AN OLD CALIFORNIAN TRADING POST.
A BIT OF NATURE ON THE COAST.
Perhaps the principal secret of the charm of the winter climate of Southern California, as well as that of its wonderful health-restoring properties, lies in the fact that its dry, pure air and even temperature make it possible for one to live continuously out of doors. Yet, though not cold, it is a temperature cool enough to be free from summer languor.
CALIFORNIAN PALMS.
Especially attractive to the visitors from the North are the palms of Southern California. Many of these resemble monstrous pineapples terminating in gigantic ferns. What infinite variety the palm tree has, now dwarfed in height, yet sending out on every side a mass of thick green leaves; now rising straight as an obelisk from the desert sand, and etching its fine feathery tufts against the sky; now bearing luscious fruit of different kinds; now furnishing material for clothing, fishing-nets, and matting; or putting forth those slender fronds, frequently twenty feet in length, which are sent North by florists to decorate dwellings and churches for festivals and weddings! The palm is typical of the South, as the pine is of the North. One hints to us of brilliant skies, a tropic sun, and an easy, indolent existence; the other suggests bleak mountains and the forests of northern hills, and symbolizes the conflict there between man and nature, in which both fortitude and daring have been needful to make man the conqueror. One finds a fascination in contrasting these two children of old Mother Earth, and thinks of Heine's lines:
"A pine tree standeth lonely
On a northern mountain's height;