Our rooms were worth the money, however; they were large and airy; the big casement windows opened on one side upon the sunset sweep of the Pacific, and on the other we came into a corridor overlooking the tropic beauty of the great court. The Coronado is on such a vast scale that it takes one some time to get his bearings, and though the hotel can accommodate upwards of a thousand guests at a time, the public rooms and grounds never seem crowded. Its most distinctive interior feature is the great circular ball-room, perhaps two hundred feet in diameter, and covered by an open-beamed pavilion roof. But the interior is of less consequence to the average Eastern guest than the outside surroundings—the climate of eternal unchanging summer, the tropical foliage and flowers, and the never-ending roll of the blue ocean on the long sandy beach. Here is the most equable temperature in the United States, if not in the world, the winter mean being fifty-six degrees and the summer sixty-eight. Frost has never been known on the little peninsula; even the freeze of 1913 did not touch it. It is not strange, then, that it glows with the brilliant color of numberless flower-beds and that almost every variety of these is shown in the collection of many hundreds in the Coronado court. Here, too, is one of those delightful features of Southern California, an open-air aviary, where hundreds of songsters and birds of brilliant plumage are given practical freedom in a great cage. There are several miles of fine driveways about the hotel and village, and one can explore the place in a short time by motor. He will learn a fact that many people do not know—that the hotel is not all of Coronado, by any means. Here is a good-sized village with many handsome residences. There are also several cheaper lodging-houses and one can live as economically as he chooses in the "tent city" during the season.
Coronado would never appeal to such nomads as ourselves as a place to stay for any length of time—even forgetting the "freight," if we were able to be so happily oblivious to a matter of such moment to us. After a saunter about the grounds, indescribably glorious in the tempered sunlight, and a drive about the village, we were ready for the road again. Like nearly every stranger who comes to San Diego, we were hankering for an excursion into Old Mexico—just to be able to declare we had been there—and the short jaunt to Tia Juana served this very useful purpose. The trip was doubly sensational since Tia Juana had recently been the seat of genuine war, and you could see bullet holes in the wretched little hovels. It was even guarded by a "fort," which chanced to be deserted at the time of our incursion. The village lies only two or three miles across the border-line, beyond which the road was simply execrable. It meandered in an aimless fashion across the wide plain and was deep with dust and full of chuck-holes that wrenched the car unmercifully. And after we arrived we found nothing but a scattered hamlet made up of souvenir stores, saloons, and a few poor little cottages. Evidently the place depends for its existence on the troops of tourists from across the border, and Tia Juana—which, being interpreted, means "Aunt Jane"—welcomes them as cordially as her limited means permit.
While the ladies ransacked the counters of the souvenir store for bargains—principally, no doubt, for the satisfaction of carrying a little "contraband" over the border—we endeavored to interview some of the native loafers on the status of the revolution, but got only a "No sabe" for our pains. A few minutes of Tia Juana will generally satisfy the most ardent tourist and we were not long in turning the "Forty" U. S.-ward. The customs official waved us a nonchalant salute—he did not even give us the courtesy of a cursory glance into the car; evidently he knew that one would find nothing in Tia Juana worth smuggling into the country. We bade farewell to the land of the greaser with a feeling of double satisfaction; we had been in Mexico—quite as far as we cared to go under conditions then existing—and we were glad to get off the abominable road.
A vast change has come over the once stupid and harmless Tia Juana since the advent of the prohibition laws. As might be expected, it affords an easily reached and very welcome oasis for bibulously inclined tourists from the United States, hundreds of whom daily cross the border to enjoy their "personal freedom" in the now lively town. Not only does liquor flow freely there, but gambling, race-track betting and other still worse vices flourish unchecked. A vigorous agitation is being made in San Diego—which is used as a rendezvous by a host of undesirable individuals connected with the Tia Juana resorts—to restrict greatly the issuing of passports, without which one can not cross the border. The new Mexican government has also promised to make an effort to suppress the rampant vice in the town, but little in this direction has been accomplished at the present writing.
No one will wish to leave San Diego without a visit to the Old Town, for here is the identical spot where Father Serra first landed and began his work of converting and civilizing the natives. Here was really the first mission, though afterwards it was removed to the site which we had already visited. Here General Fremont hoisted the stars and stripes in 1846—less than a century after Serra's coming. Here is the old church with its mission bells brought from Spain in 1802; the earliest palm trees in the state; the old graveyard, with its pathetic wooden headboards; the first brick house in California (another may also be seen in Monterey); the foundation of the huge Catholic church, projected many years ago but never completed; and the old jail "built by the original California grafter," as the prospectus of the enterprising proprietor of "Ramona's Wedding Place" declares.
The Old Town adjoins the city just where the Los Angeles road leaves the bay for the north. Perhaps this is not strictly correct, for the limits of San Diego extend northward nearly to Del Mar, taking in a vast scope of thinly populated country which no doubt the enthusiastic San Diegans expect to be converted into solid city blocks before long. There are many ancient adobe houses in the Old Town, the most notable of which is the Estudillo Mansion, popularly known as Ramona's Wedding Place. It was doubtless the house that Mrs. Jackson had in mind when she brought her Indian hero and his bride to old San Diego after their flight from Temecula, where they had expected to be married. This is, of course, purely fictional, but the house is an excellent type of the ancient Spanish residence of the better class. It was burned in 1872, but the solid adobe walls still stood and a few years ago the house was restored. It is now a museum and curio store, and the proprietor is an enthusiastic antiquarian and an authority on mission history. The house covers nearly a city block; it is built in the shape of a hollow square, open on one side, and around the interior runs a wide veranda surrounding a court. This is beautiful with flowers and shrubbery and to one side is a cactus garden containing nearly every known species of this strange plant. The collection of paintings, antique furniture, and other relics relating to early days in California is worth seeing and one can learn something of the history and romance of the missions from the hourly lecture delivered by the proprietor. He will also take pleasure in telling you about the Old Town and his experience with the Indians, from whom he purchases a large part of his baskets, silver trinkets, and other articles in his shop. One can easily put in an hour here, and if time does not press, the garden is a pleasant lounging-place for a longer period.
A motor tour of San Diego must surely include the drive over the splendid new boulevard that follows the sinuous length of Point Loma to the old lighthouse standing on the bold headland which rises at the northern entrance of the harbor. It is a dilapidated stone structure, only twenty or thirty feet high, but from the little tower we saw one of the most glorious views of all those we witnessed during our thirty thousand miles of motoring in California. The scene from Grosmont is a magnificent one, but it lacks the variety and color of the Point Loma panorama. Here ocean, bay, green hills with lemon and olive groves, and distant snow-clad mountains combine to form a scene of beauty and grandeur that it is not easy to match elsewhere. Almost at our feet swell the inrolling waves of the violet-blue Pacific, which stretches away like a symbol of infinity to the pale sapphire sky that meets it to-day with a sharply defined line. The harbor is a strange patchwork of color; gleaming blues—from sapphire to indigo—and emerald-greens nearer the shores, flecked here and there with spots of purple, and the whole diversified with craft of every description. Across the strait is a wide, barren sand flat and a little farther the red towers of Coronado in its groves of palm trees. Beyond the harbor the city spreads out, wonderfully distinct in the clear sunlight that pours down upon it. Still farther lie the green hills and beyond these the mountains, growing dimmer and dimmer with each successive range. Here and there in the distance, perhaps a hundred miles away, a white peak gleams through the soft blue haze. Nearer at hand you see the rugged contour of Point Loma itself; the tall slender shaft that marks the graves of the victims of the explosion on the Cruiser Bennington a few years ago; the oriental towers of the Theosophical Institute, and down along the water line the guns and defenses of Fort Rosecrans. It is a scene that we contemplate long and rapturously and which on a later trip to San Diego we go to view again.
As we returned to the city some evil genius directed our attention to a sign-board pointing to a little byroad down the cliff but a short distance from the lighthouse and bearing the legend, "To Fort Rosecrans." We wished to see Fort Rosecrans and decided to avail ourselves of the handy short cut so opportunely discovered, and soon found ourselves descending the roughest, steepest grade we found in California. A mere shelf scarce six inches wider than our car ran along the edge of the cliff, which seemingly dropped sheer to the ocean far beneath. The grade must have been at least twenty-five per cent and the road zigzagged downward around the corners that brought our front wheels to the verge of the precipice at the turns. Both brakes and the engine were brought into service and as a matter of precaution the ladies dismounted from the car. We should have been only too glad to retreat, but could do nothing but keep on, creeping downward, hoping fervently that we might not meet a vehicle on the way. At last the road came out on the beach and we drove into the main street of the village near the fort, where people stared at us in a fashion indicating that few automobiles came by the route we had followed.
There was little to see at Fort Rosecrans and our nerves were too badly shaken to leave room for curiosity, anyway. We went on into the main highway, resolving to be more cautious about short cuts in the future. When we came again to Point Loma some months later, the sign that led us down the cliff had been replaced with a mandate of "Closed to autos," and we wondered if we were responsible for the change!
On this latter trip we paused before the Roman gateway of the Theosophical Institute and asked permission to enter, which was readily given for a small consideration. Autos are not admitted to the grounds and we left our car by the roadside, making the ascent on foot. As we came near the mysterious, glass-domed building, we met a studious young man in a light tan uniform and broad-brimmed felt hat, apparently deeply absorbed in a book as he paced to and fro. To our inquiries for a guide he responded courteously, "I will serve you with pleasure myself," and conducted us about the magnificent grounds. In the meanwhile he took occasion to enlighten us on the aims and tenets of his cult.