RELICS OF AN ANCIENT RACE.
"ECSTATIC BATHERS."
"This," remarked my guide with a smile, "is what the climate of San Diego does for the natives."
"The glorious climate of California" has been for years a theme of song and story, and a discussion of its merits forms one of the principal occupations of the dwellers on the Pacific coast. It is indeed difficult to see how tourists could pass their time here without this topic of conversation, so infinite is its variety and so debatable are many of the conclusions drawn from it. It is the Sphinx of California; differing, however, from the Sphinx of Egypt in that it offers a new problem every day. The literature that treats of the Pacific coast fairly bristles with statistics on this subject, and many writers have found it impossible to resist the temptation of adorning their pages with tables of humidity, temperature, and rainfall. Some hotels even print in red letters at the top of the stationery furnished to their guests:
"The temperature to-day is——."
Among the photographs of San Diego are several which represent groups of ecstatic bathers, ranging from small boys to elderly bald-headed gentlemen, apparently ready to take a plunge into the Pacific; while beneath them is displayed the legend, "January 1, 18—." Candor compels me, however, to state that, as far as I was able to ascertain, these pictured bathers rarely pay a New Year's call to Neptune in his mighty palace, but content themselves in winter with going no further than his ante-chambers,—the sheltered, sun-warmed areas of public bath-houses.
MIDWINTER AT LOS ANGELES.