of the night's lodging was still un- solved, and our hearts sank. 4 'How far is it to Oceanside?" we inquired. The Mexican scratched his head. "Quien sabe? Long way." 120 SPEING DAYS IN A CAEEIAGE We looked at Gypsy Johnson, whose tired head hung low. Perhaps we could get a room at the ranch overnight, we suggested we had provisions enough to tide us over, if the horse could be cared for, too. The Mexican shrugged his shoulders. "Quien sabe," he observed, "you have to see Meester MacCleenchy up at the big house," and he nodded his head towards the red-tiled mansion. "Who is Mr. MacClinchyT' we asked. "Meester MacCleenchy, he own these ranch he own all what you see, ' ' with a comprehensive wave of his hand over Southern California "Meester MacCleenchy he ver-r-ry reech gentleman. " We then dimly remembered having once been told by somebody that the largest existing Spanish ranch in Southern California was now owned by an Ameri- can, who had bought it from the heirs of the original Spanish owner a crony of the last of the Mexican governors of California. Under ordinary circum- stances we should have jumped at the chance of see- ing so interesting a survival of the old days of Span- ish dominion in California, for it had been scrupu- lously kept up and the aristocratic Old- World look which it had from its Spanish architect, had been preserved in all essential particulars. To be forced, however, to knock at its gates as suppliants for a night's lodging was not exactly the ideal condition of visiting it, and we were a somewhat nervous couple as we drew up at the garden-wicket. 121 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA I made fast the horse to a post, and, leaving Syl- via arranging her hair and removing as well as she might the more evident stains of travel from her dress, I walked along the great front veranda, past the conventional big five-gallon Mexican olla of drinking water swathed in its damp burlap, and entered an open door. A long passageway led through the house to an inner quadrangle where trees cast their shade and flowers bloomed the regulation patio of Spanish architecture and there an olive-skinned lady with dark hair and a rose caught in it, directed me to a doorway across the courtyard where, she said, Mr. MacClinchy would be found. There he was found standing before the agreeable warmth of a wood-fire that crackled on a cavernous hearth the width. of the room's end a stocky gentle- man with a bald head, bushy brows, a bristling gray mustache, and a ruddy countenance terminating in a square jaw that betokened small liking for opposi- tion. He frowned fiercely as the situation was ex- plained, and as soon as he learned there was a woman in the case he cut the unfinished narrative short and roared: "Bring your lady in, sir!" Then striding ahead he led the way back to the carriage. " Madam, " he said with a bow, and a tone as gentle as Bottom's when that versatile character would simulate the sucking dove, "let me assist you 122 SPEING DAYS IN A CAEEIAGE to alight. My house is yours. Let your husband drive the team to the barn, the men will care for it. Come to the fire, you are cold, I am sure. And now tell me, how did you happen to lose your road?" And so we came to taste the proverbial hospitality of an old-time Spanish ranch, for though this latter- day host of San Fulano made no claim to Castilian blood, the tradition of Spanish-Californian large- handedness was thoroughly maintained in him. Strangers as we were, his son's room was vacated for us, and we were given seats at the great table in the dining-hall, where he presided like a mediaeval baron over a dozen or more guests for a house- party of young people was in progress at the time, the olive-skinned lady of the dark hair and the rose evidently being the chaperon. The eatables were provided on a scale that con- firmed the media&val atmosphere, being hearty rather than dainty, and bountiful to a fault. A huge plat- ter of ribs of beef newly from the grassy ranges which we had that afternoon traversed, a couple of side platters of stewed rabbit shot the day before by some Nimrod of the party, enormous dishes of white potatoes hot from the kitchen and smoking to the raftered ceiling, chicken-tamales and enchiladas out of compliment perhaps to the guests of Spanish blood, mounds of red frijoles, of course and to crown all, endless relays of steaming batter cakes. A sad-eyed Chinese "boy" in chintz blouse and pig- tail transported the dishes at lightning speed on the 123 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA palms of his upturned hands from the kitchen across the patio, and when not otherwise employed circled about the table with monumental pots of tea and coffee, serving meanwhile as an ever-ready target for vociferous denunciation from the master of the house, when the latter thought he detected any re- missness of service. Indeed to see that the bottom of his guest's plate never showed was this hospitable host's great delight, and especially toward the ladies were his attentions unrelaxing. A pretty Spanish girl who sat at his left, pausing in her meal, was dis- covered to be waiting for the molasses jug, from which one of the young men opposite to her, was helping himself. So unknightly an action as to keep a lady waiting was intolerable, and in an instant a roar sounded down the table. "Pass the lady the syrup! Are you all a pack of ruffians?" "And now, my dear," he remarked with fatherly tenderness, as he laid back the lid of the jug for her, "is there anything else I can help you to?" We would have left in the morning before break- fast, but it would not be permitted, and so the sun was well up in the heavens when our little mare, jaunty and fresh after her night's rest and good fare, was brought to the garden wicket by a stable- man. Our host was walking up and down the veranda puffing fiercely at a cigar, as we approached to bid him good-bye. It was an awkward moment, for we 124 SPEING DAYS IN A CAEEIAGE greatly desired to pay for the accommodation, and we stammered out something to that effect. "Pay !" he shouted; "pay? Not one cent, sir, not one cent; 77 and in the vigor of his feeling he tossed his half -smoked cigar quite across the garden. "But you will at least let us thank you " began Sylvia, when he gently interrupted her. "Madam," said he, "I pray you do not mention so small a matter. I wish you a pleasant journey." As we passed out the gates, we paused for a last look at the kindly old place. It was but one story, the conventional height of the Spanish-California ranch-house, and the adobe walls were of prison-like thickness pierced at rather distant intervals with small iron-grated windows, recalling the wild days of old when every ranch had to be a fortress as well as a home. The shadows of the trees trembled in cool patches across the white expanse of wall and a couple of pigeons were cooing on the ridge of the red-tiled roof. Through an open door we could see the olean- ders within the sunny patio, and outlined in the doorway stood our host of San Fulano, his face grimly smiling while one of the pretty Spanish girls fastened a red blossom in his buttonhole.* V. SAN Luis EEY, GUAJOME AND PALA From San Fulano, it was but a short drive into the pretty valley of the San Luis Eey river, where * The true names of this ranch and its host are not given by the recipients of the courtesies so graciously extended. 125 UNDEE THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA on a little sunny knoll in the midst of a fertile farm- ing country, stands another Mission associated with "Ramona," the Mission San Luis Key. This, in its heyday, was perhaps the largest and richest tem- porally speaking of all the Southern California religious establishments of the Franciscans, and it was here that Alessandro's father, as will be remem- bered, was master of the flocks and herds and leader of the choir. While much of the Mission building has fallen into decay, the main church-edifice, with an impressive fagade toned by time to mellow colors, still stands a worthy monument to the Christian zeal and architectural good taste of the founders. Religious services are regularly held here, and across the road is a Franciscan college for the education of priests. As we drove up, a christening- party of Mexicans was shyly entering the church- door which was held ajar by the smiling, brown- robed padre. Through the open portal the sun sent its cheerful beam into the black interior an obvious symbol of the inward brightness which, it was to be hoped, would lighten life's shadows for the little Christian. The Mission is rich in picturesqueness which will amply repay the artist, the photograph-taker or the dreamer, for many days' stay. The accommoda- tion for the visitor, however, is exceedingly meager, as there is no public house within four miles, and there remains only the possibility of securing a room at the storekeeper's or with some obliging 126 In its heyday San Luis Rey was one of the most important of the Missions SPEING DAYS IN A CABEIAGE Mexican. We tried the latter plan for one night, but we would recommend anyone not immune to fleas and to whom frijoles and chili-sauce have lost their charm, to lodge at Oceanside, four miles dis- tant though it be. A few miles from San Luis Eey, just back from the Pala road which we took after leaving the Mis- sion, is the old Spanish rancho of Guajome they pronounce it wdh-ho-may and it means "The Place of the Frogs " standing cool within the shadow of great cypresses. Here the creator of Eamona is said to have spent some weeks when she was beginning her novel, absorbing the atmosphere of Spanish-Calif or- nian home life which is so livingly reproduced in the work. Guajome is indeed the original home of Eamona and the geography of the novel in several particulars is intelligible only when we know this. Owing to some feeling which eventually rose between the novelist and the mistress of Guajome, portions of the story were recast to conform to the physical features of the Camulos estate. Like Camulos, Gua- jome being private property is "no thoroughfare" to unintroduced visitors, though to any traveler genuinely interested in the beauty of the historic place, the kindly host will doubtless extend as he did to us the proverbial hospitality of the Spanish- American landed proprietor. Built four-square about a central patio where flow- ers bloom and cluster around a quiet fountain, the adobe walls of the house three feet thick and the 127 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA roof red-tiled, Guajome is a typical Southern Cali- fornia country house of the ancient regime. Set be- side unfailing waters in the midst of fertile acres, it is a kingdom in itself ; and in the old days, after the fashion of a land without cities, it possessed re- sources for the entire support of the resident family and the numerous following of servants and depend- ents. Herds of cattle, horses and sheep pastured on the ranch's thousand hills; vineyards, olive- orchards, and wheat-lands rolled their tides of fruit- fulness up to the ranch-house walls. Among the retainers of the estate were artisans of many sorts carpenters, and blacksmiths, harness-makers and weavers; there were those under the Guajome roof who were skilled in the medicinal value of herbs; and for the cure of souls, a chapel stood by the en- trance to the main house, where the offices of the church were administered from time to time when some visitant father came. A thoroughly feudal community in the old days was Guajome, where the master required that every night the gates of the main court upon which the sleeping apartments of the family opened, be locked securely and the keys delivered to him by the majordomo. Any luckless servant found within the enclosure after that, was summarily flogged. All this and more our Spanish host told, as he strolled with us over the place, plucking for us here a sprig of rue and here a sweet lemon for souvenirs of the visit. Then true to the spirit of hospitality 128 SPRING DAYS IN A CARRIAGE which in the period of Spanish dominion in Califor- nia saw that no stranger departed not properly horsed and without small silver in his purse, he ac- companied us to our carriage, looked quietly over the harness to be sure that no flaw was in it, and as he handed in the lines, asked: "And now do you surely know your way?" On a hillside commanding a distant view of the ranch, where sumacs and elders make a shady bower, we pulled up by the road for luncheon, taking Gypsy Johnson from the shafts and turning her out to graze in a knee-high patch of juicy grass. Our canteen, the vade mecum of every California trav- eler, supplied us water, dry sticks that lay about were sufficient for a bit of camp-fire, and in half an hour we were in full enjoyment of chops and stewed tomatoes and a steaming pot of tea. An ill-man- nered blue jay took up his station on a neighboring rock, having an eye to some of our leavings, and now and then scolded us roundly for being so slow to move on. We tossed him a mutton-chop bone, which after watching suspiciously for a moment or two he cautiously approached, then backed off, drew near again, and finally dashed with boldness upon it and made off with it, no doubt thinking, like another Jack Homer, "What a brave boy am I!" "Breakfast in sight of San Luis Rey ; dinner over- looking the barley fields and olive yards of Gua- jome ; supper, I suppose, in the shadow of the Pala bell tower ; why go to Italy when there are sights like 129 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA this and such days as these within the borders of our ain countree?" exclaimed Sylvia rapturously, as she removed the teapot from the fire and set the tomatoes on to heat. I sat silent, gazing in placid contentment on the green hills which stretched away mile upon mile in soft undulations. Then I could not help saying: "Oh, it's all right for people to go to Italy, if they want to; the ones I find fault with are those who come out here and never get out of sight of a hotel from the time they register at the hotel in San Diego till they fee the last lackey at the one in San Francisco, and then lay claim to knowing something about California they haven't seen the real Cali- fornia at all.' ' So, pleasantly congratulating ourselves on being given the opportunity to see something of which the conventional tourist knows nothing and cares as little, we packed up and set out for Pala, that pictur- esque outpost of the Church, or sub-Mission, estab- lished nearly a century ago by the priests of San Luis Key for the gathering in of the Indians of the hill country. Should one desire to linger along this part of the road where the little river San Luis Rey bears the traveler company the whole twenty miles from Mis- sion San Luis Rey to Pala, there are plain but com- fortable accommodations to be had over night at a hamlet called Bonsall. As there were but six hours of daylight before us when we quenched our road- 130 SPRING DAYS IN A CARRIAGE side fire near Guajome, and Sylvia had ambitious designs to paint the little Mission in its evening color, we pushed on without stop, and just as the sun neared its setting we entered the lovely natural amphitheater where Pala lies. And there before us, as fair in its way as Giotto's campanile, shone the white bell tower designed so long ago by some for- gotten artist of the church. The old church build- ings, the corridors and the quadrangle have fallen badly into decay, but this bell tower with two bells a-swing from wooden beams in the belfry is in thor- ough preservation. From an artist's standpoint the bell tower is the whole of Pala, and Sylvia lost no time in getting out her paint-box and sketch- block and setting to work, while I went off upon a reconnaissance of the country with a view to the night's lodgings. When I returned after half an hour's absence, I suppose my voice betrayed some annoyance, for I felt it, as I told my troubles : "I thought we could get accommodations at the store those know-it-alls at Santa Barbara said we could ; but it seems they are going to transfer a new batch of Indians to this reservation from Warner's Ranch. There has been a lot of trouble with them about it, and the storekeeper has had orders from Washington to allow no strangers to remain on his premises under penalty of having his license re- voked. So he referred me to a Senora Somebody who lives just outside the Government Reservation, 131 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA and I went to see her, but as well as I could make out from her Spanish these Mexicans talk a vil- lainous jargon the priest from down below is due any evening on his parochial rounds, and if he should arrive to-night and find that room preempted, she thinks there would be a loss to her spiritual wel- fare, as he always puts up at her house. She passed me across the road to a Mexican family, and we can have a room there for six-bits. The woman of the house seems all right but the place is only a shack, and of course nobody knows how many fleas board there." Sylvia was looking at the bell tower through a frame of fingers. Was ever there such an inde- scribable, unpaintable, other-worldly color as that which glorified it in the mellow twilight? "It doesn't matter," she murmured absently, "nothing matters. I could sleep sitting up in the buggy, for the sake of dwelling one hour in the midst of such beauty as this. Besides, the color would be heavenly at sunrise.' 7 Northward by the "Pala grade," as the long, steep climb is called that leads up from the Pala valley to the mesa country around Temecula, Gypsy Johnson pulled us, and here the "Ramona" student needs to divide himself in many sections to see everything at once, for this place of tragic memory is a veritable "Ramona" center. At the village itself one may see the store that is called Hartsel's in the novel; 132 SPRING DAYS IN A CAEEIAGE some distance to the west is plainly seen the canon out of which Alessandro and Eamona climbed on the eventful night of their visit together to Temecula; and far away to the east, its snowy summit that spring day of pur visit floating like an island of dreamland upon the unstable vapors of earth, San Jacinto mountain showed San Jacinto, upon whose demon-haunted slope Alessandro met his cruel death. There are Indians there still Coahuil- las, Luisenos and what not and every year some excited traveler comes away from that country with a story of having seen the original Eamona, an an- cient crone of anywhere from a hundred upward; and to prove it, shows her photograph ; all of which gets into the paper to the misguidance of the public. As Eamona is the regular feminine form of Eamon, a frequent man's name in Spanish, no doubt there are Eamonas a-plenty among the California Indian women, but there is in fact no reason for believing that Mrs. Jackson 's heroine had other existence than in the fancy of the novelist. San Jacinto, with its Indian rancherias, its sum- mer camps, its shadowy forests, and its rugged peaks lifting the climber two miles above the level of the sea and affording superb outlooks to the east over the deserts of California and Arizona and to the westward across fertile valleys to the Pacific Ocean this is a trip to itself. Eeluctantly we left it far off to our right, as we drove along, now through barley ranches, now across green pasture- 133 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA lands dotted with thousands of browsing kine ; now over wide, treeless stretches, sandy and rock-strewn but carpeted in places with wild grasses, filaree, and myriads of wild flowers of such beauty and abun- dance as had had no existence for us previously except in dreams; and where we sometimes would find ourselves slowly threading our way through an enormous band of bleating sheep, their shepherd, canteen on back and staff in hand, following in their dusty wake, while an anxious-eyed dog with droop- ing tail kept watch and ward over stragglers. So by easy stages we jogged into Riverside, Red- lands and San Bernardino, and then straight west- ward through fifty miles of orange groves and vine- yards to our home city of Pasadena. The liveryman was airing himself at his door as we drove along, and we stopped to pass the time of day with him. His practical eye rapidly summed up the condition of the team, and he smiled affably. "You don't seem to have had any smashups," said he, "and you haven't spavined the mare, and you're both looking right brown and peart. I reckon you had a real good time in the country; now, hadn't you?" And we assured him we certainly had. VI. THE PEACTIOAL SIDE OF IT A chapter may be added as to the practical side of such a trip by carriage as has just been outlined. 134 SPRING DAYS IN A CARRIAGE We were gone fourteen days, and the expense items for two persons and one horse, were as fol- lows: Hire of one horse and top buggy $2 per day $28.00 Keep of horse, average 75 cents per day . . 10.50 Cost of lodging and meals at hotels and boarding places en route 31.00 Cost of provisions carried and purchased en route 11.00 $80.50 Making an average expense of $6.00 per day. It will be found advantageous to give the horse a full day's rest every four or five days, though if the daily travel is easy the Sunday rest will be all that is really needful. Twenty-five to thirty miles a day for a single horse on a fairly good country road is an average day's travel to reckon upon. There is nothing in the nature of the trip described that would debar two ladies from undertaking it alone, provided that one is reasonably familiar with horseflesh and has a good head for directions. It is well to have in the carriage a monkey-wrench, a hatchet, a hank of rope and a few yards of baling wire. "California," remarked one of our rustic friends,- "would have fallen to pieces long ago, if it had not been for baling wire. ' ' There will probably not be need for any of these, but if one requires them 135 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA at all, it will be when out of reach of human assist- ance, and then they will be needed badly. It is always best, when putting up the horse at a stable for the night, to stipulate with the livery man that he gives the animal a grain feed, also that he sees to the greasing of the axles. When one is on the wing and must cook each meal in a new place, it is of the utmost importance to have all supplies and utensils in complete order. We made two bags of turkey-red calico, material that is easily washed. In one of these were stowed two saucepans, two frying pans, the coffee pot and sev- eral tin lids : in the other, enameled-ware plates and cups, knives, forks and spoons in a cloth, a few tin plates and small dishes. All these things should be packed with layers of newspaper between, and the two bundles tightly tied can then go on the bottom of the wagon. In a chip basket, store such provisions as will carry you to the next stopping-place, salt and pepper in shakers, soap in a small tin box, and numerous small pieces of linen, muslin or cheese cloth for use as dish cloths and tea-towels, one or two of which may be used up at each stopping-place and left behind, since wet rags are unpleasant and unprofitable to transport. In the bottom of the wagon also stow two iron rings fitted to tripods, which you will find invaluable in cooking on a camp fire, particularly in desert country where logs or large stones are not available to rest your utensils upon over the flame. These 136 SPRING DAYS IN A CARRIAGE are sold at all first class campers' supply stores. When you stop for a roadside dinner, the follow- ing mode of procedure will economize time. As soon as the carriage is stopped, unload the cooking- utensil bags (described above) and start a fire, lay- ing a supply of wood for your hand, needful to keep the fire going. Do not make a big fire a small fire of glowing coal is what you need. Then while the needs of the horse or horses are being looked after, set the water on the fire to boil. Next prepare the potatoes and open what canned things you are going to use at the meal. Then as soon as the water is boiling, start first upon the fire whatever will con- sume the longest time to cook. While this is cook- ing, set out your dishes, cut the bread and make the coffee or tea, fry the bacon or whatever other dish is to be cooked; and by the time the horses have been attended to, dinner should be ready. Serve everything hot from the pans and at once set some water on the fire to boil while you eat, that there may be hot water for washing up immediately after dinner. Then when the horses are being hitched to the carriage, wash everything and repack the red bags ready for the next time. When camp is of a more protracted kind, as for several days, or even over one night, it pays to make one or more fire-places of stones. Three substantial stones, each with a fairly smooth top and one fairly perpendicular side are selected. Two are set paral- 137 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA lei to each other with the perpendicular sides inward, and just far enough apart to allow the cooking uten- sils to rest over the space, and the third is set at right angles across the back. The fire is built be- tween the stones. It is important that the space between the stones be arranged so that the coffee pot or other utensils rest steadily over the flame, or they are sure to tip over at some critical moment and not only spill their contents but put out the fire. If your stay is long enough to warrant it, and fuel is plentiful, you might as well have the luxury of two or three of these fire-places, so that several dishes may be cooked at once. Should you employ a driver on a carriage trip, your livery people will probably say that the man will board himself; but our experience has been that as the driver is more or less busied with the horses during the stops for meals, and therefore has little time to cook on his own behalf, it generally proves more expeditious to include him at meals with your- selves. Besides, in the democratic West it does not do to draw social distinctions too fine, and if your driver is a tolerably decent sort of fellow and you had better have no other kind it will contribute de- cidedly to the pleasant feeling to let him know at the outset that he is welcome to what is provided for all. Of course, if he has a liking for some special thing coffee, for instance, when none of the rest of the party drinks coffee it would be in order for him to prepare this for himself. 138 SPRING DAYS IN A CAREIAGE Moreover, in making up your budget of supplies, besides allowing for the driver it is well to provide some margin to take care of any chance visitors that may drop into your camp at meal times. In the hos- pitable, thinly settled stretches of rural California, where every door is open to the stranger, you will want to be equally open-handed to white or Indian, who may stop at your camp. No one would ever expect you to cook anything extra for him, but a share of whatever might be most convenient if only crackers and tea would, if cordially and heartily offered, be as cordially and heartily received. 139 THE FRANCISCAN MISSIONS I. AFOOT ON THE PADKES' PATHWAY IT is the fashion nowadays to call it by its old Span- ish name, El Camino Real the King's High- way and to travel it, if one travels it at all, by mo- tor-car, making the run from San Diego to Los An- geles between a late breakfast and an early tea ; then to Santa Barbara in another day, and on to Paso Robles the third; to Monterey the fourth, spending the night at Del Monte; and on the evening of the fifth, yon slip leisurely into San Francisco to a bath and a comfortable dinner. Or you may reverse the procedure. To one with a taste for the outdoors and the ro- mance that clings to Franciscan Missions, there is a great delight in this trip of six hundred miles over roads rich in sights more Old-Worldly than New, and never dull. To be sure, they are somewhat chequered in condition sometimes hub-deep in sand, again sticky with mud, oftener reasonably good, and not infrequently like park boulevards ; but each day of the five is novel in its scenery. To-day you are skirting a sunset sea ; to-morrow threading moun- tain canons ; now crossing huge ranches dotted with 140 be THE FRANCISCAN MISSIONS grazing cattle or given over to the raising of beans and sugar-beets by the thousand acres, where Hin- dus and Japanese, in picturesque toggery, labor in the sun. Here you skim over breezy mesa-lands un- der a sky like Italy's, with no evidence of humanity in sight ; and then you descend into agricultural val- leys where the presence of the olive, the pomegran- ate, the fig, the prune and the orange, and the adobe abodes of swart Mexicans, deepen the illusion that this is not the United States, but a foreign land. Personally I prefer walking, the way of the heroic old Franciscans themselves, who, gowned and girdled and with umbrella on shoulder, were accus- tomed to foot it when they stirred abroad. But since the shortness of life prevents most of us who are not professional pedestrians from often under- taking six-hundred-mile jaunts on foot, I find it ex- pedient to do my Mission pilgriming in sections, cov- ering by train such parts of the intermediate stretches as suit my convenience. So is needless fatigue saved and the sentiment kept of pilgrimage to the hallowed places of earth in becoming humil- ity. In point of fact, the precise trails the Padres fol- lowed from Mission to Mission are now largely a matter of conjecture. The elements and the chang- ing requirements of the times have obliterated them so that even tradition is wanting as to many of them. 141 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA Nevertheless, the road of to-day that joins all the missions, like beads on a string, is near enough the original to preserve the atmosphere of the adven- ture, even if the finical student of things as they ex- actly were, mourns its divagations. Of all such foot excursions I like most, I think, the memory of the one to the ruined Mission San An- tonio de Padua, in Monterey county. If one drops off the train at the dreary little town of Soledad, and crosses the Salinas River by a crazy bit of foot-bridge that is in evidence when the water is low, one may walk in the very foot-steps of Serra and Portola (California's first governor) past the crumbling mud walls of the Mission Nuestra Senora de la Sole- dad Our Lady of Solitude up the Arroyo Seco Canon through Reliz Pass into the seclusion of the lonely Canada de los Robles where is what remains of the San Antonio Mission. In silent dignity by its little river it stands in a solitude almost as profound as on that summer day of 1771 when, as the old chronicle tells us, Padre Junipero Serra and his com- panions arrived there from Monterey, and swinging their church bells from the branch of an oak, Serra satisfied the longing of his apostolic heart by ringing them furiously and crying at the top of his voice for all the Indian gentiles to hear who might, "Come, come, come to Holy Church: come to receive the faith of Jesus Christ I" That, however, is more than one day's walk for most legs and through a mountainous region so 142 THE FRANCISCAN MISSIONS sparsely settled that the attempt might necessitate a night under the stars. So, sending my grip ahead by stage, I set out from King City by the broad high- way which many of the motorists follow, into the foothills of the Sierra Santa Lucia, up the Jimlo grade with its magnificent outlooks, and down into the oak glades of the San Antonio river basin, twenty pleasant miles to Jolon they pronounce it Ho-lone' where is the nearest public house to the Mission. Thus faring, towards evening, I fell in with Frater Vagabundus. Of course, that was not his name. He volunteered none and I did not ask. It is not eti- quette to inquire names in the rural West, where men have been known to work side by side very con- tentedly for a year or two, knowing one another only as "Slim" or "Shorty." Frater Vagabundus was a stocky man of middle age and imperturbable coun- tenance, with a stubby red beard and a pipe in his mouth. He was decently enough dressed, as a work- ing-man might be, and swung over his left shoulder by a broad strap was a roll of blankets. In one hand he carried a covered lard-kettle that tinkled with a sound as of tin utensils within. He was a type of pedestrian one often encounters on California high- ways. They may be seen plodding from one end of the State to the other, their bed-rolls upon their backs, ostensibly in quest of work, but probably im- pelled mostly by the rover's taste for fresh air and a change of scene. Yet they seem a grade above the 143 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA professional hobo of comic literature and the police court. As we were bound in the same direction, we dropped into step and chatted a bit together. He was not averse to speech, but his words came slowly and rustily, as if little used. 11 Lots of mechanics on the road now," he ob- served; " people are not hiring much." "And you," said I, "what is your trade?" "Oh, I'm just a common laborer," he replied with unexpected humility, "but I pick up a job now and then. Even if it doesn't pay any money, there's a meal of wittles in it, and that's worth while. Some of the boys are always watching to beat their way on the cars ; but, says I, what good does that do 'em? They can't get no work that way. Once a rancher hired me all winter to do chores for grub and lodg- ing he couldn't afford to pay out money and the boys said I was a fool. But I guess not. I had rum- atism in my legs and couldn't walk good, and the rest done me good. I've been up in Alameda County, and it got bum there, and I think mebbe times is better in the south, so me and another fel- low we're headin' for Los Angeles. I'm looking for him now" glancing down the road back of him "he's back there a piece. We know a wacant house, not far from here, where we can sleep." "Oh, it don't cost much to live on the road," he went on, "I always carry a loaf of bread and some coffee, and I've rice enough now to last a week. Then at the railroad warehouses they'll almost al- 144 THE FEANCISCAN MISSIONS ways give you a handful of beans, and I'm here to tell you beans stays by you. In the morning I have coffee and bread, and I don't need nothin' more till along about five o'clock and then I make up a fire and have rice, and when it's dark I roll up in my blankets and sleep till morning. Sometimes there's several of us camps together, and company's cheer- ful." Here a little trail struck off from the road, and my companion stepped into it. "Well, I'm leavin' you here," he said, "solong and be good." I had gone but a few rods on my way, ruminating upon the new glimpse into life my vagabond friend had opened up to me, when I heard a scuffling noise at my feet, and there, caught by one long ear in the savage barbs of a wire fence, cowered a trembling jack-rabbit. He had beaten a pathetic little pathway on the ground in his frantic efforts to get free, and his bleeding ear was half torn through, but enough remained to hold him. Frater Vagabundus was still in sight, and I called to him to come. "Here's your supper," I said. He caught up a billet from the ground, and with a blow, released poor Jack from his misery. "You bet that'll make a fine stew," he chuckled, his eyes a-sparkle, as he held the rabbit up by its hind-legs. "I like to take photographs as I travel," I ven- tured; "would you mind if I take yours?" 145 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA He gave a scared glance at the camera and quickly averted his face. "No, no," he stammered, backing away, "I I'm not dressed good enough." So did I learn that Frater Vagabundus had a past, and I was sorry. Jolon is a quaint mountain hamlet, old as things go in our West, and of a look unusual in California's villages a look of finished snugness, almost Eng- lish, beneath venerable oaks. There are a couple of roadside taverns with roomy verandas and balconies, a store or two, a grimy blacksmith shop beside a spreading tree, and in winter a generous bit of green. Of the two inns, Button's picturesquely festooned with a huge grape-vine that dates back to the Padres' day, would probably get the asterisk of commendation in Baedeker, if either would, though at "four bits for beds and four bits for meals," which is the Dutton tariff, one is not to be too fas- tidious. Button's is, however, the real thing in old- fashioned rural inns, and, after a comfortable coun- try supper, it is pleasant to sit in an arm-chair by the huge fireplace in the bar and toast your toes, read the San Francisco morning paper and listen to the talk of the local publicans and sinners. Having attained a certain age, Jolon has lost the crudity of the typical Wild West border village ; and if you are looking for a Bret Harte setting, you will not find it there, but rather something more like the atmos- phere of "The Rainbow" in George Eliot's tale or 146 THE FKANCISCAN MISSIONS the "Six Jolly Fellowship Porters" of Dickens. There is, to be sure, the miner, inseparable from the California mountains, but he of Jolon is a quiet, be- nevolent-looking mountain of a man, tipping the scales at 320 pounds, they say, in a shirt neither red nor flannel, and who plays cribbage every night with the barber, pegging the score with three-penny nails. As for gambling, when there is any, it is nothing more reckless than " pitch pedro" for nickels, in which the jovial landlord, six feet two in his stock- ings and Falstaffian of paunch, likes to take a hand, and loses four bits or so with an equanimity that enhances his popularity with his partners in the game Frank who clerks in the store and Black Bill, the hostler, for Jolon is democratic. A sprinkling of Spanish "fellows" from the mountain ranches, a Socialistic blacksmith with radical views on taxation, and a chance traveler or two, like myself, complete the company, who, after swapping the neighborhood news, discussing the prospects of the fishing season and settling the affairs of the nation at large, dis- perse soberly at nine o'clock, and fifteen minutes later, Jolon lies slumbering. Lamps were still burning in Jolon kitchens when, next morning in the nipping dawn, I set forth by the westward road that leads through the Milpi- tas Eancho to the Mission. It is a country of wild pasture-lands and of scattered oaks. The leafless branches that winter morning were draped in gray, hanging lichens and clotted with witches' brooms of 147 i THE FEANCISCAN MISSIONS building, strengthening the walls and putting on a shingle roof, they had accomplished little when the money ran out. Once a year, on June thirteenth, Saint Anthony's day, a priest comes to hold re- ligious service in the church, and people gather from miles around to attend and make it a fiesta day. At other times, the edifice appears to be reduced to a sanctuary for stray tramps and birds. In the empty sockets high under the roof, where dead-and-gone beams once rested, mud swallows build their nests, and as I walked the deserted nave, two owls of the species Calif ornians graphically call " monkey- faced " flew up from the high rafters over the altar where they had been dreaming out the day, and flapped blindly about. The hand of irreverence has indeed been laid hard on San Antonio. Empty whiskey bottles were scattered that day about the floor, amid the slovenly remains of a tramp's camp who had lately helped himself to free lodging there ; and the plastered walls, as high as the arm of man could reach, were literally covered with the scratched and scribbled names of visitors. More cheerful is what remains of the Padres' garden into which one steps from a side-door of the sacristy. Here, shut out from the world, in the blessed sunshine, with a bee or two for company, I sat on a bit of green turf under an ancient budding pear tree and ate my luncheon garnished with cress from the little brook that flowed back of the Mission into the San Antonio 149 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA river. A few rose bushes, some tamarisks and a blossoming currant or two, still maintained a strug- gling existence there, though the hands that planted and tended them were long since dust. From the ranch-house on the hill a mellow-voiced bell sounded, bidding to their midday meal some half-breed laborers who were ploughing in the fertile land below the old campo santo by the river labor- ers whose ancestors had bowed their heads on other noons at the call of the angelus bell from the Mission belfry. As its tones died away, I looked up and saw a horseman beyond the broken wall. He was an elderly man, lantern- jawed, dark of visage and spare of frame. Dismounting stiffly, he threw the reins over his horse's head, and leaving the animal to graze, he approached and saluted me with the gravity of demeanor that characterizes the well-born Spaniard. For Spanish he proved to be, as he in- formed me by and by, with some pride a grandson of one of Portola's corporals. His grandfather, when he left the service, had been given a hundred gentle cows, a hundred dollars and a grant of land which had remained in the family until the coming of the Americans, who, by processes peculiar to the time, managed to oust the corporal's descendants and got for themselves from Washington a title to his King-given acres. 11 Melancholy business, this," said my visitor, slowly inhaling the smoke of his cigarette and look- ing through half -closed eyes at the ruined buildings. 150 THE FEANCISCAN MISSIONS "Fifty-three years ago, when I came to this region, although that was twenty-five years after the con- fiscation of the Missions nnder the Mexican Secular- ization Act, there was still abundant life here. The church and the buildings around this quadrangle were then in very good repair, and families lived in them. There was a Spanish curate in residence and he loved the Mission and the old ways. I knew him well he died in 1881. He was a real father to the people very different from the Irish priests who followed, and who cared nothing for the old order and let everything go to rack in a few years. And yet, for all the devastation of the American and Mexican vandals, who have robbed the place of everything movable, as rats riddle a cheese, nothing would be easier, if I only had the money some of yon Americans have to burn, than to restore the main buildings here and show the world to-day how a typical Mission really looked a century ago ; for the foundations of the principal features are still plain the church, the Indians' houses, the shops, the sleeping quarters, the irrigation works, the burying ground, the Fathers' garden here. You are inter- ested in such things, sir? I will show you the plan of the original Mission." And the old man, his eyes sparkling and his face alight, drew eagerly with a stick upon the ground this rough outline, and pointed out the features as I have marked them. 151 (UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA Monje"o or lived.. 52 P> -d Interior Corridors eror Corrdo Ccmv en to Front Corridor Indian * Quarters Sexcristy rv Ui ndian^' Quarters Plan of Mission San Antonio as it originally stood. It represents the general plan of the Franciscan structures in California. "Ah, the old days of Church and King," he went on, rolling a fresh cigarette; "that was a life worth while. Now we live in a fever and all the country is under the goad of the Anglo-Saxon whip; and pardon me sir, everything the Anglo-Saxon touches he vulgarizes. But then it was different. The Church hunted souls, not dollars. The Indians were 152 THE FEANCISCAN MISSIONS made fit for heaven and were taught to lead lives of usefulness here; the genie de razon the white people if they had little money, had abundance of the material comforts of life, a full larder and horses and cattle unnumbered, and they were rich, sir, in time, good manners and reverence for Church and authority. There were no lawyers in the country, and a man's word was security enough. In those days the Missions were the only inns, and the bill was nothing. A man traveling on horseback could reach a Mission every night. He would be insulting the Father if he did not stop, and he was welcome to stay as long as he liked, with a good room to himself and a seat in the place of honor at table. On leaving, he could have a fresh horse if he liked and a guide to the next Mission. "And now I want to say about the Indians. Can you imagine what it was for two or three priests and a handful of soldiers to stop at a spot like this in a pure wilderness not a civilized soul within fifty or a hundred miles and start a Mission such as this was? When the books tell you that this establish- ment, for instance, dates from 1771, which was the time of its foundation, you must not think that the walls you now see were erected in that year. It was many years before such buildings could be erected ; for, after setting up a wooden cross and stringing the church bells on a framework by a temporary brush- chapel, and invoking the blessing of God, the first step was to make workmen out of untrained savages, 153 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA That, sir, takes time, and more time, patience and the help of God. Brick and tiles had to be made on the spot from the earth about them; suitable trees for timbers had to be cut out in the mountains and in some cases that meant transportation on the backs of Indians over trails where none was before; lime had to be made from shells gathered far away on the sea- shore. The construction from this raw material of these edifices, which even in their decay awaken ad- miration for their beauty, went on at the same time with the spiritual instruction of the Indians; and when finished, each establishment was both a Chris- tian temple, and a beehive of temporal industry. Under the direction of the Fathers, the Indian neo- phytes were taught blacksmithing and carpentry, brick-making and stone-cutting, tailoring, shoemak- ing and saddlery; they were shown how to prepare the ground and raise crops ; to dress olive-yards and vineyards; to herd sheep and cattle; to be millers and butchers and bakers in short, to cover at each Mission the whole round of activities needful to sup- port a community modeled on lines of European civi- lization. In the case of Indians who manifested artistic sense, care was taken to develop it and turn it to use in the adornment of the church walls, in the manufacture of metal vessels for the altar, in wood and stone-carving, in lace-making, and in leather work. You have doubtless seen in the active Missions of to-day relics of this art-work, as inter- esting in its way as the architecture. Music was 154 THE FEANCISCAN MISSIONS also assiduously taught, and the making of some kinds of musical instruments. "The life under the Padres was, of course, com- munistic and strictly regulated. At daybreak, I have heard the old curate say, everyone was astir and had to attend early mass; then came a frugal breakfast of atole, a soup of corn or ground roast barley, a big dipperf ul to each person ; then the men went to work in the shops, fields or orchards, the girls, in charge of a duenna, to their sewing, weav- ing or grinding and the young children to school within the Mission. At noon, the angelus sounded and everybody came to a dinner of pozole, a kind of porridge in which meat and beans or peas were prin- cipal ingredients. Two hours were allowed for din- ner and rest; and then to work again for two or three hours. At five o 'clock all were rung to church again for an hour 9 s religious teaching, instruction in Spanish and hymn-singing. Then came supper of atole and the evening was given over to recreation dancing, music and games in this patio or in the kitchen. All the food was supplied from the Mis- sion's community stock; the unmarried received theirs already cooked, but the married ones got only the raw material which they had to cook themselves. When a young man wanted to marry, he told the head of his guild all the laborers were classed in guilds, according to their trade and that man told the Mission alcalde or judge; then the alcalde in- formed the Padre, who would call the young couple 155 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA before him and talk the matter over, and if it seemed a right match, he would marry them. After the marriage, they were given an apartment and regular rations of uncooked victuals. And that was Mission life. "Oh, of course, there was rebellion sometimes," the old man continued as he rose to go, "that's hu- man nature; even white people will quarrel with their bread and butter; but generally the spanking of the ringleader laid across the Padre's knee, or the locking up of a few of the malcontents in the stocks till they cooled off, was all that was needed to restore order. Ah, well, it's all one now. Of all the Indi- ans that this San Antonio Mission brought into the bosom of the Church and at one time, there were more than a thousand neophytes on its rolls all are gone except a solitary family who are tolerated to live a few miles from here on the lands of this ranch. After the secularization, the Indians were like a sheep without a shepherd or a fold. Gringo whisky and white men's diseases carried them off like flies. The Americans regarded them merely as thieves and vagrants, with no more rights than wild animals, and shot them as they shot coyotes if they insisted on being in the way. Spain, sir, never deprived a Mission Indian of land to live on it was reserved to this great republic, founded on the common freedom and equality of all men, to deny him ground to stand on. And so ends the story. I hope my garrulity has not tired you, but I have seen much, and read 156 In the Campo Santo of Santa Barbara Mission THE FRANCISCAN MISSIONS much, and my tongue cannot always be silent. Adios, sir." And yet, as one travels the Padres' pathway to- day, one is made aware that theirs is not all an ended story. If Indians are not, there are in the land un~ regenerate white folk a-plenty, and many a Mission bell still calls in the service of the Cross. The Mis- sions that are still in use are mostly in charge of the secular clergy, but at two, at least, San Luis Key and Santa Barbara, the brethren of the Franciscan Order in their brown gowns and white rope-girdles, maintain their old community life in a restricted way. The Mission at Santa Barbara is, of all the chain, perhaps the best known to the tourist, and in a way it is of all to-day the most heartening, because of its well-groomed appearance and the active, cheerful life that is going on under its roof and in its fields and gardens, where the bareheaded brothers in the conventional garb of their order come and go con- tinually. A college for the education of novitiates is maintained close by, which in part accounts for the air of active routine that prevails. Santa Bar- bara was the last of the Missions in which Serra was personally concerned, and a pathetic interest at- taches to it because of the heartbreaking delays in starting the building after he had selected the site delays due to the antagonism of the Territorial Gov- ernor Neve, who was determined, if he could, to break up the Mission. And so Serra, in disappoint- 157 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA ment, died without seeing the first stone laid. Two years later, in 1786, building was at last begun. A beautiful adjunct of this Mission is the Padres' gar- den with its variety of plants, its pleasant shaded walks, and its quiet seclusion promoting meditation. To the woman visitor this enclosure is a tantalizing matter, if she catches a glimpse of it through an open door, for into it only men are admitted. "It seems," to quote the words of an urbane Padre, "that since our Mother Eve through her fatal curi- osity brought upon her daughters the curse of ex- pulsion from Eden, the Franciscan Order does not subject any other woman to a similar temptation." The ancient cemetery, however, which occupies a quiet corner of the Mission grounds within high, time-stained walls, is garden enough to satisfy any reasonable taste a lovely, peaceful campo santo where palm and cypress cast cool shadows and flow- ers bloom by every path. Then there is San Gabriel, the first Mission the tourist sees if he comes to California by the Los Angeles gateway. "These Mission was found in 1771 by the Fran- ciscan Fathers. The picture at the left of these altar is Saint Joseph, these other is Saint Gabriel Archangel ; these picture here- is the Blessed Virgin, very old by Spanish master. These wall was built by Indians; here is the baptis' font which eight thousand Indians were baptise', and are buried all around the chorch." 158 THE FRANCISCAN MISSIONS It is the voice of gentle Father Bot, late Padre of San Gabriel but now gathered to his everlasting rest. Through an open window float the ecstatic notes of the meadow-lark and the fragrance of or- ange blossoms. Although it is March, the air is soft and still, and a pair of dark-faced Latins of whom we catch a glimpse through the window, have found the sun very hot and are refreshing themselves by rolling a cigarette apiece in the checkered shadow of a fig tree just bursting into leaf. No, it is not Italy, nor Andalusia ; but one of the newest, richest and most progressive of the United States. Clus- tered about the Mission is perhaps the quaintest old- time Mexican village now to be found in California, with picturesque adobe houses shaded by old trees and smothered often in clambering roses, with gay little gardens gathered about them. "Yes," observed mine hostess of "The Grape- vine" with complacency, "it's a pretty spot. I think if the Lord left any place on earth for Him- self to return to, it would be San Gabriel." Five or six years ago the electric railway com- pany which has gridironed with its tracks all the country around Los Angeles, put in a branch to San Gabriel, and that remains the principal evidence of American enterprise in the sleepy little place to-day. Nothing can be more incongruous than the big, red, noisy trolley cars, clanging and banging every half- hour down the narrow little main street, and dis- charging their loads of curious American sightseers 159 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA by the old Padres' garden gate ; and if you are sensi- tive about such matters, you will do well to let the car go hang, and walk to the village a mile or so by the quiet country-road lined with eucalyptus, that leads down to San Gabriel from El Molino Station on the Los Angeles-Monrovia line. Only so, or by carriage, may one, entering the village, enter also into the Old World atmosphere which is its great charm. There is a quaint adobe fonda there, with eye-like windows in a squat roof and a patio hidden from the sky by an immense, spreading grapevine. It is not listed among the tourist hotels of the Land of Sunshine, but the unconventional traveler with a taste for life that smacks of the soil, will find it an interesting experience to take a room there for a day or two, and mix with the people. Eeal tamales, frijoles and chili con carne are to be had not the canned products of a Chicago packing-house; and, if you are not a teetotaler, there are wines, sweet and dry, from San Gabriel vineyards. Of an after- noon, games of hand-ball are to be watched in open- air courts, the score shouted in Spanish ; and in the dusky evening the strumming of guitars offsets the unromantic clamor of the trolley gong. Then there is the daily possibility of a Mexican christening party or a wedding within the Mission walls; and always thrice a day the angelus sounds from the bel- fry its solemn call to prayer. For the Mission San Gabriel, while a professional show-place under the 160 THE FEANCISCAN MISSIONS care now of an order of Spanish priests, who have an eye to income and charge you "two bits" apiece to show the interior of the building, is an active in- strumentality of the Church; and though shorn of the temporal wealth which in common with all the California Missions it possessed until three-quarters of a century ago, it is still a center of religious life having a spiritual care over a populous parish where English is as a foreign language.* II. IN THE SANTA BAEBABA BACK-COUNTRY "I've lived in California only seven years," said I, "and I'm still a bit tender in places; so tell me what is a skinner?" "Why, a skinner," replied the Calif ornian in the red bandanna neckerchief he had but one eye and it was full of surprise at my ignorance "a skinner is a man that skins a team. Gosh, I supposed anybody knowed that. ' ' "You mean," I ventured, "a teamster, as some people say?" "Sure," he nodded; "and they'll always give a foot man a lift; so I guess you'll have no trouble *The story of the Missions has been cast in dramatic form by a Los Angeles literary man, Mr. John S. McGroarty, and under the title "The Mission Play" was staged at San Gabriel in 1912 in a little theater especially built for it beneath the eucalyptus across the street from the Mission. It is purposed to make the play a permanent feature of San Gabriel, and to produce it annually during the winter tourist season. 161 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA hoofing it in the country back there. But if it was me that was going, I'd hire me a pony and be inde- pendent. ' ' That anybody should undertake a jaunt of a hun- dred and fifty miles or so on foot for the pleasure of walking was unthinkable by the conventional West- ern mind ; but I was already familiar with the strong points of tripping afoot, and the lure of that splen- did chain of mountains back of Santa Barbara, with their fame of sparkling trout-streams and deer- haunted trails through fragrant chaparral and primeval woodlands, their patriarchal ranchos with Spanish names and their sequestered valleys where living rivers run, was strong within me. To motor there seemed out of key with such a land, though thousands do it ; and, besides, motoring is expensive. To take a team meant responsibility and risk; for, with the possibility of meeting a flying automobile at any time on the narrow ledges that do service as roads in our Western mountains, the joy of driving in such regions is nowadays far from an unmixed one. No, for me "the footpath way," with kodak over my shoulder, a pocketful of dried figs, and free- dom from care. Yet that hint about the pony stuck pleasantly in my thought. Why not try both ways? I would. If you look at a map, you will notice that the north- ern boundary of what is called Southern California is a three-hundred-mile line of lofty mountains stretch- ing west from the Mojave desert to the Pacific Ocean 162 THE FEANCISCAN MISSIONS at Point Conception. This long-drawn huddle of mountains is bisected some forty miles northwest of Los Angeles by the San Francisquito Canon, and from this point a hundred miles westward is a maze of mountain country which forms to Santa Barbara a hinterland of great beauty and interest. Thanks to the State's lively interest in good roads, supple- mented by the United States Forestry Service, which is interlacing the forest reserves with a system of splendid trails, the region is exceptionally accessible to travelers, and the automobile horn is now a com- monplace in mountain solitudes that, less than a de- cade ago, knew no more civilized sound than the whistle of quail or the bark of the coyote. Public camps and good roadside hostelries provide abund- antly for the entertainment of visitors, and while the distance between is sometimes a matter of a day's jaunt for the pedestrian, one can always count upon a roof and a hot meal each night. The prevailing style of inn is on the cottage plan ; that is, close to a main building a number of small cottages are clustered. In some cases there is one room only, though oftener these cottages contain several. Here guests are lodged, meals being served in a general dining-room in the central building. The automobile patronage has become so sure a fac- tor in the business of the roadside boniface that good service can now be maintained where formerly, in as wild a country as this, only the simplest provision could be risked for the chance traveler's comfort. 163 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA As a matter of fact, no better accommodation is given, even in well-groomed England with its famous rural inns, than I have enjoyed in this Santa Bar- bara back-country. It was a May afternoon when I made acquaintance with my first among these pleasant hostelries, which was set in a snug little spot at a canon's mouth. The air, as I walked up the roadway to the house, was sweet with the perfume of lemon blossoms from an adjacent grove where mocking-birds were sing- ing. The main building was shaded by enormous live-oaks, and its outlying cottages were embowered in roses, red and white and golden. A motor-car stood under a wide-spreading oak before the steps ; two ladies in riding-habits were preparing to mount their horses for an hour's canter before dinner; an old gentleman in an easy chair was dozing over his paper. Off in a garden nearby I could see a maid gathering lettuce. Everything about the place be- spoke "homeyness" and comfort. The room to which I was shown was a fair counterpart of many that I have occupied in England, with prettily cur- tained windows, snowy sheets and pillows, and a fire all laid for the lighting, should I need it. And a few steps off in a room at the end of the veranda was a porcelain-lined bathtub. The charge for lodging and for two delicious meals, deftly served by a dark- haired, ruddy-cheeked granddaughter of Spain, was two dollars. Ever after as I walked, the memory of that pleasant cottage-inn served to preserve a Chris- 164 THE FRANCISCAN MISSIONS tian spirit within me when some bouncing, speeding car honk-honked me into the ditch and smothered me in dust, as not infrequently happened. "Were it not for this motoring gentry," I would say to my- self, "such inns could not afford to be, and some mil- lennial day, mayhap, our lords of the road will learn consideration for the farer afoot who knows f " The particular gem of the Santa Barbara back- country is the Ojai Valley. The road to it is of fa- mous beauty, following the sea to Carpinteria ; then crossing a mountain pass of exquisite charm to the Ventura Eiver, and beyond threading a winding course for miles, dappled with shadows cast by over- arching boughs, through unbroken woodlands by the side of a musical mountain stream, which, if you are of a leisurely turn, you may whip for trout as you go, and catch some. The valley itself is a rare spot of quiet loveliness of small area, encompassed with protecting mountains whose chaparral-covered slopes are green winter and summer. The Ojaians tell you that the queer name of their home (you are to pronounce it 0-high) is Indian for nest, and a nest it looks, lapped in the great mountains. Magnifi- cent oak trees everywhere dot the valley floor, and the one village Nordhoff, named in honor of Cali- fornia's pioneer eulogist is hidden quite by these primeval trees, from many of which swing streamers of gray lichen, reminding one of the moss-draped live-oaks of the Southern Atlantic seaboard. Of all California villages, Nordhoff is the most sylvan 165 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA and about the only one free from metropolitan aspi- rations. Its rusticity is its fortune and it knows it. What with its tree-embowered inns, its shady black- smith shop, its leafy lanes and here and there a stone fence and bowlder-strewn pasture, it has about it something of the atmosphere of a New England ham- let. It is a mecca for tennis players who for seven- teen years have flocked here from all quarters to at- tend the annual spring tournament of the Ojai Val- ley Tennis Club on its pretty oak-fringed courts. Here and there among the oaks on the outskirts of the village and for a mile or two beyond, are many little cottages half-smothered in roses. "No, they're not farm houses, " said a "skinner," hauling oranges, who picked me up on the road one day, "some of 'em are just sort of camps for tour- ists who like to spend the winter here in a bully cli- mate ; and some of 'em is where consumptive fellows live. The hotels won't take them; so they rent a place to themselves. I don't know as it often cures 'em, but they live longer here. Living in the Ojai is pretty near the same as bein' in heaven, anyhow, I say, and when you die it 's just a step across. ' * In May, after the winter rains are over and the be- ginning of the six months' dry season daily lowers the mountain streams to fordable proportions, sum- mer camps open up at many places along the upper waters of the Sespe or the Matilija or the Santa Ynez, for the accommodation of anglers and other vacationers. At such resorts, a couple of dollars a day 166 THE FEANCISCAN MISSIONS or ten per week will pay for one's keep if he has stomach for a plain, though in the main wholesome table, and likes his lodging beneath a roof. Of course, you lack here the genteel attentions of the automobile inns ; the waitress startles you with such blunt queries as, "Are you going to have steak or chops V and "What '11 you have to drink 1" and on Sunday evenings quite naturally turns up in the par- lor with the guests to listen to the graphophone, take a hand at cards, or join in the hymn singing, if there is any. Sauntering over these open mountains through miles upon miles of chaparral that sun-scorched tangle of sumac and manzanita, adenostoma, islay and wild lilac, rarely above a man's head in height I wondered that it should be considered worth in- cluding in the Government's forest reserves, as it is. A keen-eyed, rugged-faced man, whose bronze but- tons adorned with the image of a pine tree pro- claimed him a forest ranger, overtook me on the trail one day and explained. He rode one horse and led another bearing tight-packed cowhide alforjas and a bundle of bedding, and did not mind if he did not get home for a month. "Of course, chaparral's no account for timber, " he said, "but it grows so thick over the mountains, it performs, in considerable measure, what timber does for the water supply it conserves the mois- ture in the ground. Then again, it needs to be watched against fires ; if they get started in it once, 167 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA they spread like the dickens and run into the good timber in the canons and on the higher mountains. You see, lots of this chaparral is just greasewood, and somebody going along throws away a live ciga- reet end, not thinking, in summer when every- thing's as dry as preaching and before you know it, the fat's in the fire." The valley of the Santa Ynez River, which lies behind the same Saint Agnes 's mountain range that backs Santa Barbara, is one of the sort of re- gions becoming fewer every year, where the pictur- esque California life of half a century ago still lingers. The ranches there are no forty-acre af- fairs, but mount into the thousands fifteen, twenty, fifty and even sixty and seventy thousand. Through one of them, the San Marcos, the public highway runs for twelve miles with barred gates across it where it enters and leaves the ranch. The railway touches only the outer skirt of this great valley given over to hay camps, sheep walks and cattle ranges. Here you may witness sheep-shearing as described in "Ramona" and watch Spanish vaguer os throwing the lariat, as their powerful, sure-footed horses no slabsided cayuses for this business- carry them at a breakneck .pace up and down rocky hillsides that you might suppose goats would think twice about. Or you may drop in at country barbe- cues under the patriarchal oaks and be heartily wel- come to Gargantuan steaks broiled over the coals and unstinted draughts of coffee boiled in cauldrons. 168 THE FRANCISCAN MISSIONS Into this Santa Ynez country there are three en- trances from the south, good roads, as mountain roads go, through passes of rare beauty. I elected to go by way of the San Marcos and return by the Gaviota, and, as the village of Santa Ynez is forty miles from Santa Barbara and no surety could be given me that any roadside house was open as early in the season as the time of my journeying, I un- wisely hired a pony with saddle-bags to transport me and my handful of baggage. He was guaran- teed gentle as a kitten; but he turned out to be a cantankerous, opinionated little beast, with a minc- ing amble of a gait, when he was not walking, and an unquenchable desire to turn around in the road every whipstitch and strike out for home. He was as much trouble to me as Stevenson 's Modestine or John Muir's memorable mule, and I had better never have taken him; for, as there proved to be a good inn in commission half-way to Santa Ynez, the trip could have been quite comfortably managed afoot. The San Marcos road, however, with its glorious outlook seaward to where the Channel Islands lie, and inland across green depths of canons to the misty peaks of the Santa Ynez Sierra, and bordered, as the way was that pleasant May day, with wild blossoms of varied hues and fragrance pitcher sage and yucca and yellow mimulus, brodiaeas, styrax bells and lupines of many colors the San Marcos road is of such rare beauty that even a nostalgic 169 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFOKNIA pony cannot quench its charm. To the literary stu- dent, moreover, it possesses a special interest in that it skirts the territory so luringly described in the opening chapter of that entertaining book "The Mountains, " by the Santa Barbara author, Stewart Edward White. Wild and sparsely inhabited as the country is through which the highroad winds its way to the pass, there to plunge down into the pastoral land by the river's solitary reaches, it is a well- traveled thoroughfare by no means lacking in human interest. I do not know to what extent my experi- ence with it may have been exceptional; but the Canterbury pilgrims could hardly have been more picturesque in their day than the intermittent tide of travel that passed within my ken. There was, for instance, the dust-covered automobile puffing under its load of hilarious week-enders, bound for the upper river ostensibly to fish ; and there was the big four-horse ranch team, piled high with miscel- laneous supplies, including a couple of Chinese kitchen "boys," tempted for a season from the fan- tan and chop-suey of some city Chinatown, to cook beans for cowmen and lay by money. There was the itinerant prospector ensconced in an indescrib- able canvas-covered wreck of a cart, drawn by two scrawny burros with newspaper blinders, the sight of which frightened my bronco into standing on his hind legs and all but backing me into the canon; and there was the deputy sheriff in chaps and som- brero, escorting back to their rightful owner a 170 THE FRANCISCAN MISSIONS string of colts sold by some horse-thief to an "easy" rancher. There were families in camp wagons on journeys from one end of the State to the other, staking out their teams in fat, wild pas- tures every night and themselves sleeping under the shelter of hospitable oaks; there were rovers like myself, only independent of horseflesh, their beds rolled up in canvas a-swing at their backs; there was the moving-picture man, traveling with horse and buggy, looking for taking backgrounds for picture-plays ; and there was the girl from Wy- oming, en route a-horseback to New York, with no other company than a revolver and a wolfish look- ing dog. By this same pass, they will tell you, the trail of the old Padres ran when a century ago they walked between Santa Barbara and the Mission Santa Ynes, which still lifts its cross in the midst of the valley. But Padre Alejandro says no, not by San Marcos did they travel, but by another further west, the Eefugio. El Paso de Nuestra Senora del Refugio was the stately Spanish name the Pass of our Lady of Eefuge. Padre Alejandro is the present resident rector at the Mission Santa Ynes, an elderly man of comfort- able rotundity of figure and known the countryside over. If he seems a bit short with you at first greeting when you ring the visitor's bell, do not think he means it. He has all kinds to deal with, and must needs defend his dear Mission from the 171 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFOENIA vandals who, afoot and more especially in automo- biles, are forever traveling the State highway that passes the gate, and who, if not watched, would steal the very vessels from the altar. After a little, when he has taken your measure and finds you not a bad sort, you will catch a twinkle in his eye and the flicker of a kindly smile about the corner of his mouth, for he loves his joke and his heart is as ten- der as a woman's. Though not a Franciscan, Pa- dre Alejandro keeps alive at Santa Ynes the best traditions of the Order for hospitality to the poor, and no hungry wayfarer is ever turned away un- fed. In the corridor by the doorway, is a little deal stand with a kitchen chair by it "the poor sinner's table" the Padre calls it and here the hoboes who stop for a bite to eat, have it served them with a kind word or two for a relish. If sick, they are taken in and cared for, and if they want work for their board and lodging, there is no end of it about the Mission to employ them as long as they care to stay and behave themselves. Ten years ago when the Padre came to Santa Ynes, he found it a ruin except the church part, which though sadly out of repair, he could make shift to hold services in. A slovenly American family occupied the few dilapidated living-rooms that were at all under roof, sharing them with chickens, pigs and a colony of snakes. With his own hands and his pretty housekeeper niece's, he set about the herculean task of restoration clear- 172 THE FEANCISCAN MISSIONS ing away the rubbish, making adobes, mixing lime and mortar, sawing and hammering and painting and all the rest. Little by little, with outside con- tributions, now and then, that enabled him to pay for hired laborers, he patiently went on until to-day the church part is completely restored and is safe beneath a tight tile roof; and one wing of the con- vento, the part that includes the living and sleeping rooms of the old Padres and their guests, is also finished. "Yes," the Padre will tell you, tapping his snuff box, as you sit with him in the arched corridor with its outlook over the peaceful valley, "I came here with eight hundred dollars, and in the ten years I have spent more than twenty thousand dollars; but see what I have now a palace! But the work is not done. Do you know what I would do if I were rich? Over there" he pointed to a long, low mound of crumbled adobe hardby, overgrown with wild grasses "is the foundation of the Indian quarters of the old Padres' day. There were eighty rooms all told, and the foundation under that adobe is as solid as rock, being cement. I'd restore that building and put it to use again, make it a home for tramps and social derelicts, as well as for the waifs that public institutions of charity will not accept, and give 'em a chance to pull themselves together and try again. There's some wheat in even that sort of chaff, and human souls are worth the endeavor." 173 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA About this Mission of Santa Ynes there is a home-like atmosphere that cannot escape you, for the niece is a rare housekeeper, and the feminine touch is over all. The south corridor, which runs the length of the convento's front, and which is bright with sunshine the greater part of the day, is less a cloistered walk than an outdoor living-room, cheerful with potted plants and fragrant with per- fumes from the strip of garden along the front where roses and wall-flowers, stocks and poppies, lift dear, old-fashioned faces to the sky. Through the great arches is an unobstructed view up the quiet, pastoral valley and across the river to the mountains that look down on Santa Barbara where Santa Barbara looks on the sea ; and in all Southern California I know no more charming spot for respite from the world's cark and care than this lovely open corridor of Mission Santa Ynes. 174 WINTER ON THE ISLE OF SUMMER I. UNEXPLOBED CATALINA SANTA CATALINA ISLAND of worldwide fame, fifty miles due south from Los Angeles and thirty miles out at sea an American Capri set in an ocean of perpetual summer, and possessing a climate quite peculiar to itself is practically an unexplored country save to a very few. The aver- age visitor goes there to refresh his tired spirit on its delightful little beaches with their lovely out- look across a radiant sea to the dreamy mainland mountains; or to gaze into the luminous depths of the wonderful submarine gardens; or for a quiet game of golf on one of the most charming winter links in the world; or more often for a bout with those famous game fish of the Catalina waters, such as the leaping tuna, the yellow-tail, and that levia- than of the rod and reel, the jew-fish. Like all the rest of the resorts within the tourist zone of California, however, Catalina, while she sets before the transient visitor a feast of attrac- tions easily attainable and admirable to talk about when he shall have returned home, holds in reserve for her intimates her deeper and finer native 175 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA charms. To know the real heart of Catalina one must turn to the hills which compass Avalon about. From their rugged sides and crests a new world opens to the view. For the exploration of unexplored Catalina, the winter months are the best. Then the hills are clothed in fresh vestments of green and call you to come to them; the skies are the skies of Italy; and the stimulating sunshine invites to outdoor en- deavor. It is a breath-taxing climb, the ascent from the beach to the ridges, but you are helped by the paths worn by the clambering feet of bands of sheep with which the interior of the island is so over-run that their trails along the ridges make a practically con- tinuous by-way for the pedestrian throughout the whole of the island's twenty-two miles of length. Up, up, you go, zigzagging this way and that, puff- ing and blowing, the summit always retreating. By and by, you sit down to rest and draw draughts of refreshment into your tired lungs. There, far down, are the golf links, the club house like a toy and the golfers like pigmies creeping along the ground. Barely you discern the swing of a stick, and quite a perceptible time afterward, the sharp crack of the smitten ball reaches to your silent height. There a little further on is the medley of Avalon roofs, and there pouring from the wharf where the steamer from the mainland has just tied 176 WINTER ON THE ISLE OF SUMMEE up, a black wave of tourists spreads over the beach. The horns of the crescent bay, however, hide much of the sea's expanse, and you rise and struggle up- ward again for a wider outlook. You pass the head of a side canon or two, the summit is just beyond you at last, and with one final desperate charge you gain it only to find that there is another above it! Nevertheless, the brow of the hill just ascended shuts Avalon completely from view and you are across the confines of Cata- lina's other world. From the hillsides about comes the intermittent bleating of sheep, the lambs in a frightened treble, the mothers in a reassuring, dignified contralto. A black, glossy raven alights on the ground a few rods off, and satisfied by your stillness and immobility that you are harmless, wags his head slowly from side to side and indulges in a low, melodious ditty so different from the harsh croak that he addresses to the rest of the world, that you feel yourself of the elect. Wild doves are cooing and a valley quail makes you the target of his railing whistle. "You fool you, you fool you," he says as plainly as his eastern cousin says "Bob White." On every side the monotonous monosyllabic squeak of ground squirrels pipes up; Mollie Cottontail looks in on you quite unexpect- edly to herself, and scurries away in terror; you may even catch a distant view of a little gray fox slipping along the hills. 177 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA But it is a long lane that has no turning, and finally you do reach a ridge beyond which there is no other only illimitable views of the real Pacific, for at Avalon it is but a channel that one sees. Off there to the southward the island of San Clem- ente humps his big bulk; far to the west lies little San Nicolas, and if the atmosphere is clear, the Channel Islands off Santa Barbara, a hundred miles away, show in the dim northwest. Santa Catalina herself stretches away from your feet to the north and the west in a succession of canons and ranges and mountain peaks you would call them so "back East," though the highest is only about twenty-five hundred feet above the sea. In these upper regions one may begin to realize something of the beauty of the midwinter plant life of Catalina. While there are few native trees of large or even medium size, there are low-growing sorts enough to make quite a forest showing, such as the picturesque dwarf oaks that flourish in ever- green groves both on the inland hillsides and along certain of the slopes that overhang the sea. What pictures await the rambler amid these up- land sunlit thickets of oak, where the foot of the regulation tourist never treads! Silver ferns and maidenhair nestle amid the green grasses about the shaded bases of the tree trunks; and looking down oceanward, where the gulls are querulously crying, there may be seen through the interstices of the gray, twisting branches of the little trees, exquisite 178 WINTER ON THE ISLE OF SUMMER vistas, as through windows framing the sapphire of the sea. The air is faintly fragrant with the flow- ers resembling apple blossoms which are the bloom of the crossosoma, a small, gray-barked tree, pale of leaf, twisted and twiggy, clinging to the rockiest, barrenest of soil, unsociably holding itself aloof from its fellows. Rotund clumps of bushy sumac with glossy, oily leaves that will pop into a flame like fire-crackers if you touch a match to them, are thickly dotted with their small pink and white bloom, where in surpassing content the bees sip and hum. Along these hillsides, too, are glorious speci- mens of the so-called California holly or toyon, the rich green foliage alight with the red glow of its clustered winter berries. A yellow-berried variety is occasionally found, and the possibility of collect- ing this rarity gives a special zest to a winter day's outing in these unbeaten paths. Sometimes as you top a hill there opens upon your view a distant slope that is sheeted in white or pale lilac, and hurrying towards the unfamiliar vision, you find it to be a grove of ceanothus, com- monly called wild lilac in California little trees about the size of the eastern dogwood, bearing in late winter feathery clusters of tiny flowers, with a bitterish, tonic fragrance. These treelings have great tenacity of life, and even when half dead the live half will still perform its winter duty of bloom- ing. Some specimens that we found one February day on a promontory looking westward upon the 179 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA Pacific were dead to the extreme top, where on one last live twig a few blossoms had opened, seem- ing like the soul of the expiring tree poising for flight into the heavens. In the moist, shady canons and on the grassy slopes facing the north are many charming wild flowers, which begin to open as early as January, reaching their climax of bloom in April or May yellow-starred baeria, in patches upon the ground like golden rugs; scarlet-mouthed beard-tongue, clambering over bushes; nemophilas, with pearly chalices, cousins to the baby-blue-eyes of the main- land; orange coils of fiddlehead, and twinkling wild pop-corn flowers in white. But of all the floral beauty of the island, nothing is capable of giving greater pleasure than the wild cactus gardens of the inland hills. The sheep that have had the run of the interior of the island for a generation, would long ago have cropped it flowerless, had it not been for the prickly pear cactus, which, growing luxuri- antly on the sunny slopes has been as a nursing mother to multitudes of wild flowers that have gathered under its spiny skirts for protection from the marauding browsers. The great slab-like arms of a cactus clump stretch and sprawl about upon the ground in a way that makes a very effective hedge, and within their beneficent sphere of influ- ence such a tangle of lovely wildings grows and flourishes as is worth a long climb to see. Here are misty clouds of galium and flaming spikes of Indian 180 The pier and the glass bottomed boats at Avalon Crescent beach and Avalon, with its glorious bay WINTER ON THE ISLE OF SUMMEE paint brush, wild four-o 'clocks, magenta-hued, lav- ender-cupped phacelias, and the white trumpets of native morning glories; here the cheerful suns of the plebeian yellow ox-eye blaze by the side of the delicate Catalina mariposa tulips. Blue brodiaeas and bluer nightshades are here, vetches in varying shades of purple and in white, velvety-leaved ho- sackias with clustered blooms of orange and yellow, and the mingled fragrances of the stately white sage, threadleaved artemisia, and everlasting. Even a few ferns and patches of moss-like selagi- nella snuggle beneath the shadows of the great cactus wings where some moisture lingers after the more exposed earth is baked hard as a brick. As for the cactuses themselves, the edges of their flat stems are glorified in February and March with crumpled pinkish buds that expand into broad flow- ers of limpid yellow. Later they are fringed with rows of fruit and resemble Pipes of Pan. These fruits of the slab- jointed tuna or prickly-pear cac- tus are very pleasant to the taste when at the proper stage of ripeness a condition which may be known by the rich purple color and the loosened hold of the fruit upon the stem, causing it to be easily de- tached. Because of the bundles of minute prickles which dot the fruit, it needs to be plucked with a gloved hand. Then slice the square end off, and squeeze the pulpy interior into your mouth. Though seedy, it possesses a pleasant flavor, sub- 181 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA acid and cool, and is evidently nutritious to the ravens, quails and Mexicans that make of it a staple item of diet. There is but one wagon road on Catalina that penetrates into the interior of the island, so that the exploration of the inland hills can be done thor- oughly only on foot. The network of sheep trails, however, making of every ridge an aerial highway and connecting one ridge with another throughout the length and breadth of the island, brings the re- motest points within comparatively easy reach of good walkers who find Catalina a pedestrian's para- dise. Even those whose limit is quickly reached in a walk at home find that the island air renders trips entirely possible of a length that was undreamed of before. We know of one lady who finds a half- mile walk in the East quite a burdensome undertak- ing, but who one spring day climbed to the summit of the range east of Avalon and walked ten miles by easy stages with entire enjoyment along the ridges overlooking the sea, returning by way of one of the canons, without especial fatigue. Among the all day trips afoot from Avalon, one that will prove of more than ordinary interest is to Silver Canon on the western side of the island about ten or twelve miles, there and back afford- ing some superb views of the open Pacific, and chances to get a glimpse of wild goats. This trip may be accomplished by strong walkers in a half day, but unless one is pressed for time, it is well 182 WINTEE ON THE ISLE OF SUMMER to take a day, giving time for frequent stops to en- joy the views. To Black Jack (one of the two highest peaks of the island) and back, about fifteen miles, is another delightful jaunt, introducing the pedestrian to the scenery of Catalina's heart, as well as affording from the summit of the peak a magnificent all- around ocean view. From Black Jack the walk may be extended some four miles further to Empire Landing where are the serpentine quarries, once worked by the original Indian inhabitants of the island for the manufacture of stone cooking pots. The marks of their primitive cutting are still seen upon the outcroppings. There selecting some handy spot upon the bowlder a knob or jutting cor- ner would be preferred the red craftsman would fashion it into the outside of a pot. When properly shaped thus, the pot was severed from the rock and the interior then chiseled out. At the time of our last visit, some of the half-finished pots were still undetached from the rock, just as their sculptors had left them when, nearly a century ago, they abandoned their old home. In event of continuing the Black Jack trip to Empire Landing, provision should be made in advance either to camp at the Landing overnight, or to have a boat call and take you back to Avalon the same day. On another day you may have the Moonstone Beach boat drop you in the morning at Swain's Landing, and walk to the head of the canon out 183 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA upon the stage road and so back to Avalon. The walk is approximately six or seven miles, but it is a stiff climb out of the canon. A feature of this canon is the presence in it of several small groves of the ironwood (Lyonoihamus floribundus) a rare tree found nowhere in the world but on Catalina and one or two of its neighbor islands. Should your visit be as late as May or June, you would be treated to the novelty of seeing it in bloom. Owing to the scarcity of springs on Catalina, water must be carried in a canteen, on any all-day outing; and before starting on a lengthy trip, the outlines of the island's geography should be firmly fixed in mind, for once out of Avalon, there is prac- tically no chance of a lost rambler's meeting any one to put him on his road again. If one has a reasonably good head for direction, there is little likelihood, however, of getting badly lost in the island unless one should be caught in a fog, which sometimes shuts in suddenly in the winter season. Then the only safe course is to stop and wait until it lifts. The fisher folk around Avalon will be found to be a kindly people, willing as a rule to impart all in- formation they can, and like all whose vocation leads them into familiar contact with the life of the sea, they have many things picturesque and won- derful to tell about it. But of the land side the unexplored side of Catalina, we found few to tell us anything, until we made the acquaintance of 184 WINTER ON THE ISLE OF SUMMER John of the chicken ranch, whose shack and corrals are a mile up the beautiful canon back of the golf links. A small, gray, shaggy-bearded man is John, with twinkling blue eyes and a heart that has a kind thought for all the world except the red-throated linnets that flock persistently about his garden: "The thieving little devils, " he says, "they never know when they have enough, and destroy every- thing a body raises I" After a career of wandering by sea and land this Ulysses of the West happened upon Catalina twenty-odd years ago and has been there ever since. Perhaps it was because he had a surfeit of the sea, out of which nearly every other permanent resident of the island was seeking to make a living, or per- haps it was because in a community of fishermen and boatmen, poultry-raising was a calling without competitors, that John embarked in the business. However that may be, it proved a thriving enter- prise, and dwelling in the lap of the hills John has managed to pick up about all that anybody knows of the island's land side. From him we learned the shortest cut to Silver Canon, and where was the nearest point to see the sun set in the Pacific; he initiated us into the mystery of a cooling drink, made from the sticky, red, acid berries of a bush which he called "shumake"; instructed us in what island plants made the best "greens," and how to recognize under its protean forms that "abomi- nable shrub or weed" as Robert Louis Stevenson 185 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA called the California poison-oak. And it was John, who with a shovel one day disclosed to us the enor- mous proportions it would be a fat man indeed whose body was as big of the root of the chilicothe vine or "big-root," that clambers riotously over all the thickets of the island and adorns them with its clustered white bloom, its bristling seed-pods the size of goose eggs resembling little porcupines swinging by their tails. We first heard of John when we were keeping house in a tiny three-roomed cottage at the top of an Avalon street so steep that we suspect it must have been built up in the interests of the butchers and the bakers, the climbing gave us such an appe- tite! The most robust appetite palls on monotony, and after we had exhausted the variety of the Ava- lon provision shops two or three times over, our tastes demanded chicken. We looked and inquired for chicken at all the shops, but in vain. There were steaks guaranteed to melt in the mouth, mut- ton chops fresh off the range, legs of lamb, and pigs ' feet and tamales if we would, but never a chicken. Then we learned that John was the poultry mo- nopolist of the island. So one sunny afternoon we went in quest of him. The road up John's beautiful canon makes one of the pleasantest short walks out of Avalon, winding, after it leaves the golf links, by a gentle ascent among rolling hills, their sides dotted with clumps of dwarf oaks and wild lilac, blossoming elders and 186 WINTER ON THE ISLE OF SUMMER red-berried holly and thickets starred with wild flowers and musical with the song of birds. As the road rises, it gives us, as we stop now and then to look back, exquisite glimpses of the blue sea and far away the snow-capped mountains of the mainland rising dreamily above the fog banks of the mainland shore. By and by a turn in the road shuts all that from view, and a nearby cock-a-doodle-doo betokens the poultry ranch at hand. The sight of John's chickens, his waddling ducks and strutting turkeys resplendent of feather, and the clouds of cooing pigeons presented an embar- rassment of riches that rather staggered us. Here were possibilities beyond our wildest hopes broil- ers, friers, roasters, squabs surely we must invite company to our feast. John, ambling about with a bucket of chopped alfalfa, caught sight of us and came forward to greet us with a slow and gentle speech and a smile that with difficulty disengaged itself from his tangle of whiskers. Why, yes, he had a purty nice lot of chickens; they hadn't ought to be anything but nice with the green stuff he giv' 'em chopped alfalfa and such, and wheat ground up tasty in the coffee mill. Yes, he reckoned they was some friers among 'em, but not quite big enough to sell, not just yet. That fat old hen for stewing? Well, no-o he didn't think 'twould be right to let her go, not just now; you see, she's a purty good layer yet, and eggs is eggs, these days. Them ducks? Well no-o, he wasn't selling ducks, 187 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA not just now; he was figurin' on getting a bunch of them together before parting with them. Them turkeys, there, he had rather thought of killing a couple at Christmas, but somehow it didn't get done, and it was a question if they'd be good eating just now. This was indeed discouraging. It seemed ridicu- lous that in a land fairly flowing with chickens, we should be thus baffled. We sat down on a log and while John proceeded to shower his pets with chopped alfalfa, we held a council of war. Being human, John must have his price, but it was evi- dently not the price of a chicken or two ; something rarer than money must be had to reach him. We looked at his shabby little cabin void of human com- panionship, and it occurred to us that as John was "batching it" and had batched it for twenty-odd years, his stomach was probably his vulnerable point. We were housekeeping and it was within the possibilities of our gasoline stove to turn out a pudding. Might it not be that a pudding we arose and renewed the attack. "John," said Sylvia, "we want a nice stewing chicken. If you can sell us one, we will pay you your own price for it, and make you a pudding." John's mouth gave a twitch or two. The arrow had hit the mark. He stood uneasily first on one leg and then on another, took a hasty look at his clucking family, shut his eyes and surrendered. The chicken would be ours at two o'clock to-morrow. 188 WINTER ON THE ISLE OF SUMMEE We shall probably never forget that chicken. It was a big, fat dowager of a hen, and we cooked it and cooked it and cooked it. We began after break- fast and let it stew till dinner time. We stayed in during the afternoon and unceasingly let it simmer. The process was renewed after supper and kept up until bed-time. The veteran bird holding her own, we ordered a fresh can of gasoline next morning, and continued the treatment. At the expiration of nine hours of stewing, all told, the hen was still holding well together, but we were exhausted with hope deferred and served her up. We ate the ten- derest parts at that sitting, and cooked the rest in instalments off and on for the balance of the week. "John," I remarked, when we called on him again, "the ranch isn't what it was before the hen left, is it? An old familiar sight gone out of your life, eh? You must miss her sadly." John's eyes twinkled. "Wasn't she a good tastin' bird?" he inquired. "She tasted well enough," we admitted, "but she seemed a little old. She'd been on the place some time, hadn't she?" "No-o," he replied reflectively, "no-o, not so long. She wasn't over three year old, I guess mebbe four or a little rising that." "That was a good pudding," he added, as he handed back the dish, with three fresh eggs in it. 189 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA II. AVALON IN WlNTEB The season on Santa Catalina Island is from June to September. Then the hotels, the room- ing houses, the tents on the camp grounds and the private cottages are overflowing with pleasure- seeking humanity, who sometimes crowd the capac- ity of the island's one little town to such a degree that the evening boat from San Pedro is held over- night to give shelter to people unable to secure a roof over their heads on shore. So we made our first visit to Santa Catalina in winter. To speak of winter on Santa Catalina, however, is a concession to the nomenclature of the almanac, for in and about Avalon, which to the transient visi- tor is the whole island, one rarely sees the ther- mometer below forty, and only so low as that on sunless stormy mornings, or in the chill hours be- tween midnight and dawn. To the hilltops of the inland, Jack Frost comes occasionally during Janu- ary and February, but he is shy of descending to the beach, sheltered as it is on three sides by the lofty hills. In fact the weather recorders have worked it out that the mean winter temperature of Avalon averages but eleven degrees Fahrenheit be- low that of summer. The winter, in short, is merely summer over again with a few cool rains and fogs, and rarely a high wind thrown in. When New York is icebound and the Middle West lies under five feet of snow, here in Avalon the sweet alyssum blooms 190 WINTER ON THE ISLE OF SUMMER wild on the hillsides; down in "Uncle Johnnie V park and over by the golf links, the malva-rosa sets its pretty buds and spreads its bright petals ; in cot- tage gardens, geraniums, mignonette, yellow oxalis and many-hued nasturtiums, regardless of the cal- endar, flower untiringly; and old residents sho\y with pride tomato vines many years old, as high as the roof, untouched by frost. A feature of the Santa Catalina climate that al- ways surprises the winter visitor, who naturally ex- pects to find an atmosphere of greater moisture on an island than upon the mainland, is the compara- tive absence of dampness. The marked chill that comes into the evening air of the California coast region as soon as the sun approaches its setting, making one hurry into one's wraps, is noticeably lacking at Avalon. The temperature does fall, of course, but the winter night has all the balminess of those occasional cool, summer nights of the East that follow upon a west wind devoid of humidity. For outdoor sleeping, such nights are among the pleasantest in the world. There being no crowd in winter, except during the few midday hours when the steamer from the mainland is in with her load of day excursionists, the visitor with leisure has the pick of the island's accommodations. Even the haughty hotel proprie- tors condescend now to notice you and are your faithful and obliged servants to command at a sub- stantial discount from summer rates. Mrs. Brown, 191 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA the baker's wife, has furnished cottages to rent, "very reasonable,'' as her modest sign written in violet ink on a sheet of note paper tacked up in the post office, informs the public. So has Abalone .Jack's widow, in whose matronly care several of the summer cottagers have left their keys and in- structions to let no respectable inquirer for lodg- ings escape. Mrs. Robinson, too her husband con- ducts a rival bake-shop to Mr. Brown, and she her- self is a motherly body with the warm heart and racy speech that mark the daughters of Erin Mrs. Robinson, too, has usually a darlin' little furnished flat to let in her house, with the privilege of using her own piano and parlor of an evening, if you should be a bit lonely. Indeed if one wants to be quite independent and at the same time live in the most economical way, there is no better plan than to rent a small, furn- ished cottage or a room or two in one of the many houses fitted up for light housekeeping. The latter are usually arranged in suites of two or three rooms, each suite with its little porch and bit of view, one of the rooms being fitted up for a combined kitchen and dining-room, with a gasoline stove for cooking, and running water at the door. We spent half a day walking up one hilly street and down another, finding "To Let" signs on all sorts of little camps and bungalows with queer names that must have taxed the inventive humor of their owners to the snapping point "Res t-a-bit," 192 WINTER ON THE ISLE OF SUMMER "Munnysunk," "Peek Inn," "Never Inn," and the like. Finally we decided upon a two-storied cot- tage perched upon a hill back of Avalon so steep of approach that we felt sure that none hut the sound- est in heart and the most determined in will would ever visit us. We began climbing steps as soon as we were within hailing distance of the place. The first two flights brought us to the level of the gar- den path; two more flights delivered us, well winded, on the little porch at the front door. To the southward, over the tops of the eucalyptus grove in which many of the summer camps of Avalon are embowered, rose the oak-dotted hills, green that January day as ever an emerald was; to the east- ward, at our feet, the roofs of the little town with tree-tops and aspiring vines pushing up masses of verdure and flowers between the buildings, and far- ther out, the crescent bay of Avalon, sparkling in the sun and dotted with little craft of varied sorts ; and as our delighted gaze wandered still farther eastward across the white-capped waters, lo, above the fogline of the mainland shore, the heavenly, snow-capped crest of the Sierra Madre and its out- lying peaks from sixty to a hundred miles away "Old Baldy," "Graybaek," San Jacinto a view which in many of its aspects brought to mind the Bay of Naples. Within the cottage was a living-room, half win- dows, as befitted so lovely an outlook, with a snug little fire-place in one corner, for fires of eucalyptus- 193 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA bark on snappy mornings and evenings; and there were two bedrooms, a little kitchen with a sink, a dining-room and a bathroom; upstairs were two more bedrooms and a roofed porch open on three sides to the winds of heaven, where we vowed, if the place became ours, we should spread our mat- tress and sleep, steeped in that softest of night airs in which the tender warmth of the winter sun's last beams seemed to linger until he rose again. There was a little, neglected, precipitous garden, plunging down to the neighboring houses whose roofs were far below us ; a swarm of flaming gera- niums were in riotous bloom there, and the first modest wild flowers of the year were peeping out from the green grass. "It is just what we want and what we've dreamed of," we confessed to each other sotto voce, "but of course we can never pay the price." The agent eyed us anxiously, as we screwed our faces into Gradgrind hardness and indifferently asked the rate. Then he faltered out he was a shrinking kind of old man, as though used to being browbeaten "I'll have to charge you fifteen dollars a month for it. The owner instructed me not to take a cent less. You see, it has seven rooms and a bath, and in summer it would fetch sixty, easy. Do you think maybe you could pay fifteen?" For an answer we paid down a month's rent in advance, and the old man departed promising to 194 WINTEK ON THE ISLE OF SUMMER bring us some clean linen and a tea-kettle lid which was lacking. Then sitting down, in the pleasant winter sunshine, in the midst of all that glory of green canon-side and blue sky and flashing sea and dreamy, distant mountains, we estimated ways and means : Eent, one month, . .,. . . .,. .,. ., , ,. . . . $15.00 Gasoline for cooking, and kerosene for lamps and oil heater, 10.00 Provisions for two (including Wilmington water for drinking, the Avalon water be- ing very, very hard), , 45.00 Total expenses for two, one month, . ... .,. . $70.00 That averaged somewhat less than $1.20 per day for each of us, with all the comforts of home and the most beautiful outlook on an island whose cli- mate has no superior on the Lord's lovely earth. One cramped little room at the hotel, with board, would have cost us even at the monthly rate more than twice as much. To be sure, our housekeeping plan was based on our doing our own cooking. But then, as we pharisaically remarked to each other, that meant better cooking; and we could always have the things we liked the way we liked. Besides we had room enough to give afternoon teas to all Avalon, and keep a friend overnight. 4 'We '11 stay three months 1" we cried raptur- ously, and we did. 195 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA The steamer arrives from the mainland but once a day in winter, bringing the mail, the milk, the fresh vegetables, and the daily crowd of sightseers, and its coming is what the arrival of the daily stage is to a backwoods village. It is due a half-hour after noon, and as the hour draws near, a feeling of expectation and suspense begins to settle upon Ava- lon. The excursion launches from Moonstone Beach and Seal Rocks come puffing in, and the fish- ermen who went out at dawn return with their catches and stories of the big ones that got away the gulls screaming and flapping along in the wake of the boats. The nurses with the babies and chil- dren straggle in with treasure from the beach and rocks starfish and luckless, stranded jelly-fish, sometimes even a little octopus or a live abalone, and always strings of bladdery brown kelp and seaweeds and shells of divers sorts. The hotel runners and the men with boats to hire put a fresh stock of cards in their pockets, clear their throats and don natty little caps with the names of their establishments in gold lace lettering on the bands. The curio deal- ers add what jauntiness they may to their conglom- erate stock of shells and pictures, kelp canes and bristling star-fish with a little dusting here and there; and knots of people gather along the side- walk and on the porches facing the bay, speculating on the extent of the passenger list as they watch with heightening interest the growth of the black speck far out at sea into the dark-hulled steamer From the hills you look directly down on the golf links of Avalon WINTER ON THE ISLE OF SUMMER with her white houses and glistening upper deck and the rail crowded with humanity. Then when she rounds Sugar Loaf and blows a hoarse salute, the big power-boats with glass bottoms push out to her, and men with megaphones stun the ear and dazzle the fancy with offers of their services to visit the submarine gardens, whose far-heralded glories probably bring more visitors to Avalon in winter than any other one thing, for the fishing is not then at its best. Here and there, little rowboats are darting close to the steamer as she reaches her pier, and boys in swimming attire are clamoring to the passengers to throw small coins into the sea, to be dived for and caught before they reach the bottom of the transparent water. Then as the gang plank is lowered, and the tide of passengers starts to flow to land, the band at the big hotel begins to play, the Japanese bell-boys stir about and button up their jackets, and every restaurant on the island front, from Delmonico's to the Klondike wakes to ecstasy its gongs and triangles to attract the hungry. From now on to three o'clock, when the steamer is to leave, is Avalon 's busy time of day. After that when the boat has taken on again her restless load and departed, the little town resumes its wonted placidity. There is just enough of human life on the beach promenade to engage your holiday mood comfortably a few elderly ladies in golf caps with cameras or a botany book, a sprinkling of chil- dren, a portly old gentleman or two on the retired 197 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA list, an occasional nervous-eyed man of business dropped here so recently by the steamer that his thoughts have obviously not yet arrived from the stock market. Then here are respectable citizens from the rural districts of the Middle West who have saved up for years for this the great trip of their lives, possible to them only in winter when things are quiet on the farm. Of course the ubi- quitous British tourist is here, too, in tweeds and overgaiters and wonderful waistcoats. Gum-chew- ing California girls, bare-armed and bare-headed, swagger about, with their "fellows" smoking along- side; and at five o'clock the cholos straggle in from their labors on the roads, very foreign-looking in steeple-crowned straw hats pinched in at the top. The sense of absolute removal from the storm and stress of the world's mad race, enabling you to get your breath and renew your strength for your next sally into the world beyond the mountains, is what endears an Avalon winter to you. Hither as to that more famous Avalon whither King Arthur was borne to be healed of his wounds, comes many a business-buffeted pilgrim and is quite as effectu- ally cured. Sitting on the beach as the evening shadows lengthen, the departing steamer long since swallowed up in the mainland mists; listening to the scolding of the gulls, and the barking of the seals ; watching the sun 's low beams light up to gold the sails of the ships bound up and down the coast and bathing in mysterious amethystine tints the far- 198 WINTER ON THE ISLE OF SUMMER off mountains, the visitor begins to feel the chains of care loosen their grip upon him, and to realize that some things about which he had been worrying himself sick are no affair of his at all. The knowl- edge that nothing can interfere with this novel sense of isolation from the world's whirl until the steamer comes again tomorrow afternoon, sends a delicious thrill through his weary frame and he does not wonder that there are people who have come to Avalon to spend a day or two and have stayed six years in fact, are there yet! 199 TOURIST TOWNS I. SAN DIEGO AND SANTA BAKBAEA WITH the first frosts comes the vanguard of winter tourists to Southern California; and the streets of a dozen little cities that make a bid for tourist trade arouse themselves as a drought- stricken country-side brightens up after rain. Shops deserted during the long, dry days of sum- mer now run up their shades and blossom out into all sorts of allurements for the tourists' patronage. There are, for instance, windows full of California and Mexican gems tourmalines, opals, moon- stones, turquoises, and sardonyx; and beside them are trays of Navajo silver bracelets, buckles and rings, and abalone brooches, cuff-buttons, paper cut- ters and what not, in all colors of the sunset and more. Navajo blankets blaze in doorways and In- dian baskets in designs both aboriginal and sophisti- cated, catch the eye at every turn. The bidders for the cheaper trade sort over their last season's tar- antulas and scorpions, mounting them on clean pasteboards, and dust off their left over trap-door spider's nests and horned toads. In the book stores, Mission photographs are put nearer the 200 TOURIST TOWNS door, and "Ramona" perennial best seller in Southern California is stacked up on the counter; while every art-shop with its picture of golden pop- pies and scarlet pepper-berries, fuzzy eucalyptus blossoms and fiery poinsettias, becomes a sort of Hesperian hortus siccus. Chinese and Japanese shops spring up over night with their punky smell of the Orient, theii- alluring dress-goods and potter- ies and carvings, their devils and dragons and bald-headed old men in bric-a-brac, and their ex- quisite teacups and squat teapots, world without end. The streets thicken daily with automobiles un- til well after New Year's, and the old residenter who knows most of the permanent population by heart, finds rare entertainment in the new faces that each day brings. Pretty girls in the latest Eastern thing in hats; elderly ladies of comfortable embon- point, with lorgnettes and lapdogs; stout old gen- tlemen clean-shaven and florid, with Scotch bottoms to their shoes, bespeaking a solid footing in bank directorates; nervous, dyspeptic-looking "Big Busi- ness " presidents grudgingly taking a little relaxa- tion by the doctor's orders; young bloods, without hats and in white flannels, talking golf, polo and motor-cars every day you see these types and many another, taking the air and enjoying the sun from November till the lambs of March are skipping again in Eastern fields, when they begin to vanish away. But the tourist of the motor-car type is by no 201 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA means the only one. He is, of course, the mainstay of the big hotels whose rates start in at four dol- lars a day and leave off goodness knows where ; but of the scores of thousands who every winter visit California, only a small proportion can afford that style. Far more numerous is quite another sort of tourist those who after the railroad has de- livered them on the Coast, have mighty little left but their return tickets. Many of these are from the farming districts of the Middle West. They stroll about with poppies and big oranges in their hands, and to their pleased vision the sights are the sights of a foreign land. Now and then you see one unexpectedly meet an old neighbor from home and then it's a slap on the back and a pump-handle shake, and " Hello, if it ain't Hi Smith! Where in thunder did you drop from? I thought you was snowed in and froze up back in Ottumway!" This sort may stop at a small hotel or a boarding house, or they may rent a room or two in a private home and do light housekeeping, or they may get their meals out ; their sight-seeing is done on electric cars and the "rubberneck" automobiles, and they are steady patrons of the picture post-card stands. Some of them thriftily carry an oil stove in their trunk, get their breakfast on it, and dine at a cafe- teria. Do you know what a cafeteria is? It is a waiterless restaurant, where, following the crowd in single file down an aisle, you pick up an empty tray, and arrived before a great table spread with 202 TOUKIST TOWNS viands cold and hot, yon indicate your choice and have it placed on your tray by the attendant disher- up behind the table. Then, filing past a desk for your check, you pass into the general room filled with little tables. You take your seat at one and eat your meal in peace and quiet, paying the amount of your check to the cashier at the door as you go out. You pay for every item you get, even the use of the napkin, and there is nothing particularly cheap about the plan. Its popularity, which is great on the Pacific Coast Los Angeles has scores of cafeterias is based on wholesome home cooking, the opportunity afforded to see just what you are going to get before ordering it, and the absolute inde- pendence of the delays and humors of the profes- sional waiter. In our gossip about the tourist towns we are not thinking especially of Los Angeles, though in a very important sense it is the tourist city of California par excellence, the very hub of the tourist country, from which radiate in all directions the trips that make up a large part of the visitors' pleasuring. But if one is going to winter in a big Los Angeles hotel or apartment house in the midst of an ambi- tious, seething American metropolis of three hun- dred and fifty thousand people, one might almost as well be in New York or Chicago for all the taste that is had of any life racy of the Californian soil. The city is now so big, so full of business of one sort and another that in a multiplicity of interests the 203 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA tourist in Los Angeles, while exceedingly esteemed, is not just the noticeable feature that he is in smaller places. Each of California's tourist resorts has its marked individuality, though there is one feature common to all that might be eliminated in the in- terests of seemly brotherly love, and that is a dis- position in each to speak slightingly of the others. The tourist who in Santa Barbara, for instance, has a good word to speak of San Diego, is quickly aware of a drop in the local temperature; while to dilate in San Diego upon the fine climate, say of Pasadena, is to defy the lightning. Climate, in fact, is San Diego's specialty. On that and its bay, San Diego was founded, and by virtue of both it has reached its present eminent station in the sisterhood of Cal- ifornia towns. If, by any chance, you are so obtuse as not to notice the climate during the first day of your stay, the San Diegans mention it to you in fact, din it in your ears; and it is a fine climate. It is more equable than that of any of the other tourist resorts of the mainland warmer in winter, cooler in summer, with less difference at all sea- sons between day temperatures and night, and it is claimed that San Diego averages three hundred and fifty-six days in the year on which the sun shines. On many of these same days, to be sure, the sun- shine is sandwiched between substantial slabs of fog; nevertheless it shines enough to squeeze into the records. 204 TOUEIST TOWNS "Yes, sir," your San Diego friend will tell you, "we have the world buffaloed on climate, and as for that bay, do you know its equal V 9 "There's the Bay of Naples," you venture, heed- lessly, "have you seen that?" "With such a bay as this before my eyes?" he snorts. "I don't have to!" And there is no denying that it is a beautiful har- bor. Seen from the city hills with the dreamy mountains of Mexico to the south, and with Point Loma's ocean-cleaving headland and the Coronado peninsula stretched like protecting arms about its blue, sunlit waters, it forms a lovely foreground to the Pacific's white-capped expanse and the mar- velous sunset skies when day sinks to China. In the matter of antiquity, too, San Diego makes somewhat of a specialty. It is, in fact, the cradle of California's nativity. Into the quiet bay came Cabrillo's caravels of discovery, in 1542, and here in 1769 the Spanish King planted the first of his California colonies which were to save the territory from the designs of Kussia, while at the same time the Franciscan friar, Junipero Serra, hungry for heathen souls to save, founded here the first of his chain of Indian Missions in the wilderness. The crumbling walls of the Mission church, half hid- den in a valley three or four miles back of the modern city, and a few melting adobes by the ven- erable date palms in the bayside suburb known as Old Town, are our only remaining architectural lega- 205 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA cies from that early day when Serra first looked upon this land of his dreams and found it "a goodly land, the wild vines loaded with grapes and the roses like the roses of Castile." But the San Diego that we know was born in the brain of quite a different character a Connecticut gringo affec- tionately known to all American San Diegans as "Father Horton." A century after Serra, he came to the sleepy little Mexican pueblo, liked the climate and the bay, and settling, started a "boom" in both that has never been allowed to cease. His long-headed purchase of a thousand acres at twen- ty-six cents per acre where the present city stands, is one of the first historical facts communicated to the visitor and never fails to gain for Father Hor- ton 's genius the respect of the average American tourist, who may or may not be impressed by the Franciscan Father's spiritual investments. Two special jewels in San Diego's crown are the seaside resorts of La Jolla and Coronado. The former is a dozen miles away in a little corner of the coast, with Soledad Mountain at its back, and the islands of Santa Catalina and San Clemente dimly showing in the ocean mists before it. It is perched on the edge of a bluff, strangely honey- combed with remarkable caves, which the tides of ocean daily fill and empty. There are submarine gardens here, and it is the ambition of the profes- sional boatmen to make them a drawing card for tourists, as at Santa Catalina, but unfortunately na- 206 TOUEIST TOWNS ture has not given La Jolla the quiet waters of Avalon, and boating over the La Jolla gardens, es- pecially in winter, is ticklish business. The mag- nificent ocean sunsets, the fine surf effects and the quiet beauties of the long beach, make La Jolla a favorite with artists as well as with the more leis- urely sort of tourists who, winter and summer, haunt the place to sit on the sunny rocks, go fishing, enjoy the moonlight and do light housekeeping in the furnished cottages and apartments which enter- prising local capitalists have set up for them a-plenty. Coronado, at the tip of its peninsula just across the bay from San Diego, is quite another sort of place. You reach it by a quaint old-fashioned ferry-boat in a few minutes, or you can motor to it by way of Otay, twenty miles, around the edge of the bay. Like so many things in the world, Coro- nado is tripartite. There is the permanent residen- tial section of the usual pretty cottages, bungalows and mansions smothered in shrubbery and flowers to which the traveler in California quickly becomes accustomed; then, if it be summer, there is the fa- mous city of tents laid out in regular streets, upon the beach, the tents rented furnished or unfur- nished to crowds of holiday sojourners for whose benefit special restaurants are maintained; and finally, dominating all, is the Hotel del Coronado, known wherever California literature circulates, its red roofs and cone-topped turrets thrust up above 207 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA enveloping trees. It is a huge caravansary built four-square about the seclusion of an entrancing garden-court open to the sky and planted with palms, coprosmas, bougainvilleas, bottle-brushes and many another exotic. Many of these plants which, in the chilly North, are customarily coddled in tubs and greenhouses, are, here in this genial clime, arboreal in their growth, and their branches are trained as screens along the railings of the sec- ond-story gallery that looks down upon the court. Without, the grounds are beautiful with shrubbery, vines and trees, where winding paths lead always to pleasant vistas of the sea. The surf runs in al- most to the hotel, and upon the sheltered verandas facing the ocean one may watch through a leafy framing of trees the ships of commerce and of war pass up and down the horizon as they go upon their business between the ports of Spanish America and the harbors of the North. If a man have an elastic bank account and a taste for conventional amusements, the Coronado is a sort of lotus land, luring to prolonged stay. Congenial spirits from all over the world will foregather with him here, and the entertainment never flags golf, polo, arch- ery, tennis, sailing, fishing, surf-bathing, horseback- riding, motoring, aeroplaning, music and, of course, always climate. A tourist city by the sea that suggests compari- son with San Diego is Santa Barbara. It has had no Father Horton to forge its destinies, and its 208 TOURIST TOWNS open roadstead is not hospitable to shipping ; so, in point of growth, it has lagged behind its southern sister. It has preserved more, however, of what is especially dear to the romance-loving tourist a certain Old Worldly flavor inherited from its Span- ish past and kept going by a plentiful survival of picturesque adobe buildings, but especially by the well-preserved and restored Mission whose brown- robed, rope-girdled and sandaled brothers, in their active community life, are perhaps responsible for more visits to Santa Barbara than any other one of its attractions. And where else in these United States will you find such an array of foreign street names and localities? Asking your way about the town, the morning after your arrival, you feel in fifteen minutes that you have acquired a pretty fair working knowledge of Spanish and a sprinkling of Indian, and of course that pleases you and tends to your satisfaction with Santa Barbara. There are among streets, for instance, Canon Perdido and Anapamu, Arellaga and Micheltorena, Pedragoso, Salsipuedes, Parra Grande. There is the old De la Guerra house to be hunted up and the Nonega gar- dens, San Ysidro and rose-embowered Miramar and El Fureidis in Montecito to be visited. The Mission, you find, is not just Santa Barbara ; it is, unedited, La Mision de Santa Barbara Virgen y Martir. The mountains, too, that rise behind the city have a foreign name. Santa Ynez, unpro- nounceable until you hear it, and then the words 209 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA are as music in your ears for life ; and the little un- fenced park by the beach, where the band plays, and children frolic and old and middle-aged sun themselves on the benches, and lovers sit on the grass under the palms and watch the sea that is bearing their ships home to them this little park is not, thank heaven, Americanized into a "Pike" or a " Board-walk " or a "White Way," but is the Plaza del Mar, open to the sunshine and the breeze. Why, all this is as good as a trip abroad; and as you stroll up State Street (for a wonder it is not La Calle del Estado) and see Mexicans eating tamales and chili con carne in the restaurants, and stop at Pio's hole in the wall to have your shoes polished, the illusion is further enhanced. Pio is a philan- thropist, worth knowing if you have no friends in Santa Barbara. He will translate Spanish words for you gratis, and as a local directory he is of more worth than a guidebook. He knows restaurants and their prices, and the ins and outs of rooming- places are at his finger ends. "Hombre," he says confidentially, "I say you secret. I know a room, where they let you sleep day-time all same as night, tambienand don't cos' you no more. A gentle- man what is travel everywhere, he go always there when he come to Santa Barbara ; and he say to me, 'Pio,' he say, 'you have friends what hongry for sleep, that's good place for to send them.' " If you are a lover of life in the saddle, no other of the tourist towns offers you quite the varied 210 TOURIST TOWNS delights of Santa Barbara. You may stay weeks there and every day canter over new territory along the beach with the ocean wind and the fog in your face, or inland among the ranches of walnuts and beans and olives, or threading the winding roads of the mountains' seaward slopes with their magnificent outlooks over valley and town and blue- green ocean where sunshine and rolling mists battle in beauty. Besides the roads there are many trails over which your pony will carry you where wheels cannot go deep into canons beneath the perennial shade of live-oaks, where nemophilas open their wide, blue eyes and the California thrasher trills and whistles ; or up to the very crest of the range- La Cumbre, as the Spanish has it where the ocean view is supplemented by an equally compelling one of the multitudinous mountain country to the north, an unpeopled region of oaks and chaparral and wa- terfalls, and of caverns upon whose walls are pic- tured records of redmen, dead-and-gone. Make a day of it on these jaunts ; munch your cracker and figs with the dryads under the giant fronds of the woodwardia ferns by some spring at noon; and come down to the lowlands only when evening falls, bringing the divine help of the hills with you in your uplifted heart. 211 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA II. TOURIST TOWNS OF THE OKANGE BELT The tourist towns of the orange belt are Red- lands, Riverside and Pasadena. Of these, Red- lands is the smallest, but it has a special charm from its sylvan character. The better class of res- idences and most of them are of the better class, for it is a place of much wealth are fairly em- bedded in shrubbery and orange groves, and the murmur of hidden waters in the irrigating ditches is Redlands' characteristic music. Magnificent rows of palms, grevilleas and peppers, miles of them, line and often overarch the streets and make a grateful shade in summer days when the heat of the desert just around the corner lays its hand on Redlands, and most residents who can, make holi- day Sittings to cooler places. The proximity of the desert, indeed, is at the bottom of the marvel of Redlands which, perhaps more strikingly than any other California town, illustrates the transforming power of water when directed by man's intelli- gence and taste in an arid land. Of all the riotous growth of trees and shrubs that makes the Red- lands of to-day the paradisaical garden that it is, not one is indigenous ; all have been planted by the Pauls and watered by the Apolloses of the last quar- ter century. At Smiley Heights, to whose beauties every visitor to Redlands is hurried at the first op- portunity, this fact is patent with especial force ; for 212 TOURIST TOWNS here, just across the line which marks the high tide of cultivation, the parched, treeless slopes of the desert borders lie as if in wait for man's care to be withdrawn, when the desert will sweep in again and claim its own. It is an eloquent contrast on one side of a plough's furrow these wastes whose only cover is scattering sage-brush and wild buck- wheat, and on the other this artificial wildwood of eucalyptus, deodars, pines, palms, peppers, acacias, olives, oranges, bamboos and a perfect wilderness of roses. That is the story of all Southern Cali- fornia ; but nowhere is it told so plainly to him who runs as at Redlands. In all the world there are few more lovely bow- ers of man's building than this smiling park of the Canon's Crest, with its outlook over the roofs of Redlands, peeping out here and there amid the tree tops, and across the San Bernardino Valley to the great snow-capped mountain wall that shuts in Cal- ifornia's tourist country on the east. Set every- where about the park are little rustic kiosks with thatched roofs of palm-leaf, inviting to far niente and dreams. Here, dreaming, I was brought to earth one day by the voice of a stranger youth who stood at my elbow. " Bully scenery, all right, ain't it?" he remarked. He was a sturdy young fellow in a corduroy suit and a cow-boyish sort of hat, and his gaze was directed toward the San Bernardino moun- tains. 213 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA I assented, and to keep the ball rolling, asked if he was a stranger in Redlands. "I'm working in a restaurant for two months now, but the old man's gone to Los Angeles to-day, and he said shut the shebang till he gets back; so I'm having a holiday and seeing the burg. Say, which is the mountain they call Grayback?" I pointed it out. "And the desert is just beyond, and the Mo- rongo country, ain't it?" I thought so. Did he want to go there? "Well, mebbe," he answered; "a friend of mine knows where there's some good prospects in them Morongos, and we may hit the trail this summer. The restaurant will be shut down then." ' ' Summer is a pretty dangerous time to be on the desert," I cautioned, knowing the heedlessness of youth. "You bet you," he said, "or any other time. I lived on it six years before I come inside, and I swore I'd never go back." I took another look at him and saw lines in his face that showed him to be older than I had at first taken him to be. And there were streaks of gray in his hair, yet he could not have been thirty. "Prospecting?" I asked. "Huh-huh," he grunted, as he pulled at a plug of tobacco. "There's not bad money in that; but not on your own hook. There's most by working for a company; me for that. 214 TOURIST TOWNS "Why, you see," he went on, in response to my request for further enlightenment on this branch of the business which was new to me, ' l there are big mining companies will hire men nowadays to go out in the desert to prospect for them. They grub- stake the fellows and pay seventy-five to two hun- dred dollars a month wages, besides a percentage in claims they locate that pan out. All the pros- pector has to put up is his own burros. It's a bet- ter proposition in the long run, I think, than run- ning your own game; for you can't go broke; but you've got to be good keep sober, play fair and deliver some goods or nobody '11 hire you. w "Yes, sir" he was dreamily gazing beyond the beautiful little city of homes nestled in orange groves at our feet, away to the grim mountains that looked down on the lava beds, the drifting sands, the alkali sinks and devil's half -acres of the Morongo country that filled his mind's eye "yes, sir, once I swore I'd never go back to the desert again. It was this way: Me and my pardner, Johnny Eyan he was a big six-foot-four Irishman and weighed two hundred and eighty pounds we got lost somehow and missed a tank we knew of. So we had to let the burros go and light out for water wherever it was. Johnny strapped seventy-five pounds of stuff on his back and I packed thirty on mine I was kind of weak and off my feed, anyhow and we hoofed it across the desert for four days straight, twenty- eight or thirty miles a day, looking for water and 215 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA the way in. We each had a little in our canteens ; but we daren't any more than just wet our lips with it, and just as it was all about gone and me and Johnny was all in, we struck a waterhole. That cured me of the desert for a while, and I vowed I'd never set foot on the place again ; but I dunno, seems to be looking good again. Oranges is all right and sure pretty; but, somehow, they don't look good like sagebrush. ' ' So does the desert hold its own. Your Redlands friends will probably not lend much encouragement to any plans you have for vis- iting Riverside; for, after Redlands, Riverside seems to them skimmed milk. Nevertheless go, if for no other reason than to see how the Mission note has been incorporated in a hotel by that prince of modern Bonifaces, the master of Riverside's Glenwood Mission Inn. That, indeed, is Riverside to the average tourist. Like the Coronado, it is a little world in itself, but unique in its reincarna- tion of the material features of the California of a century or more agone, when the Franciscan Mis- sions were practically the whole of its civilization and the recognized stopping places for travelers. The arched corridors, facing a sunny patio where one may sip one's afternoon tea among roses and under the pleasant shade of tropic trees; the cam- panario, with its sweet-toned bells that chime out old hymns at noon and eventide ; the cloistered mu- sic-room, with its pipe organ, and atmosphere so 216 TOURIST TOWNS chapel-like that one talks there in whispers; the shadowy walls, where old banners hang and an- cient armor and pictures of saints and kings; the cloister walk with mural pictures of the Missions and images of saints in lighted niches ; the monkish refectory with its old Spanish kitchen in one cor- ner; the roof -garden of the bells, where quaint and ancient samples of the founder's art the world over are suspended; the churchly books and illuminated manuscripts on vellum that lie to the hand upon tables and window-seats everywhere, is there such another hotel in all the modern world as this Mis- sion Inn at Riverside? Looking deeper than to the mere creature comfort that most hotels are content to strive for, it touches a man's spirit, if his soul be not dead to the appeal of beauty and romance and high purpose; and so in a very real sense, it is a mission, as well as an inn. And then there is Joseph, the dignified macaw with coat of many col- ors, who has the freedom of the entire hotel and its grounds, his wings being clipped, and is the pet of every guest. Why, it is worth the price of a day's lodging to sit in an easy chair by St. Catherine's well and watch Joseph go his leisurely round. He perches on the wrists of such as he approves of; climbs over their shoulders and down their backs; sidles up tree-limbs, cocking his eye the while like Bunsby's on the coast of Greenland; stands care- fully on his head at the top of a pole; is photo- graphed a hundred times a day; takes a bath under 217 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA the hydrant; meditates profoundly on chair backs, and other things conformable to claws; ogles the pretty girls in golf and tennis outfits, as they come and go; till finally when the day is done and the vesper chimes have sounded and electric lights re- place the sun, he is carried off to his perch in a special niche in the wall reserved for him and blanketed in from the night chill. To stop at an inn so steeped as this in the spirit of the Mission days is a fitting prelude to another unique experience which, at Easter, Riverside of- fers to the traveler the Sunrise Pilgrimage to the summit of Rubidoux Mountain. This round knob of barrenness in a plain on the outskirts of River- side has in recent years been provided with a broad, winding roadway of easy grade, leading to the summit where a great wooden cross has been erected to the memory of the Franciscan Father, Junipero Serra. Hither, on every Sunday at dawn, afoot and by automobile, come crowds of Riversidians together with the strangers within their gates, and gathering about the cross, await the sun. As it appears above the snowy crest of the San Bernardino Sierra, the people bare their heads and unite in a brief religious service, the or- der of it being printed upon a sheet and copies pre- viously distributed among the throng. As one stands in this reverent assembly upon a mountain- top beneath the sky, one's heart is hard indeed if it is not made tender by the spirit of this simple of- 218 TOURIST TOWNS faring of praise and adoration to the risen Lord of Life. Serra, as he lay dying, told his followers that he would "use his influence with God" before whom his spirit was soon to appear, to prosper the Missions of their Father Francis. Such an unseo- tarian gathering as this annually on Eubidoux, owing its inspiration to Serra 's selfless work on behalf of one little fragment of the human race, would seem to show that in a larger way than he thought the Franciscan's prayer is being answered. While not every tourist finds it convenient to visit Eiverside or Redlands, few fail to see Pasa- dena, which occupies at the western end of the or- ange belt a superb situation on an elevated bench of land at the foot of high mountains, a situation very similar to that occupied by Redlands. The magnet of wealth probably has a good deal to do with this influx of visitors; for the fame of Pasa- dena's millionaire residents, whose sumptuous homes line Orange Grove Boulevard for a mile and a half and dot hundreds of acres at Oak Knoll, is nation-wide. Popular report credits the little city with being the richest per capita in California; but I do not find that this is quite the truth, though its average in this not very important matter is, owing to the presence of the aforesaid men of millions, unquestionably high. In point of fact, besides a considerable number of business men and wage- earners going daily to their vocations in Los An- geles, its citizenship includes a large leisure and 219 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA semi-leisure class of very moderate means, who, by economy and thrift, manage to live well on modest incomes in a climate of rare excellence retired farmerfolk from the Middle West, semi-invalided merchants from the Eastern Coast States, pen- sioned college professors and school teachers from everywhere, who have come hither in the afternoon of life to "crown a youth of labor with an age of ease." More potent than millionaires, however, who nowadays are too common to be of the prominence they once were, is Pasadena's other specialty, the New Year's open-air fete, known as the Tourna- ment of Roses. This really fine pageant has, for over twenty years, been an annual feature in Pasa- dena and draws thither on New Year's Day per- haps a hundred thousand people from all over Cal- ifornia and the East every year. It was never, in any sense, a real-estate advertising scheme, though this has been often said of it ; but was the disinter- ested suggestion of Dr. C. F. Holder, whose account of its history is authority for the facts here given. Its first presentation was in 1888, under the au- spices of the Valley Hunt Club, the pioneer social organization of Pasadena, and was given "as a po- etic and artistic celebration of the most important event in California at the time the ripening of the orange. It was a greeting of Flora to the fruits." The date was fixed as January first, because that was the nearest general holiday to the time when or- 220 TOURIST TOWNS anges began to be picked. At the suggestion of a member who had seen the Battle of the Roses in Rome, that feature was originally introduced, giv- ing the title to the fiesta, which title still holds, though the feature itself has, for many years, been given up. As at present given, the Tournament of Roses is a whole day's affair. In the morning is a street parade of fine saddle-horses, carriages and automobiles, lavishly decorated with flowers and greenery; cleverly devised floats, historical or rep- resentative of contemporary features of California ; and marching clubs, the dominant feature in all be- ing the display of flowers blooming in the open in California at a time when the rest of the country is largely snow-bound. The afternoon is given over to sports of various kinds at a large concourse known as Tournament Park. The principal event among these has, for many years, been a series of chariot-races, each chariot drawn by four horses abreast. As these chariots, which are models of the famous quadriga of the old Romans, tear around the course, their drivers urging on the madly flying steeds amid clouds of swirling dust, the twentieth century crowd arises and cheers as enthusiastically as did ever one in Rome's old Coli- seum in the days of the Caesars. One needs to live in Pasadena to realize how closely this Tournament of Roses is bound up in the life of the people. When autumn is well under way and the tourists begin to drop in, the Tournament 221 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA Committee gets down to work, arranging the de- tails of the programme and giving out contracts. Delinquent members of the Association are drummed for their dues. Tournament squibs and paragraphs, inciting to civic pride in the coming event, pop at you every day or two from the local newspapers. Residents are urged to be diligent to protect their flowers from untimely frosts or the yearly "Santa Ana" which has a way of swooping down from the desert for a night's demoniac blow just before the winter rains set in. In December, the Weather Man becomes the most pampered of citizens. He must be kept in good humor at all hazards. First, he is coaxed to send a gentle pre- liminary storm to freshen up the gardens; then, about Christmas, he is daily cajoled to keep the skies clear till the day after New Year's at least. The last few days before the Tournament are nerve-racking to a degree, on account of weather possibilities; for a wet New Year's Day, of course, means complete collapse of this fete. It is remark- able that, in all the twenty-odd years of its holding, not once has there had to be a postponement on ac- count of weather. In 1910, indeed, failure did seem imminent. A heavy rainstorm set in during the last days of December and continued during the thirty-first without signs of passing. Flowers had been gathered between showers and in the rain and were abundant enough; but, if the rain should con- tinue into the next day, there could be no parade, 222 TOURIST TOWNS for the delicate vestments of participants and the gauzy draperies of many of the floats could not stand it to say nothing of the lack of spectators. Moreover, the railroads had arranged for excur- sions from various points, and must know abso- utely the night before if the Tournament was to be held or not. If not, they must notify their patrons at once. The Weather Man had no hope to offer. The Committee met for decision in the early evening the rain still falling and their sporting blood was up. There was but one view the Tournament, rain or shine ; and the news was flashed instantly in every house in Pasadena by the dipping of the elec- tric lights, according to a prearranged signal an- nounced in the evening papers. The decoration of the entries went on all night in garages, barns and back-kitchens, to a very devil's tattoo of de- scending torrents; and when morning broke, the storm still hovered over the city. Before nine o'clock, however, the rain held, and when the her- alds sounded their trumpets for the march to begin, the sun was shining, though fitfully. The Tourna- ment was held, Pasadena New Year's record was saved unbroken, and at nightfall the storm set in again! III. MONTEREY The stout lady from New York settled herself in 223 UNDEE THE SKY IN CALIFOENIA her seat as the train began its half -hour run from Castroville to Monterey. "To-day's Wednesday," she calculated aloud. "We'll rest at Del Monte this afternoon, and do the drive they talk about in the morning ; and then couldn't we be in San Francisco to-morrow night?" That's Monterey to most tourists Del Monte and the Seventeen Mile Drive; only not quite all are so grudging of time as the stout lady. Give it a week, if you can, and if you are of a contempla- tive mind, disposed to the study of a romantic past and a picturesque present, after you have seen Del Monte, go on to the old town of Monterey, and there put up at a little commercial hotel on Alvarado Street that any traveling man can tell you of. It has a modest little entrance, which you will surely walk past in the dark and have to inquire your way back of the tamale man at the corner; but once in- side, you will find a wide hearth where a woodfire glows and crackles, a dignified black cat answering to the name of Nig, who, properly approached will sit up on his haunches like a dog and shake hands, a bed above suspicion and a delightful table (if Charley, the Chinese "boy," still does the cook- ing), all for two dollars and a half a day. Or, if there are two or three of you and you have a taste for the independence of light-housekeeping, you may do as, perhaps, you have done in Europe, stay the night at the hotel and the next morning, walk the streets in quest of the familiar sign of 224 TOUEIST TOWNS "Furnished Rooms to Let" in cottage windows. Such apartments you will find most to your taste at Pacific Grove into which Monterey insensibly merges at the south. Here, as at Santa Barbara, the flowers are fat and chubby from the tonic of the sea air. Roses, pelargoniums, heliotropes, pan- sies, nasturtiums, irises, pinks, poppies and callas nod a welcome to you at every turn, and you will almost miss the sign you are looking for, because of the luxuriance of its floral framing. Yes, you will like it at Pacific Grove, settled in your cottage rooms, with a bit of porch to yourselves, a view of the ever-changing beauties of sea, the perpetual music of the surf, the perfumes of the garden, and, like as not, a crabbed old Chinaman with baskets swung from a yoke across his shoulders, to bring you fresh fish as often as you want it. To be sure, Pacific Grove lacks the historic inter- est and down-at-the-heel picturesqueness that is old Monterey's, but to the heart where the love of na- ture dwells, it makes rare appeal, with the solemni- ties of its encompassing pines and its sunny, wind- swept, turfy downs, bright with sea-daisies, Cali- fornia buttercups and eschscholtzias, and ending suddenly at the sea's edge in perpendicular cliffs and huge rock-masses drenched with spray, that re- mind you of New England's coast. But whatever the season, be sure to bring warm clothing; for it is a coast of chill fogs and searching winds at times, and the times are not predictable. 225 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA A dingy, little, yellow electric-car runs at decent intervals between Pacific Grove and Monterey for the benefit of non-pedestrians; but pleasanter than track of steel is the old foot-pathway that Steven- son doubtless often trod, along the downs that skirt the sea, and the sweet, grassy lanes that lead through the settlement of Chinese fishermen with its racks and trellises for drying nets, and queer ideographic signs and smoldering joss-sticks to placate the devil withal; and on past the shops of the jolly Japanese boat-builders, to the spider- legged pier of the oil company where tank steamers lie tied up to bobbing buoys and suck into their hollow holds the black petroleum piped hither a hundred miles from Coalinga beyond the moun- tains. So do we come to the little creek's mouth, now all but choked up, where tradition places the landing of Padre Serra in 1770 and, perhaps, of Vizcaino in 1602, when this caballero of fortune dis- covered and named the bay of Monterey, describing it after a fashion so much in the style of the florid California advertising literature of to-day that, for a hundred and sixty-eight years, no subsequent passer-by seemed to recognize the place. Here we may climb the hill of the Presidio, where our Gov- ernment maintains an army post, and sitting upon an antique Spanish cannon in the old earthworks at the top, look out across the town and the bay to the dim arm of land thrust seaward beyond Santa Cruz, hiding another that the old Spaniards named 226 TOURIST TOWNS Punta de Ano Nuevo -the Point of the New Year, Below us at our backs, upon the sunny parade ground, the bugles will be playing if the troops are drilling, or perhaps there is baseball on the Pre- sidio diamond between noisy nines of the infantry and cavalry. Soldiers, in fact, are a cherished feature of Monterey, and we run up against them at every turn, singly or in squads at street corners, on the water-front watching the fisher-folk, loiter- ing about saloon doors, or discussing enchiladas in the Spanish casas de comida and abalone steaks in Wo Hop's Chinese restaurant. Monterey's streets, except where Americanism is creeping in, have the charm of country lanes. They fork off at unexpected angles; along their grassy borders run footpaths, and behind old adobe walls with tile copings are tangled gardens that smell sweet and bear fruit and are the happy playgrounds of little children whose prattle in the Spanish which seems Monterey's only proper tongue, falls pleas- antly on your ear. It is in these streets of the older town that the quaint adobe houses stand, whitewashed and galleried and square of roof, which link Monterey so vividly with the period of Spanish supremacy. They are but few now, these out-at-elbow aristocrats of a day that is gone, but they give to the whole place a flavor of unmistak- able gentility. Most have been identified with the part in history they have played, and to such are affixed modest labels of identification. The events 227 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA recorded are, as a rule, more interesting to Cali- fornians than to others, as they have to do mainly with the capture and first occupation of the State by the United States not altogether a savory memory. The picturesqueness of the buildings, however, and the indefinable atmosphere of ro- mance that clings to all las cosas de Espana, are of a universal appeal, and so Monterey has been a home to the bearer of more than one honored name in literature and art. The one all know is Robert Louis Stevenson's. A dilapidated adobe mansion in a decaying part of the town, passes for a house in which, thirty-odd years ago, he had lodgings for a few months and slept rolled in his blankets on the floor. Above the door is a sign, weather-beaten as the house, reading: "R. Stevenson House." A carriage painter makes use of a room or two for his simy needs and a couple of Spanish families are quartered in other rooms. The rest is given over to vagrant winds and bats. One must not, however, confuse the R. Stevenson of the sign with the R. L. S. of immortal literature ; for Monterey, it seems, has harbored Stevensons and Stevensons, as I learned. Seeking something more picturesque than the barren front of this structure with its broken plaster and gaping win- dows, I come upon a partially shut-in quadrangle in the rear where the sun brightens into a dozen lovely tints the time-stained walls, and where a sag- ging outside stairway leads alluringly to an upper 228 TOURIST TOWNS story. Here trees cast dappled shadows on the grass and lazy murmurs drift in from the unseen street, and here Rosalia Ybarra, in a calico gown of startling hues and designs, appears to do wash- ing in her intervals of labor. To-day the sun is very pleasant along the old wall and she is enjoying its warmth, the while watching little Marquitos play in the mud. Seeing me open my camera she would inject Marquitos into the picture; but he, from in- fantile shyness, drifts into the shadow of the steps, to Rosalia's evident disappointment. It is ar- ranged, however, between us to get the muchachito well in the sunny foreground, and though he ducks his head at the cannon-like instrument pointed at him, the shutter snaps before he escapes to the shade again. So Rosalia claps her hands and laughs comfortably and gives me her address that a print may be sent her. She is very frier. Y%. is Ro- salia, good-humored and fat, and, though we have never met before, ready to inform. Oh, yais, senor, she know' Mr. Stevenson ver' wail he ver' reech gentleman what own' ver' much houses and get good rent. Yais, he was die' now, but one time ago he live' in this house ver' fine house in them day' -what you call hotel, and many people they use' to board this house. Books? Oh, yais, he write books, too ver' reech man, Mr. Stevenson. Adios, and the senor would not forget to send the picture what he make? From Monterey you may motor, trolley, drive or 229, UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFOKNIA foot it to Del Monte it is only a mile. If you go by vehicle, have your driver take you the longest way round through the glorious woodland which envelopes the hotel on all sides a wildwood of na- tive pines, cypresses and oaks in gray draperies of hanging moss, huge eucalypts and countless bloom- ing shrubs. And, if you walk, follow the same de- vious way. And after you have wound round and round-about for the best part of a mile, like a knight-errant of old in search of an enchanted cas- tle, suddenly it gleams out at you through the trees the red roofs and spirelike chimneys and pinna- cles of the hotel, islanded in a lake of emerald lawn dotted with English daisies and ordered beds of flowers. While architecturally the hotel is less im- posing than the Coronado, it is this sylvan ap- proach that makes a visit there a memorable ex- perience in life, and you do not get it in its fullness when you enter from the railroad station which is already well in the midst of the grounds. One might dream away days sitting in the shade of the magnificent trees or lingering among the beds of exotic bloom, or getting lost and found again in the bewildering labyrinth of the cypress maze, or con- templating the grotesque wonders of the cactus garden defended by the humiliating notice, "All persons are requested not to cut their names or initials on the cactus leaves." Truly a high seat in heaven is meet for these philanthropic souls who throw their parks open to the American, 230 TOUEIST TOWNS public, knowing the vandal instincts of the race. The automobile era has elongated Monterey's Seventeen Mile Drive into a thirty-five mile drive now ; but the original seventeen holds the cream of the matter. Contemplative travelers of sound wind and limb, may advantageously walk it, taking a day to the adventure, with camera and a bit of lunch along, unless they prefer to spend the price of an abalone chowder at Pebble Beach Lodge, a rustic outpost of the hotel half-way round the cir- cle. The essential charm of this famous drive is the untouched natural beauty of the park-like re- gion it traverses. Man has made a road and then, with unwonted modesty, withdrawn in Nature's favor. The entrance is barred by a toll-gate whose "open sesame, " if you are a rider, is California's hackneyed "two bits"; but the pedestrian passes free to his heritage. For nearly two miles, the hard gravel road, old enough now to have all its lines softened by time, winds in sun and shadow, opening ever new vistas through a forest of native pines, where Stevenson loved to walk. Years after, when he was writing "Treasure Island," Mrs. Os- bourne tells us, he drew on his memories of this Monterey country for descriptions of the place of the buried gold in that immortal story. Bracken and shade-loving blossoms brighten the interspaces under the trees, and the peace of Arden fills all this lovely woodland where the song of the southwest wind, blowing from mid-Pacific isles, is caught in 231 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA the pine-tops, and the murmur of the surf upon the hidden shore sounds faint to the ear; till, by and by, the forest parts like a curtain and lo ! the green turfy downs, stretching to the sands where the surf breaks white, and, beyond, the blue waters of the Pacific, sparkling in the sun. And then for another two miles or so, we saunter along these joyous downs where birds are singing and wild flowers raise their pretty faces to ours; or we clamber out upon the rocks and watch the sea-lions sunning their oily hides on rocky islets amid the surf, and the solemn pelicans drifting on deliberate wing in quest of fish, which they stow in their ridiculous portmanteaus of bills. And so on to a wilderness of yellow sand-dunes beyond which rises wind-swept Cypress Point whose grotesque trees, their gnarled and twisted boles capped with flattish crowds of verdure of so rich and deep a hue that they seem like moss-islands in the air, were a land-mark of the Spanish pioneers. Non- botanical Montereyans tell you these trees are the same as the cedars of Lebanon, but they are of quite a different genus. As a matter of fact, the species is found native nowhere in the world, ex- cept along a narrow strip of coast about two miles in length in the immediate neighborhood of this Cypress Point, though the tree is now introduced into cultivation in many places. A lit- tle further and we look into the blue depths of Carmel Bay, named by old Vizcaino who, over three 232 TOURIST TOWNS centuries ago, christened the little stream that emp- ties into it El Kio de Carmelo, out of regard to three Carmelite friars who formed the ecclesiasti- cal department of his expedition. To the same sheltered shore, Don Gaspar de Portola, one No- vember day in 1769, on his way back from the re- discovery of San Francisco Bay, came searching for the lost harbor of Monterey. Being unable, from Vizcaino's fanciful description, to recognize Monte- rey Bay just around the corner, he trudged it back to San Diego, with his half-starved command, hav- ing first planted upon a hill, not far off, a great white cross. Six months later, Portola came again, and with him Serra and his Franciscans. The cross still stood looking to the sea; but about it strings of shells were festooned, and before it, as before a shrine, were offerings of feathered arrows, and the flesh of animals and fish. The natives, it seems, had found it rare " medicine "; for at night, so they said, the white arms stretched out and filled the darkness with supernatural fires, reaching even to the stars. Doubtless it had been a mute preacher in the wilderness, preparing the way for Serra 's apostolic work. The cross is long since gone, but the Mission church, which Serra built in the lovely Canada del Carmelo, still stands par- tially restored, and before its altar are interred the ashes of the Father and of Brother Crespi, who labored with him in this remote vineyard of the Lord. 233 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA No glimpse may be had of the old church from the Seventeen Mile Drive which, turning inland from the Bay, penetrates flowery woodlands by hill and dale, back to the country road that leads again to Monterey; but there is a footway that may be shown you, down through a dingle and across an arroyo and up a fragrant piney hillside, through a turnstile I declare, it seems like a bit of Eng- landto the back gates of the quaintest, most en- trancing and most homelike of all California beach resorts, Carmel-by-the-Sea. Moreover, it is be- loved of the Muses, and traveler folk with a taste for literary pilgrimage, like to include it in their itineraries. Though not yet in its teens, Carmel- by-the-Sea is as old-timey a looking village as you will find in a summer's day a friendly little col- lection of flower-embowered cottages and tasteful bungalows with inviting gardens, in the heart of a pine forest, so combining the natural charms of seaside and wildwood. Here Mary Austin has her tiny " winter wickiup " and high in a pine tree be- hind it an aerial work-room. Here, too, are homes of the novelist sisters, Grace MacGowan Cooke and Alice Mac Gowan, of George Sterling the poet, of David Starr Jordan of educational and piscatorial fame, and of a dozen more, as yet less known. Artists of the brush also crop out on every hand, as one strolls about ; there is an Arts and Crafts Club and a Forest Theater whose pillars are 234 TOUEIST TOWNS primeval pines and whose roof the sky; and there is no railroad within five miles. And down the main street of Cannel-by-the-Sea, a short mile, lies in pastoral loveliness the vale of Carmel with the domed Mission in its midst, and beyond it the shining waters of the bay and the Sierra Santa Lucia, by whose grim passes and dizzy steeps, treacherous to the foot, the Spaniard Por- tola and his leather jackets, the Credo in their mouths,* came and went in quest of Monterey's elu- sive bay, missed it, and came again and found it. * Con el Credo en la loca the quaint phrase of Father Crespi, the chronicler of the expedition. 235 EESIDENCE IN THE LAND OF SUNSHINE I. LIFE IN A BUNGALOW ONE of the most hard-worked words in Cali- fornia of recent years is bungalow. In its name so many architectural whimseys have been indulged that it has at last become impossible to de- fine the term with exactitude. Anything from a plain, unvarnished shack to a two-storied palace with tiled roof and patio may be dubbed a bungalow, and few dwellers in the Land of Sunshine are will- ing any longer to own up to living in a house or even a cottage; for while in the East, the climate almost restricts the use of a bungalow to a sort of play- thing a vacation-camp or a week-end shelter in California it is taken seriously as a permanent resi- dence. But though it is not possible to draw a hard-and- fast line at which the California bungalow style stops and something else begins, there is one thing sure: that when you see a cozy one or one-and-a- half-story dwelling with low-pitched roof and very wide eaves, ample porches, lots of windows and an outside chimney of cobble or clinker-brick half hid- den by clinging vines that is a bungalow, whatever 236 RESIDENCE IN THE LAND OF SUNSHINE other houses may be. In Pasadena and Los An- geles there are literally miles of these delectable little dwellings, hardly any two just alike. Those two cities appear to be the special places where the bungalow habit seriously began, though the fashion has spread very largely through the State. In size, the popular taste is for five or six rooms (exclusive of the bath), but eight or nine rooms are not uncom- mon, though this greater number usually necessi- tates an upper story. Nowadays, since the luxury of outdoor sleeping has come to be appreci- ated, the sleeping-porch is an indispensable ad- junct, and this may be part of the ground plan or set jauntily, like a yacht's cabin, on the roof. The building material is generally redwood on an Oregon pine framework, the foundation being cobble or concrete ; and there may or may not be a cellar. In former years, building was often started right on the ground, but California ground is damp, in winter especially; and if you want to escape rheu- matism, your floors should be at least a couple of feet above the earth. An artistic effect is produced by the use, in some cases, of cypress shakes for the sides, and some bungalows are built entirely of con- crete, but this material stares you out of counte- nance until its hard surface is broken up and softened by vines and shrubbery. The style of construction may be what is locally known as a " California house" that is, unplastered, with battens and bur- 237 UNDEE THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA lap inside to stop the cracks ; but this means a maxi- mum of cold in winter and of heat in summer, and while less expensive, is not so comfortable as the ceiled bungalow, which is the customary sort now built. Within there is usually paneling half way up the walls in the beautifully grained Oregon pine, stained, not painted; there is a built-in buffet in the dining-room, and in the living-room and den built-in book-cases and settles, and open fireplaces. The properly appointed bungalow inside stands for comfort, leisureliness and cheerfulness, comport- ing with a climate which makes for the same quali- ties. Bungalow life is informal but not necessarily bohemian, and at its best is simple, without being sloppy. If it is winter, the open fire that greets you as you enter directly from outdoors into the living- room there is no hallway is a pleasant thing for the spirit, even if hardwood does cost fifteen dollars a cord.* The ample windows fill the house with light, not glaring, but subdued by the generous over- hang of the eaves ; and there is the perfume of vio- lets or roses, or both, in the air they have not come from a florist's, but from under the window outside. If it be summer, the house is cooler than the out- doors; and the lowered awnings outside the win- dows and the dropped screens on the porches, tem- per the indoor light to a restful half-light. Opened * Some dealers may quote, you eleven, but you will find that moans not the 128 cubic feet of the arithmetic book, but a 96-foot cord a California speciality, acquaintance with which is part of the tenderfoot's education. 238 RESIDENCE IN THE LAND OF SUNSHINE doorways and windows admit the breeze with its manifold fragrances from hedge and garden, while complete screening throughout the house keeps out insect life. Rugs and couch-covers in cheerful col- ors, Oriental or Indian; Indian ollas of quaint de- signs for flower holders ; Indian baskets set here and there for receptacles or hung on walls as plaques; pictures of characteristic California scenes, such as snow-capped mountains, cool canon depths, the crumbling Missions all such things help to give the unconventional touch which goes with bungalow living. While the delight of bungalow life in California is largely attributable to the quality of climate which, winter and summer, calls you out of doors, or failing that, to open wide your casements and invite outdoors in, a generous share of credit is due also to good architects and first-class builders who have brought into the country the best ideas of their art and craft. There is not a facility to comfortable living known to the world that may not be found in the better class of California towns, and at rea- sonable rates. Electricity for lighting, electrical de- vices for cooking or for otherwise lightening labor, gas-ranges and grates, and gas water-heaters, the most approved plumbing, telephone connections both local and long-distance these are matters of course in every modern bungalow in California tourist towns. The cost of bungalows has been reduced to a 239 UNDEE THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA formula. As a rule of thumb, for a one-story, modern, frame structure, you can figure on a dollar and a half per square foot of ground covered hy it, and you will not be far astray. This applies to what may be called the "bungalow of commerce'' built by a contractor to sell ; but it covers good work and is the sort that the average family of four or five buys with from $2,000 to $3,000, exclusive of the lot which may be anywhere from $500 up, according to the lo- cality. To the family of moderate means a very appeal- ing feature of bungalow life is the ease of keeping house which it offers, and the independence of serv- ants. The servant problem, indeed, has been solved in Gordian-knot fashion by doing away with the servant; for, given a reasonable degree of strength and skill on the part of the womankind of the house- hold, a servant is not needed, and in the democratic West no lady loses caste by the fact of doing her own housework. As there are in most bungalows but one floor and few rooms, the housewife 's daily steps are reduced to a minimum. The kitchen is a com- pact little room, airy and light, and provided with various ingenious modern helps to lessen labor. Adjoining is the invariable screen-porch where are laundry-tubs, ice-box, cooling closets, et cetera, the cooling closet being a built-in cupboard with open, screened bottom and top and perforated shelves through which a vertical current of air ascends con- tinually from under the house to roof, and, in this 240 EESIDENCE IN THE LAND OF SUNSHINE land of cold nights, makes the housekeeper measur- ably independent of ice even in summer. Gas is the usual fuel for cooking, though some bungalows have electric kitchens, and by it the work of prepar- ing meals is reduced to as little as may be. If the housewife desires to be spared the labor of clean- ing, which is necessary much less frequently in the relatively non-humid climate of California than on the Atlantic slope, she may arrange to have some one come from outside at stated times and take this off her hands. Once in two weeks may be enough. Besides white women, Japanese "boys" make a business of such work at about two dollars and a half per day, or one dollar and a half per half-day, and latterly some white men have taken up this voca- tion. Other things being equal, men are prefer- able to women for the business, because of the physical strength needed for handling and beating heavy rugs, scrubbing floors and washing windows. As to heating the bungalow, the mildness of the climate reduces this to a comparatively simple mat- ter. Even in winter, unless during an abnormal cold-snap or on rainy days, fire cannot be regarded as a necessity, except in the early morning and dur- ing the evenings. One wood-fire in the living-room fireplace is, therefore, all the average family need count on, as bathroom and sleeping-chambers are customarily supplied either with gas heaters, or a certain kind of little sheet-iron stove with a furious draught, that can be made red hot with twisted 241 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFOKNIA newspapers in a few minutes. This is the native Calif ornian's favorite heating arrangement, and his pet economy is saving the newspapers all summer and autumn to twist up for winter fuel. These ob- servations, however, are based on the fact that Cali- fornians as a class are not prone to living in rooms of as high a temperature by several degrees, as are Easterners; and if one's health or comfort demands a uniformly warm house in winter say 70 degrees Fahrenheit or over a heater had best be installed in the cellar for use on occasion. Many modern bungalows are provided with such heaters of vari- ous sorts, but all are rather lilliputian affairs from an Eastern or Middle West point of view, yet en- tirely sufficient for the work required of them. The fuel is frequently gas, but oftener a fuel-petro- leum locally known as "distillate." As to the cost of bungalow living in California, it is pretty much what one chooses to make it. Our own small family of sometimes four, and sometimes three, found by experience that we lived in Pasa- dena for about one-third less than in Philadelphia and lived better; and we could have reduced the cost still further in Pasadena had we chosen to work our kitchen garden as we might have done instead' of only playing with it. Our Pasadena account, however, was minus a house-servant's contribution to the expense of living, while in Philadelphia we had kept a maid. On the other hand, we paid in Pasadena for the weekly cleaning half-a-day and 242 RESIDENCE IN THE LAND OF SUNSHINE put out all the laundry. The difference on wage- account to the debit of Philadelphia was about what the maid ate, broke and wasted, which is left to the reader to compute. In our bungalow experience we have had more elbow-room and enjoyed some ameni- ties, particularly as to the table, that in the East we had perforce to leave to the millionaires among these the luxury of entertaining our Eastern visi- tors in January on green peas, fresh tomatoes, strawberries and luscious Japanese persimmons, from our own garden or from just around the cor- ner! Fresh fruits, nuts and vegetables should form, and among the wise ones do form, a relatively larger part of the diet in a mild climate like Cali- fornia's than in the more rigorous East, and they offer the best chance and a very delicious one for keeping down the cost of the table. Particu- larly is the list of native grown fruits an extended one in California. Oranges, grape-fruit, lemons, apricots, nectarines, plums, quinces, apples, pears, cherries, peaches, figs, loquats, pomegranates, the huge, non-astringent Japanese persimmons, a dozen or more varieties of grapes of the meaty Old- World stock the very reading of these makes one's mouth water to say nothing of berries and melons galore and an aristocratic little list of tropical and semi- tropical fruits which are still experiments in Cali- fornia, but some of which, like the avocado and the feijoa, will doubtless be prevailed upon to stay. If 243 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA you have a fair-sized city lot with your bungalow, you can raise quite a number of these good things on it; but you need at least an acre to get much satisfaction out of growing a variety of fruit, as the birds of California figure on getting a large share of their living out of the tenderfoot's garden- ing undertakings, and are as merciless as the tax- gatherer. But even if you do not raise your own fruits and vegetables, they are cheaply bought in their various seasons from the green-grocers and the Chinese hucksters, or at the ranches as you drive about the country. In speaking of bungalow life a word is in order about the part the porches play. Like many other people, we made an outdoor living-and-dining-room of our rear veranda, a quiet, retired spot on whose roof and sides were climbing roses and honey- suckles that hid us from our neighbors. From this flowery bower we looked out upon our little 60 x 90 foot garden, and beyond to the Sierra Madre, witb its lovely lights and shadows and exquisite colors in the evening glow. Old-hickory chairs and settees, with a similar table or two, indifferent to the weather, make a suitable furnishing to such a nook. We added, in our case, the sewing-machine, and all through the long dry season it lasts from May sometimes till November it stood ready to hand, giving the porch a pleasant touch of domesticity which a low work-table, piled high every week with the family mending, served to complete. Here the 244 EESIDENCE IN THE LAND OF SUNSHINE daily mail was brought and discussed, the news- paper read, letters written, the vegetables prepared for dinner, callers entertained; and here often our meals were served not only in summer, but on sunny days in winter. We began this practise impulsively as a sort of frolic we were fond of picnicking but it proved so delightful and satisfying that it soon became a habit. Dished up on hot plates in the kitchen and brought quickly to the veranda on a tray, the eatables suffered nothing from their out- ing, while appetite and digestion throve ; for we did not allow the meals to degenerate into " pick-up snacks" but kept them on the plane of serious re- pasts. An alcohol lamp on a side-table served for the heating of water, and the warming up of small matters. The extension of electrical connections to the porch simplifies proceedings still further. The vogue of the bungalow with the winter so- journers in tourist towns has led to the establish- ment recently of so-called "bungalow-courts" that is, the assembling of a number of bungalows upon a tract of ground equal to two or three city lots and ranged about a central open space devoted to lawn, flower-beds and a common walk. The buildings, while set rather closely side by side, are still sepa- rated by a space ample to admit an abundance of light. The idea is really that of the Spanish house built around a patio, only in this case entire, dis- connected dwellings, are the unit in the make-up, in- stead of rooms. A dozen or more may be comfort- 245 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA ably built on the land of two city lots. They are rented, usually furnished, for the season, or for the year if desired, on a basis which provides free water and electric light, the fuel gas consumed being paid for by the tenant. The grounds are cared for by the landlord. The rental rate of such bungalows varies greatly according to number of rooms, loca- tion and term of lease. In Pasadena, where they are now rather numerous, few are offered furnished under $45 monthly for the winter, while some are as high as $200 per month. In summer these rates are cut in two. II. MAKING A LIVING IN THE LAND OF SUNSHINE We were sitting on the porch after a good luncheon, enjoying the warmth of a sunny, win- ter midday. There was a fragrance of daphne blossoms in the air, and the music of humming bees. Beyond the lower end of the garden where the young folks were playing tennis in white flannels was an orange-grove hanging heavy with its Hesperian fruit, and beyond that across the green mesa rose the majestic range of the Sierra Madre, its crest white with snow. Now and then the ecstatic note of the meadow-lark floated down the air, and on every side mocking-birds were whistling. Automo- biles filled with pleasure-seekers whirred by on the street, and occasionally a horseback party of tanned 246 RESIDENCE IN THE LAND OF SUNSHINE young men and girls bare of arm and head cantered toward the mountains. "Another blizzard back East," chuckled the old Calif ornian from the midst of his newspaper; " little old New York's street car service paralyzed, mer- cury two below zero, and wind forty miles an hour." Your Californian can never resist gloating over the eccentricities of the Eastern climate, as though the relative excellence of California were his own manufacture. But my thoughts were on the scene before me. "This is certainly the place to enjoy life," I ob- served after a while, "if you have your pockets full of money and can stay away from business as long as you like ; but how about the poor chap with an in- valid wife and a bunch of children, or the man with weak lungs and a crippled bank account, shipped out here when the back-East doctor is tired of his case, to live an outdoor life and build up in other words, the fellows who have to make a living while they live in California what sort of a chance have they here f ' ' "That was my case," fenced the Old Californian, "I had weak lungs and went to ranching on a place that couldn't be seen for the mortgage. Look at me now. I'm strong as a bull and live on Easy Street." "I know," I pursued, "but that was thirty-odd years ago when you came and things were different then. Any land then was high at a hundred dollars 247 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA an acre, and by dumb luck you picked out your bit of acreage where the fates had decreed a tourist town to come. You dried peaches and apricots, sold greasewood and peddled honey, kept a cow or two on the scrub of the foothills, and lived, as be- came a pioneer, on the dried fruits of the land ; and your wife made you hold on when you wanted to make a fool of yourself and sell out after three dry years ; and then when the town took to growing and was crowding you, you let go on the basis of town- lots at twenty dollars a front foot." "The fellow that bought it, doubled his money in two years," put in the Old Calif ornian fiercely. "That isn't what I'm talking about," I went on, "if you're going to speculate in real estate, you might as well make it oil or grain or stocks and operate in New York or Chicago. Things go down as well as up, and men with limited means are often swamped over night. But you know what I mean, something that will make an income to keep the family in bread and meat and shoes. Take a spe- cific case, there's Ned Thompson's son, I hear he's in bad shape physically and is coming to California from Boston. He's thirty-two years old and his as- sets are a wife and three children, a college educa- tion, eight years' clerical experience in a wholesale dry-goods house, and a couple of thousand dollars. What can California do for him?" The Old Californian bit the end of a cigar irrita- bly before he replied : 248 RESIDENCE IN THE LAND OF SUNSHINE "Hang your specific cases, it's a whole lot easier to talk in generalities. Well, I tell you; a lot de- pends upon the man. Some men will pick up a good living on the Sahara Desert, and others are just plum no good in a land of flowing milk and honey. I don't know what sort of stuff young Thompson's made of, but it's a good thing he has a little money. He'll need it to live on while he's looking around for 'congenial occupation'; for that's what he'll be after, being town-bred. He won't find it, though. He'd better start right in by cutting 'congeniality* out of his vocabulary and substitute willingness to take what he can get. This is a young country and mighty democratic. There are no social distinctions in business; everything honest is respectable; but it is also a very different country from the East in its climate and in the way things are done, and the first year of a new-comer's life here should be largely educational, getting acquainted with these novel conditions. The sort of people that California wants, more than any other, is the farmer sort, the developers of the soil. The State is stocked up with mechanics and top-heavy with the genteel vocations lawyers, doctors, merchants, bookkeepers, clerks, brokers and land speculators, and purveyors of one sort and another to the rich tourists. Being in need of an outdoor life, of course, young Thompson might get a job as street-car conductor lots of college graduates get the air that way or he might drive a laundry-wagon if he wasn't too proud, or take care 249 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA of people's gardens. My neighbor across the way has a weak-chested Methodist ex-preacher to mow his lawn and trim his vines. Or he might hire as a chauffeur if he knows anything about motor-cars, or nerve enough to learn at the owner's expense. But jobs like these are not to be picked up the day after arrival, but will probably have to be waited for for months ; and meantime he might peddle patent mops or soap or the latest breakfast-food from door to door as many a fine fellow is doing to-day in this Golden State, though I don't recommend it, except for the exercise. Then again, as long as he has a bit of money he might buy a carriage and a pair of horses, or a last year's automobile, and drive tour- ists about, though that's a gamble to make expenses, for there's lots of competition; but one gritty 'lunger' that I knew, did do that and studied law while waiting for patrons, and made good. You see it's largely a question of the man after all. "But it seems to me if I were Thompson, suppos- ing he is so as to do ordinary light work and has horse-sense, I'd take one thousand dollars of my two, and buy a half -acre of land, or more if I could get it for the money, with a little old California house on it, on the outskirts of a live town. There are lots of places of that sort, the house not worth figuring in the price, but yet good enough to be patched up at a light expense so as to last quite a while. Get a place if possible and it won't be hard that has a few established fruit trees on it, 250 KESIDENCE IN THE LAND OF SUNSHINE peaches, apricots, figs, better still if there is an Eng- lish-walnut tree or two and some grapes, and start a vegetable garden. There may be a little sale from these crops, but even if there isn't, they will count materially in feeding the family. Then I'd go in for raising chickens for eggs there's no end of a market for eggs, and the young roosters can be eaten or sold. A clerk's experience, like Thomp- son's, is a poor start in the chicken business, but I'm supposing he has horse-sense, and I'm giving Mrs. Thompson credit for being no fool, and then there's a thousand dollars reserve fund, isn't there? Of course, there'll be all sorts of mistakes made and a dozen times in the year the bottom will seem to be dropping out; but knowledge comes that way, and then the neighbors will help some in bad emer- gencies; and I shouldn't be surprised if at the end of a year the bank reserve had not been much de- pleted, though it is to be expected that it would have shrunk some. The second year ought to be better, in the light of what had been learned not only about the innate depravity of chickens, but about the requirements of the fruit and vegetables the spraying, the irrigation, the cultivating, trapping gophers and one doggoned thing and an- other. But the thing especially to guard against in the second, and third, and fourth and every suc- ceeding year, is the natural conceit of a man that he knows it all, for there is never a season in Cali- fornia since I've been here that wasn't different 251 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA in some way from the others, and that meant some- thing new to learn each year." "But I don't see that there is much of a fortune in a half -acre and a little old shack of a house, " said I, " unless you strike oil in the garden. " "Well maybe you will," resumed the Old Cali- fornian with the cordial optimism of his kind. "You've seen derricks in peoples' forty-foot lots in Los Angeles, haven't you? And I'm told that some places have pretty fair placer-mining in the back yard. However, I'm not figuring on that for Thompson; but if you'll remember, I said he was to buy on the outskirts of a live town. "Well, I think after he has scratched along with Mrs. Thompson's good help for three or four years in the way I have sketched out, that little ranch of his will find itself nearer town than when he bought, and will conse- quently be worth more money, maybe two or three thousand dollars ; besides, he has learned some gen- eral principles that will make it worth his while, if he wants to, to sell out and buy a little larger place where he can spread himself some and do some real ranching if he likes it deciduous fruits for drying, olives, walnuts, almonds, dairying; or alfalfa or bees they are the lazy man's jobs; citrus fruits, if he will, but they run into money, the land is so high, twelve or fifteen hundred an acre with bearing trees. But whatever he does, be sure he keeps the place small enough to run it himself with his family's aid, for ranch laborers will eat up any profits until he 252 UNDEE THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA to take any chances. We had to, when I blew in here thirty years ago, but fortunately things are different now, and there are responsible title com- panies just as in the East, who will give you a clean certificate of title and back it up with their guaran- tee. You tell Thompson to be sure to get that be- fore he pays out his cash. And then as to water " The Old Californian paused and looked remini- scent. "Well, sir, I guess the books of the Recording Angel show more liens entered up against Cali- fornians' title to glory through lying about water than almost any other one count, unless it's frost. It seems as though when it comes to selling a bit of land a fellow is just obliged to romance a little about the purity and unfailing character of the water sup- ply; and the sources of water being hidden away underground from mortal ken, what's the stranger going to do? It's a hard nut for him to crack, and that's where a year or two's experience in the coun- try before he buys may save him a lot of trouble. Few places have private wells as in the East, and if they have, their permanency is by no means a sure thing. Water is bound to be a relatively scarce article in a country where the rainfall is, roughly speaking, but half what it is on the Atlantic sea- board, and its availability so clearly sets the limits to the development of our Coast that the philan- thropic gentlemen who organize trusts and monopo- lies to keep the people from wasting the country's 254 KESIDENCE IN THE LAND OF SUNSHINE resources, long ago bought up pretty much all the springs, water-rights, water-bearing canons and such sources of supply, and created water com- panies. To some one of these the land buyer has to look for his supply and take what they give him, subject to certain laws of control which the Govern- ment imposes on them. Some of these companies are first-class, some passable, and some so weak that their supplies pinch out after a winter of deficient rainfall. I don't know any better way for the new- comer to do than to inquire of the honestest looking residents what their experience has been, particu- larly in dry years, and see how what they tell checks up with the looks of vegetation. If the neighbor- hood is strong on grapes, apricots, olives and such non-irrigated crops, it is pretty safe to conclude that there's no extra water running loose in that part of the earth. Then if he is satisfied with the investi- gation, let him be sure his purchase papers cover his right to the water. And oh, yes, then there's the little matter of alkali. That's the very deuce and all in some localities, and the deceiving thing about it is that it is thick in some land and right along- side of it the ground mayn't have a trace of it. I can show you as pretty a bit of land as you want to see, that five hundred dollars an acre wouldn't touch, and right across the road is a bunch of acreage that's not worth a tinker's cuss just alkali. Yet both tracts are part of one ranch and originally sold at the same price. And of course, there's hardpan un- 255 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA der some soil, which is bad for deep-rooted crops or trees that ought to be looked out for. "But, sir, you can bet your hat that if the title is flawless and there's plenty of water, and the land isn't alkali or hardpan, the boy stands to double his money by the time the Panama Canal is floating ships through." And so did the Old Californian come around to the essence of the money-maker's hope in the California philosophy the expected rise in land values. III. SOME CALIFORNIANISMS While the settlement of our Pacific slope by Americans is of too recent a date for any marked peculiarity of speech to have yet fastened itself upon the Californian in the sense that it has upon the New Englander or the Southerner of the Atlan- tic seaboard, the newcomer does not travel far in California before encountering words and expres- sions that are to him either absolutely strange or used in a novel sense. "New Cots Two Bits a Box," for instance, posted in a green-grocer's window, is so thoroughly unin- telligible to the average Easterner as to read like a foreign language, though to the Californian it is a perfectly plain advertisement of apricots at twenty- five cents a box. To be able to reckon in "bits" is a serviceable accomplishment for the traveler in 256 EESIDENCE IN THE LAND OF SUNSHINE California byways to acquire; for while its use is by no means universal and the coin itself went out with the Spaniards, there is a certain local pride in keeping the word going, and one meets it constantly. It is employed only in multiples of two, as two bits, twenty-five cents; four bits, fifty cents; six bits, sev- enty-five cents. 1 ' High fog, ' ' too, is usually an enigma. The tour- ist comes down to breakfast and finds the sky over- cast. "Cloudy day," he remarks to the waiter, "is it going to rain?" "Oh, no, sir," replies the man of the napkin, if he is experienced, "only a high fog." As the stranger observes no evidence of fog, only a gray sky, he does not see the appropriateness of the term, nor why the trouble is not plain cloudi- ness. But the Californian, in some strange man- ner, knows the difference, and about ten o'clock, the fog, so high that it seemed something else, has floated out to sea,, and the sun shines in a cloudless blue sky. Then there is the word "pack." Anybody any- where in the United States, knows how to pack a box or a trunk, but we had to come to California to learn how to pack a piece of string; for on this western rim of our continent, half the time the word means "to carry." Of course you have to pack your goods upon your burro, but then, too, the burro packs the pack. An old mountaineer of whom we had occasion 257 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA once to borrow a penknife, looked at it affectionately as he returned it to his pocket, and remarked, "You bet it's a good knife; I've packed it around with me for nigh on to twenty years." Another interesting localism is the verb "to rustle. ' ' Originating on the cattle ranges, where in the old, lawless "bad man" days it meant "to steal," it has acquired in these piping times of peace the innocent significance of "to gather." Thus among the camper's first duties, is to rustle his fire- wood. He also "prospects" for water and if in his search his foot slips on a "slick" rock, it is what is to be expected, for your thorough-going Californian has small use for the adjective "smooth." In the camp supplies will be "spuds" for potatoes, and quite likely "frijoles" (pronounced fre-ho-les) for beans. For saddle-bags your packer will have "kyacks" on the donkeys or alforjas (alfor-has), and of course you never travel a path, but always a "trail." The principal outer influence on California speech has naturally been Spanish. Some of these Span- ish terms familiar as words to the new arrival from the East, will surprise him in their application. "Corral" for instance, seems natural enough to cattle enclosures each covering an acre or two, as he saw them from the car windows when he crossed the plains; but when his California hostess who keeps her pet Persian cat outdoors in a wire cage a few feet square calls that a corral, it strikes him oddly. 258 RESIDENCE IN THE LAND OF SUNSHINE Canon, too, which he associates with fearful Rocky Mountain gorges, loses some of its majesty when ap- plied to any small ravine as it may be in California. The word " ranch " has possibilities he never dreamed of, for it may describe property anywhere in extent from half an acre to three hundred thou- sand ; and while it may be a grain ranch or a cattle ranch, it may also be a chicken ranch or a bee ranch or a fruit ranch but never a l l farm. ' ' Farmers, in the Golden State, are " ranchers. " But then, if you have the privilege of making the acquaintance of some Spanish landed proprietor, do not commit the mistake of referring to his estate as a "rancheria" (with the accent on the i), for in Southern California this word means an Indian village. In traveling through the country, one encounters in every day speech many of these Spanish words more or less modified. Mesa for tableland is uni- versal, and chaparral for a shrubby thicket is classic, though personally we have more often heard an- other word, chamise, applied to the same thing. This last term pronounced chameeze is also given to the common greasewood of the mountains and foothills, known to botanists as adenostoma fascicu- latum. Cienaga is a good Spanish survival mean- ing any wet, marshy place, and potrero is occasion- ally heard applied to wild pasture land. Rincon is where two hills come obliquely together forming a corner or nook. A shallow valley is Canada (pro- nounced can-yah'-da), but this lingers now princi- 259 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA pally as a geographical designation, and it is doubt- ful if many white Californians know what it signi- fies. Arroyo is a commonly used Spanish word for the channel of a stream, and the bulrush of which thickets are found on the borders of marshes and certain rivers is quite commonly called tule (two syllables). The earthen jar that contains drinking water and stands often wrapped in dampened bur- lap in some shady corner in the old country houses, or swings from a beam, is an olla (pronounced 6-ya). The swarthy Mexican laborers in conical straw hats who work industriously on the railroads in Southern California and on ranches, are popularly known sometimes as "greasers," sometimes as cholos. Strictly speaking the term "cholo" is applicable only to a half-breed, lower in the social scale than the true Mexican. Perhaps of all Californianisms, the visitor from the Atlantic seaboard finds "back East" the most entertaining. This expression takes on a brand new significance once the Sierra Nevada is crossed. When keeping house in Pasadena one summer, we employed a woman to do some cleaning for us. She was talkative, after the manner of her kind, and had many pleasant words for the abundance and lus- ciousness of the fruit in California. "You see," she explained, "I come from back East, and we don't have much fruit there." Recollections of Delaware peaches, New Jersey berries, York State grapes and New England apples, 260 RESIDENCE IN THE LAND OF SUNSHINE rose before us, and we demurred. What part of the East had she come from? " Wyoming, " she remarked ingenuously. This, we have since learned, is really quite far east, when Utah and Arizona are reckoned, as they are from the California standpoint, in eastern terri- tory. As for Texas that is "way back." 261 CONCEKNING THE CLIMATE I. THE CLIMATE IN GENEKAL, (With specific reference to Southern California.) OF all the gifts of Nature to the Golden State, none has been more thoroughly advertised than its climate. Nevertheless or, shall I say, therefore there is nothing about which the transient visitor is apt to be more unreliably informed beforehand, or to carry away with him after a few weeks' visit, more incomplete notions. One needs to spend at least one whole year on the Pacific Slope before he is in position to speak of its climate in any compre- hensive way; and even this twelve-month's experi- ence will serve only to outline its broader features of difference from the climate of our Atlantic sea- board. With increasing years of residence he will find need to revise many of his first conclusions and will grow more and more cautious about positive generalizations. The old-time Californian, conse- quently, sets many hedges about his speech when the inquiring tourist tries to pin him down to hard and fast declarations. "No, they ain't no sunstrokes on this coast ever," 262 CONCERNING THE CLIMATE I hear Uncle William Parkes remark, as he drives a party of Eastern school-teachers in his public car- riage around Pasadena, " leastways you needn't fig- ger on 'em. To be sure, last summer I did hear tell of a couple of cholos who died of the heat in a ditch up in Fresno. That don't often happen, though. Of course it don't rain in summer that's the dry season here, you know. Leastwise, that's the way it gin 'ally is ; but once in so often, things gits out of joint in the weather outfit up above, and I have known quite a bit of rain once or twice in July. No, it never snows in Southern California you bet, ex- cept in them high mountains that is, it ain't natural fur it to snow in the valleys, though I do mind, now you speak of it, that one winter a few years ago we did have a snowfall in Pasadena, but it melted jest as fast as it touched the ground, and didn't last ten minutes. Thunder storms? No-o well I do mind there was one about two years ago; but there's as good as none. When does the rainy season begin? Well, now, I couldn't jest say. No- vember is purty safe to figger on. But then again, I have seen right smart of rain in September; and other years they ain't been none till purty nigh Christmas. You see, missus, it's a bully climate, all right, and suits me right down to the ground and every right-minded person, but when it comes to drawing up a constitootion and by-laws fur it to go by, you'll find it jumpin' its bail now and then. I knowed a lot more about this climate the first year 263 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA I lived in it than I've ever knowed since and I've been here go in' on twenty-seven year this spring." One of the popular misconceptions about the Cali- fornia climate is that it is without seasons, and thousands who annually come to this coast for a month or two's outing during the winter or spring months return to their Eastern homes in the belief that the whole round year is a monotony of ethereal mildness with a few disagreeable rains thrown in during four or five months of the winter and spring. As a matter of fact there are four distinct seasons in California just as in the East, but the extremes of the East are absent here. Speaking for the beau- tiful valleys that open to the coast, and which in- clude the particular parts of the State most resorted to by travelers, while there is a marked freedom from the boisterousness which in some way mars every season in the East, there is yet no lack of dif- ference in the quality of the months, as the year moves on to its consummation. From December until late February, for instance, there is a succession of snappy mornings, not infre- quently with frost in the early hours, and of nights briskly cold that give a special zest to the family gathering about the evening lamp and the crackling hearth-firfe with pussy asleep before it. As the ver- nal equinox approaches, the hillsides and mesas don their glorious raiment of wild flowers, the orange- blossoms load the air with fragrance and the decidu- ous fruit trees of the ranches the almonds, the 264 CONCEENING THE CLIMATE peaches, the apricots, the plums bourgeon and flower; the rains cease, the songs of returning birds are heard on fence-post and on tree-top, and spring is as decidedly spring here as anywhere on earth. With the outgoing of May, the hills and valleylands begin to take on the summer brownness that marks the resting time of much of the plant-world in this land of no rain from May till November ; the nights, still cool but not so cool as earlier in the year, are succeeded by days) that during the middle hours are sufficiently warm to lure one to a siesta in the shade of a vine-covered pergola, or in a patio where olean- ders cast their cooling shadows and water tinkles in the fountain. This is pure summer absolutely dis- tinct from the spring that preceded it; absolutely distinct, also, from the fall which follows it, when the leaves of the deciduous trees and shrubs take on characteristic autumnal tints, when the vineyards are all glorious with their purpling clusters, when golden-rod is blooming, and the fluffy balls of wild clematis seeds ripen in the roadside tangles and float away, and when the air, as the sun draws to its early setting, is chill with the genuine appetizing cold of an Eastern October. All this seasonal change is to be appreciated only from continuance of residence, and once realized, the very gentleness and subtleness of it endear it to lov- ers of a quiet life. There are no cold waves, hot waves, cyclones or blizzards, no cloudbursts or thun- derstorms even, except in the high mountains. 265 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA Kipling in one of Ms essays has whimsically alluded to the boisterous, unladylike conduct of certain of the American seasons, banging the door in each other's faces and in other ways misbehaving. He could not have spoken so of the California seasons, which are well-bred, sweet tempered and kindly, yet each with a mind of its own that makes it stand out distinctly from its fellows. As to wind, different lo- calities vary. On the whole there is less of it that is disagreeable (the desert regions excepted) than on the Atlantic coast ; though truth requires mention of a dry, irritating sort called a norther, or in some sec- tions a Santa Ana, which is to be borne with at times. The norther is as discomforting to Cali- fornia as the mistral is to the south of France, but is warm instead of cold. Its visitations vary in fre- quency in different parts of the State. In many, it does not occur oftener than once a year, sometimes not so often as that, day following day for weeks with nothing blowing stronger than a five mile breeze. Then some day, come certain preliminary warm puffs, which gradually settle into a tempest that bends great trees like whips, whistles demoniacally about the corner of the house, and raises an intoler- able dust. The velocity gradually increases, attain- ing on rare occasions a maximum of fifty or sixty miles an hour until every particle of moisture seems sucked out of the air and your nervous system is strained to the snapping point. Then suddenly it may be after twelve hours of steady blow or twenty- 266 CONCERNING THE CLIMATE four there comes a lull, an expiring gasp or two, and to your unutterable relief a heavenly stillness pervades the universe, and you thank goodness that's over. "Oh, yes," says the Old Calif ornian, when you re- proach him for it, "the Lord sends us a norther once in a long while to keep us humble, I guess, but they don't come often. When one does come, there's nothing I know of to be done about it but to go in the house, shut the door and windows, and forget it if you can. Then when it has blown over, go out and assess the damage. It won't be as much as you thought." Apropos of the summer, it may be added that to appreciate the charm of the landscape in California all that season, one needs an especially open mind. We are all so disposed to reckon the pea-green beauty of the Eastern summer the one proper standard by which to judge that our first disposition with respect to a prospect that is barren of much green, is to call it burned up and ugly. When we succeed in ridding ourselves of that convention, we find that as a matter of fact the California country- side in summer is the analogue of an Eastern land- scape in late autumn replete with beauty less pat- ent to the careless than that of a more flowery season, but just as intense. California's long rain- less period of almost constant sunshine is radically different from a droughty time in the East, in this respect : there, the normal condition is fixed for fre- 267 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA quent rains and resultant greenness, and the failure of the expected moisture is a calamity because ab- normal; here in California, the annual browning is part of the year's regular plan, God's permanent ordering for the land, and like all the routine of na- ture, beautiful if one have eyes to see. Pas- tures are, of course, withered, and hills are verdure- less, but the absence of bright green is made up by the abounding presence of rare tones of brown, olive, and yellow, which pale and deepen and intermingle in countless exquisite combinations, in the shifting lights of the revolving days. Another way of dividing the California year is into the rainy season and the dry. This only means that from the middle of spring until mid-autumn there is, as a rule, no rain; while from mid-autumn until the middle of spring again, all the rain falls that does fall within the compass of the twelve months, but every day is by no means a rainy day. The rainfall, for instance, recorded at Los Angeles for a series of thirty years, during the months of December, January, February and March, averaged a total of eleven and one-half inches for these rain- iest months of the rainy season, being somewhat less than three inches per month. This is not ap- preciably different from the average rainfall dur- ing the summer months in the East. From Santa Barbara northward the volume of precipitation is rather greater. To the permanent dweller in California the season 268 CONCERNING THE CLIMATE of the rains is a time of especial content, for after six months of persistent dry weather, one is, if ever, properly ready to welcome a rainy day with that un- reserved heartiness with which, one may he sure, the Lord desires His blessings received. While the winter tourist naturally enough grumbles at the rainy day as an interference with his personal plans for motoring, golfing or taking a drive, the resident Californian is feelingly aware that all the water which makes the basis of California's being the pleasant place it is to visitors, must come from the clouds, if it comes at all, during this season which the tourist chooses for his own. So he smiles comfortably as he looks over his spectacles at his rain gauge and sees the column of water rising. If the visitor would but realize the fact, the win- ter rains in California are among the especial charms of the climate. Considering, for instance, the territory tributary to Los Angeles, nowhere are there gentler, tenderer, softer rains; nowhere, to reverse the Shakespearean figure of speech, are rains fuller of the unstrained quality of mercy; nowhere do they give more considerate warning of their com- ing, gathering openly in a sky that daily clouds up a little more and more for several days, and then beginning not in a wild whirl of wind and a burst of waterspouts, but with a gentle sprinkle which gradually increases in volume as the parched tongue of earth is moistened to take it in. Once begun, however, the rain does not readily stop. Usually 269 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA for two or three days the clouds continue dripping as from a sponge that is squeezed now hard, now lightly. Occasionally there is a lifting of the mists from the mountains, revealing a snow-capped peak here and there and letting patches of reassuring sun- light sift through to earth, before the vapors shut down again and fresh showers descend. And then, after all is over, the measurement of what has fallen during the whole course of the storm, will perhaps be but an inch or two. On these days of moisture you will find comfort indoors beside an open fire, if you are blessed with one, or lacking that, by your gas grate, or portable oil heater which sooner or later every wise visitant in lodgings finds it conducive to comfort to have in his room. The rain should not, however, keep one indoors entirely, for while at times there is a storm that drives and dashes, more often the modest pre- cipitation is so nearly straight downward as to make walking with an umbrella a pleasant pastime. There is a delicious coolness in the dampness which renders a light overcoat or medium-weight wrap comfortable, while the cleansing air of a rainy day in California has a caress in it that one never forgets, being free from the humid mugginess which not in- frequently accompanies a winter rain on the Atlan- tic seaboard. Then the clearing off, the clouds breaking apart and lifting from the mountains, leaving all the peaks wreathed and the canons smok- ing with rising vapor, the clean, bracing dryness 270 V I CONCERNING THE CLIMATE that succeeds the rain, the shining faces of the leaves and flowers put up to the sunshine, the stimulating winter sunshine itself this part of the rainy pro- gram even the grumpiest tourist enjoys. Of all the surprises that California, and particu- larly Southern California, holds for the newcomer, probably none is more thorough than the delight- fulness of the summers. When Mr. Moneybags, just out from New York or Chicago, steps from his room upon the sunny veranda of his hotel on some balmy January morning and draws his first deli- cious breath of the California winter, he is apt to say, throwing back the lapels of his summery coat, in which a fresh plucked flower is blooming: "Well, there's no discount on this it's gilt-edge paper, without doubt; but if it is this warm in win- ter, it must be like a furnace in summer. " And that is the regulation attitude of the Eastern- bred towards the Southern California summer, be- fore he has lived through one. He knows that the July temperatures of his Pennsylvania or Massachu- setts home range anywhere from forty to eighty de- grees higher than in midwinter and when he comes to California and sees the thermometer at noon on New Year's Day standing at seventy-five in the shade, it seems natural enough to reckon on a sum- mer temperature of a hundred and fifteen to a hun- dred and fifty-five! Now as a matter of fact, the entire coastal region of Southern California, as far inland as the influ- 271 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA ence of the Pacific trade-winds and ocean fogs is felt the region in which, for instance, such well- known tourist cities as Santa Barbara, Pasadena, Los Angeles and San Diego lie has a particularly charming summer climate. There is an occasional brief spell rarely of more than three or four days' duration of undeniably hot weather to be expected during the progress of every summer, but the nights and mornings are even then deliciously cool, and the days so devoid of any perceptible humid quality and so tempered by the regular wind off the sea that the midday temperature during such times, though it ascends sometimes into the nineties and occasionally even to a hundred, is never prostrating. Yet even after the Easterner has decided to settle in the State, and has been told and told and told again that the summers in California the desert counties excepted are no warmer than anywhere else, while anywhere within fifty miles of the coast they are really cooler than the Atlantic seaboard ever dreamed of for summer weather, he still finds it hard to accept the totally different conditions of the Pacific Slope at their face value. Our Cousin Jane from Philadelphia is typical of this frame of mind, and her first summer in Pasa- dena w.as a typical experience. She arrived in the early part of April. Being exceedingly fond of flowers, she was every day filled with joy at the won- derful sight of the gardens and of the countryside in its vernal freshness. Like most people having a 272 CONCEKNING THE CLIMATE good time in California she lost track of the calen- dar entirely and enjoyed herself unreservedly. One morning at breakfast, she suddenly inquired the day of the month. " Mercy me!" she exclaimed, when told it was the last day of June, "you don't mean to say that next week will be the Fourth of July?" After breakfast, we saw her examining the ther- mometer that hung in a shady corner of the porch. "Why," she said, looking disturbed she hates hot weather and removing a light shawl which she had found comfortable in the cool breakfast room, "do you know it is seventy-six and not half -past eight yet? It's going to be a scorching hot day." It was in vain that we told her that the mercury had been just as high at the same hour for the last couple of weeks, and that the absence of humidity took the unbearableness out of high temperatures. Seventy-six was seventy-six to Cousin Jane, and meant at least eighty-six by lunch-time, and that of course was too hot for any mortal use. So like Don Quixote fighting the windmill, Cousin Jane set her lance in rest against the weather in orthodox Philadelphia style. Taking it for granted that the sunlit outdoors was as hot as it looked, which it never is in California, she decided to stay indoors, and abjured her daily walk abroad. She pulled down the shades to keep out the glare and shut down the windows of her room to keep out the heat; she fanned herself in season and out, and at 273 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA noon lay on the lounge with closed eyes. Immedi- ately after lunch, she retired to the gloom of her darkened chamber and lay down to thoughts of the stifling heat. We recognized all the motions of a hot summer day in the East. As tea-time drew near she came forth from re- tirement clad in her coolest, gauziest attire, and took another look at the thermometer. It was still well up in the seventies, so she carried a chair out upon the shadiest part of the lawn and sat down under a tree. The same cool trade-wind that had been gently blowing all day and had made work in the broad sunshine even at midday entirely bear- able to the rest of the family (though Cousin Jane's mind had been unable to accept such a doctrine), was still blowing and played maliciously across her shoulders. Had the thermometer been ten degrees lower, she would have said the air was cool, but with the mercury not far from eighty, how could it be cool? It certainly would have been hot at that in Philadelphia, and why should it be different here? So Cousin Jane stuck it out gamely until the tea-bell rang. She went to bed early that night, and next morning came to breakfast with her shawl on. "I seem to have caught cold," she said peevishly. "This is a queer climate." It would appear that Cousin Jane's lance had gotten entangled in the remorseless sweep of the windmill's sail, and she had been thrown. 274 CONCERNING THE CLIMATE II. THE INVALID AND THE CLIMATE In the case of invalids, it is to be borne in mind that the climate in itself does not cure, but it en- ables the ailing one who is careful, to take the need- ful steps in the line of his cure, without the ag- gravating assaults upon his progress to which the Eastern climate, do what he will, subjects him. In such an Eastern city as Philadelphia, for in- stance, or Boston, no man with a weak throat or a disposition to catarrhal troubles, can possibly get through a winter without a certain number of colds. In Southern California, there is no need of his hav- ing a single one, if he be careful to wear woolen un- derclothing, to avoid sitting in the shade, and always to carry an overcoat if he is to be out after sundown. Thus if he has any doctoring to do or any special course of treatment to follow, he can benefit steadily by it without encountering the set- backs of recurring colds which in the climate of the East with its sudden and violent changes, are prac- tically inescapable. To this passive advantage the California climate offers the positive benefit of an abundance of sun- shine, a lower relative humidity * than the Atlantic *A word should be added about humidity on the Pacific slop*, as the reports of the United States Weather Bureau are mislead- ing on this subject. They state for Los Angeles, for example, a mean humidity of about 71 degrees for the year the same as at Philadelphia, which, among its natural advantages, makes no claim 275 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA seaboard, and a pronounced equability. Of these three, the greatest of value to the average invalid is the sunshine, an invigorating energy which for many ills is doctor and nurse rolled into one. Even in summer it is to most Californians not enervating but distinctly stimulating, and sunstroke is a word practically without place in the California vocabu- lary. The special climatic feature of danger is the to a climate of low humidity ! In point of fact the term "humidity" in ordinary parlance, stands for a certain enervating, oppressive mugginess rarely ever felt in California, and for this the Weather Bureau has no descriptive word its humidity is simply the degree of moisture in the air. Two other facts need to be borne in mind in relation to the Weather Bureau reports: 1. The Office observations are taken at 8 A. M. and 8 P. M., and while data compiled on this basis probably represent the average conditions for the twenty-four hours on the Atlantic seaboard, they do not so represent those of the Pacific, since they fail to take account of the prevailing low humidity of the Pacific Coast mid-day. Owing to the nearness of the ocean on one side and the desert on the other, slight wind-shifts cause marked and rapid fluctuations in the moisture-content of the air, which are ignored in computing the daily averages. For instance, during spring and summer at Los Angeles, the degree of atmospheric moisture is high in the early morning, (perhaps 90 degrees), and decreases rapidly as soon as the usual morning cloudiness (high fog) breaks away. This decrease continues until afternoon when the moisture-laden wind sets in from the Pacific, bringing the evening coolness. The aver- age mid-day humidity at Los Angeles is about 50 degrees, and at points farther inland considerably lower. 2. On the Atlantic seaboard the excessive humidities accompany high temperatures, while in California the direct opposite is the rule. When the humidity is high on the Pacific slope it is because of a cool ocean breeze, which is naturally invigorating and exhila- rating. The author is indebted for much of the above statement of facts to A. B. Wollaber, in charge of the Local Weather Office at Los Angeles. 276 CONCERNING THE CLIMATE great difference in temperature between day and night and between sunshine and shadow. People from the East rarely realize this when they first arrive, and are disappointed that they cannot be comfortable in midwinter in alpaca coats and gauze undershirts. "We always recommend our friends to bring all their winter outfit (except ulsters) and they find that at one time or another, it is all needed. The people who complain of the Pacific Coast climate and there are many such will, in all prob- ability, be found to have neglected common sense requirements as to clothing. Customarily in a Pasadena winter, for instance, the thermometer stands at from forty to fifty at breakfast-time, rises to seventy or even eighty at midday, and dropping rapidly as the sun nears its setting, is back again in the forties by bed-time. The human system was never framed to meet changes of some thirty de- grees Fahrenheit in six or eight hours without some corresponding change in dress, yet one finds some men shivering along on winter nights in summer clothes and no overcoat, and women in gauzy shirt- waists and no hats, and if they do not develop rheumatism or chronic catarrh, it is only because they do not stay in California long enough. If one is seeking climate in California there is a considerable choice in the selection of a place of sojourn. Climates vary markedly within a short distance. The air of Pasadena, for instance, charm- ing as it is to most, is not beneficial to all, as the 277 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA prevalence of the ocean night-fogs which temper the summer climate and contribute largely to the city's delightfulness as a summer residence, im- parts a degree of dampness to the atmosphere which is not best for certain conditions of health. River- side or Redlands with their drier air might prove better for these, but the drier heat of their sum- mers due to the distance from the sea, make summer residence so far inland rather oppressive. Banning, in the San Grorgonio Pass overlooking the desert, has its advocates for diseases of the respiratory system, and the foot-hill towns perched on the rim of the San Gabriel Valley places like Sierra Madre and Monrovia, connected with Los Angeles by di- rect electric lines have the advantage, salutary to many conditions, of being well above the ordinary fogs of spring and summer and yet within the cool- ing influence of the sea. Central California, too, is rich in phases of climate that make it a section to be reckoned with by the health-seeker. The Napa Valley, just north of San Francisco is one of many that have an enviable reputation in this regard. This valley, as the readers of Robert Louis Steven- son's works will remember, is the scene of his "Sil- verado Squatters." It is, indeed, misleading ever to speak of Cal- ifornia's climate rather should we speak plurally of its climates, of which there are almost as many varieties as post-offices ; and a matter of a few miles will often make an essential difference to the in- 278 CONCEKNING THE CLIMATE valid. Cases have been known to be at a standstill in Altadena, for instance, that have improved stead- ily at Pasadena, five miles away, and vice versa. It is therefore of the greatest importance to health seekers not to make up their minds prior to coming to California, as to the particular locality where they will settle. Individual cases often involve dif- ferent requirements, and in view of the wide choice to select from, it is wise to look about and experi- mentally test a number of places before deciding on any. 279 CAMP COOKERY FOR THE NON-PROFESSIONAL CAMPER I. WHAT OUKS Is NOT (With Apologies to Mr. Stewart Edward White.) IT was before the days of some experiences set down in this book, and Sylvia was seated at a civilized window in a civilized room reading a large green volume. She looked troubled. Passing through the room I noted the anxious expression and inquired the cause. The book was closed with some emphasis. "I am discouraged, " she said. I was alarmed. When before had Sylvia been discouraged? she who had always found the interest of life rise with the increasing difficulty of its daily problems, and who thanked Heaven for obstacles because they made such admirable stepping-stones to greater heights. What catastrophe had damp- ened this cheerful spirit? What barrier had closed the door of hope? "This man/' and Sylvia made a vicious poke at the green volume, "this man is telling how to cook in the wilderness. I have never cooked in the wil- 280 CAMP COOKERY derness in my life, but the performance as he de- scribes it does not seem difficult. The difficulty to my mind lies in his results they would simply kill us both. Now, we are planning trips as wild as these. Do we have to live in this dreadful way! Please listen to this" and she read a stomach-turn- ing recipe involving the compounding of flour, raisins, baking powder, fat salt pork and sugar, " mixed into a mess with a quantity of larrupy dope." Having written a little myself, I felt privileged to speak as one of the craft, and so I expounded my views of the matter. "The author is just astonishing the natives a lit- tle, I think ; nobody has to live that way anywhere, and certainly we don't. The men in this book were possessed of iron nerves and robust physiques, and the very bohemianism of their fare was part of the fun to them. We are of a different makeup. "We have nerves and stomachs and livers that must be treated with a certain consideration, or we are out of the running. Now I think we can prove to our- selves and to the public whom we shall try to reach with the account of the accomplishment, that it is entirely possible to live in the wilderness like peo- ple of gentle breeding and to provide, a hundred miles from anywhere, without any extraordinary outlay of means, a menu and a menage to which we should feel in nowise ashamed to invite our most particular friends only we won't!" 281 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA The following chapters are an endeavor to show how this was done and contain some practical direc- tions, based on our own experience, as to how others may achieve a similar result. II. THE COMFORTS OF HOME WHEN CAMPING To invade the time-honored realm of the camp frying-pan and smoke-blackened coffee-pot with any new suggestions for camp cookery is a fearsome ven- ture. Flapjacks and bacon dished up on a tin plate and "renched down," to use a favorite expression of a guide we once employed, with coffee, always coffee and yet again coffee, served in a granite- ware cup with a tin spoon these are inseparably linked in many minds with the idea of camp life which accordingly has been thought not for those less vigorous, who even in an outdoor existence cannot digest fried fare or drink unlimited coffee. We know, nevertheless, from experience that two people of the latter type can travel through the wilds of Arizona, New Mexico or California with entire ease, provided there be a little forethought and some understanding of cookery ; but some time must be spent beforehand in careful packing, and considerable extra cost of transportation must be reckoned on. Also it is well to be able to avail one's self of the natural products of the location where one may be camped. And here a little pioneer lore 282 CAMP COOKEEY and botanical knowledge will come into play. For example, lemons cannot be had everywhere, but one of the commonest shrubs of the California moun- tains is a species of sumac known as the Indian- lemonade bush from the sticky, red berries of which, by simply steeping them in cold water for a few minutes, a refreshing acid drink may be made. Neither may one hope for watermelon in the desert, but the fruit of the prickly pear and some other cacti is almost as delicious as the watermelon, with somewhat of its flavor. Such luxuries, too, as let- tuce and spinach, are not to be expected in the wil- derness, but a frequent weed in certain sections of the State is a relative of the Spring Beauty of the East, known as Miners' or Indian Lettuce, the younger stems and leaves of which boiled with bacon and served with slices of hard boiled egg (if you have eggs with you) make a capital substitute for other greens. In laying in supplies for a camping trip, it is well to take as few canned things as possible, as these are heavy to transport and if needed can usually be bought from the traders or supply stations on the road. So also can bacon, coffee and tea, usually all of quite good quality. If space is very limited, the trader can be depended upon also for flour, but as this is frequently poor at some places, it is pref- erable to carry one's own. We take less flour than do most providers, and more corn-meal. If one un- derstands the possibilities of the latter, there is a 283 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA varied number of appetizing dishes to be made from it. They are more nutritious than wheat- breads, besides affording more variety. White corn-meal is much more delicate and less apt to grow strong in hot weather than the yellow meal, which nearly every veteran camper will tell you to buy. After you have listened respectfully to his advice, take white corn-meal. Always use the best baking powder. Traders as a rule have only inferior grades. Better still, do not use any, but substitute cream of tartar and soda in the proportions respectively of two to one, or yeast when procurable. Take several different kinds of dried beans instead of all one kind. If you ever crave variety it will be in the matter of beans. The white navy bean, the pink frijole, and the dried lima make a grateful assortment of nutrition in a small compass. Carry as much dried fruit as possible, and again study variety. Prunes once or twice are bearable but prunes always are a weariness to the flesh; so besides these it is well to pack small quantities each of dried peaches, apples, apricots, figs and dates; and then fill in every crack of the baggage with English walnuts and raisins. Then there are also "evaporated" apples, which the traders usually carry and which make a welcome change from the common dried apple of commerce. We give very little space to condensed milk, never having found its gummy sweetness a satisfactory 284 CAMP COOKERY addition to our menus. For those whose content- ment in camp is dependent on something of the sort, some brand of evaporated cream is in our judgment to be preferred to condensed milk. As eggs are at the bottom of so many culinary triumphs, we take as many as it is possible to carry. Get them absolutely fresh, wipe them carefully, and pack the requirements of your first week in oatmeal or any dried cereal which you may be taking. They will in this way stand a great deal of rough travel. The supply for the latter part of your trip, should first be greased, then dipped in salt, each wrapped carefully in paper and packed in boxes. If they can be packed in salt, so much the better. They make in this way heavy packages, but it is the best manner we have found to tide them, in cookable condition, over several weeks of travel or camping. With respect to butter, secure a perfectly fresh lot and pack it in small jelly glasses with tight lids, allowing one glassful for two persons for one day. Be careful not to work or smear the butter around in the packing or it will lose its sweetness and never be good afterwards. Keep it as cool as possible during transportation above all, protected from the sun and at once upon reaching camp bury it in a box in the shade, preferably near water. For drinkables, a bottle of raspberry vinegar and one of unfermented grape- juice will not be difficult to carry, and will prove wonderful stimulants to cheerfulness under some adverse conditions which 285 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA will come to the best regulated camp. For a steady hot drink we have found invaluable a certain prepa- ration of cocoa called choco-lactine, which has not the liver-clogging or headache-producing quality of ordinary cocoa. Moreover, unlike so many prepa- rations of concentrated nutriment, it is entirely palatable. It is a coarse powder containing be- sides the cocoa an admixture of milk and sugar; four teaspoonfuls dropped into a cup of hot water are instantaneously converted into a delicious, wholesome brew. There are times, however, when to certain temperaments nothing takes the place of a cup of hot tea. As this is readily made, it is well to carry a packet of the leaves along, even on trips of a few hours. The question of meat in mountain fastnesses or desert is always a perplexing one. Dried beef in the " chunk" is good, this being the most concen- trated form available, and in this shape it keeps better than when chipped, and the amount for each meal is sliced off as needed. Bacon of course is one of the main standbys, and variety may be se- cured by taking with you a piece of pickled pork (not dry salted pork, which is a very different thing and will not keep well) and keeping it packed in salt in as cool a place as your camp affords. When there is a sportsman in your party, even if you are not out primarily for game, your larder may be enlivened by the addition of a rabbit now and then ; and in a trout country there is, of course, fish in 286 CAMP COOKERY season. For frying purposes the fat from fried bacon is by far the best material both for diges- tion's sake and also, to many palates, for tastiness. If you use many fried things, provide yourself be- fore starting with some bacon rinds from the meat shop, and render the fat down to take with you packed in a tight jar. If you do not fry much, the fat left over from the bacon cooked in camp, will be enough for ordinary purposes. III. SOME RECIPES TO FIT THE WILDS If for a brief time you are situated where none but canned meats can be obtained a situation which from the standpoint of gastronomic comfort is to to be avoided as far as possible you will find that the following dish, known to us as "The Cow- boy's Delight, " will prove an acceptable interlude in the monotony: Into a pint of boiling water slice two small on- ions and several potatoes ; season well with salt and pepper ; and when the potatoes are nearly done, add one can of corned beef cut into dice. If you have butter and flour, rub together a teaspoonful of each and thicken with it. This amount will barely suf- fice for two normal appetites on a cold day, and if a reasonably hungry cowboy drops in, the quantity will need to be at least doubled. If corned beef is scarce, use more potatoes and onions. A dish which in our camp experience we have 287 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA found particularly palatable to all partakers, goes by the name of "The Arizona Special." It is com- pounded as follows : Put into a saucepan one and one-half cups of corn-meal. Pour boiling water upon this till it is of the consistency of chicken feed. Add a lump of butter, varying from the size of a walnut to that of an egg, according to your supply of butter. Cover this closely that the meal may steam and the butter melt. Beat up two eggs and add them, with one teaspoonful of salt and two of sugar, to the corn- meal after the butter is melted. Beat this together and add sufficient cold water to make a rather thick batter that will drop not pour from the spoon. Add to this two rounding teaspoonfuls of baking powder; beat thoroughly, and turn into your frying pan, which must be hot on the camp-fire or stove and greased with plenty of bacon fat. Cover closely with a tight lid and cook over a very slow fire. By being closely covered, this mixture will be practi- cally baked. It should be turned out upon the lid when done and slid back again into the frying pan with the brown side up so as to brown the side that was on top. If this is properly made, your only dif- ficulty will be in supplying enough of it. "But," some one objects, "where are eggs to be had in the wilderness!" Of course, if you have no eggs, do not use them; but as explained elsewhere in this book, one who believes in comfort in camping can arrange to have 288 CAMP COOKERY them under any ordinary conditions. They are no more trouble to transport than anything else when you get used to it. Naturally, however, there are times when the best laid plans for an egg-supply gang agley, in which emergency, a pleasant dish is the following, which even at home is one of the best ways of using corn-meal. Make a plain corn-meal mush, boiling it, if you have the time, for several hours. Allow it to cool only slightly, meantime stirring it well. It should be well salted and quite thick in consistency. Now into a frying pan with an abundance of hot bacon fat, drop this hot corn-meal by spoonfuls making so many fat little cakes, each separate from the other. When one side of a cake has browned this will take some time turn the other side to brown also. Serve "hot off the griddle/' Simple as the process sounds, it must be carefully done to get the right results ; but when successful, the taste of this is entirely different from that of the usual fried cold corn-meal mush, and is sure to make a sensation with those who have not eaten it be- fore. To one of our desert camps, three young men employed upon a Government errand connected with the Geodetic Survey came along with their pack-train one morning, and we invited them to stay to dinner. We happened to be flush of corn-meal that day, and our guests were accordingly served with this particular make of mush. From the ra- 289 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA pidity with which it disappeared from the plates, we soon saw it had made a hit. Presently in the midst of an animated conversation, one of the party, in the act of putting a piece of mush in his mouth, paused and suddenly said to Sylvia : "Madam, I beg your pardon, but is this delecta- ble thing mush?" "Just what I've been wanting to ask ever since we began eating," said Number Two; "it's sure out of sight." "Mush! you clodhopper!" interjected Number Three, "it can't be it's ambrosia. Mush was never like that." When the true inwardness of the article was ex- plained to them and the conaumption of it was re- sumed, Number One nodded his head to the others. Solemnly he remarked, as one who had seen a great light on his future course : "Get on to that, boys, she fries it while it's hot." There are times when a frying-pan with a tight lid is not to be scorned as an oven. Besides the "Arizona Special" already described, we have fre- quently, in emergencies, had to make baking-pow- der bread in a frying-pan. Two cups of flour, a heaping teaspoonful of shortening, a teaspoonful of baking powder, salt to taste and cold water to make a stiff dough, are all that are needed. A piece of brown paper spread on a stone answers for a table in an impromptu camp, and a bottle makes a good rolling-pin. Flour the paper and the rolling-pin 290 CAMP COOKERY bottle, if the dough sticks ; roll it out into a cake half an inch in thickness, and bake it in the frying-pan with a lid tightly on, over a very slow fire. Of course when the bottom side browns when nearly done, the bread can be turned over and browned on the other side. Be sure not to have too hot a fire, or the bread will scorch on the outside and be raw in the middle. Since it is more digestible, we pre- fer this sort of bread to the usual camper's biscuit which is baked in the frying-pan and tilted up be- fore the fire to brown the tops. There is also no reason, when camping for any protracted stay, why one should not have yeast- risen bread in a California camp. This idea may be ridiculed by those accustomed to rougher camp life, but we have never observed that there is any flagging on the part of these Spartans in consum- ing their full share of any homemade bread set be- fore them in the wilds. Presupposing that one understands bread mak- ing at home, one simply sets the sponge at night, putting it in the camp oven after the fire is extin- guished, and while the oven still retains a slight heat. In the morning make up the bread in the dough, set it well covered in the sun to rise, and bake in the oven of the camp-stove. If a stove is not in camp, yeast bread may be baked in a Dutch oven, but for success in this one must thoroughly understand the management of this historic cook- ing-pot. The yeast to be employed in all this is 291 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA that for sale everywhere in the West in the form of dried cakes. Be sure that it is not stale. Of the few tinned goods which we have carried on our outings, we have always found canned to- matoes the most useful, despite the prejudice which exists against them in some minds on the score of health. Being so extensively used throughout the West, they are, we believe, generally put up with care, and we have never experienced any deleteri- ous results from them. The men on the cattle ranges find the liquidity of a fresh-opened can of tomatoes a decided improvement on the alkaline water of many arid sections, and to them it serves as meat and drink. Of the many ways in which the juice and the tomato itself may be employed in cookery, perhaps the least known is the fried canned tomato. With a little butter hot in a frying-pan, the larger and firmer pieces of the canned tomato will generally be found solid enough to fry very satisfactorily. Season well, cover them closely in the pan, and be careful that they do not scorch. Next in value to the tomato, canned corn is recommended. This, besides being useful heated and served as it comes from the can, may, if you have an egg or two, be developed into quite a pre- sentable corn-pudding; or if beaten up with an equal quantity of corn-meal into a thin batter with an egg, a little butter and baking powder, and the whole baked in the form of cakes in the frying-pan, a result is attained which in the wilderness has 292 CAMP COOKERY more than once been feelingly voted "an all-right corn fritter, you bet." One finds some excellent brands of canned string beans in Western stores, but in view of your neces- sary stock of dried beans, the canned articles need not enter into your calculations, unless you have a surplus of room. In that event, a can of these string beans will make a very pleasant interlude of greenery in a long-drawn-out diet of dried foods. In the matter of cooking fish in the wilderness, there is some choice. One of the best ways is the time-honored one of wrapping the fish, well washed, salted and peppered, in damp tissue paper if you have it, or failing that in ordinary brown manila paper dampened, and laying it thus enveloped in the hot ashes of the camp-fire. Some experience will be needed to teach the novice the proper hot- ness of the ashes and the length of time to leave the fish in, but the knowledge gained will be worth the sacrifice of a few trout. It is to be noted that the ashes, while they need to be quite hot, must not con- tain redhot coals to come in contact with the fish. The degree of heat striven for in your ashes should be in a general way that of a hot oven, for which the ash-bed acts as a substitute. To secure in the fish an entirely different but just as delicious a flavor, find a thin, smooth slab of stone a foot or so square, and support this at the four corners on four small stones to serve as short legs. Build under the slab a hot fire and keep it 293 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA going until the stone is thoroughly heated; then grease this improvised griddle with bacon fat, and lay your fish, well seasoned, upon it. If the fish are small, it will not be necessary to turn them as the steady heat of the stones will cook them evenly through. In making this sort of a griddle, do not be dis- turbed if a stone or two flies explosively into sev- eral pieces. Some stones do that. In such an event, try another kind. "Salmon a la San Francisco" is excellent for us- ing up a can of salmon already opened. It received its name from being a popular dish in the dark days immediately succeeding the great San Francisco fire, when everybody was cooking in the streets and open lots. This is it: Boil potatoes so as to have rather more potato than salmon. Mix potato and salmon and season highly with salt and pepper and scraped onion, chopping in also, if you have it, a boiled egg. Add a little warm water to keep from being too dry, and bake in a frying-pan tightly covered over a very slow fire, as directed for the "Arizona Special. " Apropos of rabbits, on which the camper-out in California reckons more or less largely for variety in his bill of fare, it is said that the flesh of the jack-rabbit at some seasons of the year, is not good for food; but in our own experience we have never encountered specimens which were not perfectly satisfactory if parboiled for a few minutes, the 294 CAMP COOKEEY water then thrown out, and the meat started again in a fresh supply of hot, salted water. The jack- rabbit, which at its best is a delicious game meat, is always preferably to be boiled or baked; but of course when it comes to "them leetle bresh rab- bits," as one of our chance acquaintances in the San Gabriel foothills lovingly called the Mollie Cot- tontails, these may be fried as simply and easily as spring chickens. IV. THE DUTCH OVEN As Sancho Panza blessed the man who invented sleep, so do we bless the genius who first thought of the Dutch oven. When you are in a permanent camp where a stove is denied you, the Dutch oven puts an unscrub-off-able, triple-plated silver lining to the cloud. It is simply a homely iron pot, ut- terly styleless, standing on three short legs, and covered with a close-fitting iron lid that has a raised rim all around its edge. Ours is ten inches in diameter, weighs fifteen pounds, and is steeped in such memories of stewed jack-rabbit, baked beans of royal flavor, corn pone and white wheaten loaves, that one look at it on the bluest of Blue Mondays routs the devil, foot, horse and dragoons. When ready for cooking, set the oven on a bed of live coals, and sprinkle a layer of similar coals upon the lid the upturned rim will hold them in place- 295 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA thereby ensuring an even heat all about the con- tents and a hot cover, which will put an entrancing brown on bread or other edibles inside. To become a cordon bleu after the Order of the Dutch Oven, requires long personal experience, and the art cannot be communicated through printer's ink. There are three essential features however, which when observed will start anyone well on the way: First, be sure to choose one the lid of which has an upturned rim. Some are lacking in this. Secondly, do not have too much fire either be- neath the oven or on the lid. Third, be sure that the lid is on tight, for therein lies the Dutch oven's peculiar virtue, and a leak there is fatal. Looseness of the lid may be due to either of two conditions your own carelessness in setting the lid on the pot, or a flaw in the manufac- ture. To guard against the latter contingency it is prudent to try the lid at the time of purchase, and take none that does not fit snugly. One of the most serious moments of our outdoor life resulted from failure to do this. We had come into possession of a chicken at a particular time when, surfeited with bacon and canned salmon, we craved fresh meat, and that special chicken, unlike John's of famous memory, was really a fine one. It was a fowl of distin- guished appearance a Plymouth Eock, we thought hen, with a comfortable tendency to embon- 296 CAMP COOKERY point unusual in the general run of chickens known to campers ; and our mouths watered as we picked and dressed it. Our old Dutch oven, the companion of many trips, had become damaged on a previous outing, and the one we had brought with us on this occa- sion was new and we had not yet happened to have used it. It was got out and scrubbed, and the chicken, dismembered and divided into neat lengths and morsels, was laid in and proved a perfect fit. Then when water and seasoning and all the accom- paniments had been added, the pot with its cover on was set upon the bed of glowing coals and a shovelful of embers placed on the lid. It was a famous sight for hungry eyes. It was a frosty Sunday morning of October in the San Gabriel Mountains when this took place, and the Old Californian was with us. To distract our impatient thoughts while the chicken cooked, we all went for a walk; for it is one of the strong points of the Dutch oven that it does not have to be watched. You set it on the coals and it does the rest. Filled with high thoughts inspired by the au- tumnal glories of the mountain weather, and hun- grier than ever, we returned, after two hours, to find the camp enveloped in a suspicious odor. "Something is burning," cried Sylvia in dismay. The Old Californian made a dash for the Dutch oven and lifted the lid 297 UNDER THE SKY IN CALIFORNIA "Worse than that," he groaned, " something has burned," and he tipped up the luckless pot for us to see. The interior was black with the charred remains of what was once our cherished chicken, burned to a finish. Not a shred of flesh, not a bit of gristle, not a bone was left in recognizable form. Given those pathetic cinders, Cuvier might have guessed them to be Gallus domesticus, but never in the world could he have proved it. Human speech is notoriously inadequate to cer- tain crises of life, and this was one. "It was the lid," I can remember the old man murmuring, as he mechanically picked up the can- opener and reached for a tin of sardines. "It doesn't fit," he maundered on. "See, it wobbles," jolting the pot and causing the lid to seesaw and click. The next Dutch-oven we bought, we tested for air-tightness before it left the store. 298 POSTSCRIPT The preceding pages profess to give nothing more than a hint of the joy and interest that attend travel by unbeaten ways in California, or leisurely resi- dence in the tourist belt. The State is still so young among American Commonwealths and her wide ter- ritories are still so little settled, that the lineaments of that virgin landscape which so delighted the early pioneers, are yet far from obliterated. One may still camp on Fremont's trail in surroundings practically unchanged from those which the great Pathfinder himself described sixty-odd years ago; may stumble over perhaps the selfsame stones that Pio Pico's horses kicked on the Spanish highroads that lead across the passes down to the desert and Old Mexico; may tread in the very footsteps of the Mission Fathers from San Diego to San Francisco Bay; may look out from some peak of the Sierra's crest upon forests as yet unscarred by the lumber- man and upon sage-brush plains where the red In- dian still dwells and sets up his thatched wickiup. It is this nearness to the fresh morning of ro- mance that gives a special zest to life under the sky in California, while one's physical frame is ever grateful for the ease with which one may come from such ventures into the wild, back to the comforts of a civilized life, there to talk it all over with one's friends, to rest and repair and to go again. 299 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. Fine schedule: 25 cents on first day overdue 50 cents on fourth day overdue One dollar on seventh day overdue. 31 1955 WRSl I APR 91970 SJ 4 O MAT :J270 -5PM LD 21-100m-12,'46(A2012sl6)4120 TL o 1