Do not take off flannels, although the perspiration does trickle down the side of your face as you sit in the sun. A fur cape is always needed to protect one shoulder from a chilling breeze while the other side is toasted. It is not safe for new-comers to be out-of-doors after four or five o'clock in the afternoon, nor must they ride in open cars except in the middle of the day. These innocent diversions give the doctors their support.
Bill Nye, with his usual good sense, refused to drive in a pouring rain to view the scenery and orchards when visiting San Diego in March, and says: "Orange orchards are rare and beautiful sights, but when I can sit in this warm room, gathered about a big coal fire, and see miles of them from the window, why should I put on my fur overcoat and a mackintosh in order to freeze and cry out with assumed delight every half-mile while I gradually get Pomona of the lungs?"
There are many places worth visiting if you can rouse yourselves for the effort. Point Loma, twelve miles distant, gives a wonderful view, one of the finest in the world. I warrant you will be so famished on arriving that you will empty every lunch-basket before attending to the outlook. National City, Sweet Water Dam, Tia Juana (Aunt Jane), La Jolla—you will hear of all these. I have tried them and will report.
The Kimball brothers, Warren and Frank, who came from New Hampshire twenty-five years ago and devoted their energies to planting orchards of oranges, lemons, and olives, have made the desert bloom, and found the business most profitable. You will like to watch the processes of pickling olives and pressing out the clear amber oil, which is now used by consumptives in preference to the cod-liver oil. Many are rubbed with it daily for increasing flesh. It is delicious for the table, but the profits are small, as cotton-seed oil is much cheaper. Lemons pay better than oranges, Mr. Kimball tells me. Mrs. Flora Kimball has worked side by side with her husband, who is an enthusiast for the rights of woman. She is progressive, and ready to help in every good work, with great executive ability and a hearty appreciation of any good quality in others.
It does not pay to take the trip to Mexico if time is limited, there is so little of Mexico in it. After leaving the train and getting into an omnibus, the voluble darkey in charge soon shouts out, "We are now crossing the line," but as no difference of scene is observed, it is not deeply impressive. One young fellow got out and jumped back and forth over the line, so that if asked on his return if he had been to Mexico he could conscientiously answer, "Oh yes, many times." We were then taken to the custom-house, where we mailed some hastily scribbled letters for the sake of using a Mexican stamp,—some preferred it stamped on a handkerchief. And near by is the curio store, where you find the same things which are seen everywhere, and where you will doubtless buy a lot of stuff and be sorry for it. But whatever other folly you may be led into, let me implore you to wholly abstain from that deadly concoction, the Mexican tamale. Ugh! I can taste mine now.
A tamale is a curious and dubious combination of chicken hash, meal, olives, red pepper, and I know not what, enclosed in a corn-husk, steamed until furiously hot, and then offered for sale by Mexicans in such a sweet, appealing way that few can resist the novelty. It has a more uncertain pedigree than the sausage, and its effects are serious.
A friend of mine tasted a small portion of one late at night. It was later before she could sleep, and then terrible nightmares intruded upon her slumber. Next morning she looked so ill and enfeebled, so unlike her rosy self, that we begged to know the cause. The tale was thrilling. She thought a civil war had broken out and she could not telegraph to her distant spouse. The agony was intense. She must go to him with her five children, and at once. They climbed mountains, tumbled into cañons, were arrested in their progress by cataracts and wild storms, and even the hostile Indian appeared in full war-paint at a point above. This awoke her, only to fall into another horrible situation. An old lover suddenly returned, tried to approach her; she screamed, "I am now a married woman!"—he lifted his revolver, and once again she returned to consciousness and the tamale, and brandy, and Brown's Jamaica ginger. If she had eaten half the tamale the pistol would doubtless have completed its deadly work. A kind old gentleman of our party bought a dozen to treat us all. We were obliged to refuse, and it was amusing to watch him in his endeavor to get rid of them. At last he made several journeys to the car door, throwing out a few each trip in a solemn way. He didn't want to hurt the feelings of the natives by casting them all out at once.
Sweet Water Dam is a triumph of engineering, one of the largest dams in the world, holding six million gallons of water, used for irrigating ranches in Sweet Water Valley; and at La Jolla you will find pretty shells and clamber down to the caves. There the stones are slippery, and an absorbing flirtation should be resisted, as the tide often intrudes most unexpectedly, and in dangerous haste. Besides the caves the attractions are the fishing and the kelp beds. These kelp beds form a submarine garden, and the water is so clear that one can see beautiful plants, fish, etc., at forty or fifty feet below the sea surface—not unlike the famous sea-gardens at Nassau in the Bahamas. There is a good hotel, open the year round.
Lakeside is a quiet inland retreat twenty-two miles from San Diego, where many go for a little excursion and change of air. The Lakeside Hotel has seventy large rooms and complete appointments. The table is supplied with plenty of milk and real cream from their own cows, vegetables and fruit from the neighboring ranches, game in its season, shot on the lake near by, and, in the valleys, meats from homegrown stock. The guests who are not too invalidish often go out for long drives, never forgetting the lunch-baskets. One day we try the Alpine stage. Winding across the mesa at the rear of the hotel, we have a lovely view of the little lake half hidden in the trees, reflecting in its quiet surface the mountains that rise up beyond it. Gradually climbing upward, we come to a tract of land that is watered by the Flume. To our surprise we learn that this is practically frostless, and that since this has been discovered many young orchards of oranges and lemons have been planted. The red mesa land on the side-hills will not be touched by the frosts of a cold night when the valley at its foot will have enough frost to kill all tender growth. This is a new discovery, and has placed thousands of acres on the market as suitable for the culture of citrus fruits. Do you notice how the appearance of the landscape is changing? The nearer hills are much sharper and steeper, and their sides are studded by great boulders. There are stone walls, and here and there are great flocks of sheep. The horses stop of their own accord at a lovely spot where they are used to getting a drink of cool spring water. Did any ever taste quite so good as that drunk from an old dipper after a long warm drive? The live-oaks and sycamores look too inviting to be resisted, and we get out to explore while the horses are resting. Underneath the evergreen shade we pick up some of the large pointed acorns and carry them away as souvenirs. This would be a delightful spot for a picnic, but we have many miles before us and must go on. In a few more miles we reach a little town known as "Alpine." In the distance looms the Viejas, and if any of the party wish to travel over a grade, now is the opportunity. The top of the grade brings us to a lovely view. Eastward is an unbroken chain of mountain-peaks, from whose summits may be seen the broad Pacific on one side and the Colorado Desert on the other.
One of the favorite drives is into the Monte. This is a large park or tract of a thousand acres. On each side the hills rise, and in front El Cajon shows new beauties with every step of the way. Great live-oaks with enormous trunks, ancient sycamores, elders, and willows make in some spots a dense shade. On the edge of the hillsides the Flume may be seen, which furnishes many ranches as well as the city of San Diego with the purest mountain water. Underneath the trees and up on the rocks the lover of flowers and ferns will scramble. There are the dainty forget-me-nots, tiny flowers of starry white, flowers of pale orange with centres of deep maroon, the wild galliardia, and the wild peony with its variegated leaves. Many other delicate blossoms which we cannot stop to describe are there too. And the ferns! All kinds may be found by the initiated, and many are close at hand. The fern lined with gold or with silver, the running ferns, the ferns of lace-like fineness, the ferns as soft as velvet, all growing in the greatest profusion. And each day of the week a different drive and new delights.