Transcriber's Note:

Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

ON SUNSET
HIGHWAYS

"SEE AMERICA FIRST" SERIES

Each in one volume, decorative cover, profusely illustrated

L. C. PAGE & COMPANY

53 Beacon Street Boston, Mass.

THE GATE OF VAL PAISO CANYON, MONTEREY
From Original Painting by M. De Neale Morgan

On Sunset
Highways

A Book of Motor Rambles
in California

New and Revised Edition

BY THOS. D. MURPHY

AUTHOR OF
"IN UNFAMILIAR ENGLAND WITH A MOTOR CAR,"
"SEVEN WONDERLANDS OF THE AMERICAN WEST,"
"NEW ENGLAND HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS," ETC.

WITH SIXTEEN ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOR FROM ORIGINAL PAINTINGS,
MAINLY BY CALIFORNIA ARTISTS, AND THIRTY-TWO
DUOGRAVURES FROM PHOTOGRAPHS.
ALSO ROAD MAP COVERING ENTIRE STATE.

BOSTON

L. C. PAGE & COMPANY

PUBLISHERS

Copyright, 1915, by
L. C. PAGE & COMPANY

Copyright, 1921, by
L. C. PAGE & COMPANY

All Rights Reserved

Made in U. S. A.

Preface

The publishers tell me that the first large edition of "On Sunset Highways" has been exhausted and that the steady demand for the book warrants a reprint. I have, therefore, improved the occasion to revise the text in many places and to add descriptive sketches of several worth-while tours we subsequently made. As it stands now I think the book covers most of the ground of especial interest to the average motorist in California.

One can not get the best idea of this wonderful country from the railway train or even from the splendid electric system that covers most of the country surrounding Los Angeles. The motor that takes one into the deep recesses of hill and valley to infrequented nooks along the seashore and, above all, to the slopes and summits of the mountains, is surely the nearest approach to the ideal.

The California of to-day is even more of a motor paradise than when we made our first ventures on her highroads. There has been a substantial increase in her improved highways and every subsequent year will no doubt see still further extensions. The beauty and variety of her scenery will always remain and good roads will give easy access to many hereto almost inaccessible sections. And the charm of her romantic history will not decrease as the years go by. There is a growing interest in the still existing relics of the mission days and the Spanish occupation which we may hope will lead to their restoration and preservation. All of which will make motoring in California more delightful than ever.

I do not pretend in this modest volume to have covered everything worth while in this vast state; neither have I chosen routes so difficult as to be inaccessible to the ordinary motor tourist. I have not attempted a guide-book in the usual sense; my first aim has been to reflect by description and picture something of the charm of this favored country; but I hope that the book may not be unacceptable as a traveling companion to the motor tourist who follows us. Conditions of roads and towns change so rapidly in California that due allowance must be made by anyone who uses the book in this capacity. Up-to-the-minute information as to road conditions and touring conveniences may be had at the Automobile Club in Los Angeles or at any of its dozen branches in other towns in Southern California.

In choosing the paintings to be reproduced as color illustrations, I was impressed with the wealth of material I discovered; in fact, California artists have developed a distinctive school of American landscape art. With the wealth and variety of subject matter at the command of these enthusiastic western painters, it is safe to predict that their work is destined to rank with the best produced in America—and I believe that the examples which I show will amply warrant this prediction.

THE AUTHOR.

CONTENTS

In making acknowledgment to the photographers through whose courtesy I am able to present the beautiful monotones of California's scenery and historic missions, I can only say that I think that the artistic beauty and sentiment evinced in every one of these pictures entitles its author to be styled artist as well as photographer. These enthusiastic Californians—Dassonville, Pillsbury, Putnam, and Taylor—are thoroughly in love with their work and every photograph they take has the merits of an original composition. I had the privilege of selecting, from many thousands, the examples shown in this book and while I doubt if thirty-two pictures of higher average could be found, it must not be forgotten that these artists have hundreds of other delightful views that would grace any collection. I heartily recommend any reader of the book to visit these studios if he desires appropriate and enduring mementos of California's scenic beauty.

Detailed maps covering any proposed tour can be had by application to the Automobile Club of Southern California.

The Author.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

HILLSIDE NEAR MONTEREY
From Original Painting by Helen Balfour

On Sunset Highways

I
A MOTOR PARADISE

California! The very name had a strange fascination for me ere I set foot on the soil of the Golden State. Its romantic story and the enthusiasm of those who had made the (to me) wonderful journey to the favored country by the great ocean of the West had interested and delighted me as a child, though I thought of it then as some dim, far-away El Dorado that lay on the borders of fairyland. My first visit was not under circumstances tending to dissolve the spell, for it was on my wedding trip that I first saw the land of palms and flowers, orange groves, snowy mountains, sunny beaches, and blue seas, and I found little to dispel the rosy dreams I had preconceived. This was long enough ago to bring a great proportion of the growth and progress of the state within the scope of my own experience. We saw Los Angeles, then an aspiring town of forty thousand, giving promise of the truly metropolitan city it has since become; Pasadena was a straggling village; and around the two towns were wide areas of open country now teeming with ambitious suburbs. We visited never-to-be-forgotten Del Monte and saw the old San Francisco ere fire and quake had swept away its most distinctive and romantic features—the Nob Hill palaces and old-time Chinatown.

Some years intervened between this and our second visit, when we found the City of the Angels a thriving metropolis with hundreds of palatial structures and the most perfect system of interurban transportation to be found anywhere, while its northern rival had risen from debris and ashes in serried ranks of concrete and steel. A tour of the Yosemite gave us new ideas of California's scenic grandeur; there began to dawn on us vistas of the endless possibilities that the Golden State offers to the tourist and we resolved on a longer sojourn at the first favorable opportunity.

A week's stay in Los Angeles and a free use of the Pacific Electric gave us a fair idea of the city and its lesser neighbors, but we found ourselves longing for the country roads and retired nooks of mountain and beach inaccessible by railway train and tram car. We felt we should never be satisfied until we had explored this wonderland by motor—which the experience of three long tours in Europe had proved to us the only way to really see much of a country in the limits of a summer vacation.

And so it chanced that a year or two later we found ourselves on the streets of Los Angeles with our trusty friend of the winged wheels, intent on exploring the nooks and corners of Sunset Land. We wondered why we had been so long in coming—why we had taken our car three times to Europe before we brought it to California; and the marvel grew on us as we passed out of the streets of the city on to the perfect boulevard that led through green fields to the western Venice by the sea. It is of the experience of the several succeeding weeks and of a like tour during the two following years that this unpretentious chronicle has to deal. And my excuse for inditing it must be that it is first of all a chronicle of a motor car; for while books galore have been written on California by railroad and horseback travelers as well as by those who pursued the leisurely and good old method of the Franciscan fathers, no one, so far as I know, has written of an extended experience at the steering wheel of our modern annihilator of distance.

It seems a little strange, too, for Southern California is easily the motorist's paradise over all other places on this mundane sphere. It has more cars to the population—twice over—and they are in use a greater portion of the year than in any other section of similar size in the world and probably more outside cars are to be seen on its streets and highways than in any other locality in the United States. The matchless climate and the ever-increasing mileage of fine roads, with the endless array of places worth visiting, insure the maximum of service and pleasure to the fortunate owner of a car, regardless of its name-plate or pedigree. The climate needs no encomiums from me, for is it not heralded and descanted upon by all true Californians and by every wayfarer, be his sojourn ever so brief?—but a few words on the wonders already achieved in road-building and the vast plans for the immediate future will surely be of interest. I am conscious that any data concerning the progress of California are liable to become obsolete overnight, as it were, but if I were to confine myself to the unchanging in this vast commonwealth, there would be little but the sea and the mountains to write about.

Los Angeles County was the leader in good roads construction and at the time of which I write had completed about three hundred and fifty miles of modern highway at a cost of nearly five million dollars. I know of nothing in Europe superior—and very little equal—to the splendid system of macadam boulevards that radiate from the Queen City of the Southwest. The asphalted surface is smooth and dustless and the skill of the engineer is everywhere evident. There are no heavy grades; straight lines or long sweeping curves prevail throughout. Added to this is a considerable mileage of privately constructed road built by land improvement companies to promote various tracts about the city, one concern alone having spent more than half a million dollars in this work. Further additions are projected by the county and an excellent maintenance plan has been devised, for the authorities have wisely recognized that the upkeep of these splendid roads is a problem equal in importance with building them. This, however, is not so serious a matter as in the East, owing to the absence of frost, the great enemy of roads of this type.

Since the foregoing paragraph was first published (1915) the good work has gone steadily on and despite the sharp check that the World War administered to public enterprises, Los Angeles County has materially added to and improved her already extensive mileage of modern roads. A new boulevard connects the beach towns between Redondo and Venice; a marvelous scenic road replaces the old-time trail in Topango Canyon and the new Hollywood Mountain Road is one of the most notable achievements of highway engineering in all California. Many new laterals have been completed in the level section about Downey and Artesia and numerous boulevards opened in the foothill region. Besides all this the main highways have been improved and in some cases—as of Long Beach Boulevard—entirely rebuilt. In the city itself there has been vast improvement and extension of the streets and boulevards so that more than ever this favored section deserves to be termed the paradise of the motorist.

San Diego County has set a like example in this good work, having expended a million and a half on her highways and authorized a bond issue of two and one-half millions more, none of which has been as yet expended. While the highways of this county do not equal the model excellence of those of Los Angeles County, the foundation of a splendid system has been laid. Here the engineering problem was a more serious one, for there is little but rugged hills within the boundaries of the county. Other counties are in various stages of highway building; still others have bond issues under consideration—and it is safe to say that when this book comes from the press there will not be a county in Southern California that has not begun permanent road improvement on its own account.

I say "on its own account" because whatever it may do of its own motion, nearly every county in the state is assured of considerable mileage of the new state highway system, now partially completed, while the remainder is under construction or located and surveyed. The first bond issue of eighteen million dollars was authorized by the state several years ago, a second issue of fifteen millions was voted in 1916, and another of forty millions a year later, making in all seventy-three millions, of which, at this writing, thirty-nine millions is unexpended. Counties have issued about forty-two millions more. It is estimated that to complete the full highway program the state must raise one hundred millions additional by bond issues.

The completed system contemplates two great trunk lines from San Diego to the Oregon border, one route roughly following the coast and the other well inland, while lateral branches are to connect all county seats not directly reached. Branches will also extend to the Imperial Valley and along the Eastern Sierras as far as Independence and in time across the Cajon Pass through the Mohave Desert to Needles on the Colorado River. California's wealth of materials (granite, sand, limestone, and asphaltum) and their accessibility should give the maximum mileage for money expended. This was estimated by a veteran Pittsburgh highway contractor whom I chanced to meet in the Yosemite, at fully twice as great as could be built in his locality for the same expenditure.

California was a pioneer in improved roads and it is not strange that mistakes were made in some of the earlier work, chiefly in building roadways too narrow and too light to stand the constantly increasing heavy traffic. The Automobile Club of Southern California, in conjunction with the State Automobile Association, recently made an exhaustive investigation and report of existing highway conditions which should do much to prevent repetition of mistakes in roads still to be built. The State Highway Commission, while admitting that some of the earlier highways might better have been built heavier and wider, points out that this would have cut the mileage at least half; and also that at the time these roads were contracted for, the extent that heavy trucking would assume was not fully realized. Work on new roads was generally suspended during the war and is still delayed by high costs and the difficulty of selling bonds.

At this writing (1921) the two trunk lines from San Diego to San Francisco are practically completed and the motorist between these points, whether on coast or inland route, may pursue the even tenor of his way over the smooth, dustless, asphalted surface at whatever speed he may consider prudent, though the limit of thirty-five miles now allowed in the open country under certain restrictions leaves little excuse for excessive speeding. It is not uncommon to make the trip over the inland route, about six hundred and fifty miles, in three days, while a day longer should be allowed for the coast run.

In parts where the following narrative covers our tours made before much of the new road was finished, I shall not alter my descriptions and they will afford the reader an opportunity of comparing the present improved highways with conditions that existed only yesterday, as it were.

Road improvement has been active in the northern counties for several years, especially around San Francisco. I have gone into the details concerning this section in my book on Oregon and Northern California, and will not repeat the matter here, since the scope of this work must be largely confined to the south. It is no exaggeration, however, to say that to-day California is unsurpassed by any other state in mileage and excellence of improved roads and when the projects under way are carried out she will easily take first rank in these important particulars unless more competition develops than is now apparent. Thus she supplies the first requisite for the motor enthusiast, though some may declare her matchless climate of equal advantage to the tourist.

If the motor enthusiast of the Golden State can take no credit to himself for the climate, he is surely entitled to no end of credit for the advanced state of affairs in public highway improvement. In proportion to the population he is more numerous in Southern California than anywhere else in the world, and we might therefore expect to find a strong and effective organization of motorists in Los Angeles. In this we are not disappointed, for the Automobile Club of Southern California has a membership of more than fifty thousand; it was but seven thousand when the first edition of this book was printed in 1915—a growth which speaks volumes for its strides in public appreciation. Its territory comprises only half a single state, yet its membership surpasses that of its nearest rival by more than two to one. It makes no pretense at being a "social" club, all its energies being devoted to promoting the welfare and interests of the motorist in its field of action, and so important and far-reaching are its activities that the benefits it confers on the car owners of Southern California are by no means limited to the membership. Practically every owner and driver of a car is indebted to the club in more ways than I can enumerate and as this fact has gained recognition the membership has increased by leaps and bounds. I remember when the sense of obligation to become a member was forced upon me by the road signs which served me almost hourly when touring and this is perhaps the feature of the club's work which first impresses the newcomer. Everywhere in the southern half of California and even on a transcontinental highway the familiar white diamond-shaped signboard greets one's sight—often a friend in need, saving time and annoyance. The maps prepared and supplied by the club were even a greater necessity and this service has been amplified and extended until it not only covers every detail of the highways and byways of California, but also includes the main roads of adjacent states and one transcontinental route as well. These maps are frequently revised and up-to-the-minute road information may always be had by application to the Touring Department of the club.

When we planned our first tour, at a time when road conditions were vastly different from what they are now, our first move was to seek the assistance of this club, which was readily given as a courtesy to a visiting motorist. The desired information was freely and cheerfully supplied, but I could not help feeling, after experiencing so many benefits from the work of the club, that I was under obligations to become a member. And I am sure that even the transient motorist, though he plans a tour of but a few weeks, will be well repaid—and have a clearer conscience—should his first move be to take membership in this live organization.

We found the club an unerring source of information as to the most practicable route to take on a proposed tour, the best way out of the city, and the general condition of the roads to be covered. The club is also an authority on hotels, garages and "objects of interest" generally in the territory covered by its activities. Besides the main organization, which occupies its own building at Adams and Figueroa Streets, Los Angeles, there are numerous branch offices in the principal towns of the counties of Southern California, which in their localities can fulfill most of the functions of the club.

The club maintains a department of free legal advice and its membership card is generally sufficient bail for members charged with violating the speed or traffic regulations. It is always willing to back its members to the limit when the presumption of being right is in their favor, but it has no sympathy with the reckless joy rider and lawbreaker and does all it can to discourage such practices. It has been a powerful influence in obtaining sane and practical motor car legislation, such as raising the speed limit in the open country to thirty-five miles per hour, and providing severer penalties against theft of motor cars. One of the most valuable services of the club has been its relentless pursuit and prosecution of motor car thieves and the recovery of a large percentage of stolen cars. In fact, Los Angeles stands at the head of the large cities of the country in a minimum of net losses of cars by theft and the club can justly claim credit for this. The club has also done much to abate the former scandalous practices of many towns in fixing a very low speed limit with a view of helping out local finances by collecting heavy fines. This is now regulated by state laws and the motorist who is willing to play fair with the public will not suffer much annoyance. The efforts of the club to eliminate what it considers double taxation of its members who must pay both a horse power fee and a heavy property tax were not successful, but the California motorist has the consolation of knowing that all taxes, fines and fees affecting the motor car go to the good cause of road maintenance.

Another important service rendered by the club is the insurance of its members against all the hazards connected with operation of an automobile. Fire, theft, liability, collision, etc., are written practically at cost. The club also maintains patrol and trouble cars which respond free of cost to members in difficulty.

Besides all this, the club deserves much credit for the advanced position of California in highway improvement. It has done much to create the public sentiment which made the bond issues possible and it has rendered valuable assistance in surveying and building the new roads. It has kept in constant touch with the State Highway Commission and its superior knowledge of the best and shortest routes has been of great service in locating the new state roads.

My story is to deal with several sojourns in the Sunset State during the months of April and May of consecutive years. We shipped our car by rail in care of a Los Angeles garage and so many follow this practice that the local agents are prepared to receive and properly care for the particular machines which they represent and several freight-forwarding companies also make a specialty of this service. On our arrival our car was ready for the road and it proved extremely serviceable in getting us located. Los Angeles is the logical center from which to explore the southern half of the state and we were fortunate in securing a furnished house in a good part of the city without much delay. We found a fair percentage of the Los Angeles population ready to move out on short notice and to turn over to us their homes and everything in them—for a consideration, of course.

On our second sojourn in the city we varied things by renting furnished apartments, of which there are an endless number and variety to choose from, and if this plan did not prove quite so satisfactory and comfortable as the house, it was less expensive. We also had experience on several later occasions with numerous hotels—Los Angeles, as might be expected, is well supplied with hotels of all degrees of merit—but our experience in pre-war days would hardly be representative of the present time, especially when rates are considered. The Alexandria and Angelus were—and doubtless are—up to the usual metropolitan standards of service and comfort, with charges to correspond. The Gates, where we stopped much longer, was a cleanly and comfortable hotel with lower rates and represents a large class of similar establishments such as the Clark, the Stillwell, the Trinity, the Hayward, the Roslyn, the Savoy, and many others. One year we tried the Leighton, which is beautifully located on Westlake Park and typical of several outlying hotels that afford more quiet and greater convenience for parking and handling one's car than can be found in the business district. Others in this class are the Darby, the Hershey Arms, the Hollywood, and the Alvarado. Los Angeles, for all its preeminence as a tourist city, was long without a resort hotel of the first magnitude, leaving the famous Pasadena hostelries such as the Green, Raymond, Maryland and Huntington, to cater to the class of patrons who do not figure costs in their quest for the luxurious in hotel service. This shortage was supplied in 1920 by the erection of the Ambassador Hotel on Wilshire Boulevard—one of the largest resort hotels in the world. The building is surrounded by spacious grounds and the property is said to represent an investment of $5,000,000. It is one of the "objects of interest" in Los Angeles and will be visited by many tourists who may not care to pay the price to become regular guests. After our experience with hotels, apartments and rented houses, we finally acquired a home of our own in the "Queen City of the Southwest," which, of course, is the most satisfactory plan of all, though not necessarily the cheapest.

Prior to the Great War Los Angeles had the reputation of being a place where one could live well at very moderate cost and hotels and restaurants gave the very best for little money. This was all sadly changed in the wave of profiteering during and following the war. The city acquired a rather unenviable reputation for charging the tourist all the traffic would bear—and sometimes a little more—until finally Government statistics ranked Los Angeles number one in the cost of living among cities of its class. The city council undertook to combat the tendency to "grab" by passing an ordinance limiting the percentage of rental an owner might charge on his property—a move naturally contested in the courts. At this writing, however, (1921), the tendency of prices is distinctly downward and this may reasonably be expected to continue until a fair basis is reached. It is not likely, however, that pre-war prices will ever return on many items, but it is certain that Los Angeles will again take rank as a city where one may live permanently or for a time at comparatively moderate cost.

Public utilities of the city never advanced their prices to compare with private interests. You can still ride miles on a street car for a nickel and telephone, gas and electric concerns get only slightly higher rates than before the war. Taxes have advanced by leaps and bounds, but are frequently excused by pointing out that nowhere do you get so much for your tax money as in California.

Naturally, the automobile and allied industries loom large in Los Angeles. Garages from the most palatial and perfectly equipped to the veriest hole-in-the-wall abound in all parts of the town. Prices for service and repairs vary greatly but the level is high—probably one hundred per cent above pre-war figures. Competition, however, is strong and the tendency is downward; but only a general wage lowering can bring back the old-time prices. Gasoline is generally cheaper than in the East, while other supplies cost about the same. The second-hand car business has reached vast proportions, many dealers occupying vacant lots where old cars of all models and degrees brave the sun—and sometimes the rain—while waiting for a purchaser. Cars are sold with agreement to buy back at the end of a tour and are rented without driver to responsible parties. You do not have to bring your own car to enjoy a motor tour in California; in fact this practice is not so common as it used to be except in case of the highest-grade cars.

Another plan is to drive your own car from your Eastern home to California and sell it when ready to go back. This was done very satisfactorily during the period of the car shortage and high prices for used cars following the war, but under normal conditions would likely involve considerable sacrifice. The ideal method for the motorist who has the time and patience is to make the round trip to California in his own car, coming, say, over the Lincoln Highway and returning over the Santa Fe Trail or vice versa, according to the time of the year. The latter averages by far the best of the transcontinental roads and is passable for a greater period of the year than any other. In fact, it is an all-year-round route except for the Raton Pass in New Mexico, and this may be avoided by a detour into Texas. This route has been surveyed and signed by the Automobile Club of Southern California and is being steadily improved, especially in the Western states.

Although California has perhaps the best all-the-year-round climate for motoring, it was our impression that the months of April and May are the most delightful for extensive touring. The winter rains will have ceased—though we found our first April and a recent May notable exceptions—and there is more freedom from the dust that becomes troublesome in some localities later in the summer. The country will be at its best—snow-caps will still linger on the higher mountains; the foothills will be green and often varied with great dashes of color—white, pale yellow, blue, or golden yellow, as some particular wild flower gains the mastery. The orange groves will be laden with golden globes and sweet with blossoms, and the roses and other cultivated flowers will still be in their prime. The air will be balmy and pleasant during the day, with a sharp drop towards evening that makes it advisable to keep a good supply of wraps in the car. An occasional shower will hardly interfere with one's going, even on the unimproved country road.

For there is still unimproved country road, despite all I have said in praise of the new highways. A great deal of our touring was over roads seldom good at their best and often quite impassable during the heavy winter rains. There were stretches of "adobe" to remind us of "gumbo" at home; there were miles of heavy sand and there were rough, stone-strewn trails hardly deserving to be called roads at all! These defects are being mended with almost magical rapidity, but California is a vast state and with all her progress it will be years before all her counties attain the Los Angeles standard. We found many primitive bridges and oftener no bridges at all, since in the dry season there is no difficulty in fording the hard-bottom streams, and not infrequently the streams themselves had vanished. But in winter these same streams are often raging torrents that defy crossing for days at a time. During the summer and early autumn months the dust will be deep on unimproved roads and some of the mountain passes will be difficult on this account. So it is easy to see that even California climate does not afford ideal touring conditions the year round. Altogether, the months of April, May, and June afford the best average of roads and weather, despite the occasional showers that one may expect during the earlier part of this period. It is true that during these months a few of the mountain roads will be closed by snow, but one can not have everything his own way, and I believe the beauty of the country and climate at this time will more than offset any enforced omissions. The trip to Yosemite is not practical during this period over existing routes, though it is to be hoped the proposed all-the-year road will be a reality before long. The Lake Tahoe road is seldom open before the middle of June, and this delightful trip can not be taken during the early spring unless the tourist is content with the railway trains.

Our several tours in California aggregated more than thirty thousand miles and extended from Tia Juana to the Oregon border. The scope of this volume, however, is confined to the southern half of the state and the greater part of it deals with the section popularly known as Southern California—the eight counties lying south of Tehachapi Pass. Of course we traversed some roads several times, but we visited most of the interesting points of the section—with some pretty strenuous trips, as will appear in due course of my narrative. We climbed many mountains, visited the endless beaches, stopped at the famous hotels, and did not miss a single one of the twenty or more old Spanish missions. We saw the orange groves and palms of Riverside and Redlands, the great oaks of Paso Robles, the queer old cypresses of Monterey, the Torrey Pines of La Jolla, the lemon groves of San Diego, the vast wheatfields of the San Joaquin and Salinas Valleys, the cherry orchards of San Mateo, the great vineyards of the Napa and Santa Rosa Valleys, the lonely beauty of Clear Lake Valley, the giant trees of Santa Cruz, the Yosemite Valley, Tahoe, the gem of mountain lakes, the blossoming desert of Imperial, and a thousand other things that make California an enchanted land. And the upshot of it all was that we fell in love with the Golden State—so much in love with it that what I set down may be tinged with prejudice; but what story of California is free from this amiable defect?

II
ROUND ABOUT LOS ANGELES

When we first left the confines of the city we steered straight for the sunset; the wayfarer from the far inland states always longs for a glimpse of the ocean and it is usually his first objective. The road, smooth and hard as polished slate, runs for a dozen miles between green fields, with here and there a fringe of palms or eucalyptus trees and showing in many places the encroachments of rapidly growing suburbs. So seductively perfect is the road that the twenty miles slip away almost before we are aware; we find ourselves crossing the canal in Venice and are soon surrounded by the wilderness of "attractions" of this famous resort.

There is little to remind us of its Italian namesake save the wide stretch of sea that breaks into view and an occasional gondola on the tiny canal; in the main it is far more suggestive of Coney Island than of the Queen of the Adriatic. To one who has lost his boyish zeal for "shooting the shoots" and a thousand and one similar startling experiences, or whose curiosity no longer impels him toward freaks of nature and chambers of horror, there will be little diversion save the multifarious phases of humanity always manifest in such surroundings. On gala days it is interesting to differentiate the types that pass before one, from the countryman from the inland states, "doing" California and getting his first glimpse of a metropolitan resort, to the fast young sport from the city, to whom all things have grown common and blase and who has motored down to Venice because he happened to have nowhere else to go.

With the advent of prohibition the atmosphere of the place has noticeably changed—the tipsy joy-rider is not so much in evidence nor is the main highway to the town strewn with wrecked cars as of yore. But for all this, Venice seems as lively as ever and there is no falling off in its popularity as a beach resort. This is evidenced by the prompt reconstruction of the huge amusement pier which was totally destroyed by fire in 1920. It has been replaced by a much larger structure in steel and concrete—a practical guarantee against future conflagrations—and the amusement features are more numerous and varied than of yore. It is still bound to be the Mecca of the tourist and vacationist who needs something a little livelier than he will find in Long Beach and Redondo.

But to return from this little digression—and my reader will have to excuse many such, perhaps, when I get on "motorological" subjects—I was saying that we found little to interest us in the California Venice save odd specimens of humanity—and no doubt we ourselves reciprocated by affording like entertainment to these same odd specimens. After our first trip or two—and the fine boulevards tempted us to a good many—we usually slipped into the narrow "Speedway" connecting the town with Ocean Park and Santa Monica. Why they call it the Speedway I am at a loss to know, for it is barely a dozen feet wide in places and intersected with alleys and streets every few feet, so that the limit of fifteen miles is really dangerously high. The perfect pavement, however, made it the most comfortable route—though there may be better now—and it also takes one through the liveliest part of Ocean Park, another resort very much like Venice and almost continuous with it. These places are full of hotels and lodging-houses, mostly of the less pretentious and inexpensive class, and they are filled during the winter season mainly by Eastern tourists. In the summer the immense bathing beaches attract crowds from the city. The Pacific Electric brings its daily contingent of tourists and the streets are constantly crowded with motors—sometimes hundreds of them. All of which contribute to the animation of the scene in these popular resorts.

In Santa Monica we found quite a different atmosphere; it is a residence town with no "amusement" features and few hotels, depending on its neighbors for these useful adjuncts. It is situated on an eminence overlooking the Pacific and to the north lie the blue ranges of the Santa Monica Mountains, visible from every part of town. Ocean Drive, a broad boulevard, skirts the edge of the promontory, screened in places by rows of palms, through which flashes the blue expanse of the sea. At its northern extremity the drive drops down a sharp grade to the floor of the canyon, which opens on a wide, sandy beach—one of the cleanest and quietest to be found so near Los Angeles.

This canyon, with its huge sycamores and clear creek brawling over the smooth stones, had long been an ideal resort for picnic parties, but in the course of a single year we found it much changed. The hillside had been terraced and laid out with drives and here and there a summer house had sprung up, fresh with paint or stucco. The floor of the valley was also platted and much of the wild-wood effect already gone. All this was the result of a great "boom" in Santa Monica property, largely the work of real estate promoters. Other additions were being planned to the eastward and all signs pointed to rapid growth of the town. It already has many fine residences and cozy bungalows embowered in flowers and shrubbery, among which roses, geraniums and palms of different varieties predominate.

Leaving the town, we usually followed the highway leading through the grounds of the National Soldiers' Home, three or four miles toward the city. This great institution, in a beautiful park with a wealth of semi-tropical flowers and trees, seemed indeed an ideal home for the pathetic, blue-coated veterans who wandered slowly about the winding paths. The highway passes directly through the grounds and one is allowed to run slowly over the network of macadam driveways which wind about the huge buildings. At the time of which I write, there were some thirty-five hundred old soldiers in the Home, few of whom had not reached the age of three score and ten. Their infirmities were evidenced by the slow and even painful manner in which many moved about, by the crowded hospitals, and the deaths—which averaged three daily. True, there were some erect, vigorous old fellows who marched along with something of the spirit that must have animated them a half century ago, but they were the rare exceptions. Visitors are welcomed and shown through all the domestic arrangements of the Home; the old fellows are glad to act in the capacity of guides, affording them, as it does, some relief from the monotony of their daily routine. So perfect are the climatic conditions and so ideally pleasant the surroundings that it seems a pity that the veterans in all such homes over the country might not be gathered here. We were told that this plan is already in contemplation, and it is expected, as the ranks of the veterans are decimated, to finally gather the remnant here, closing all other soldiers' homes. It is to be hoped that the consummation of the plan may not be too long delayed, for surely the benign skies and the open-air life would lengthen the years of many of the nation's honored wards.

We passed through the grounds of the Home many times and stopped more than once to see the aviary—a huge, open-air, wire cage filled with birds of all degrees, from tiny African finches half the size of sparrows to gorgeous red, blue, green, and mottled parrots. Many of these were accomplished conversationalists and it speaks well for the old boys of the Home that there was no profanity in the vocabulary of these queer denizens of the tropics. This and other aviaries which we saw impressed upon us the possibilities of this pleasant fad in California, where the birds can live the year round in the open air in the practical freedom of a large cage.

Returning from the Home one may follow Wilshire Boulevard, which passes through one of the most pretentious sections of the city, ending at beautiful Westlake Park; or he may turn into Sunset Boulevard and pass through Hollywood. A short distance from the Home is Beverly Hills, with its immense hotel—a suburban town where many Los Angeles citizens have summer residences. A vast deal of work has been done by the promoters of the town; the well-paved streets are bordered with roses, geraniums, and rows of palm trees, all skillfully arranged by the landscape-gardener. It is a pretty place, though it seemed to us that the sea winds swept it rather fiercely during several of the visits we made. Another unpleasant feature was the groups of oil derricks which dot the surrounding country, though these will doubtless some time disappear with the exhaustion of the fields. The hotel is of a modified mission type, with solid concrete walls and red tile roof, and its surroundings and appointments are up to the famous California standard at such resorts.

Hollywood is now continuous with the city, but it has lost none of that tropical beauty that has long made it famous. Embowered in flowers and palms, with an occasional lemon grove, its cozy and in some cases palatial homes never fail to charm the newcomer. Once it was known as the home of Paul de Longpre, the flower painter, whose Moorish-looking villa was the goal of the tourist and whose gorgeous creations were a never-failing wonder to the rural art critic. Alas, the once popular artist is dead and his art has been discredited by the wiseacres; he was "photographic"—indeed, they accuse him of producing colored photographs as original compositions. But peace be to the painter's ashes—whether the charge of his detractors be true or not, he delighted thousands with his highly colored representations of the blooms of the Golden State. His home and gardens have undergone extensive changes and improvements and it is still one of the show places of the town.

The Hollywood school buildings are typical of the substantial and handsome structures one sees everywhere in California; in equipment and advanced methods her schools are not surpassed by any state in the Union.

No stretch of road in California—and that is almost saying in all the world—is more tempting to the motorist than the twenty miles between Los Angeles and Long Beach. Broad, nearly level, and almost straight away, with perfect surface and not a depression to jolt or jar a swiftly speeding car, Long Beach Boulevard would put even a five-year-old model on its mettle. It is only the knowledge of frequent arrests and heavy fines that keeps one in reasonable bounds on such an ideal speedway and gives leisure to contemplate the prosperous farming lands on either side. Sugar beets, beans, and small grains are all green and thriving, for most of the fields are irrigated. There is an occasional walnut grove along the way and in places the road is bordered with ranks of tall eucalyptus trees, stately and fragrant. Several fine suburban homes adjoin the boulevard and it is doubtless destined to be solidly bordered with such.

Long Beach is the largest of the suburban seaside towns—the new census gives it a population of over 55,000—and is more a place of homes than its neighbor, Venice. Its beach and amusement concomitants are not its chief end of existence; it is a thriving city of pretty—though in the main unpretentious—homes bordering upon broad, well-paved streets, and it has a substantial and handsome business center. You will especially note its churches, some of them imposing stone structures that would do credit to the metropolis. Religious and moral sentiment is strong in Long Beach; it was a "dry" town, having abolished saloons by an overwhelming vote, long before prohibition became the law of the land. The town is pre-eminently the haven of a large number of eastern people who come to California for a considerable stay—as cheaply as it can possibly be done—and there are many lodging-houses and cottages to supply this demand. And it is surprising how economically and comfortably many of these people pass the winter months in the town and how regularly they return year after year. Many others have become permanent residents and among them you will find the most enthusiastic and uncompromising "boosters" for the town—and California. And, indeed, Long Beach is an ideal place for one to retire and take life easy; the climate is even more equable than that of Los Angeles; frost is almost unknown and the summer heat is tempered by the sea. The church and social activities appeal to many and the seaside amusement features are a good antidote for ennui. There are not a few old fellows who fall into a mild dissipation of some sort at one or the other of the catch-penny affairs along the promenade. I was amused at one of these—a grizzled old veteran, who confessed to being upwards of seventy—who could not resist the fascination of the shooting galleries; and I knew another well over eighty who was a regular bather in the surf all through the winter months.

A little to the east of Long Beach is Naples, another of the seaside towns, which has recently been connected with Long Beach by a fine boulevard. It gives promise of becoming a very pretty place, though at present it does not seem much frequented by tourists. About equally distant to the westward is San Pedro, the port of Los Angeles, and really a part of the city, a narrow strip some two miles wide connecting the village and metropolis. This was done to make Los Angeles an actual seaport and to encourage the improvement of San Pedro Harbor. The harbor is largely artificial, being enclosed by a stone breakwater built jointly by Government appropriations and by bond issues of the citizens of Los Angeles. The ocean is cut off by Catalina Island, which shelters San Pedro to some extent from the effects of heavy storms and makes the breakwater practicable. It is built of solid granite blocks of immense size, some of them weighing as much as forty tons each. It is a little more than two miles long and the water is forty-five feet deep at the outer end where the U. S. Lighthouse stands. There is no bar, and ocean-going vessels can go to anchor under their own steam. There are at present about eight miles of concrete wharfage and space permits increasing this to thirty miles as traffic may require. Improvements completed and under way represent an investment of more than twenty million dollars. The World War put San Pedro on the map as a great ship-building point; there are two large yards for construction of steel ships and one for wooden vessels. These will be of great interest to the tourist from inland states. A dry dock of sufficient capacity for the largest ocean-going steamers is under construction and will afford every facility for repairing and overhauling warships and merchant vessels. All of which indicates that Los Angeles' claim as an ocean port of first magnitude has a substantial foundation and that its early fulfillment is well assured. A broad boulevard now joins the widely separated parts of the city and a large proportion of the freight traffic goes over this in motor trucks, which, I am told, give cheaper and quicker service than the steam railroad.

Aside from the shipyards, San Pedro has not much to interest the tourist; there is a pretty park at Point Fermin from which one may view some magnificent coast scenery. A steep descent near at hand takes one down to an ancient Spanish ranch house curiously situated on the water's edge and hidden in a jungle of neglected palms and shrubbery. On an eminence overlooking the town and harbor is located Fort McArthur with several disappearing guns of immense caliber. There are also extensive naval barracks and storehouses on the wharf and usually several United States warships are riding at anchor in the harbor.

The new boulevard from San Pedro to Redondo, however, has quite enough of beauty to atone for any lack of it on the way to the harbor town from the city, especially if one is fortunate in the day. In springtime the low rounded hills on either side are covered with verdure—meadows and grain fields—and these are spangled with great dashes of blue flowers, which in some places have almost gained the mastery. The perfect road sweeps along the hillsides in wide curves and easy grades and there is little to hinder one from giving rein to the motor if he so elects. But we prefer an easy jog, pausing to gather a handful of the violet-blue flowers and to contemplate the glorious panorama which spreads out before us. Beyond a wide plain lie the mountain ranges, softened by a thin blue haze through which snow-capped summits gleam in the low afternoon sun. As we come over the hill just before reaching Redondo, the Pacific breaks into view—deep violet near the shore and shimmering blue out toward the horizon.

We enter the town by the main street, which follows the shore high above the sea and is bordered by many pleasant cottages almost hidden in flowers. It is one of the most beautifully situated of the coast towns, occupying a sharply rising hill which slopes down to a fine beach. On the bluff we pass a handsome park—its banks ablaze with amethyst sea moss—and the grounds of Hotel Redondo, (since closed and falling into decay) elaborately laid out and filled with semi-tropical plants and flowers, favored by the frostless climate. The air is redolent with fragrance, borne to us on the fresh sea-breeze and, altogether, our first impressions of Redondo are favorable indeed—nor has further acquaintance reversed our judgment.

There are the customary resort features, though these are not so numerous or extensive as at Venice. Still, Redondo is not free from the passion for the superlative everywhere prevalent in California, and proudly boasts of the "largest warm salt-water plunge on earth and the biggest dancing pavilion in the state." There is a good deal of fishing off shore, red deep-sea bass being the principal catch. Moonstones and variegated pebbles are common on the beach and there are shops for polishing and setting these in inexpensive styles. If you are not so fortunate as to pick up a stone yourself, you will be eagerly supplied with any quantity by numerous small urchins, for a slight consideration.

Redondo is not without commercial interest, for it is an important lumber port and a supply station for the oil trade. There are car shops and mills of various kinds. Another industry which partakes quite as much of the aesthetic as the practical is evidenced by the acres of sweet peas and carnations which bloom profusely about the town.

In returning from Redondo to the city we went oftenest over the new boulevard by the way of Inglewood, though we sometimes followed the coast road to Venice, entering by Washington Street. These roads were not as yet improved, though they were good in summer time. Along the coast between Redondo and Venice one passes Hermosa and Manhattan Beaches and Playa del Rey, three of the less frequented resorts. They are evidently building on expectations rather than any great present popularity; a few seaside cottages perched on the shifting sands are about all there is to be seen and the streets are mere sandy trails whose existence in some cases you would never suspect were it not for the signboards. We stuck closely to the main streets of the towns which, in Manhattan, at least, was pretty hard going. It is a trip that under present conditions we would not care to repeat, but when a good boulevard skirts the ocean for the dozen miles between these points, it will no doubt be one of the popular runs. (The boulevard has since been built, enabling one to follow the sea from El Segundo to Redondo with perfect ease and comfort.)

I have written chiefly of the better-known coast towns, but there are many retired resorts which are practically deserted except for the summer season. One may often find a pleasant diversion in one of these places on a fine spring day before the rush comes—and if he goes by motor, he can leave at his good pleasure, should he grow weary, in sublime indifference to railroad or stage time-tables. A Los Angeles friend who has a decided penchant for these retired spots proposed that we go to Newport Beach one Saturday afternoon and we gladly accepted this guidance, having no very clear idea ourselves of the whereabouts of Newport Beach.

We followed him out Stevenson Boulevard into Whittier Road, a newly built highway running through a fertile truck-gardening country to the pleasant village founded by a community of Quakers who named it in honor of their beloved poet. One can not help thinking how Whittier himself would have shrunk from such notoriety, but he would have no reason to be ashamed of his namesake could he see it to-day—a thriving, well-paved town of some eight thousand people. It stands in the edge of a famous orange-growing section, which extends along the highway for twenty miles or more and which produces some of the finest citrus fruit in California. Lemon and walnut groves are also common and occasional fig and olive trees may be seen. The bronze-green trees, with their golden globes and sweet blossoms, crowd up to the very edge of the highway for miles—with here and there a comfortable ranch-house.

We asked permission to eat our picnic dinner on the lawn in front of one of these, and the mistress not only gladly accorded the privilege, but brought out rugs for us to sit upon. A huge pepper tree screened the rays of the sun; an irrigating hydrant supplied us with cool crystal water; and the contents of our lunch-baskets, with hot coffee from our thermos bottles, afforded a banquet that no hotel or restaurant could equal.

Further conversation with the mistress of the ranch developed the fact that she had come from our home state, and we even unearthed mutual acquaintances. We must, of course, inspect the fine grove of seven acres of Valencias loaded with fruit about ready for the market. It was a beautiful grove of large trees in prime condition and no doubt worth five or six thousand dollars per acre. The crop, with the high prices that prevailed at that time, must have equaled from one-third to half the value of the land itself. Such a ranch, on the broad, well-improved highway, certainly attains very nearly the ideal of fruit-farming and makes one forget the other side of the story—and we must confess that there is another side to the story of citrus fruit-farming in California.

The fine road ended abruptly when we entered Orange County, a few miles beyond Whittier, for Orange County had done little as yet to improve her highways, and we ran for some miles on an old oiled road which for genuine discomfort has few equals. One time it was thought that the problem of a cheap and easily built road was solved in California—simply sprinkle the sandy surface with crude oil and let it pack down under traffic. This worked very well for a short time until the surface began to break into holes, which daily grew larger and more numerous until no one could drive a motor car over them without an unmerciful jolting. And such was the road from Fullerton to Santa Ana when we traversed it, but such it will not long remain, for Orange County has voted a million and a quarter to improve her roads and she will get her share of the new state highway system as well. (All of which, I may interject here, has since come to pass and the fortunate tourist may now traverse every part of the county over roads that will comfortably admit of all the speed the law allows).

Santa Ana is a quiet town of fifteen thousand, depending on the fruit-raising and farming country that surrounds it. It is a cozy place, its wide avenues shaded by long rows of peppers and sycamores and its homes embowered by palms and flowers. Almost adjoining it to the northeast is the beautiful village of Orange—rightly named, for it is nearly surrounded by a solid mass of orange and lemon groves. In the center of its business section is a park, gorgeous with palms and flowers. The country about must be somewhat sheltered, for it escaped the freeze of 1913 and was reveling in prosperity with a great orange and lemon crop that year.

Just beyond the mountain range to the east is Orange County Park, which we visited on another occasion. It is a fine example of the civic progress of these California communities in providing pleasure grounds where all classes of people may have inexpensive and delightful country outings. It is a virgin valley, shaded by great oaks and sycamores and watered by a clear little river, the only departure from nature being the winding roads and picnic conveniences. There are many beautiful camping sites, which are always occupied during the summer. Beyond the park the road runs up Silverado Canyon, following the course of the stream, which we forded many times. It proved rough and stony but this was atoned for many times over by the sylvan beauty of the scenes through which we passed. The road winds through the trees, which overarch it at times, and often comes out into open glades which afford views of the rugged hills on either hand. We had little difficulty in finding our way, for at frequent intervals we noted signs, "To Modjeska's Ranch," for the great Polish actress once had a country home deep in the hills and owned a thousand-acre ranch at the head of Silverado Canyon. Here about thirty years ago she used to come for rest and recreation, but shortly before her death sold the ranch to the present owners, the "Modjeska Country Club." It is being exploited as a summer resort and is open to the public generally. A private drive leads some three or four miles from the public road to the house, which is sheltered under a clifflike hill and surrounded by a park ornamented with a great variety of trees and shrubs. This was one of Modjeska's fads and her friends sent her trees and plants from every part of the world, one of the most interesting being a Jerusalem thorn, which appears to thrive in its new habitat. The house was designed by Stanford White—an East-Indian bungalow, we were told, but it impresses one as a crotchety and not very comfortable domicile. The actress entertained many distinguished people at the Forest of Arden, as she styled her home, among them the author of "Quo Vadis," who, it is said, wrote most of that famous story here. The place is worth visiting for the beauty of its surroundings as well as its associations. A great many summer cottages are being built in the vicinity and in time it will no doubt become a popular resort, and, with a little improvement in the canyon road, a favorite run for motorists.

Leaving "Arden," we crossed the hills to the east, coming into the coast highway at El Toro, a rather strenuous climb that was well rewarded by the magnificent scenes that greeted us from the summit. The wooded canyon lay far beneath us, diversified by a few widely separated ranch-houses and cultivated fields, with the soft silver-gray blur of a great olive grove in the center. It was shut in on either side by the rugged hill ranges, which gradually faded into the purple haze of distance. The descent was an easy glide over a moderate grade, the road having been recently improved. At the foot of the grade we noticed a road winding away among the hills, and a sign, "To the silver mines," where we were told silver is still mined on a considerable scale.

I have departed quite a little from the story of our run to Newport Beach, but I hope the digression was worth while. From Santa Ana a poor road—it is splendid concrete now—running nearly south took us to our destination. It was deserted save for a few shopkeepers and boarding-house people who stick to their posts the year round. There was a cheap-looking hotel with a number of single-room cottages near by. We preferred the latter and found them clean and comfortable, though very simply furnished. The meals served at the hotel, however, were hardly such as to create an intense desire to stay indefinitely and after our second experience we were happy to think that we had a well-filled lunch-basket with us. The beach at Newport is one of the finest to be found anywhere—a stretch of smooth, hard sand miles long and quite free from the debris which disfigures the more frequented places. We were greeted by a wide sweep of quiet ocean, with the dim blue outlines of Santa Catalina just visible in the distance. To the rear of the beach lies the lagoon-like bay, extending some miles inland and surrounding one or two small islands covered with summer cottages. Eastward is Balboa Beach and above this rise the rugged heights of Corona Del Mar. A motor boat runs between this point and Newport, some five or six miles over the green, shallow waters of the bay. We proved the sole passengers for the day and after a stiff climb to the heights found ourselves on a rugged and picturesque bit of coast. Here and there were great detached masses of rock, surrounded by smooth sand when the tide was out, and pierced in places by caves. We scrambled down to the sand and found a quiet, sheltered nook for our picnic dinner—which was doubly enjoyable after the climb over the rocks and our partial fast at the hotel. Late in the afternoon we found our boat waiting at the wharf at Corona and returned to Newport in time to drive to Los Angeles before nightfall.

Newport is only typical of several retired seaside resorts—Huntington Beach, Bay City, Court Royal, Clifton, Hermosa, Playa del Rey, and others, nearly all of which may be easily reached by motor and which will afford many pleasant week-end trips similar to the little jaunt to Newport which I have sketched.

And one must not forget Avalon—in some respects the most unique and charming of all, though its position on Santa Catalina, beyond twenty miles of blue billows, might logically exclude it from a motor-travel book. There are only twenty-five miles of road in the island—hardly enough to warrant the transport of a motor, though I believe it has been done. But no book professing to deal with Southern California could omit Avalon and Catalina—and the motor played some part, after all, for we drove from Los Angeles to San Pedro and left the car in a garage while we boarded the Cabrillo for the enchanted isle. We were well in advance of the "season," which invariably fills Avalon to overflowing, and were established in comfortable quarters soon after our arrival. The town is made up largely of cottages and lodging-houses, with a mammoth hotel on the sea front. It is situated on the crescent-shaped shore of a beautiful little bay and climbs the sharply rising hill to the rear in flower-covered terraces.

There is not much to detain the casual visitor in the village itself, especially in the dull season; no doubt there is more going on in the summer, when vacationists from Los Angeles throng the place. The deserted "tent city"—minus the tents—the empty pavilion, the silent dance hall and skating-rink, all mutely testify of livelier things than we are witnessing as we saunter about the place.

But there is one diversion for which Catalina is famous and which is not limited to the tourist season—here is the greatest game fishing-"ground" in the world, where even the novice, under favorable conditions, is sure of a catch of which he can boast all the rest of his life. Our friend who accompanied us was experienced in the gentle art of Ike Walton as practiced about the Isle of Summer, and before long had engaged a launch from one of the numerous "skippers" who were lounging about the pier. We were away early in the morning for Ship Island, near the isthmus, where the great kelp beds form a habitat for yellowtail and bass, which our skipper assured us were being caught daily in considerable numbers. Tuna, he said, were not running—and he really made few promises for a fisherman. Our boat was a trim, well-kept little craft, freshly painted and scoured and quite free from the numerous smells that so often cling about such craft and assist in bringing on the dreaded mal de mer. Fortunately, we escaped this distressing malady; by hugging the shore we had comparatively still water and when we reached our destination we found the sea quiet and glassy—a glorious day—and our skipper declared the conditions ideal for a big catch. Our hooks were baited with silvery sardines—not the tiny creatures such as we get in tins, but some six or eight inches in length—and we began to circle slowly above the kelp beds near Ship Rock. Before long one of the party excitedly cried, "A strike!" and the boat headed for the open water, since a fish would speedily become entangled in the kelp and lost.

There are few more exciting sports than bringing a big yellowtail to gaff, for he is one of the gamest of sea fighters, considering his size. At first he is seized with a wild desire to run away and it means barked knuckles and scorched fingers to the unwary fisherman who lets his reel get out of control. Then begin a long struggle—a sort of see-saw play—in which you gain a few yards on your catch only to lose it again and again. Suddenly your quarry seems "all in," and he lets you haul him up until you get a glimpse of his shining sides like a great opal in the pale green water. The skipper seizes his gaff and you consider the victory won at last—you are even formulating the tale you are going to tell your eastern friends, when—presto, he is away like a flash. Your reel fairly buzzes while three hundred yards of line is paid out and you have it all to do over again. But patience and perseverance at last win—if your tackle does not break—and the fish, too exhausted to struggle longer, is gaffed and brought aboard by the skipper, who takes great delight in every catch, since a goodly showing at the pier is an excellent advertisement for himself and his boat.

By noon we had three fine yellowtails and a number of rock bass to our credit and were quite ready for the contents of our lunch-baskets. We landed on the isthmus—the narrow neck of land a few hundred feet in width about the center of the island—and found a pleasant spot for our luncheon. In the afternoon we had three more successful battles with the gamey yellowtails—and, of course, the usual number "got away." Homeward bound, we had a panorama of fifteen miles of the rugged island coast—bold, barren cliffs overhanging deep blue waters and brown and green hills stretching along dark little canyons running up from the sea. In rare cases we saw a cottage or two in these canyons and in places the hillsides were dotted with wild flowers, which bloom in great variety on the island. At sunset we came into the clear waters of Avalon Harbor and our skipper soon proudly displayed our catch on the pier.

After dinner we saw a curious spectacle down at the beach—thousands of flying fish attracted and dazzled by the electric lights were darting wildly over the waters and in some instances falling high and dry on the sands. On the pier were dozens of men and boys with fish spears attached to ropes and they were surprisingly successful in taking the fish with these implements. They threw the barbed spear at the fish as they darted about and drew it back with the rope, often bringing the quarry with it. The fish average about a foot in length and, we were told, are excellent eating. They presented a beautiful sight as thousands of them darted over the dark waters of the bay, their filmy, winglike fins gleaming in the electric lights.

Besides fishing, the sportsman can enjoy a hunt if he chooses, for wild goats are found in the interior, though one unacquainted with the topography of the island will need a guide and a horse. The country is exceedingly rugged and wild, there are few trails, and cases are recorded of people becoming hopelessly lost. We had no time for exploring the wilds of the interior and perhaps little inclination. On the morning before our homeward voyage we went out to the golf links lying on the hillsides above the town, not so much for the game—on my part, at least, for I had become quite rusty in this royal sport and Avalon links would be the last place in the world for a novice—as for the delightful view of the town and ocean which the site affords. Below us lay the village, bending around the crescent-shaped bay which gleamed through the gap in the hills, so deeply, intensely blue that I could think of nothing so like it as lapis lazuli—a solid, still blue that hardly seemed like water. After a few strokes, which sent the balls into inaccessible ravines and cactus thickets, I gave it up and contented myself with watching my friend struggle with the hazards—and such hazards! Only one who has actually tried the Avalon links can understand what it means to play a round or two of the nine holes; but, after all, the glorious weather, the entrancing view, and the lovely, smooth-shaven greens will atone for a good many lost balls and no devotee of golf who visits the island should omit a game on the Avalon links.

Many changes have been wrought in the state of things in Catalina since the foregoing paragraphs were first written. Formerly the island belonged to the Bannings—an old Los Angeles family—who declined to sell any part or parcel of the soil until 1918, when they disposed of their entire interests to a Chicago capitalist. The new owner began a campaign of development and freely sold homesites in the island to all comers. A fine new hotel, the St. Catherine, was built to replace the old Metropolitan, which burned down, and many other notable improvements have been made. Great efforts have been made to attract tourists to the island and to sell sites to any who might wish a resort home in Avalon. A new million-dollar steamer, the "Avalon," makes a quicker and more comfortable trip than formerly and we may predict that the popularity of Catalina will wax rather than wane.

III
ROUND ABOUT LOS ANGELES

Our rambles described in the preceding chapter were confined mainly to the coast side of the city, but there is quite as much to attract and delight the motorist over toward the mountains. Nor are the mountains themselves closed to his explorations, for there are a number of trips which he may essay in these giant hills, ranging from an easy upward jog to really nerve-racking and thrilling ascents. Remember I am dealing with the motor car, which will account for no reference to famous mountain trips by trolley or mule-back trail, familiar to nearly every tourist in California. Of our mountain jaunts in the immediate vicinity of Los Angeles we may refer to two as being the most memorable and as representing the two extremes referred to.

Lookout Mountain, one of the high hills of the Santa Monica Range near Hollywood, has a smooth, beautifully engineered road winding in graceful loops to the summit. It passes many wooded canyons and affords frequent glimpses of charming scenery as one ascends. Nowhere is the grade heavy—a high-gear proposition for a well-powered car—and there are no narrow, shelf-like places to disturb one's nerves. The ascent begins through lovely Laurel Canyon out of flower-bedecked Hollywood, and along the wayside are many attractive spots for picnic dinners. At one of these, fitted with tables and chairs, and sheltered by a huge sycamore, we paused for luncheon, with thanks to the enterprising real estate dealer who maintained the place for public use.

From Lookout Point one has a far-reaching view over the wide plain surrounding the city and can get a good idea of the relative location of the suburban towns. The day we chose for the ascent was not the most favorable, the atmosphere being anything but clear. The orange groves of Pasadena and San Gabriel were half hidden in a soft blue haze and the seaside view was cut off by a low-hanging fog. To the north the Sierras gleamed dim and ghostly through the smoky air, and the green foothills lent a touch of subdued color to the foreground. At our feet lay the wide plain between the city and the sea, studded with hundreds of unsightly oil derricks, the one eye-sore of an otherwise enchanting landscape. Descending, we followed a separate road down the mountain the greater part of the distance, thus avoiding the necessity of passing other cars on the steeper grades near the summit.

Near the close of our second tour we were seized with the desire to add the ascent of Mount Wilson to our experiences. We had by this time climbed dozens of mountain roads and passes and had begun to consider ourselves experienced motor mountaineers. We had often noted from Foothill Boulevard the brown line of road running in sharp angles up the side of the mountain and little anticipated that this ascent would be more nerve-racking than Arrowhead or St. Helena. We deferred the trip for a long time in hopes of a perfectly clear day, but perfectly clear days are rare in California during the summer time. Dust, fog, and other conditions combine to shroud the distance in a soft haze often pleasing to the artistic sense but fatal to far-away views. The Mount Wilson road had been opened to motor cars only a short time previous to our ascent. It had been in existence some time as a rough wagon trail, constructed to convey the materials and instruments for the Carnegie Observatory to the summit. A private company rebuilt the trail and opened a resort hotel on the summit. The entrance is through a tollgate just north of Pasadena and the distance from that point to the hotel is about nine and one-half miles. As the mountain is about six thousand feet in height, the grade averages ten per cent, though in places it is much steeper. The roadway is not wide enough for vehicles to pass, but there are several turn-outs to each mile and when cars meet between these, the one going up must back to the nearest passing-place.

Entering through the tollgate, we ran down a sharp declivity to a high bridge across the canyon, where the ascent begins; and from that point to the summit there is scarcely a downward dip. A narrow shelf, with barely a foot or two between your wheels and the precipice—pitching upward at a twenty per cent angle—greets you at the very outstart. The road runs along the edge of the bald, bare cliffs which fling their jagged points hundreds of feet above and fall sheer—not infrequently—a thousand or more beneath. Every few rods it makes a sharp turn, so sharp that sometimes we had to back at these corners to keep the outer wheels from the edge—a difficulty greatly increased by our long wheel base. Our motor, which usually runs quite cool, began to boil and kept it up steadily until we stopped at the summit. A water supply is found every two or three miles, without which few cars could make the ascent. It will be low-gear work generally, even for powerful motors—not so much on account of the grade as the frequent "hairpin" turns. And we were more impressed that no one should undertake the climb without first being assured that his car is in first-class condition throughout—particularly the tires, since a change would be a pretty difficult job on many of the grades.

As we continued our ascent we became dimly aware of the increasing grandeur of the view far below us. I say dimly aware, for the driver could cast only furtive glances from the road, and the nervous people in the rear seat refused even to look downward from our dizzy perch. So we stopped momentarily at a few of the wider turns, but we found—as on Lookout—the blue haze circumscribed the distant view. Just beneath us, a half mile or more downward, stretched a tangle of wooded canyons and beyond these the low green foothills. Pasadena and the surrounding orange-grove country lay below us like a map, the bronze-green trees glistening in the subdued sunlight. Los Angeles seemed a silver-gray blur, and the seacoast and Catalina, which can be seen on the rare clear days, were entirely obliterated. Not all of the road was such as I have described. About midway for a mile or two it wound through forest trees and shrubbery, the slopes glowing with the purple bloom of the mountain lilac.

There was little at the summit to interest us after we completed our strenuous climb. Visitors were not admitted to the Carnegie Solar Observatory, as to the Lick institution on Mount Hamilton; and the hotel, having recently burned, had been replaced temporarily with a wood-and-canvas structure. Plans were completed for a new concrete building and we were told that practically all the material would be brought up the trail on burros. The view from the summit was largely obscured by the hazy condition of the atmosphere, but near at hand to the north and east a wild and impressive panorama of mountain peaks and wooded canyons greeted our vision. The night view of the plain between the mountains and sea, we were told, is the most wonderful sight from Mount Wilson. Fifty cities and towns can be seen, each as a glow of light varying in size and intensity, from the vast glare of Los Angeles to the mere dot of the country village.

We did not care to remain for the night and as we ate our luncheon on the veranda of the makeshift hotel, we were anxiously thinking of the descent. We had been fortunate in meeting no one during our climb; would we be equally lucky in going down? Only one other car had come up during the day, a big six-cylinder, steaming like a locomotive; the driver removed the radiator cap and a boiling geyser shot twenty feet into the air. A telephone message told us the road was clear at the time of starting and we were happy that it remained so during the hour and a quarter consumed in the nine-mile downward crawl. It proved as strenuous as the climb and the occupants of the rear seat were on the verge of hysterics most of the time. Brakes were of little use—the first few hundred yards would have burned them up—and we depended on "compression" to hold back the car, the low gear engaged and power cut off. All went well enough until we came to sharp turns where we must reverse and back up to get around the corner. It was a trying experience—not necessarily dangerous (as the road company's folder declares) if one exercises extreme caution, keeps the car in perfect control, and has no bad luck such as a broken part or bursting tire. Down we crept, anxiously noting the mileposts, which seemed an interminable distance apart, or furtively glancing at the ten-inch strip between our outer wheels and "a thousand feet in depth below," until at last the welcome tollgate hove in sight with the smooth stretches of the Altadena Boulevard beyond.

"I hope you enjoyed your trip," cheerily said the woman who opened the gate.

"No, indeed," came from the rear seat. "It was simply horrid—I don't ever want to come near Mount Wilson again as long as I live!" and relief from the three-hours' tension came in a burst of tears.

But she felt better about it after a little as we glided along the fine road leading through Altadena into the orange groves and strawberry beds around Glendale, and purchased a supply of the freshly gathered fruit. But even to this day I have never been able to arouse a spark of enthusiasm when I speak of a second jaunt up Mount Wilson, for which I confess a secret hankering.

The road has been vastly improved since the time of our trip, which was only two months after it was opened to the public. The turns have been widened, more passing points provided, and no one need be deterred from essaying the climb by the harrowing experiences of our pioneer venture.

While not a mountain trip in the sense of the ascent of Mount Wilson, the road through Topango Canyon will furnish plenty of thrills for the nervously inclined—at least such was the case at the time we undertook the sixty-eight mile round by the way of Santa Monica and Calabasas, returning by the San Fernando Boulevard. At Santa Monica we glided down to the beach and for some miles followed the Malibu Road, which closely skirts the ocean beneath the cliff-like hills. It was a magnificent run, even though the road was dusty, rough, and narrow in places, with occasional sandy stretches. It was a glorious day and the placid, deep-blue Pacific shimmered like an inland lake. The monotone of color was relieved by great patches of gleaming purple a little way out from the shore, due to beds of floating kelp, and by long white breakers which, despite the unwonted quiet of the sea, came rolling in on the long sandy beaches or dashed into silvery spray on the frequent rocks. We passed a queer little Chinese fisher village—which has since disappeared—nestling under the sandy cliffs; most of the inhabitants were cleaning and drying fish on the beach, the product, we were told, being shipped to their native land. We were also astonished to meet people in fantastic costumes—girls with theatrical make-up, in powder and paint; men in strange, wild-west toggery; and groups of Indians, resplendent in feathers and war-paint. All of which puzzled us a good deal until we recalled that here is the favorite field of operation of one of the numerous moving-picture companies which make Los Angeles their headquarters.

They have since constructed several sham villages along this beach road and in the near-by hills. One of these make-believe hamlets we can testify bears a very passable likeness to many we passed through in rural England.

We followed the road to the entrance of Malibu Rancho, a bare tract stretching many miles along the sea and controlled by a company which vigorously disputes the right of way through the property. There is a private club house on the ranch and no doubt the members do not care to be jostled by the curious motorists who wander this way in great numbers on Sundays. Threatening placards forbade trespassing on the ranch, but a far stronger deterrent to the motorist was a quarter-of-a-mile stretch of bottomless sand just at the entrance. Two or three cars just ahead of us attempted to cross, but gave it up after a deal of noisy floundering. Malibu Rancho had little attraction for us, in any event, and our only temptation to enter its forbidden confines was doubtless due to the provoking placards, but it was not strong enough to entice us into the treacherous sand. So we turned about, retracing our way three or four miles to the Topango Canyon road.

I might add here in passing that the county has since secured the right to build a public highway through Malibu Rancho after a long legal warfare following condemnation proceedings. It is to constitute a link in the proposed ocean highway between Los Angeles and Ventura.

It was Sunday and hundreds of cars thronged the beach, raising clouds of dust, and we frequently had close work in passing those we met. We agreed that Sunday was a poor day for Malibu Beach road, as contrasted with the quiet of a former week-day run. The Canyon road branches abruptly to the right, ascending a sharp hill, and then dropping to the bed of a clear little creek, which it follows for a considerable distance. Some twenty times we forded the stream winding in and out among a tangle of shrubbery and trees. There were many grassy little glades—ideal spots for picnic dinners—some of which were occupied by motor parties.

Leaving the creek, the road ascends the Santa Monica Mountains, crossing three ranges in steep, winding grades. Much of the way it is a narrow, shelf-like trail with occasional turn-outs for passing. At the steepest, narrowest part of the road over the western range, we met a car; the panicky passengers were walking down the hill, while the driver was yelling like a madman for us to get out of his way. We cautiously backed down the grade to the nearest turn-out and let him crawl past, with his passengers following on foot—a sample of sights we saw more than once on California mountain roads. Such people, it would seem, would do well to stick to the boulevards. Crossing the wooded valley between the ranges, we came to the eastern grade, which proved the steeper of the two. How our panicky friends ever got over it puzzled us. In the valley we saw a few lonely little ranches and the ubiquitous summer-resort camp.

The ascent of the second grade was not so steep as the descent, which was terrific, portions of it being not less than twenty-five per cent. The sharpest pitch is just at the summit, and we were told that dozens of cars stalled here—many for lack of gasoline. Here we met another car, passengers on foot and the driver trying to coax his engine up the hill. After several futile attempts he got it going, scraping our car with his fender as he passed—we had turned out as far as possible and were waiting for him. One of the ladies declared that they had been touring California mountains for two months and this was the first grade to give trouble. Later we came over this grade from the east, finding it an exceedingly heavy, low-gear grind, but our motor was on its best behavior and carried us across without a hitch.

But if the climb is a strenuous and, to some people, a nerve-racking one, the view from the summit is well worth the trouble. To the east stretches the beautiful San Fernando Valley, lying between the Santa Monica and San Gabriel Ranges. It is a vast, level plain, rapidly being brought under cultivation; the head of the valley just beneath is studded with ranch houses and here and there in the great grainfields stand magnificent oaks, the monarchs of California trees. Summer clouds have gathered while we were crossing the hills and there is a wonderful play of light and color over the valley before us. Yonder is a bright belt of sunshine on the waving grain and just beyond a light shower is falling from the feathery, blue-gray clouds. Still farther, dimly defined, rise the rugged peaks of the Sierras, gleaming with an occasional fleck of snow. On our long glide down the winding grade the wild flowers tempt us to pause—dainty Mariposa lilies, blue larkspur, and others which we can not name, gleam by the roadside or lend to the thickets and grainfields a dash of color.

The new road, since completed, roughly follows the course of the old, but its wide, smooth curves and easy grades bear no resemblance to the sharp angles and desperate pitches of the ancient trail, now nearly vanished. The driver as well as the passengers may enjoy the wide views over the fertile San Fernando Valley and the endless mountain vistas that greet one at every turn. There is some really impressive scenery as the road drops down the canyon toward the ocean. The beach road has also been greatly improved and now gives little hint of the narrow dusty trail we followed along the sea when bound on our first Topango venture.

The little wayside village of Calabasas marked our turning-point southward into the valley. Here a rude country inn sheltered by a mighty oak offers refreshment to the dusty wayfarer, and several cars were standing in front of it. California, indeed, is becoming like England in the number and excellence of the country inns—thanks largely to the roving motor car, which brings patronage to these out-of-the-way places. Southward, we pursued our way through the vast improvement schemes of the San Fernando Land Co. The coming of the great Owens River Aqueduct—which ends near San Fernando, about ten miles from Calabasas, carrying unlimited water—is changing the great plain of San Fernando Valley from a waste of cactus and yucca into a veritable garden. Already much land has been cleared and planted in orchards or grain, and broad, level, macadam boulevards have been built by the enterprising improvement companies. And there are roads—bordered with pines and palms and endless rows of red and pink roses, in full bloom at this time—destined some day to become as glorious as the famous drives about Redlands and Riverside. Bungalows and more pretentious residences are springing up on all hands, many of them being already occupied. The clean, well-built towns of Lankershim and Van Nuys, situated in this lovely region and connected by the boulevard, make strong claims for their future greatness, and whoever studies the possibilities of this fertile vale will be slow to deny them. Even as I write I feel a sense of inadequacy in my descriptions, knowing that almost daily changes are wrought. But no change will ever lessen the beauty of the green valley, guarded on either side by serried ranks of mighty hills and dotted with villages and farmhouses surrounded by groves of peach, apricot, and olive trees. On this trip we returned to the city by Cahuenga Pass, a road which winds in easy grades through the range of hills between the valleys and Hollywood.

Another hill trip just off the San Fernando Valley is worth while, though the road at the time we traversed it was rough, stony, and very heavy in places. We left the San Fernando Boulevard at Roscoe Station on the Southern Pacific Railroad, about four miles beyond the village of Burbank, and passing around the hills through groves of lemon, peach, and apricots, came to the lonely little village of Sunland nestling beneath its giant oaks. Beyond this the narrow road clings to the edges of the barren and stony hills, with occasional cultivated spots on either hand, while here and there wild flowers lend color to an otherwise dreary monotone. The sweet-scented yucca, the pink cactus blooms, and many other varieties of delicate blossoms crowded up to the roadside at the time of our trip through the pleasant wilderness—a wilderness, despite the proximity of a great city.

A few miles brought us to the projected town of La Crescenta, which then had little to indicate its existence except numerous signs marking imaginary streets. Its main boulevard was a stony trail inches deep in sand and bordered by cactus and bayonet plants—but it may be different now, things change so rapidly in California. Beyond this we ran into some miles of highway in process of construction and had much more rough going, dodging through fields, fording streams and arroyos, and nearly losing our way in the falling twilight. Now a broad, smooth highway leads down Verdugo Canyon from La Canada to the pleasant little town of Glendale—a clean, quiet place with broad, palm-bordered streets—into which we came about dusk.

To-day the tourist may make the journey I have just described over excellent concrete roads, though he must make a short detour from the main route if he wishes to pass through Sunland. He may continue onward from Sunland following the foothills, crossing the wide wash of the Tujunga River and passing through orange and lemon groves, interspersed with fields of roses and other flowers grown by Los Angeles florists, until he again comes into the main highway at San Fernando town. Though the virgin wilderness that so charmed us when we first made the trip is no longer so marked, this little run is still one of the most delightful jaunts in Los Angeles County.

Los Feliz Avenue, by which we returned to the city, skirts Griffith Park, the greatest pleasure ground of Los Angeles. Here are more than thirty-five hundred acres of oak-covered hills, donated some years ago by a public-spirited citizen and still in the process of conversion into a great, unspoiled, natural playground for people of every class. A splendid road enters the park from Los Feliz Avenue and for several miles skirts the edge of the hills hundreds of feet above the river, affording a magnificent view of the valley, with its fruit groves and villages, and beyond this the serried peaks of the Verdugo Range; still farther rise the rugged ranks of the Sierras, cloud-swept or white with snow at times. Then the road plunges into a tangle of overarching trees and crosses and recrosses a bright, swift stream until it emerges into a byway leading out into San Fernando Boulevard.

This road has now been extended until it crosses Hollywood Mountain, coming into the city at the extreme end of Western Avenue. It is a beautifully engineered road, though of necessity there are some "hairpin" turns and moderately steep grades. Still, a lively car can make the ascent either way on "high" and there is everywhere plenty of room to pass. No description of the wonderful series of views that unfold as one reaches the vantage points afforded by the road can be adequate. These cover the San Fernando Valley and mountain ranges beyond, practically all of the city of Los Angeles and the plain stretching away to the ocean—but why attempt even to enumerate, since no motorist who visits Los Angeles will be likely to forget the Hollywood Mountain trip.

The crowning beauty of Griffith Park is its unmolested state of nature; barring the roads, it must have been much the same a half century ago. No formal flower beds or artificial ponds are to be seen, but there are wild flowers in profusion and clear rivers and creeks. There are many spreading oak trees, underneath which rustic tables have been placed, and near at hand a stone oven serves the needs of picnic parties, which throng to Griffith Park in great numbers. One day we met numerous auto-loads of people in quaint old-time costumes, which puzzled us somewhat until we learned that the park is a favorite resort for the motion-picture companies, who were that day rehearsing a colonial scene.

While Griffith Park is the largest and wildest of Los Angeles pleasure grounds, there are others which will appeal to the motorist. Elysian, lying between the city and Pasadena, is second largest and affords some splendid views of the city and surrounding country. A motor camp ground for tourists has recently been located in one of the groves of this splendid park. Lincoln—until recently Eastlake—Park, with its zoological garden, lies along El Monte Road as it enters the city, while Westlake is a little gem in the old-time swell residence section now rapidly giving way to hotels, apartments and business houses. A little farther westward is the old-time Sunset Park, unhappily rechristened "Lafayette" during the war, a pretty bit of gardening surrounded by wide boulevards. Sycamore Park, lying along Pasadena Avenue between Los Angeles and Pasadena, is another well-kept pleasure ground and Echo Park, with a charming lake surrounded by palms and trees, is but a block off Sunset Boulevard on Lake Shore Drive. Hollenbeck Park on Boyle Heights in the older residence section east of the river, is very beautiful but perhaps the least frequented of Los Angeles playgrounds. A small tree-bordered lake set in a depression on the hill is crossed by a high arched bridge from which one has charming vistas on either hand.

Exposition Park on Figueroa Street, contains the city museum and picture galleries and offers to the public opportunity for many kinds of open-air recreation. The greatest interest here, however, is the wonderful collection of bones and complete skeletons of mighty prehistoric animals that once roamed the tropic plains of Southern California. These were discovered in the asphalt pits of Rancho La Brea, which lies near the oil fields along Wilshire Boulevard just west of the city. Remains of the woolly mammoth, the imperial elephant, larger than any now living, the giant ground sloth, the saber-toothed tiger, and many other strange extinct animals were found intermingled in the heavy black liquid which acted at once as a trap and a preservative. Great skill has been shown in reconstruction of the skeletons, which are realistically mounted to give an idea of the size and characteristics of the animals. After the visitor has made a round of the museum and read the interesting booklet which may be had from the curator, he may wish to drive out West Wilshire Boulevard and inspect the asphalt pits, which may be seen from this highway.

Nor should one forget the famous Busch Gardens in Pasadena, thrown open to all comers by the public-spirited brewer. If you can not drive your car into them, you can at least leave it at the entrance and stroll among the marvels of this carefully groomed private park. And if a newcomer, you will want to drive about the town itself before you go—truly an enchanted city, whose homes revel in never-ending summer. Is there the equal of Orange Grove Avenue in the world? I doubt it. A clean, wide, slate-smooth street, bordered by magnificent residences embowered in flowers and palms and surrounded by velvety green lawns, extends for more than two miles. In the past two decades the city has grown from a village of nine thousand people to some five times that number and its growth still proceeds by leaps and bounds. It has four famous resort hotels, whose capacity is constantly taxed during the winter season, and there are many magnificent churches and public buildings. Its beauty and culture, together with the advantages of the metropolis which elbows it on the west, and the unrivaled climate of California, give Pasadena first rank among the residence towns of the country.

And if one follows the long stretch of Colorado Street to the eastward, it will lead him into Foothill Boulevard, and I doubt if in all California—which is to say in all the world—there is a more beautiful roadway than the half dozen miles between Pasadena and Monrovia. Here the Baldwin Oaks skirt the highway on either side—great century-old Spanish and live oaks, some gnarled and twisted into a thousand fantastic shapes and others the very acme of arboreal symmetry—hundreds of them, hale and green despite their age.

I met an enthusiastic Californian who was building a fine house in the tract and who told me that he came to the state thirty years ago on his honeymoon and was so enamored with the country that he never returned east; being a man of independent means, he was fortunately able to gratify his predilection in this particular. With the advent of the motor car he became an enthusiastic devotee and had toured in every county in the state, but had seen, he declared, no spot that appealed to him so strongly as an ideal home site. Straight as an arrow through the beautiful tract runs the wide, level Foothill Boulevard, bordered by oak, pepper, locust, and walnut trees until it reaches the outskirts of Monrovia, where orange groves are seen once more.

About midway a road branches off to Sierra Madre, a quiet little village nestling in the foothills beneath the rugged bulk of Mount Wilson. It is famous for its flowers, and every spring it holds a flower show where a great variety of beautiful blooms are exhibited. Just above the town is a wooded canyon, a favorite resort for picnic parties, where nature still revels in her pristine glory. Mighty oaks and sycamores predominate, with a tangle of smaller trees and shrubbery beneath, while down the dell trickles a clear mountain stream. It is a delightful spot, seemingly infinitely remote from cities and boulevards—and it is only typical of many such retreats in the foothills along the mountain range which offer respite to the motorist weary of sea sands and city streets.

IV
ROUND ABOUT LOS ANGELES

It seems anomalous that our Far West—the section most removed from the point of discovery of this continent—should have a history antedating much of the East and all of the Middle West of our country. When we reflect that Santa Fe was founded within a half century after Columbus landed, and contests with St. Augustine, Florida, for the honor of being the oldest settlement within the present limits of the United States, the fact becomes the more impressive.

About the same date—June 27, 1542, to be exact—the Spanish explorer, Juan Cabrillo, sailed from the port of Navidad on the western coast of Mexico with two small vessels and made the first landing of white men within the limits of California at San Diego, in the month of September. A few days later he sailed northward to the Bay of San Pedro, and landed within the present boundaries of Los Angeles to obtain water. Indeed, if he climbed the hills overlooking the harbor, he may have viewed the plain where the main part of the city now stands. But he did not linger here; by slow stages he followed the coast northward as far as the present site of San Francisco, but did not enter the magnificent bay. On the homeward voyage he died near Santa Barbara in 1543, and the expedition returned to Mexico.

Thirty years later Sir Francis Drake sailed along the coast, but there is no record of his landing anywhere in the south. In 1602 Philip of Spain despatched a second expedition under Viscaino, who covered much the same ground as Cabrillo, though there is nothing to show that he visited the vicinity of Los Angeles. In his account of his voyage to the king he declared that the country was rich and fertile, and urged that he be made the head of a colonization expedition, but his death in 1606 brought his plans to naught.

For one hundred and sixty years afterwards no white man visited the present limits of California, though it was still counted a possession of the king of Spain. Not until the revival of Spanish colonization activities under Philip II did California engage the attention of Europe, and being—nominally at least—a Spanish possession, the king, with the co-operation of the pope, undertook to establish a series of Catholic missions along the coast. The enterprise was put in charge of Junipero Serra, a Franciscan monk of great piety and strength of character, and after long delay and much hardship, he arrived at San Diego in July, 1769. Missions had already been founded in the lower peninsula and upon these Father Serra planned to draw for priests and ecclesiastical equipment necessary in the establishments which he should locate in his new field of work. He did not proceed northward in regular order, for the second mission was founded at Monterey and the third at San Antonio.

This brings us to the point to which the foregoing is but the barest outline—the founding of the Mission of San Gabriel Archangel near the city of Los Angeles on September 8, 1771. Twenty-six years later to a day the second mission within easy reach of the city was established—San Fernando Rey de Espana, being the seventeenth of the twenty-one Franciscan religious houses on the California coast. The two missions near the city—San Gabriel, six miles to the east, and San Fernando, twenty miles northwest—will be among the first attractions to the motorist in roving about Los Angeles, and we visited both several times before undertaking our tour of the King's Highway. Each has much of interest and may well serve to create a desire for an acquaintance with the remainder of these romantic memorials of early days in the Golden State.

San Gabriel is a little, dust-browned hamlet nestling under giant pepper and eucalyptus trees, lying a half mile off the splendid boulevard that bears the same name. It has but a few hundred people and is quite unimportant in a business way. It is a quiet place, surrounded by the wide sweep of orange groves, and would attract little notice were it not for the plain, almost rude, structure that rears its heavy buttressed walls directly by the roadside. It is a long and narrow building of large square bricks, covered with stucco which has taken the hue of old ivory from the long procession of years that have passed over it. Along the top of the front wall is a row of moss-green bells, each in its arched stone niche, which still chime melodious notes at vesper time and which lend a peculiarly picturesque appearance to the unique facade. True, the mission has been much restored since the adobe walls of the original structure were reared in 1771. The winter rains, earthquakes, and hostile Indians, all wrought havoc on the building; the arched roof was thrown down by the quake of 1812 and was replaced by one of beams and tiles, which was later superseded by the present shingle covering. The elaborate ceiling was erected in 1886, but seems somewhat out of keeping with the severe simplicity of the original design.

SAN GABRIEL MISSION
From Photograph by Putnam & Valentine

It has been a parish church since the American conquest in 1846, though its old-time glory vanished and for a period it was almost forgotten. But the troops of tourists who came yearly to California rescued it from oblivion. The coming of the electric car, which clangs past its door, brought crowds daily; and when the motor arrived on the scene, old San Gabriel became a shrine of pilgrimage such as it never was in its palmiest days. Now a brown-robed priest welcomes you at the door, collects a modest fee—to be devoted to maintenance and restoration—and conducts you about every part of the ancient building. He leads you to the roof and shows you the bells at close range, and you may as a special favor be allowed to test their musical qualities. They are Spanish bells, older than the mission, and are looked upon by the fathers with a pride that verges on reverence. Then you will be shown the curios, the relics, paintings, vestments, old manuscripts, and books, some of doubtful value and authenticity and others of real antiquity and importance. You will be given a glimpse into the quiet burying ground, where many of the fathers are at rest and beyond which is the sheen of orange groves and the blue peaks of the Sierras. The monster grapevine that supplied the cellars of the old padres will not be overlooked and many rude utensils of early days may be seen scattered about the place. It is all very quaint and interesting, this bit of old-world mediaevalism transplanted to the new world by the western sea and about which has grown up one of the most enlightened and prosperous communities in the whole country.

You will be told as much of its story as you may wish to hear; how one time this fertile plain about the mission was tilled by the Indians whom the padres had instructed and partially civilized—at one time as many as five thousand of them. They raised vast herds of cattle, estimated from eighty to one hundred and twenty thousand, and twenty thousand horses and forty thousand sheep were numbered in their possessions at the height of their prosperity. Allowing for probable exaggeration, the wealth of the mission was undoubtedly great, reaching two million dollars in 1842. Shortly after, this was confiscated by the Mexican Government and the ensuing war with the United States marked the end of San Gabriel's prosperity.

When the town of Los Angeles was founded during the palmy days of the mission, a chapel was built there by the fathers and it stands to-day, time-stained and demurely unpretentious, in the midst of the bustling metropolis that has grown up around it.

But San Gabriel to-day has an added interest—the result of one of the happy inspirations which come periodically to Frank Miller of Riverside—in the Mission Play first given in the winter of 1910. It occurred to this loyal Californian that the romantic zeal and self-sacrifice that led to the foundation of the missions and the wealth of historic incident connected with their active career would furnish splendid material for a play—or, more properly, a pageant. The idea was presented to Mr. John S. McGroarty of Los Angeles, editor of the Pacific Coast Magazine, who combined the necessary qualities of historian and poet. He entered zealously into the plan and in due time the libretto was written. A playhouse was built—somewhat crude and cheaply constructed, it is true—directly opposite the old mission. It was not, however, inharmonious with the idea and spirit of the play and was surrounded by an open-air corridor or ambulatory containing small models of the twenty-one missions as they appeared in their most prosperous days. The actors were mostly local people who, during the performance, lived in the cottages of the village or near-by towns.

The play—or pageant—has but little plot, depending on scenic effect, rich in life and color, and on a wealth of interesting incident. We saw it during the first week of its performance and our only disappointment was the clearly inappropriate ending—but evidently the writer recognized this defect, for when we visited the play next season, the last act had been rewritten more in harmony with the spirit of the subject.

Before the play begins you are at liberty to saunter about the ambulatory to gain some idea of the subject with which it is to deal; the clang of a mission bell hanging over the stage will call you to your seat when the performance commences. Three figures pass like shadows in front of the darkened curtain before it rises—a crouching, fearful Indian, a fully accoutered and gaudily dressed soldier, representing the Spanish conquistador, and, lastly, the brown-robed priest bearing his crucifix—symbols of the three human elements with which the play is to deal. It proves more of an historical pageant than a miracle play—but, after all, what is Oberammergau but an historical pageant?—though it seldom occurs to us in that light.

The curtain rises on False Bay, San Diego—a piece of scene-staging that would do credit to any metropolitan playhouse. A little group of monks and soldiers sit disconsolately in their camp in the foreground; they are awaiting the arrival of Portola, their leader, who has gone northward to explore the coast and whose return they momentarily hope for. They have suffered from disease and hunger; hostile Indians have continually harried them and shown no signs of being converted to Christianity, despite the efforts of the monks. The soldiers are quite ready to re-embark in the crippled little San Carlos, lying temptingly in the harbor, and to return to Mexico for good. Here enters the hero of the play, Father Serra, and his influence is at once apparent, for complaint ceases and the rough soldiers become respectful. He addresses cheerful words to the dejected men—speaking like a hero and prophet—and to some extent rouses their depressed spirits. But the gloom is doubly deep when Portola staggers on the scene with the wretched remnant of his band of explorers—unkempt, footsore, starving, many of them sick and wounded—and declares that the port of Monterey has not been found—that all is lost. They must return to Mexico and when Father Serra insists that if all go he will remain here alone, Portola tells him he will not be allowed to do so. They will compel him to board the ship. The priest pleads for one more day of grace; he is to baptize his first native—an Indian child—and this may be the turning point of their fortunes. In the midst of the ceremony the savage parents become terror-stricken, snatch the babe from Serra's arms and flee to their retreat in the mountains. The sad outcome of the ceremony only confirms Portola in his determination to sail on the following morning; the San Antonio, which was despatched months ago for relief supplies, has never been heard of—she must have been lost at sea—there is no hope! The sooner they sail the greater the chance of reaching home—all are ordered to prepare for embarking. Serra raises his hands to heaven in deep contrition; it was his pride and vain glory, he laments, over his promise of success that has been punished—it is just; but he pleads in desperation with the soldier not to turn his back on God's work—to wait one more day; God may yet work a miracle to prevent the overthrow of the plans to save the heathen. His words fall on deaf ears, but while he pleads the watch sets up a joyful cry—a light is seen rounding Point Loma—the good ship San Antonio comes—the spirits of all revive—the mission is saved! It is indeed a thrilling and dramatic climax; the ship glides into the harbor in a truly realistic manner and the denouement is creditable alike to author and stage director.

The second act pictures the court of San Carlos at Monterey fourteen years later. It is rich with the semi-tropical splendor of that favored spot; green trees, waving palms, and flowers lend color and cheeriness to the gray cloisters through which the brown-robed figures march with solemn decorum. It is the great day when all the mission fathers—nine in number at that time—have assembled at Monterey to make report of progress of their respective stations to the president, the beloved Junipero. He has aged since we saw him last; hardships and wounds have left their furrows on his face, but it still glows with the old-time zeal. His strength of character comes out in one of the opening incidents—the military captain of the presidio comes to carry off a beautiful half-breed girl to whom he has taken a fancy, but the soldier's arrogance speedily fades before the stern rebuke of Father Serra, his sword is wrested from him by the athletic young "fighting parson" of San Luis Obispo, and he is ignominiously ejected from the mission.

In the second act it seems to me that the influence of Oberammergau can be seen in opulence of color and picturesque effects. The fathers gather about a long table and Serra listens with pious approbation to the optimistic reports of his subordinates. As an example of the fervent and self-sacrificing spirit of the aged president, as illustrated by the play, we may quote from Serra's address on this memorable occasion:

"Francisco, my beloved brother, and you, my brethren, all bear me witness that I have never sought for world honor; I have asked only to serve God in the wilderness, laboring to bring the light of Christ to the heathen. I would gladly be forgotten when I lie down with death in this poor robe of our Franciscan brotherhood, my hands empty, and rich only in the love of God and my fellow-man. But oh, California is dear to me! It is the country of my heart. It were sweet to be remembered here by the peoples which shall some day crowd these golden shores and possess these sweet valleys and shining hills that I have loved so well. My feet have wandered every mile of the way between the great harbor of St. Francis and San Diego's Harbor of the Sun so many, many times! and on this, my last journey which I have just taken, I stopped often amid the oaks and cypress, kissing the ground in loving farewell. I have looked down from the hilltops and embraced in my soul every vale carpeted with poppies and aflame with wild flowers as the mocking bird and the linnet sang to me on the way. To be remembered in California—ah, God grant that I shall not be forgotten in this dear and lovely land."

After this the pageantry begins—there is a church procession and the fathers with approving interest inspect the examples of handiwork proudly exhibited by the Indian pupils of San Carlos. The festivities begin; the spectators and performers, some scores in all, are artistically grouped on the stage. There are Indian and Spanish dances and the dark, gaudily dressed senoritas who perform the latter never fail of an encore—the rather high-stepping hilarity affording a pleasing relief from the more serious and even somber parts of the play. The young women have become adepts in these roles; in many cases they are of Spanish descent and take with natural aptitude to the fandango and castanets. The Indians, as well, have their dances and ceremonies—all carefully studied—and I doubt not that the second act of the play gives a fair idea of the peaceful, industrious, and yet joyous life that prevailed at many of these missions in their halcyon days. The entertainment wanes, the crowd breaks up and melts away, just as in real life, and finally Father Junipero alone remains on the scene, his features fairly beaming with satisfaction and devotion in the waning light. Finally, overcome by the labors and excitement of the day, he falls asleep at the foot of the cross in the mission court, after having offered the following beautiful and touching prayer:

"Hear, oh Lord, Thy servant Junipero, whose days upon the earth are about to close, even as the day has now closed upon this scene. Bring to the foot of Thy cross these wild gentiles of the plains and hills. Bless this dear and lovely land of California, its white peaks of glory and its sunlit valleys, where the wild flowers are ever blooming. Bless California now and in the centuries to come when newer peoples shall crowd her golden shores. This is the prayer, O Lord, of Junipero, Thy servant, who is old and worn and who soon must say farewell. Amen."

CLOISTERS, SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO
From Photograph by Father St. John O'Sullivan

The third scene, as I have already intimated, was rewritten for the second year and much improved, though the staging remained practically unchanged. In the first draft the heroine falls a victim to the bullets of American soldiers, who fire upon the helpless Indians coming to bury their dead priest in the ruined cloisters of San Juan Capistrano. She had spurned the love advances of the captain, who rushes into the ruin only to find her breathing her last. All of which seemed incongruous and left a painful recollection with the audience; but on our second visit to San Gabriel playhouse we were delighted by a happy change in the ending of the play.

The new version shows the ivy-covered ruins of Capistrano seventy years later than the time of the second act. Confiscation by the Mexican Government has ruined the property of the missions and American occupation still further hastened their dissolution and decay. An old Indian shepherd is telling his story to a youth and declares that he was the first Indian child baptized by the sainted Serra. He is interrupted by the entrance of Senora Yorba, a lovely, devout Spanish lady who grieves over the destruction of the old regime and comes at times to muse and pray at the deserted altar, and in a graceful monologue she laments the downfall of the mission and the cessation of its beneficent work. While she is at her devotions a small company of wretched Indians enter the ruin, bearing the dead body of the padre, who ministered to them in their retreats in the hills; they would bury him in the consecrated ground of the old mission. Senora Yorba mourns with the Indians and joins them in laying the body to rest. In the folds of the dead priest's robe she discovers the golden chalice, richly bejeweled, which he had rescued from the ruined church and which the loyal natives—though they knew its value—would have interred with him. In the closing scene of the play the Senora, with a look of rapt devotion, raises the golden cup aloft and solemnly promises that she will lay it on the altar of Santa Barbara, the nearest mission still unforsaken.

The curtain falls on the melancholy scene; we pass out into the May-day sunlight and gaze reverently on the gray old mission across the way. The play has given to it new meaning, just as Oberammergau on another May day gave us a new conception of the old story that has never lost its interest to humanity. I am very sure that there are few people who witness either the famous and very ancient play of the Bavarian peasants or the very recent and less pretentious production of the artists of San Gabriel, who are not spiritually elevated and benefited thereby.

Within easy reach of the city, either by trolley or motor, is San Fernando, the next link in the mission chain to the north of San Gabriel. We made our first journey thither on a showery April day, following a steady downpour for nearly twenty-four hours. The country was at its best, as it always is in California after a spring rain. We edged our way out of the city, along the wide sweep of Sunset Boulevard to Los Feliz Avenue, which soon brought us into the San Fernando road at Glendale. From here a straight-away dash of twenty miles to the northwest takes one to the mission—one of the easiest and most delightful runs in the vicinity of Los Angeles.

CORRIDOR, SAN FERNANDO MISSION
From Photograph by Pillsbury

It was a brilliant day, despite a dark cloud-curtain whose fringes hovered over the peaks of the rugged mountains in the north toward which we were rapidly coursing. We swept along the narrow valley—then a desert, cactus-studded plain—reaching on our left to low, green hills which stood in sharp outline against the deep azure of the sky. On the right, closer at hand, were low foothills, dominated by the distant mountains—their summits white with snow and touched in places by clouds of dazzling brilliance. Directly in front of us we saw the glistening phalanx of a summer shower, which rapidly advanced to meet us, giving us barely time to raise our cape top before it was upon us. Such a rain in our home state would have meant liquid roads and constant danger, but on this perfect highway it only heightened our enjoyment as our steadily purring engine carried us along the smooth wet surface. The green hills to the left and the cloudless sky above them seemed doubly glorious through the crystal curtain of the falling raindrops.

By the time we reached the village of San Fernando, the rain had ceased and we paused to inquire the whereabouts of the mission. We saw about us at the time a straggling, unsubstantial-looking hamlet which bore little resemblance to the smart, well-improved town that greeted us a year later—but so it often is in California. Then a new double boulevard with a parked center stretched away to the southeast—the work of an enterprising land company—with the inviting sign, "Speed limit one hundred miles per hour," but we were content with a fraction of this generous figure. The mission is about a mile out of the town and is best approached by the new boulevard, since this gives the advantage of a little distance for the front view, which the public road, directly passing, does not allow. Before you see the building itself you will note the two giant palms, over a century old, and perhaps a hundred feet high—all that remain of the many planted by the monks.

The structure is long, low, solid-looking—utterly devoid of artistic touches save the graceful, rounded arches of the long "portello" and the simple grille-work of wrought iron that still covers a few of the windows—work of the rude artisans of a hundred years ago. The old tile roof is the glory of San Fernando; the huge, semicircular tiles are time-stained to a color combination to delight the eye of an artist. Moss greens, silver grays, dull reds, and soft browns predominate, blending together in a most pleasing manner. Back from the mission extends a row of old-time living apartments, now little more than shapeless heaps of adobe, while the huge church, a little farther to the rear, seems approaching the final stages of dissolution. It was once a massive structure, built as well as loving care and endless industry could do—walls five or six feet in thickness, bound together at the top by heavy beams perhaps fifteen inches square. Traces of the ancient decorations appear, though they are nearly effaced by the weather, to which they have been long exposed. Apparently the earthquake began the work of ruin and long neglect has done the rest.

One enters the church with some trepidation, for it seems as if the cracked and crazy structure may stagger to shapeless ruin at any moment. What a pity that the material of California's missions was not enduring stone, like the English abbeys, rather than the quickly disintegrating adobe! Back of the church is a pathetic little burying ground where wooden crosses and simple memorials indicate that the present parishioners of San Fernando are the poorest of the poor,—probably a few wretched Mexican families such as the one we found in charge of the mission.

I have anticipated, perhaps, in describing the church before the mission itself, but, after all, the church is a part of the exterior with which I have been dealing. On our first visit we found a Mexican family living in two or three of the damp, cavernous rooms of the old building. They could speak but little English, but it was easy to see that visitors were welcome, and gratuities no doubt afforded their means of livelihood. When we returned a year later, another family was in possession and had reduced sightseeing to a business basis. We were required to pay "two bits" entrance fee and an extra charge was assessed for a peep into the ruinous church, all doors and rents in the wall having been religiously boarded up. Each member of our party was given a lighted lantern—a wise precaution, it proved, for there were dilapidated and broken stairways and unsound floors in the dimly lighted building. There was little enough to see; only a series of prison-like cells with tiny windows piercing the massive walls, with earthen floors, and rude beamed ceilings—surely life at best was hard and comfortless at San Fernando, and the fathers had little advantage over their Indian charges. There was one large room, apparently for assembly purposes, on the second floor. Our Mexican guide grinned gleefully as he pointed out a little conduit in the wall through which wine flowed from the presses to vats in the ample cellars; evidently the fathers made a plentiful supply of the genial liquor to counteract the hardships they must have endured.

One need explore but a corner of the mission; he will find it typical of the whole huge structure, perhaps two hundred feet in length. There is a pathetic little chapel—the altar covered with tinsel and gewgaws—where services are held at long intervals. As a whole, the building is in fair condition and a little intelligent repair and restoration would insure its preservation for many years to come. It is, in some respects, one of the most typical of the missions; except for decay, which has not impaired the structure or interior arrangement to any great extent, it stands to-day much as it did one hundred years ago and gives an excellent idea of the domestic life of the padres and their converts. A narrow stairway led to a platform on the roof and coming out of the dimly lighted interior into the broad sunlight—for the rain had ceased—we were struck with the remarkable beauty of the situation.

The mission stands in the center of the wide plain at the head of the valley, around which sweeps a circle of green hills and mountains, their rounded tops and rugged peaks lending infinite variety to the skyline. On one hand blue vapors softened the snowy summits; on the other, the sky bent down, crystal clear, to the gently undulating contour of the hills. The fertile plain was being rapidly brought under cultivation—dotted with fruit-tree groves and ranch-houses, with here and there a village—and this was before the coming of the waters of the great Owens River Aqueduct. It would take a bold flight of the imagination to picture the future of the San Fernando Valley—anything I might write would be ancient history before my book could get to the press. The whole plain will become a garden of wondrous beauty; only the mountains and hills will abide unchanged.

The history of the old mission which has been engaging our attention was not important as compared with many of its contemporaries. And, speaking of history, I have been wondering whether I should burden my pages with dates and incidents concerning these ancient memorials, but perhaps a short sketch, given in as few words as may tell the bare outlines of each mission as we visit it, will be of service to pilgrims who follow us.

San Fernando was seventeenth of the California missions in order of founding, and was considered a necessity by the padres to fill in the gap between San Gabriel and Ventura, being about thirty miles from either. Padre Lasuen performed the dedicatory ceremonies on September 8, 1797, and by the end of the year, fifty-five neophytes had been enlisted. These, in three years, had increased to three hundred, and the record reads that they possessed five hundred horses and about as many sheep, and harvested a crop of one thousand bushels of grain. The first church, built in 1802, was almost destroyed by the great quake of 1812, which left its impress on nearly every mission of the entire chain. The church was repaired and its shattered remnants are what we see to-day.

San Fernando never prospered greatly, though at one time there were nearly a thousand Indians on its rolls. It was cramped for want of productive land and its decline began many years before the act of confiscation by the Mexicans. This occurred in 1834, when the Government agent computed the wealth of the mission at around one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, of which the "liquors" represented more than seven thousand. In January, 1847, General John C. Fremont took possession of the scanty remains of the property and the active history of San Fernando was ended. Mr. George Wharton James, to whose interesting book, "The Old Missions of California," I am indebted for much of the foregoing information, tells of an important incident in San Fernando's history as follows:

"Connected with the mission of San Fernando is the first discovery of California gold. Eight years before the great days of '49, Francisco Lopez, the major-domo of the mission, was in the canyon of San Feliciano, which is about eight miles westerly from the present town of Newhall, and, according to Don Abul Stearns, 'with a companion while in search of some stray horses about midday stopped under some trees and tied their horses to feed. While visiting in the shade, Lopez with a sheath knife dug up some wild onions, and in the dirt discovered a piece of gold. Searching further he found more. On his return to town he showed these pieces to his friends, who at once declared there must be a placer of gold there.'

"Then the rush began. As soon as the people in Los Angeles and Santa Barbara heard of it they flocked to the new 'gold fields' in hundreds. And the first California gold dust ever coined at the government at Philadelphia came from these mines. It was taken around Cape Horn on a sailing vessel by Alfred Robinson, the translator of Boscana's 'Indians of California,' and consisted of 18.34 ounces, and made $344.75, or over nineteen dollars to the ounce.

"Davis says that in the first two years after the discovery not less than from $80,000 to $100,000 was gathered. Don Antonio Coronel, with three Indian laborers, in 1842 took out $600 worth of dust in two months."

No doubt this discovery and others which followed had a far-reaching effect on the destinies of California. The influx of Americans who were attracted by the love of gold was beyond question a strong factor in bringing about the annexation of the state to the American Union by the treaty of 1849.

V
THE INLAND ROUTE TO SAN DIEGO

There may be a more delightful drive in the world than the sixty miles between Los Angeles and the Riverside country following Foothill Boulevard on an ideal California April day, but it would take an ocular demonstration to make us believe it! On such a day we made our first run over this road and perhaps the peculiarly favorable conditions for first impressions may have unduly prejudiced us, though many subsequent trips never dispelled the charm.

Leaving the city by the Broadway Tunnel and pursuing the broad curves of Pasadena Avenue to Orange Grove—which we could never traverse too often—we turned into the long stretch of Colorado Street, which leads directly into the broad oak-bordered Foothill Boulevard. Here we came into the first open country, some dozen miles from the center of Los Angeles, and until we reached the outposts of Monrovia, we ran between the sylvan glades of the Baldwin Oaks. To the left rose the rugged bulk of Mount Wilson, and peak after peak stretched away before us to the white summit of Old Baldy—as Mount San Antonio is popularly known—which rises to an altitude of more than ten thousand feet. It was a mottled spring day, rich in gorgeous cloud effects such as are not common in California; blue-gray cumulus clouds rolled above the mountains, occasionally obscuring Old Baldy's white pate and showing many entrancing phases of light and color. Beneath, a blue haze stole softly down the slopes to the tender green of the foothills. The sky above was peculiarly beautiful—pearl gray, deep blue and snowy white, all shading into each other, with lucent patches of pale blue breaking through here and there.

We paused at the Seven Oaks Inn in Monrovia and were delighted with its artistic "atmosphere" and cleanly, appetizing service. It is modeled on the higher-class English country inn—just a hint of the Lygon Arms at Broadway or the Red Horse at Stratford. Its main room had an immense fireplace with many cozy chairs, a most inviting place to spend a dull evening, and its windows looked out on pleasant gardens whose shady nooks had an equally strong lure for the daytime. We only regretted that our plans did not admit of a longer acquaintance with the attractive Seven Oaks.

We glided slowly through the broad, shady streets of the trim little town and just as we left it we turned a corner at an ivy-covered stone church that awakened recollections of England. Then we were away again on the long stretches of the boulevard, which here for a few miles runs through desert country—desert indeed, but no doubt quite the same as that now covered by the orange groves about Azusa must have been a few years ago. Out of Azusa for miles and miles the orange and lemon groves crowded up to the roadside, their golden globes glowing through the green sheen of the leaves. The air was heavy with the perfume of the blossoms, which lent an added charm to the sensuous beauty of the day and scene.

At Claremont we left Los Angeles County and at the time of our first trip the road was rough and inferior from that point, though plans for its improvement were already made and may be completed by this time. But the orange groves continued, alternating with huge vineyards which were just beginning to send forth green shoots. Near Upland we passed one of more than four thousand acres, said to be the largest single vineyard in the world, and near it was a huge concrete winery. A vineyard in this country in springtime presents a strange sight to a newcomer—a stretch of sand studded with rows of scraggly stumps two or three feet high—for the vines are cut back to the stump after the bearing season. Few of the vineyards are irrigated and one marvels that nature can produce the luscious clusters from the arid sands.

And here I may pause to remark upon the peculiar and unexpected result of national prohibition upon the California grape growers. For years the threat of state prohibition had been their bugbear and it was uniformly defeated in their interests whenever the issue came before the people of the state. When they were finally overwhelmed in the tide of National Prohibition originating in the war, they resigned themselves as lost and a few vineyards were pulled up to replant the ground in fruit trees. But, strange to say, while the wails of distress were still sounding, there came a sudden and unexpected demand for dried grapes of any kind or quality—even those which, before the war, would have been thrown away as spoiled sold for more than the top quality did in old times. Unprecedented prosperity settled down upon the vineyard men and I am told that at this time (1921) grapes are selling for from two to three times as much per ton as they brought from the wineries in pre-war days. New vineyards are now being planted in many sections of the state.

Just before we came to San Bernardino we passed the Fontana Orchards, a tract of seventeen thousand acres of young citrus trees recently planted by an improvement company. Rows of newly planted rose bushes and palm trees on either hand will, in a few years, add still further to the charm of the boulevard—another instance of the determination everywhere present in California to beautify as well as improve.

On our first trip to San Bernardino we stopped, for personal reasons, at the comfortable Stuart Hotel, though the majority of motorists will probably wend their way to Riverside's Mission Inn. San Bernardino is a lively town of nearly twenty thousand people and has gained fame as a prosperous railroad and jobbing center. Its name is pretty much of a mouthful and the traveling fraternity generally has abbreviated it to San Berdoo—a liberty which gives offense to every loyal San Bernardinian, and I saw a card posted in public places with the legend, "Please call it San Bernardino; it won't hurt you and it pleases us."

No matter what you call it, San Bernardino is a lively place and has a good deal to interest the wayfarer if he can find some kindly disposed native to point it out. The town is well-built, with numerous handsome public buildings. It has a remarkable number of hotels for its size—but I might add here that one never knows the size of a California town; before the census figures can be compiled they are often ancient history. The water supply of the town comes from artesian wells and is practically unlimited. There are many fine drives in the vicinity, though the county had as yet done little in the way of permanent roads. Since our first visit, however, a bond issue of two million dollars has made possible an excellent county road system. I recall my record "coast" over the fine stretch leading down from Mill Creek Canyon towards Redlands, where, with engine dead, our odometer showed a distance of seven and one-half miles before we came to a standstill.

One of our drives took us to the oldest orange grove in the section. The trees are fifty years old and a foot in diameter; they are hale and strong, bearing profusely. No one, as yet, can say how long a California orange tree may live. Near this grove a few shapeless heaps of adobe may be seen, remains of the branch founded here by padres from San Gabriel shortly after the establishment of that mission. The country about the town is beautiful and productive—a wide, level plain encircled by mountains, some of which are usually snow-capped except in midsummer. Near the town is Arrowhead Mountain—so called because of the strange outline of a great arrowhead upon the side next the valley. Formerly it was quite plain, though a recent forest fire to some extent obliterated the sharp definition of the outlines. Just beneath the point of the arrow is the famous spring, the hottest known, with a temperature of one hundred and ninety-six degrees, and a large, well-appointed resort hotel formerly offered comfortable quarters to visitors throughout the year. Since the war, however, the Government has leased the Arrowhead Hotel as a sanitarium for disabled war veterans, especially those who suffer from nervous disorders, and from our knowledge gained by a month's sojourn at this pleasant inn, we would declare it ideal for this worthy purpose.

Arrowhead Mountain is about four thousand feet high and it is said that the temperature at the summit averages twenty degrees cooler than in the valley. It is not strange that it is a popular resort, and a well-engineered road leads up its slopes. The grades are fairly heavy—up to fifteen per cent; there are many "hairpin" curves and the road often runs along precipitous declivities. It is, however, nearly everywhere wide enough for vehicles to pass and presents no difficulties to a careful driver.

For some distance after leaving the hot springs we followed a clear mountain stream through a wooded canyon. From this we emerged into the open, ascending the mountain slopes in sharp upward zig-zags. We had many magnificent views of the wide plain beneath, with its orange groves, ranch-houses, towns and villages, intersected by the sinuous white line of the river washes. Frequently there was scarce a shrub between the road and a sheer precipice—a downward glance gave some of our passengers a squeamish feeling, which, after all, was purely a psychological phenomenon, for with ordinary care the ascent is as safe as a drive on a boulevard. The day was warm and the engine sizzled a good deal, but, fortunately, there are means of replenishing the water at frequent intervals. Near the summit there was much fine forest, though some of it was badly injured by the big fire of 1910.

A winding drive along the crest for a mile or two brought us to Squirrel Inn—a rustic lodge named from Frank Stockton's story—the property of a San Bernardino club. Through the courtesy of a friend we had luncheon here and admired the fine situation at our leisure. The lodge, built of logs and stones, is surrounded by pines and firs, and near it are vantage points for wide views over the valley. Among the mementos of the inn is an autograph letter from Mr. Stockton, expressing his appreciation of the compliment offered in the name. In the vicinity are a number of cottages which are in great demand by local people during the heated season, for the summer is hot in the valley, sometimes reaching one hundred or even one hundred and ten degrees in the daytime, though invariably cool nights greatly relieve the situation.

The Arrowhead Road, which Californians are fond of designating as "The Rim of the World Drive" continues from Squirrel Inn to Big Bear Lake, a distance of about twenty miles. It winds through magnificent pines, which fortunately escaped the conflagration, and just beyond Strawberry Flats a detour of a few miles takes us to Arrowhead Lake, an artificial reservoir about a mile in diameter, surrounded by pines which crowd almost to the water's edge. The road winds through these around the pretty little lake, which gives slight hint of its artificiality. It is famous for its trout and being some twelve hundred feet lower than Big Bear, is usually accessible much earlier in the season. Returning to the main road, we pursue our way along the mountain crests, soon crossing Strawberry Peak, the hoary patriarch of the range. We pass out of the pine forest into a denuded section where the ravages of the axe are sadly apparent, with every evidence of the wanton waste that destroys with no thought of the future. At Green Valley the road begins to rise rapidly and passes some of the finest scenery of the trip. There are points where one's vision reaches over the orange-grove studded plain to the ocean, a hundred miles away, or turning eastward sweeps over the dun stretches of the Mohave Desert.

Coming in sight of the lake, we realize that though in common parlance it is only a dam, it is none the less a beautiful and very respectable body of water. In contemplating its rugged natural surroundings and the splendid groves of pines that line its shores, we quite forget that it is man-made; it seems almost as much a child of the ages as Klamath or Tahoe. It is six or seven miles long, with an average width of almost a mile and in places it attains considerable depth. It is usually snowbound from December to May, though of course this varies considerably. The road executes a sharp turn around the eastern extremity of the lake and just beyond the bend are located the various camps and cabins that furnish quarters for the tourists, vacationists and fishermen who visit Bear Lake in great force during the summer season. There are also numerous privately owned summer cottages, belonging principally to Los Angeles business men. The lake is well stocked with fish and record catches are often reported early in the season.

The return trip of the "Rim of the World Drive" is made by the way of Santa Ana and Mill Creek Canyons over a road which has been greatly improved in the last few years but which still furnishes plenty of thrills for any but the most seasoned mountain driver. The highest point attained, 7950 feet, is opposite the western extremity of the lake and an inspiring panorama spreads out beneath Lookout Point, near the summit of the range. The road descends rapidly from this point in a series of "switch-backs" which require extreme vigilance on part of the driver. From Clark's Ranch the descent is easier, ending in the long smooth stretches of Mill Creek Canyon road. It was on this road, as mentioned elsewhere, that we made our record "coast" of seven and one-half miles. Big Bear Valley may also be reached from Victorville, crossing the range over the El Cajon Pass. This road is open practically the year round and affords access to the lake when the Arrowhead route is closed by snow. Stages make the "Rim of the World" trip regularly during the summer and if one does not care to pilot his own car he can still make the journey easily and comfortably as a passenger in one of these vehicles.

Riverside is one of the Meccas of California which every tourist must visit, and if he does not care to pay the price at the Glenwood Mission Inn, he is bound to find some excuse for dropping into this unique and delightful hotel, just to say he has been there. One visit will not suffice for many people; in the course of our three springtime sojourns in California we gravitated to Riverside a dozen times or more, often going out of our way to pass the night at the Glenwood. On our first trip we followed the Crest road from Redlands and enjoyed another fine view of the valley with its towns and encircling mountains from the grade which crosses the hills northeast of Highgrove.

Riverside we found a clean, handsome town with wide, well-paved streets bordered with trees, and lawns and gardens bright with flowers and palms. Within its limits are one hundred and sixty miles of graded streets, a large part of which is paved or macadamized, while out of the town are two of the most famous drives in California—Magnolia and Victoria Avenues. The former, bordered with double rows of pepper trees—there are a few magnolias among them—under which were mammoth rose bushes in full bloom, was lovely beyond description. It passes Sherman Institute, a government Indian school, where the rising generation of red men—and ladies, for that matter—are being trained in the ways of civilization. Surely, the location and surroundings are nearly ideal, and the whole institution seemed like a far echo of mission days, for the buildings are mainly of mission type and the students—neophytes?—are educated in arts and crafts; but the padres are supplanted by Uncle Sam's trained teachers.

There are many other drives about the town, which is almost completely surrounded by orange groves, and one may see all phases of the orange-producing industry if he has the time and inclination. The first naval oranges were developed here and the parent tree still flourishes, hale and green, in the court of the Mission Inn.

But whatever the visiting motorist at Riverside may elect to do, he will probably place first on his program the ascent of Rubidoux Mountain. This is a rugged hill to the west of the town which commands a wide view of the surrounding valley and whose summit may be reached by one of the easiest mountain roads in California. It ascends in long loops, following the edge of the hill, and a separate road provides for the descent, thus avoiding the annoyance and danger of passing on the grades. So easy is the ascent that a powerful car can jog upward most of the way on "high," though care must be taken in rounding the frequent loops.

From the boulder-strewn summit the view of the semi-tropical valley beneath will hardly be surpassed, even in California. The dominant note is the shimmering bronze-green of the orange groves, which surround the mountain on every hand. It is broken here and there by emerald-green alfalfa fields and by frequent towns and villages. Around the valley sweeps a wide circle of snow-capped peaks whose rugged outlines are softened by the blue haze of distance. Just below lies Riverside, half hidden in palms and pepper trees, with here and there a dash of color from the masses of flowers; San Bernardino is plain in the distance, while a little to the right, Redlands nestles at the foot of the mountains. Through the center of the valley runs the wide sandy bed of the Santa Ana River, with a gleaming thread of water coursing through it.

It was the conservation of this river and other mountain streams that has had everything to do with the beautiful and prosperous scene beneath us. It is indeed difficult to conceive that fifty years ago this green, thriving plain was an arid desert, but such has been the history of more than one prosperous locality in California, and in the future many other seeming deserts will burst into bloom under the magical touch of water. Much of the water in the valley comes from artesian wells and when these began to fail from increasing demands, it occurred to some resourceful mind to divert water from the river during the flood time to the vicinity of the wells. Sinking into the earth, it greatly augmented the subterranean supply and it is hoped in the future to conserve the surplus water in this way.

On the highest point of the mountain stands a tall cross with a tablet to the memory of Father Serra, and a huge bell has been erected on one of the boulders as a memento of California mission days. On Easter morning a large part of the population of Riverside repairs to the summit of the mountain to join in an open-air song-service as the sun rises. On this occasion the winding drive, as well as the parking-place, is lined with hundreds of cars, showing how completely the automobile has become the accepted means of transportation in Sunset-land.

More recently, however, the crowds have so increased—fifteen to twenty thousand people attending the services—that parking on the road or mountaintop is prohibited. The cars must quickly discharge their passengers at the summit and immediately descend. Many people, therefore, make the ascent on foot.

The time has slipped away rapidly while we have been admiring the prospect from Mount Rubidoux or clambering over the huge boulders to get vantage points for our camera. Luncheon hour is at hand and with pleasant anticipations we glide down the winding descent and through the broad streets to Frank Miller's Mission Inn, of which we have heard so much and—I may say—expect so much. After this and many subsequent visits to this unique hotel we can frankly say that our expectations have been more than fulfilled; it would be hard from any description that one might read or hear to get any true conception of this charming retreat for the discriminating tourist. Standing as it does in the business part of the city and being confined to a single block, one can not conceive of the air of quiet and restfulness with which Mr. Miller has invested his delightful inn. Once past its arched portals it seems as if we have entered some secluded retreat miles and miles away from the turmoil of the workaday world. Our car is left in the court with a dozen others and we are welcomed as though we were expected guests.

Our rooms are on the second floor, for the Glenwood is no sky-scraper. Everything is plain but substantial and homelike, a basket of California fruit stands invitingly on the table. The lattice windows open upon a little balcony above the court, with its flowers, climbing vines, palms and orange trees; in the center is the quaint adobe tea-house, and around it run corridors reminiscent of mission cloisters. It is a cool, pleasant retreat, quite atoning for the absence of large grounds surrounding the hotel. Luncheon is served by young women in spotless attire; I like the girl waiters of the California resort hotels—Coronado, Del Mar, Del Monte, Santa Barbara, and Riverside—they are more attentive, prompter, and pleasanter to look upon than their brothers of the greasy tuxedo in evidence in so many hotel dining-rooms.

One does not find the time hanging heavily upon his hands at the Mission Inn. It will be long ere he has explored the interior of the great rambling building to his satisfaction, from the curious collection of bells on the roof to the dim mysteries of the cloistered chapel. A building so redolent of the ancient missions would of course be incomplete and unsatisfying without its chapel, and most fittingly has Frank Miller supplied this need. A large, dimly lighted apartment with heavily beamed ceiling, high oaken pews, and antique chairs; with stained-glass windows and figures of saints and prophets and supplied with a magnificent organ, is certainly an ideal chapel for the Mission Inn. Its principal window, "St. Cecilia," is a Tiffany masterpiece, but even more appropriate seem the huge sepia-brown photo-graven negatives of western wonders of forest, mountain and stream. Here we delighted to linger, listening to the musical recitals which occupy a good part of the afternoon and inspecting the costly furniture, rugs and curios which form a part of a collection from all over the world. Some of these were "For Sale," at figures well beyond the reach of common persons like ourselves; but there is a little shop just off the chapel with a stock of books, pictures, and Indian work, in basketry, and trinkets of silver and bronze, where a modest purse has a fair show. From this one can wander away into subterranean apartments furnished like a dream of old Spain and lighted with the subdued glow of many-colored lamps. Altogether, it is strangely romantic and effective; it has an oriental savor as well as the atmosphere of mission days.

The collection of bells in a nook on the roof always interests the guests and you can hear the mellow notes at all times of the day. There are bells from California missions, bells from old England, bells from Spain, bells from China and Japan—and Heaven only knows from what other corners of the earth. There are antique bells, hundreds of years old, and bells with queer histories. Altogether, it is a remarkable collection and in keeping with the characteristics of the inn.

If one grows weary of indoors, the court invites him to muse amidst its semi-tropical trees and flowers, to lounge in the vine-laden pergolas, or to wander through the long vistas of arched arcades, listening to the murmuring of fountains and warbling of the birds. He will catch glimpses of Moorish towers against the blue sky and with the chiming of the vesper bells one might indeed imagine himself in one of the old-time missions—Santa Barbara, San Juan Bautista, San Antonio—a hundred years ago.

A notable new addition was completed in 1915, containing many de luxe suites and a remarkable picture gallery, a replica of a hall from a grand old Spanish palace. The ceiling is unique, being formed by loosely hung folds of cloth of gold. The walls are decorated with notable paintings, ancient and modern, and many interesting objects of art are scattered about. It is a notable apartment in which one might spend hours and yet wish to come again. This addition is constructed of steel and concrete, making it absolutely fire-proof.

On one of our later visits I had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of Mr. Frank Miller, the Master of the famous Inn, and to learn from him personally something of the founding and progress of this unique institution. His father came to Riverside when the surrounding country was a cactus-studded desert and was a pioneer in shaping the marvelous development which we see to-day. The Millers, among other enterprises, kept a small tavern, the Glenwood Inn, which was the precursor of the great establishment of to-day. No one who knows Frank Miller will wonder that he has achieved such great success; he is a perfect dynamo—full of energy, keen, alert, with a remarkable quickness of decision which enables him to rapidly dispose of the multitude of details that come to his attention daily and he seldom makes an error in such cases. He has been most fortunate in choice of his aides, it is true, but that only exhibits another side of his genius. Elbert Hubbard's dictum that "every great institution is the lengthened shadow of some man" is surely exemplified in the instance of Frank Miller and his Riverside Mission Inn.

We find enough to detain us for several days in the vicinity of Riverside. One should not miss the charming town of Redlands, over towards the mountains, and it may be viewed from Smiley Heights, overlooking the low foothills on which the town stands. These gardens are ornamented with all manner of flowers and semi-tropical trees and intersected by a splendid drive which wends its sinuous course along the hill-crest on which they are situated. They are lovingly and scrupulously cared for by the owners, and thrown open to visitors as freely as a public park. Not only the gardens are worth a visit, but the view from the heights is an inspiring one. Just below lies the beautiful town with green foothills beyond, dotted here and there with cultivated fields. Above these, seemingly very near, the mightiest of the southern Sierras fling their gleaming summits into the deep azure of the heavens. Indeed, it seems as if I may have already wearied my reader with mountain-top views—though my book is only begun. But, after all, the best part of a motor tour of California is the series of wide visions from hills and mountains, glorious and inspiring beyond any description; if my random notes shall induce others, even though but few, to a like pilgrimage, it is enough!

Redlands is the home of many wealthy people and there are several pretentious residences near the entrance to Smiley Heights. In this regard it easily surpasses the better-known Riverside—and Riverside may thank the Mission Inn for its wider fame. On a hill near the Heights is an unfinished residence—begun on an immense scale by a copper magnate—which was to surpass in size and glory everything else in the whole section. The ambitious builder failed in business when the work was about half done. It stands in pathetic ruin and neglect and no one else has cared to undertake the completion of the pretentious structure.

Near Redlands is the village of Highlands, where a famous brand of oranges is packed, and through the courtesy of a mutual friend we were admitted to the establishment, which handles several carloads of fruit daily. Here we saw the operations of grading and sorting the oranges, which is done mainly by automatic machinery. The baskets are emptied into hoppers and the oranges forced along a channel with holes of different size through which the fruit falls according to bulk. In this way boxes are filled with nearly uniform sizes. The boxes are made by a wonderful machine which assembles the boards and drives the nails at a single operation. We found the highest grade of oranges remarkably cheap at the packing house—less than half the price we paid at home for a poorer quality.

The most direct inland route from Los Angeles to San Diego is by the way of Pomona, Corona and Elsinore, but those who do not care to drive the two hundred or more miles in a day will break the journey at Riverside, and it was from Riverside that we started on this glorious mountain trip. A few miles southeast of the town—following Eighth Street—the smooth white road swings over the easy stretches of Box Springs grade through undulating hills to Perris, and from thence through the wide valley to Elsinore, in all, a distance of about thirty miles. This is the route of the state highway and by now the road is doubtless near perfection—though much of it was rough and stony when we first traversed it. But what an inspiring jaunt we found it on that bright May day! Far away rose the silvery summits—among them San Gorgonio and San Jacinto, the highest peaks in Southern California—and nearer at hand the undulating outlines of the green foothills. Green is only the prevailing tone, however, for the hills and valley are splotched and spangled with every color of the rainbow. In yonder low-lying meadow are lakes of living blue and white; on yonder hillside flame acres of the burning gold of the California poppies and beneath them a wide belt of primrose yellow. What an entrancing view there was from some of the hill-crests!—wonderful vistas that will linger with us so long as life shall last. Out beyond the vivid belts of color that dash the green hills lies an indefinite ocean of mountain ranges, fading gradually away into a deep purple haze. Here and there some glittering peak rises like a fairy island in this ill-defined sea, crowning and dominating everything. Not less entrancing is the scene near at hand. Along the road gleam many strange blooms which I wish I were botanist enough to name. We knew the brilliant red Indian paint-brush and the orange-gold poppy, but that was about all. A hundred other varieties of blossoms smiled on us from the roadside, but though the impression of their beauty still lingers, they must remain unnamed. In all this country there is but little cultivated land and habitations are few and far between. Probably the short water supply and the fact that it is often quite cold in winter will preclude profitable farming to any extent.

Elsinore is a quiet little town deep in the hills, situated on Lake Elsinore—the only natural lake of any consequence in Southern California. This is an exceedingly variable body of water, a difference of sixteen feet being recorded in its levels, and at the time of our visit a prolonged drouth had reduced it to the minimum. There are numerous hot springs in the vicinity and these are doubtless responsible for the several hotels—the Elsinore, Bundy and Lakeview—which advertise the advantages of the locality as a health resort. Duck shooting on the lake also brings wayfarers during the hunting season.

On our first visit to the town we stopped there for luncheon and have no very pleasant recollections of our repast; the next time we ran through Elsinore we brought our lunch from Riverside and ate it in a shady nook by the roadside, making comparisons to the disadvantage of hotels in general. In fact, we became more and more partial to such open-air luncheons while knocking about the highroads of California. It saved time and money and had such a delightful flavor from the great glorious out-of-doors in this favored clime. We never failed to find a pleasant spot—by a clear stream or under a great oak or sycamore—and we can heartily commend the practice of carrying a lunch basket and a couple of thermos bottles filled with hot coffee while touring.

On another occasion we followed the road which leads around the lake and found the side opposite the town by far the most beautiful. Here is a fine tract of farm land with many olive groves and peach orchards, some of which run down to the rippling water which gleamed through the serried trunks as we coursed along. A large olive-oil mill indicated one of the chief industries of the community. The road is level and well improved and the run will delight anyone who has the opportunity of making it.

Out of Elsinore the San Diego road strikes straight away to the southeast for a good many miles. Here we are reminded that we are in the Ramona country, for the little village of Temecula figures in the book. Here is supposed to have been the home of the Indian hero, Alessandro, who returns after his elopement with Ramona to find his people driven out and his own humble cottage occupied by a drunken American and his family.

There is little now in Temecula but a general store, whose proprietor is an expert on Indian baskets, of which he had a really fine collection. We especially admired some examples of the work of the Pala Indians, but the prices asked by the shopkeeper were not so much to our liking. We would go to Pala and perchance get baskets at first hand at figures more in keeping with our purse.

Beyond Temecula the road enters the hills and winds through a maze of trees and shrubbery. We passed under mighty oaks and here and there around huge granite boulders, which at some time had plunged down from the heights. In the shadow of one of these—a huge block of red granite fifty feet in diameter—we paused for our luncheon, a very simple repast with the plebeian sandwich as the principal course, but the delightful surroundings and a sharp appetite made it seem a banquet fit for a king! A famished dog and two hungry-looking children stole out of a cabin a few rods distant to investigate and there was plenty left to make them happy, too.

From this point we began the ascent of Red Mountain grade over a new county road which flings itself around the giant hills in graceful curves and easy gradients. There were wonderful views as we ascended, of deep yawning canyons and wooded hill ranges tinged with the pale violet of the mountain lilac, and fading away into the purple shadows of the distance. At the crest of the hills we passed through the great olive groves of Red Mountain Ranch. There are several thousand fine trees which crowd closely to the roadside for perhaps a mile. A real estate placard declared this region to be "frostless," and it seems to have vindicated this claim very well, for it showed no trace of the disastrous freeze of 1913, which sadly blighted much of the surrounding country.

Gliding down the long smooth descent for several miles, we came to Bonsal—the existence of which we should never have discovered had it not been for the signboard—where we left the main road for Pala. For a dozen miles we followed a sinuous road along the San Luis Rey River, bordered by trees and shrubbery in endless variety, until we found ourselves in the streets of the queer little Indian town. Before us rose the whitewashed walls and quaint bell-tower of the much-restored mission, surrounded by the wooden huts, each very much like every other. Each had its tiny garden patch, showing in most cases infinite care, and, as we learned, requiring infinite labor, for all the water had to be pumped or carried from the river for irrigation. We were told, however, that the government was building a pipe line and that on its completion in a few months Pala would speedily spring into verdure.

While we were getting our bearings the ladies of our party made a hurried round of several of the cottages, fully expecting to find Pala baskets in unlimited quantities at bargain prices. It was with considerable chagrin that they reported not a basket to be found in the town; an old Indian declared that no baskets were now made—the women and girls of the village were learning lace-making, which they hoped would be easier and more remunerative. Indeed, from all we could learn, basket-making is becoming a lost art among the California Indians. Contact with civilization seems to have killed the infinite care and patience necessary to produce the finer examples of this work, which is now done in a very small way by the older women.

A year later we came to Pala again and hardly recognized the place, so great was the improvement wrought by the completion of the water supply work. The cottages were surrounded by flowers and the little garden patches looked green and thriving. The government schoolhouse had been completed and we saw a score or more of well-mannered and intelligent-looking children at their studies. The lace-making school was also in this building and the authority of our party declared the work really fine and the prices very low. We felt the more willing to make a small purchase of the laces when the matron assured us that every sale was of material help to the poor people of the community. The women and girls are willing to work diligently if they can earn only a few cents a day, but they have the greatest difficulty in disposing of their product.

We found the mission in charge of Father Doyle, a kindly and courteous gentleman and a fellow-motorist, since he visits his few charges by means of his trusty Ford. He lives in the old mission building in very plain—even primitive—quarters; clearly, his work is a labor of love and faith, since what else could induce a young and vigorous man to lead such a comfortless and exacting life? He told us the history of the mission—how Pala was founded about a hundred years ago by Padre Peyri as an "assistancia" to San Luis Rey, about twenty miles away. It prospered at the start, its conversions numbering over a thousand in two years. The chapel was built shortly after—a long, narrow adobe twenty-seven by one hundred and forty-four feet, with roof of characteristic mission tiles. As a result of the secularization by the Mexican government, Pala rapidly declined and when it came into the possession of the Americans, it was already falling into ruin. It was finally deeded to the Landmarks Club, which agreed that it should revert to its proper ownership, meaning, doubtless, the Catholic Church. When Father Doyle came here, it was in a sad state of decay, but with untiring zeal and energy he has restored the chapel and rebuilt the quaint campanile or bell-tower. Father Doyle pointed out his work on the chapel—the restoration of the walls and old tile roof—but little has been done to the interior, which still has its original floor of square tiles and rude, unhewn beams supporting the roof. The priest who preceded him for a short time evidently had little sentiment, for he had ruthlessly covered up the ancient Indian decorations with a coat of whitewash. Father Doyle had removed it carefully in places, exposing the old frescoes, and hoped it might be possible to complete this work some time. In the chapel are two odd wooden statues from Spain, gaudily colored and gilded, of the Virgin and San Luis Rey, which the father declared were highly venerated by his Indian parishioners. He also showed us with much pride a few vestments used by the early padres, and a fine collection of baskets—mostly given him by the makers—of the different tribes among which he had worked.

CAMPANILE, PALA MISSION
From Photograph by Putnam & Valentine

The most distinctive and picturesque feature of Pala Mission is the quaint campanile, of which our picture will be far more descriptive than any words. The present structure is largely a restoration by Father Doyle, who also rescued and hung the two large bronze bells now in the niches of the tower. The dormitory building is quite ruinous—with the exception of the priest's quarters and a portion occupied by a small general store, it has almost vanished.

The Indians now living in Pala are not the descendants of the original inhabitants of the village when the mission was founded. These were ousted after the American occupation and scattered in the surrounding hills, having now practically disappeared. The present population is made up of the Palatingwa tribe, which was evicted from Warner's Ranch some twenty miles away and given a home here by the Government. An effort is now being made to improve their condition and it is to be hoped that tardy justice will make some amends for all that the red men about Pala have suffered at the hands of their white brothers.

We inquire the road to Escondido and Father Doyle tells us that the shortest route is to cross the river and strike over the hills to Lilac and Valley Center. It may be the shortest route, but a rougher, steeper, stonier byroad is not common, even in California. It winds along the hill-crests with sharp little pitches and short turns that will compel any driver to attend carefully to business. It would have been better to follow the river to the junction with the main road, though the distance is a few miles farther. At Valley Center—which is only a ranch-house—we came into a fairly good highway which steadily improved as we approached Escondido. It was on this fine road that we spied a huge rattlesnake basking in the afternoon sun, too lazy or too defiant to make much effort to get out of the way of our wheels, which passed over him. A blow from a rock finished him, and his twelve-jointed rattle was added to our trophies. It seemed a pity to leave his beautifully marked sepia-brown skin, but we had no facilities for removing and caring for it.

Escondido means "hidden," a name probably suggested by the location of the little town deep in the mammoth hills. It is, however, the best town on the inland route between Riverside and San Diego, and though small, it is apparently an energetic community. The main street was being macadamized and improved for some distance out of the town, and a large hotel and handsome schoolhouse testified to its enterprise. For some miles to the south of the town the road is straight and level; then we re-enter the hills and begin the ascent of the finely engineered Poway grade. The road swings up the giant hills in long, easy loops and as we near the summit the whole grade lies before our eyes as we look backward down the canyon. From the crest there is another wonderful view of hills touched with the declining sun and wooded canyons shrouded in the amethystine haze of evening. To the right a road cuts across the hills to La Jolla by the sea and we followed this on one occasion. It is a narrow, little-used road running along the hill-crests or clinging precariously to their sides, but it proved smoother and easier than we anticipated. It passes through Miramar—the great country estate of a millionaire newspaper man—comprising many thousands of acres. Some of the land was cultivated, but the great bulk of it is in cattle ranges. For miles we saw no human habitation and had some difficulty in keeping the right road. We came into the main coast road a few miles north of La Jolla and hastened to Del Mar—of which more anon—where we preferred to pass the night rather than at San Diego.

On our first trip, however, we continued on our way to the city and gliding down Poway grade we came to a fork in the road with a sign informing us that one branch led to San Diego by Murphy Canyon and the other by Murray Canyon. We chose the former, believing, for obvious reasons, that it must be the best, and soon came into the new-old town on the quiet, land-locked harbor, where the white man's work in California had its beginnings.

VI
ROUND ABOUT SAN DIEGO

If one wishes to stop within the city of San Diego, he will find the U. S. Grant Hotel equal to the best metropolitan hostelries and when he comes to settle his bill, will also learn that the best metropolitan establishments "have nothing on" the Grant in the way of stiff charges. It is a huge, concrete structure—"absolutely fire-proof," of course—and its interior appointments and furnishings are in keeping with its imposing exterior. It is justly the pride of San Diego and, despite the marvelous growth of the town, it will be long before it outgrows this magnificent hotel.

There is much for the tourist stranger to see about San Diego—the oldest settlement of the white man in California. The motor car affords ideal means for covering the surrounding country in the shortest time and with the assistance of the excellent maps of the Auto Club of Southern California, one can easily locate the points of interest in the immediate vicinity outside the limits of the city.

SAN DIEGO MISSION
From Photograph by Harold Taylor

The old mission will usually be the first objective, and more especially it appeals to ourselves, who have already determined to traverse the entire length of the King's Highway to visit all the decaying monuments to the work of the zealous Franciscan padres. It has a special significance as the earliest Spanish settlement in California and as the beginning of a movement that has widely influenced the history and architecture of the state. The story of its founding I have already told in brief; its history in a general way was much the same as that of San Gabriel. Our outline of the mission play in a preceding chapter gives a true conception of its earliest days; owing to the distrust of the natives it was long before converts were made in considerable numbers. The region about was well peopled, but only seventy-one converts had been secured by 1774, six years after Serra's landing. A year later the mission was attacked by a horde of savages, variously estimated at from five to eight hundred, who burned the rude brush-roofed building to the ground and murdered Father Jayme, one of the priests. When news of the disaster reached Father Serra, who had gone northward to Monterey, he rejoiced in the martyrdom of his friend. "God be praised!" he cried. "The soil is now watered," thus accepting the calamity as a presage of victory to come. The troubles with the natives continued until 1779, when they were pacified by some of their number being made officials in the society, Alcades and Regidores, as they were styled. These dignitaries administered justice to their own people under the direction of the padres and from this time the progress of the mission was rapid. In 1800 it was the most populous of the missions, its neophytes numbering fifteen hundred and twenty-three. More substantial buildings had been erected and an extensive scheme of irrigation had been begun, remains of which astonish the beholder to-day. The great dam is in a gorge about three miles above the mission. It was built of gray granite twelve feet thick and stands as firm and solid as ever, though it is now nearly filled with sand.

The mission's prosperity continued, with occasional interruptions on account of differences with the natives, until the secularization in 1833. After this the Indians were gradually scattered and were decimated in frequent clashes with the Spanish soldiers. Eleven years later an official report showed but one hundred natives connected with the mission as against more than fifteen hundred in its palmy days—a fact which needs no elucidation to show the results of Mexican confiscation. The buildings were reported by a United States officer to be "in good preservation" in 1852, and were then occupied by American troops.

To-day only the "fachada" of the old church remains. It stands on a hillside about five miles northeast of the city and overlooks the beautiful valley of the San Diego River. The avenue leading to it from the main road passes between long rows of eucalyptus trees and the ruin itself presents a picturesque effect in its setting of palms and black and silver-gray olives. A large dormitory near by houses several priests, who courteously receive the visitor and tell him the story of the mission. There is little to show, but one who is interested in the romantic history of the Golden State will find himself loath to leave the time-mellowed fragment of, perhaps, her most historic building. And his reveries will be saddened by the thought that the precious old structure is rapidly falling into decay, which will mean its ultimate extinction unless energetic measures are adopted to restore and protect it. Surely the earliest relic of the beginning of civilization on our great Pacific Coast is deserving of loving and conscientious care.

On our return to the city we left the main highway a short distance from the mission and pursued a mountain road to Lakeside Inn, then a much-advertised resort. This road—a mere shelf cut in the side of the hills—closely follows the course of the San Diego River, usually far above it, with a cliff-like declivity at the side. It is quite narrow in places and there are many sharp turns around abrupt corners—a road not altogether conducive to peace of mind in nervous people. The scenery, however, makes the trip worth while—the river boiling over its boulder-strewn bed and the wooded hills on every hand combining to make a wild but inspiring picture.

The inn was an immense wooden structure, since destroyed by fire. Handsome grounds did much to make up for the rather shabby appearance of the building. The lake was an artificial pond—about the only kind of lake to be found in the vicinity of San Diego. The excellent dinner was the strong point in the Lakeside's favor, and this was doubtless the attraction which brought several cars besides our own, as nearly all left shortly after the meal. We lounged about the grounds for awhile and then followed suit, taking a different road—by the way of El Cajon and La Mesa—an easier though less spectacular route than that by which we came.

This passes Grosmont, a great conical hill some twelve hundred feet high, and a well-engineered roadway leads to the summit. Of course we must make the ascent, though the steep appearance of the grades caused the occupants of the rear seat some uneasiness. The ascent did not prove so difficult as we anticipated at first glance, though the pitch just before one comes to the summit is enough to worry any careful driver a little. The view from the hill is advertised as "the grandest panorama in the world; one that simply beggars description," and "Fighting Bob" Evans is quoted as having said, "Of all the beautiful views in the world, give me Grosmont; nothing that I have ever seen can beat it." It may have been that the bluff admiral climbed Grosmont after an extended voyage at sea and any land was bound to look good to him. Lillian Russell, the actress, is quoted by the guide-book in a similar strain, but while Lillian is an accepted authority on personal pulchritude, I do not know that she can claim the same distinction with reference to scenic beauty. In any event, while the view from Grosmont is truly grand and inspiring, I am very sure that we saw many nobler ones from California mountain peaks. Indeed, we saw one still more glorious the next day—of which more anon. The view, however, is well worth the climb to anyone fond of panoramas and free from nervous qualms on mountain roads.

Of course everyone who comes to San Diego must see the Coronado, whose pointed red towers have become familiar everywhere through extensive advertising and whose claim as the "largest resort hotel in the world" has not been disputed, so far as I know. It is situated on the northern point of the long strip of sand that shuts in the waters of San Diego Bay and which widens to several hundred yards, affording extensive grounds for the hotel as well as sites for numerous private residences and a small village. It may be reached by ferry from the city or one may drive around the bay—a distance of twenty-one miles, and when we undertook it a very rough road for the greater part of the way. The drive is not very interesting; the shore is flat, and there is little opportunity to get a view of the bay. It is the kind of trip that one cares to make but once, and on subsequent visits to Coronado we crossed by the ferry, which carried our car cheaply and satisfactorily.

The "season" having passed, we experienced no difficulty in getting accommodations at the Coronado, not always easy to do "off hand" in the winter months. The rates glibly quoted by the genial clerk jarred us a little but we consoled ourselves with the reflection that we wouldn't pay them for a very lengthy period. That was before the war, however, and in retrospect the figures do not loom so large by any means!

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.

"Many people," he said, "think that there is something occult or mysterious about the Institute, but the fact is that it is a school open to everyone under twenty-one who will comply with our regulations. We prefer to take young children and train them from the very beginning, which our experienced teachers and nurses can do better than their mothers," but noticing the looks of indignant protest which came to the faces of the ladies of our party, he quickly qualified his statement with—"perhaps."

"The tuition," he went on, "is a thousand dollars per year, which includes everything—and the pupils never leave these grounds until they have completed our course. Thorough education is our first object; doctrine is secondary—we do not even ask them to accept our tenets unless they wish to do so. There is nothing secret or occult about our institution; we do not keep the public from our buildings because of anything mysterious there, but because sightseers would interfere with the work. We have more than three hundred children in the schools at present and in some cases their parents live in the houses on our grounds. No, it is not a 'community' in any sense of the word, and the statement often made that people who join with us must give us their property and surrender themselves to our control, is absolutely false. There is no time to tell you of our peculiar teachings, but you will receive booklets at the gate-house that will enlighten you on them. Reincarnation, as you would style it, is one of our fundamentals and Katherine Tingley, who founded the Institute, is from our point of view the spiritual successor of the famous Russian teacher, Madame Blavatsky." I was surprised to learn later that the foundress of the cult, despite her obviously Russian name, was an English woman by birth. She was a famous world traveler and on one of her journeys married a Russian nobleman. One must admit, I am bound to say, that her published works show an astounding amount of research and curious knowledge, whatever we may think of her doctrines.

Regardless of our attitude on Mrs. Tingley's teachings and beliefs, one can not question her soundness and success in a business and aesthetic way. Everything about the establishment speaks of prosperity and it would be hard to imagine more beautiful and pleasing surroundings. The buildings are mainly of oriental design, solidly built and fitting well into the general plan of the grounds. Among them is a beautiful Greek theatre where plays open to the public are sometimes given. The grounds evince the skill of the landscape-gardener and scrupulous care on part of those who have them in charge. Flowers bloom in profusion and a double row of palms runs along the seaward edge of the hill. Through these gleams the calm deep blue of the ocean, which seldom changes, for there are but few stormy or gloomy days on Point Loma. The outlook to the landward is much the same as we beheld from the old lighthouse—a panorama of green hills and mountain ranges, stretching away to the snow-capped peaks of San Bernardino, nearly one hundred and fifty miles distant. It is a glorious spot, well calculated to lend glamour to the—to our notion—fantastical doctrines of the cult which makes its headquarters here. Indeed, my friend—whose religious ideas are in a somewhat fluid state—was deeply impressed and after reading the pamphlets which we received on leaving, intimated that the doctrines of Theosophy looked mighty good to him—though I believe this is as far as he ever got in the faith.

VII
THE IMPERIAL VALLEY AND THE SAN DIEGO BACK COUNTRY

The infinite variety of California will be more and more impressed upon the tourist as his travels take him farther from the beaten track. It is, truly, a land of contrasts; and only one who goes from the green valley of the Sacramento to the arid sands of the Imperial Desert will know how sharply marked the contrasts may be. The former will remind him not a little of the green and prosperous farm lands of the Middle West and the agricultural methods pursued are not widely dissimilar, but where else in the world can a parallel be found for the strange valley that lies beyond the rugged mountain ranges eastward from San Diego?

Twenty-five years ago this weird, sun-blistered desert seemed the most unlikely spot on earth to become a place of incredibly productive farms and thriving towns. The arid bed of a long-vanished inland sea, lying from a few inches to three hundred feet below sea level, with a temperature varying up to one hundred and thirty degrees in summer and less than an inch of annual rainfall, surely gave little promise of ever becoming an agricultural bonanza. It was even more typically a desert, says one authority, than any part of the Sahara of which we have record. To the ordinary layman passing through on the Southern Pacific, nothing would have seemed farther from the range of possibility than that this counterpart of Death Valley should ever become a green and fertile land.

There were, however, a few thoughtful pioneers who knew of the possibilities of the desert when water could be brought to it and who were aware that within a comparatively short distance the great Colorado River coursed through its channel at an altitude higher than the floor of the Valley. Here was water, practically unlimited, which needed only direction into an irrigating system to change the desert's sandy wastes into fertile fields. Dr. Wozencroft of San Bernardino was the first to take practical steps towards this great work, about fifty years ago. He endeavored to obtain from Congress a grant of land upon which he might carry out his project, but the idea was not taken seriously by the lawmakers, who dismissed it with a few jocular flings at the promoter's expense. The experts declared the plan not impractical, but the politicians could not be induced to take favorable action upon it. The immediate outcome was that the enthusiastic promoter lost his fortune in his fruitless efforts and died a disappointed man, but he had directed public attention to the possibility of reclaiming the Valley and various attempts were made by others to carry out his plans.

No considerable headway was made until the organization of the California Development Company in 1896 for the purpose of reclaiming what was then first styled the Imperial Valley. This was a water corporation whose purpose was to construct an irrigating system to serve some five hundred thousand acres of desert land then open to occupation by settlers under the national homestead acts. The profits of the company were to come from the sale of water service, since it did not own or control the land. The contour of the country made it necessary to bring the main supply canal through Mexican territory for a distance of forty or fifty miles, and the canal now serves some two hundred thousand acres in Mexico. An old river bed which resulted from an overflow many years ago carried the water a considerable part of the distance and greatly minimized the labor necessary to complete the canal. Still, it was a stupendous task, requiring several years' time and a large expenditure of money. The seepage and overflow from the irrigating system was to be conveyed to the lowest part of the Valley, the Salton Basin, now occupied by the Salton Sea, a shallow lake two or three hundred square miles in extent.

This lake originated in a sensational manner, which engaged the attention of the country for many months. During the summer of 1904 the development company undertook to increase the supply of water from the Colorado by cutting a new outlet which was to be controlled by flood gates. Before the work was completed an unprecedented rise washed away the controlling works and threatened to turn the whole volume of the river into the Valley. A tremendous channel was soon torn in the sands by the raging flood—which was known as New River—and the waters coursed through the Valley to Salton Basin, which filled rapidly. Efforts made by the company to check the torrent were without avail; its means and facilities were too limited to cope with the serious situation.

In the meanwhile the existence of the Valley, with its farms and towns, was threatened; if unchecked, the flood would eventually restore the inland sea that filled the basin in prehistoric times. The settlers were greatly alarmed and appealed to the Government for assistance. Congress was not in session and President Roosevelt, with characteristic resourcefulness, called upon the Southern Pacific Railroad Company to undertake the task of curbing the river, assuring the officials of the road that he would recommend an appropriation by Congress to reimburse them for money expended in the work. The railroad company consented and after several months of almost superhuman effort and an expenditure of two million dollars, the flood was curbed and the vast empty chasm of New River left to tell the story of its wild fury.

But Congress refused to make the appropriation and the Southern Pacific "held the sack" for the enormous sum spent in protecting the Valley. The people likewise declined to issue bonds to reimburse the railroad company, which considered itself the victim of bad faith on part of both the Government and the citizens of the Valley. We heard an echo of the controversy when we visited El Centro—another break was imminent on account of high water in the Colorado and the railroad was called upon for assistance. The officials notified the owners of the threatened lands that when a sufficient sum of money to guarantee the cost of the work was deposited in a Los Angeles bank, they would hurry a force to the scene of the trouble—and the cash was forthcoming without delay.

The story of the flood forms the framework of Harold Bell Wright's recent novel, "The Winning of Barbara Worth," and while the narrative does not by any means adhere to historic fact, it has served to bring the Imperial Valley to the attention of many a reader who had scarcely heard of it before.

Prosperity has usually prevailed in the Valley; money has been made so easily and surely that the disadvantage of the climate was readily overlooked by the inhabitants, many of whom actually profess to enjoy it. But a climate that is hot in winter and superheated in summer, rainless, and with almost incessant high winds that stir up clouds of dust and occasional sand storms, has its drawbacks, we must admit. Rainfall, however, is neither needed nor wanted. The farmer turns the water on at the proper time and there need be no excessive moisture or protracted drought.

Under such conditions the productiveness of the land is almost incredible. Six or eight heavy crops of alfalfa are harvested from a single field during the year. Barley, oats, and other small grains flourish and at present are cut mostly for forage. Cotton, under normal conditions, is the most valuable crop, about one hundred and forty thousand acres being planted in 1920, with an estimated value of $25,000,000. The quality rivals the sea-island product and the yield is large, averaging more than a bale to the acre. Vegetables and berries flourish in endless variety and truck-gardening for the Los Angeles and San Diego markets is profitable because the season for everything is ahead of the rest of California. Citrus fruits of finest quality thrive wonderfully, but as yet little has been done in orchard-planting. Figs are readily grown and it is said that the date palm will flourish and produce an excellent quality of fruit in the Imperial though it has not been a success elsewhere in California. Cattle-raising and dairying are leading industries—the butter product alone is worth several million dollars yearly. Taking the country over, however, the Imperial Valley is probably more famous for its cantaloupes than for any other single product. Each year it produces several thousand cars of this succulent melon and they are on the market from Boston to San Francisco before the Rocky Fords are in blossom.

Until quite recently the Valley could be reached only by the main line and branches of the Southern Pacific Railroad and by one or two inferior wagon trails which meandered through the great hills and over the sands. The desirability of a motor highway led the business men of San Diego to raise by subscription sufficient funds to complete the road through the mountains from Mountain Spring on the San Diego County line to the floor of the Valley, where it continues for a dozen miles through sands not quite heavy enough to stop progress if one keeps on the beaten trail. Beyond Coyote Wells an attempt had been made to improve the road by freely oiling the sand. The older portion was broken and rough, though for some distance out of Dixieland there is as fine a boulevard as one could wish. In San Diego County the stage road is part of the magnificent new highway system, of which I shall have more to say later.

Another highway to the Valley comes down from San Bernardino through Beaumont, Banning, Palm Springs and Indio, continuing along the northern side of the Salton Sea to Brawley. Pavement of this road is now so well advanced that it will very likely be completed by the time this book comes from the press. In any event, it will be so nearly finished that this run, once the terror of motorists, can be made easily and comfortably, and, revealing as it does so many interesting phases of California, it is sure to be immensely popular. The new route misses by a few miles the towns of Coachella and Mecca, but these may be reached by a detour over the old road if any one's interest is strong enough to lead him from the comforts of the new pavement. Palm Springs, however, will surely claim a pause for lunch at the well-ordered Desert Inn and a visit to Palm Canyon, a few miles away. Here we may see the palm in its native state and some authorities assert that these palms are the progenitors of this particular species in California. The larger ones are several centuries old, and there is an Indian tradition that they provided seed for the palms planted by the Mission fathers.

PALM CANYON
From Original Painting by H. H. Bagg

The canyon itself would be worth visiting, even without the added interest of the palms. It is a rugged ravine several hundred feet deep, with a clear stream rippling among boulders or losing itself beneath the tangled undergrowth. It is about sixteen miles in length, and the palms extend the entire distance, ranging from scattered sentinels to jungle-like thickets. Some of them are perhaps one hundred feet high. The trunks of the larger ones are blackened by fire, due to the practice of the Indians in building fires around them to cause the fall of the seeds, which they consider a great delicacy. Strange to say, the palms seemed none the worse for this severe treatment. They did not endure so well the onslaught of a moving-picture outfit which, to make a sensational scene, blew up some of the rocks and palms with dynamite. There was an insistent demand for punishing these vandals, which we hope attained its end. One can drive to the edge of the canyon and from an elevated point get a very good general view, but most visitors will wish to make the descent and proceed a greater or less distance up the gorge on foot.