THE SEA—SANTA BARBARA.
The country grew constantly warmer, the soil responding to cultivation with more and more luxuriant crops; among these, fields of lima beans, miles of them, which are threshed out and shipped in enormous quantity. It was dark when we drew in at Santa Barbara, and we did not know what hotel to go to, but, tossing up, chose the Potter. Many runners were calling their hostelries; the Potter porter alone was silent. As we drove in his ’bus through the palm-bordered streets, a cozy home showing here and there in the glare of an electric street light, we wondered what our luck would be. Imagine our delight when we drew up at the stately portal of a modern palace, built in the Spanish style and right on the borders of the sea. The moon was almost full, the tide near flood, the sunset breeze had died, the sea air soft and sweet, and the palace ours! A new hotel, two millions its cost, no finer on the Pacific Coast. And in this off season the prices were most moderate. Nowhere yet have we been so sumptuously housed. In the lovely dining-room we sat at supper by a big window looking out over the moonlit sea.
In the morning we wandered far down upon the beach, watching the breakers beyond the point, and later went up to the famous old Franciscan Monastery, a mile beyond the town. A shrewd yet simple father in brown monk’s robe who asked many questions of the outside world, showed us all about, and in the garden stood for his photograph, quite pleased at the attention. No more charming wintering spot have we yet come to than Santa Barbara.
In the late evening we entrained again and took the local for Los Angeles. For quite an hour and a half we ran close to the ocean, the perpetual breaking of the crested waves upon the shore sounding above the roar of the moving train. A yet greener land we now passed through, everywhere watered by irrigation, everywhere responding with seemingly greater luxuriance. It was just dusk as we turned inland, and quite dark when we came through the big tunnel into the head waters of the Los Angeles Valley. Just then a bright young fellow sat down beside me, and, talking with him, I was pleased to find him from West Virginia. A. Judy, from Pendleton County. A few years ago the family had come to this southern land and all have prospered. He was full of the zest of the life that wins.
Presently we came to many lights among shade trees, mostly palms, then houses and more lights, wide streets showing themselves. We were in Los Angeles, the metropolis of Southern California, the furthest south that on this journey we shall go.
FIFTEENTH LETTER.
LOS ANGELES.
Los Angeles, October 13, 1903.
We slept in Los Angeles with our windows wide open and felt no chill in the dry, balmy air, although a gentle breeze from seaward sifted through the lace curtains all night long. The sun was streaming in when at last we awoke to the sound of New England church bells. We breakfasted on plates piled high with big, red, sweet strawberries, dead ripe, evenly ripe, but not one whit over ripe. A ripeness and sweetness we have never before tasted, even in Oxford. In Seattle and Tacoma we met the royal crab of the Puget Sound, and found him big and bigger than the crabs of England and of France—big as dinner plates, all of them, and now we find in the great, luscious strawberry of Los Angeles another American product as big as those that grow in the gardens of merrie England.