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THE PACIFIC COAST SCENIC TOUR

MOUNT HOOD.

THE

PACIFIC COAST SCENIC TOUR

_FROM SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA TO ALASKA
THE CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY
YELLOWSTONE PARK AND
THE GRAND CAÑON_

BY

HENRY T. FINCK
AUTHOR OF “ROMANTIC LOVE AND PERSONAL BEAUTY,” “CHOPIN AND OTHER
MUSICAL ESSAYS”

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS

LONDON
SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE, & RIVINGTON
Limited
St. Dunstan’s House
FETTER LANE, FLEET STREET, E.C.

1891

BERWICK & SMITH, PRINTERS,
BOSTON, U.S.A.

TO MY FRIEND AND COLLEAGUE

WENDELL PHILLIPS GARRISON

PREFACE.

Books on California and Alaska exist in abundance, if not superabundance; but the intervening States of Oregon and Washington have been comparatively neglected in a way which seems surprising when we consider the remarkable scenic and climatic attractions of those States, their industrial resources, and the great future which doubtless lies before them. The present volume is an attempt to give a general and impartial view of the whole Pacific Coast, from San Diego to Sitka. Covering such a vast territory, it cannot, of course, make any pretensions to exhaustiveness, but is simply an endeavor to reproduce the local color of each State, by describing a few typical and important localities in each. I have naturally chosen the most favorable specimens, as every author or other mortal does in showing samples of a thing with which he is in love. I am in love with the Pacific Coast, because after living on it eleven years, at various times, and twelve years on the Atlantic Coast, I have found the scenery so much grander and the climate so much more delightful and exhilarating on the western side of our continent than on the eastern; and climate and scenery, in my opinion, make up fully one-half of human happiness. Scenery, indeed, requires some æsthetic culture for its appreciation, but climate affects all alike; and where the sky is habitually overcast with clouds, and the air humid and sultry, the millionaire suffers from habitual depression of spirits just as much as the beggar.

If the enthusiasm which pervades these pages should prove contagious to some of the readers, I do not fear that any of them will chide me hereafter for having induced them to emigrate to the West,—least of all, those who are in comfortable circumstances and wish to spend their last days amid bright and cheerful surroundings, and in a climate which favors longevity. It is my solemn determination to build a château somewhere on the Pacific Coast for myself some day,—if I can manage the “comfortable circumstances.” Tourists, however, I must add, may possibly take the Pacific Coast Scenic Tour described in this volume and come back more or less disappointed. This will probably be the case if they visit Southern California in July, the Yosemite in October, Oregon and Washington in August, and Alaska before July or after September; for they will then find the temperature uncomfortably high in Southern California, and the water-falls reduced to a minimum in the Yosemite; while in Oregon and Washington they will probably see nothing at all, on account of the dense smoke from forest fires; and in Alaska the mountains will be obscured by mist and rain. But just as a prudent sight-seer does not visit Switzerland except between the middle of June and the middle of October, so we have a right to expect of him that he will plan his trip to the Pacific Coast for the most favorable season. This may seem difficult, on account of the great distance to be covered, and the variety of climatic conditions; but as a matter of fact it is the easiest thing in the world. Indeed, this trip can be taken in such a way that each locality as described in succession in this volume can be seen under the most favorable conditions possible. If an excursion agent had planned the climate of the Pacific Coast, he could not have made things more delightfully convenient for tourists. All you have to do is to follow spring northwards. Leave the East in the abominable winter months and spend a few months in Southern California, which from January to April is a paradise. If the Southern Pacific or Atlantic and Pacific railroads are taken, there will be no danger of a snow blockade, the temperature will be comfortable, and the scenic attractions abundant. Early in May, when vegetation fades in Southern California, the Yosemite should be visited to see its water-falls at their best. San Francisco and Tahoe also are most attractive in May. Continuing northward, we find Oregon and Washington still in their spring garb in June, while the snow-peaks are not yet concealed by smoke. July and August may be devoted to the sea-coast and to Alaska, and in September the return trip may be made across the Canadian Pacific, with its three mountain chains and the National Park as its chief attractions; or the Northern Pacific, which among its attractions includes the Columbia River scenery, the snow-peaks of Oregon and Washington, Lake Pend D’Oreille, and the Yellowstone National Park; or the Union Pacific, which includes the Sierra Nevada, Lake Tahoe, the stupendous scenery of the Rio Grande, Salt Lake City, Denver, and the Rocky Mountains,—three routes between which it is difficult to make a choice.

To complete the American Scenic Tour, we must of course take in one of the Great Lakes, Niagara Falls, the Thousand Islands and Rapids of the St. Lawrence, Lakes Champlain and George, and the Hudson River,—scenes which have been too often described to be touched upon here. I have seen parts of four continents, but am still looking for a tour equal to the one outlined in this volume with the addition just named. It includes the grandest water-falls, the largest lakes, the finest river scenery and geysers, the most stupendous glaciers, and some of the most superb snow-peaks and ranges in the whole world; while the Yosemite and the Grand Cañon are absolutely unique and without rivals anywhere.

Most of the illustrations in this volume are by courteous permission reproduced from photographs in the excellent collection of Messrs. Taber, San Francisco, Haynes, Yellowstone Park, B. C. Towne & Macalpin & Lamb, Portland, and Pierce & Blanchard, Los Angeles.

H. T. F.

TOKIO, JAPAN, August, 1890.

CONTENTS.

I. LOS ANGELES COUNTY.

PAGE

Across the Continent—A Storm in the Desert—A Contemptuous City— Progress and Prospects—The Land Boom—Climate and Crops—Ostrich- Farming—A Vineyard Terror—The Native Wines—Quail-Hunting 1

II. SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA IN WINTER.

A Collapsed “Boom”—Los Angeles To-day—Prospects for Immigration—Poultry and Cattle—Five Sources of Water for Irrigation—Windmills, and Tunnels under River-Beds 15

III. THE GREAT AMERICAN PARADISE.

Value of Reservoirs—Winter in Southern California—Flowers and Sunshine—Where Rain means “Better Weather”—Dry Air and Sea- Breezes—Fogs and Frost—California for Invalids as compared with Italy, Spain, and Africa—Rural Cities of the Future—The Pacific Andalusia—Some Disadvantages—Gophers, Dust-Storms, Drought—Enemies of the Orange and Vine 25

IV. THE HOME OF THE ORANGE.

The German Colony at Anaheim—Rabbit-Hunting in the Cactus Fields—Cows and Oranges—The Best California Orange—Riverside and its Model Orchards—Orange-Picking—A Wonderful Avenue—Local Flavor in Oranges—An English Colony—How Prohibition prohibits—Scenes between Riverside and San Diego 36

V. OVER THE MEXICAN BORDER.

San Diego and Coronado Beach—An Ideal Climate—An Artificial Lake—How Towns are raised—The National Boundary—Donkeys versus Railroads—More Saloons than Houses—Limes versus Lemons 49

VI. SANTA CATALINA ISLAND.

From San Diego to Los Angeles—Along the Coast—A Romantic Spot—Lost in a Mustard Field—San Pedro—Floating Highlands—Sun and Ocean Baths in Winter—Avalon Village—The Luxury of Existence—Flowers, Humming-Birds, and Poison Ivy—Rattlesnakes—Hunting Wild Goats—Indian Relics—Abalone Shells and their Hunters—Sport for Fishermen—A Submarine Garden—The Seals at Home 55

VII. SANTA BARBARA AND THE YOSEMITE.

A Dam under a River-Bed—Beans and Culture—An Æsthetic Town—Beautiful Gardens—Spanishtown and Chinatown—Mojave Desert—On the Way to the Yosemite—A Fine Stage Ride—Floral Wonders—The Sierra Snow-Plant and Mariposa Lilies—Resemblance to Oregon Scenery—Discovery of the Valley—The Yosemite and Bridal Veil Falls—Rainbow Spray—El Capitan and Mirror Lake—Origin of the Valley—Yosemite as a Lake—Glacier Point and Other Excursions—The Big Trees in the Mariposa Grove 75

VIII. SAN FRANCISCO AND CHINATOWN.

Mountainous Character of the Pacific Coast—The Hills of San Francisco—Cable-Car Tobogganing—The Golden Gate and Cliff House— Scenes in the Chinese Quarter—John’s Table Delicacies—Lunch in a Chinese Restaurant—An Honest Bookseller—Chinese Women—Opium Dens— Behind the Scenes in a Chinese Theatre—The Asiatic Trade—California Hotels, Restaurants, and Wines—Berkeley and the University—The Climate of San Francisco 108

IX. LAKE TAHOE AND VIRGINIA CITY.

Climatic Paradoxes in San Francisco—A Long Ferry-Boat—Snow-Sheds and Donner Lake—Truckee River—Logging and Fishing—Tahoe City—Round Trip on a Boat—A Lake amidst Snow Mountains—A Cinnamon Bear— Butterflies, Snow, and a Blue Sky—Large Trout, and how to catch them—Sunsets reflected in the Lake—Other Color Phenomena—The Flume to Carson Valley—A Mountain Railway—Desolate Nevada Mountains—Mining under a City—Gold Hill 126

X. MT. SHASTA AND CRATER LAKE.

The Oregon and California Railroad—California’s Grandest Mountain— Isolated Peaks of the Cascade Range—Volcanic Remnants—Sisson’s— Indians at Home—Sources of the Sacramento—Effects of Rain—Oregon’s Numerous Rivers—Fish and Crawfish—Southern Oregon—A Mysterious Mountain Lake—The Oregon National Park—The Willamette Valley—Oregon Wheat and Fruit 149

XI. PORTLAND AND ITS SEA-BEACHES.

A Picturesque Situation—Five Snow-Peaks in Sight—Portland versus Los Angeles—Clearings—Chinese Anecdotes—Propitiating the Gods—Appreciation of Female Beauty—Summer Resorts—Yaquina Bay and Long Beach—Bathing in the North Pacific—Catching Crabs at Low Tide—A Sad Accident—Clatsop Beach and Tillamook Head—An Exposed Lighthouse—In the Virgin Forest—Oregon Mosses, Ferns, and Trees—Flowers and Berries 162

XII. UP AND DOWN THE COLUMBIA RIVER.

An Ungrateful Republic—The Columbia compared with Other Rivers— Snow-Peaks—Salmon-Canneries—Astoria and the Mouth of the River—Cape Horn and Rooster Rock—Water-Falls—The Cascade— Salmon-Wheels—In the Highlands—The Last of the Mohicans—Low and High Water—The Scenery and the Railroad—The “Place of the Winds”— “Swift Water”—A River turned on Edge 182

XIII. OREGON AND WASHINGTON SNOW-PEAKS.

From Portland to Tacoma—Views of and from Mt. Hood—American Scenery—Advantages of Isolation—Ascent of Mt. St. Helens—Masculine and Feminine Peaks—Tacoma and the Jungfrau—American Names for American Mountains—Indian Names—A Hop Valley—Cascade Division of the Northern Pacific Railroad—Mt. Tacoma—Its Fourteen Glaciers and Five Rivers 203

XIV. THE AMERICAN MEDITERRANEAN.

A Strange Fact—History of Tacoma—Advantages of its Situation— Navigation—Forests and Saw-Mills—Splendors and Disadvantages of Forest Fires—Coal-Fields of Washington—Scenic Features of Puget Sound—Olympia—Seattle since the Fire—The Olympic Mountains—Port Townsend 217

XV. A WEEK IN ALASKA.

A Great Salt-Water River—The Genuine American Switzerland—Highest Snow-Mountain in the World—The Excursion Season—Islands and Forests—Indian Traits—Alaskan Villages—Glacier Bay—An Iceberg Factory 231

XVI. ACROSS THE CANADIAN PACIFIC.

Advantages of an Autumnal Trip—English Aspect of Victoria—Vancouver a “Boom Town”—The Frazer River and Cañon—Eagle Pass—Reappearance of the Columbia River—Mountain- Side Forests—Comparison with Switzerland—Construction of Snow-Sheds—Banff and the National Park—The Bow River—Devil’s Head Lake—Sulphur Mountain—Winnipeg and Lake Superior 248

XVII. THROUGH YELLOWSTONE PARK.

An Independent Journey on Horseback—Geysers and Paint- Pots—Waiting for an Eruption—Yellowstone Cañon and Falls—The Lake and its Trout—A Tent Hotel—Mysterious Sounds 279

XVIII. THE GRAND CAÑON OF THE COLORADO.

From Los Angeles to Peach Spring—Desert Wind—An Arizona Village— Indians—Descensus Averno—Extraordinary Mountain Architecture—Silence and Desolation—A Bewitched Creek—Up the Diamond Cañon—The Grand Cañon and the River—New Mexico and Kansas 294

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

MT. HOOD Frontispiece

FACING PAGE

OSTRICH FARM—SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA 12

FRUIT FARM IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA 22

ORANGE GROVE—SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA 42

NORTH DOME—YOSEMITE VALLEY 96

BIG TREE—YOSEMITE VALLEY 104

SEAL ROCKS—SAN FRANCISCO 110

LAKE TAHOE 132

MT. SHASTA 152

CRATER LAKE 158

CASTLE ROCK—COLUMBIA RIVER 196

GREAT DALLES—COLUMBIA RIVER 202

SITKA 244

FRAZER CAÑON 254

THE SELKIRK GLACIER 262

CANADIAN PACIFIC HOTEL AT BANFF 268

DEVIL’S HEAD LAKE 272

MINERVA TERRACE—YELLOWSTONE PARK 282

FALLS OF THE YELLOWSTONE 292

THE GRAND CAÑON OF THE COLORADO 296

THE PACIFIC SLOPE—FROM MEXICO TO ALASKA.

I.

LOS ANGELES COUNTY.

ACROSS THE CONTINENT—A STORM IN THE DESERT—A CONTEMPTUOUS CITY—PROGRESS AND PROSPECTS—THE LAND BOOM—CLIMATE AND CROPS—OSTRICH-FARMING—A VINEYARD TERROR—THE NATIVE WINES—QUAIL-HUNTING.

Twenty-three years ago, when the first transcontinental railway was commenced, the possibility of not only its success, but of its very construction, was almost universally doubted, and the San Francisco bankers who advanced money for the enterprise had to do so secretly, in order not to create a panic among their depositors. To-day there are five transcontinental lines, or six, if we count the Oregon Short Line separately, and the tourist or invalid can pay his money and take his choice, according to the season,—the Canadian Pacific, Northern Pacific, or Union Pacific in summer; the Atlantic and Pacific or Southern Pacific in winter. The last-named is less interesting scenically than some of the Northern routes, but to invalids leaving the East in winter it presents the advantage of plunging at once in medias res, so far as semi-tropical climate is concerned.

Of the southern United States, this side of the Mississippi, one gets a rather unfavorable impression from the railway window, as the greater part of the distance from Washington to New Orleans, and some hundred miles beyond, seems little else than one boundless swamp, with moss-covered trees, an occasional low mountain range, corn and cotton fields, and beggarly huts, as the only scenic features. Montgomery seems a sleepy country village; and although New Orleans has sights worth seeing, it requires courage and a taste for roughing it in order to get at them; for the streets (naturally inclined to be muddy, because the city lies below the level of the Mississippi) are so horribly paved that even a New Yorker must lift up his hands and thank Heaven that he does not live in such a city. Without any exaggeration, a Swiss stage-road in the midst of the mountains is not so rough and jolting an affair as the street-car tracks in New Orleans; and what the roads are beyond the paved streets may be inferred from the fact that in January I found it absolutely impossible to reach the City Park (where the Exposition was held some years ago) on foot, from the terminus of the street-cars. Some of the gardens on the way were ornamented with orange-trees laden with ripe fruit, but both trees and fruit presented a sad contrast to the luxuriance I beheld in Los Angeles three days later; and equally great was the contrast between the moist, warm, enervating atmosphere of the Louisiana marshes, and the dry, cool, mountain and ocean breezes of Southern California.

If you leave New Orleans, say, on Wednesday noon, you will be at Los Angeles on Saturday evening before ten. A good supply of reading-matter is desirable, as there is little to see for a day or two, except cactus bushes, a few painted Indians, and bleak mountains, some of them across the Mexican border. At El Paso, which calls itself “the Paris of the Southwest,” and claims twelve thousand inhabitants, the train stops long enough to afford a chance to drive across the river into Mexican soil. The El Paso papers try hard to induce the passengers in quest of health to stay there, and have a very poor opinion of California. The Herald which I bought, editorially described the “recent terrific rainstorms” in that State, and found it difficult to decide which was a worse place for invalids, “Holland with her damp marshes, or the Golden State.” The editor probably mixed up that State with Arizona; for on arriving in California we discovered there had not been a drop of rain for several weeks, while in Arizona we found the deserts, as far as the eye could reach, one vast plain of shining, semi-liquid mud, interspersed with large temporary lakes. The rain poured down in blinding torrents and with true tropical violence, forming channels several feet deep across the desert, and whirling aside thirty-feet iron rails like straws.

The spectacle of this rain-storm in the desert was so weird and sublime that we gladly in return accepted the fate of reaching Los Angeles twelve hours behind time; for the train, owing to the numerous washouts and soft places, could only creep along, and beyond Tucson we had to wait five hours for daylight, as the engineer did not dare to proceed farther in the dark. Such storms and washouts are obviously frequent in this region, for ties and rails are scattered all along the road for emergencies. Nature, provoked by the “soft thing” which the Southern Pacific had in building this level road, seems to have taken this means of getting square with it. At Colton, California, the scenery becomes snow-mountainous and interesting, and remains so as far as Los Angeles.

During my first visit to Southern California, in 1887, I was amused to notice the vast contempt with which the fifty thousand inhabitants of the city of Los Angeles looked down on the three hundred and fifty thousand benighted denizens of a certain northern village known as San Francisco, and on other places that have the effrontery to grow rapidly, and to claim special advantages of climate, situation, and commerce. The Los Angeles Herald informed its admiring readers that—

“Pasadena and Los Angeles will be one city in a brief period, and form a continuous municipality from the Sierra Madre to the sea—an extent of thirty miles in length by at least six in width, with five hundred thousand people contained therein, and will be the capital of the richest State in the Union. The claim of New York as the Empire State is already in dispute, but the dispute will soon be settled by the pre-eminence of South California.”

It must be admitted that much had happened to justify this Los Angelic grandiloquence. Seventeen years ago the City of Angeles had only ten thousand inhabitants, no street-cars, and only one railway. To-day it has at least sixty thousand inhabitants, electric street-cars, and more than half-a-dozen railways, with about seventy-five daily trains. Orange-trees have increased in the county from twenty-five thousand to a million or more; grape-vines from three millions to twenty millions; and other agricultural products in proportion.

Its very disadvantages have proved advantages to Los Angeles. For instance, the fact that coal, like wood, is expensive, made the city the first in the country to adopt a general system of electric street-lighting. It has seventeen masts one hundred and fifty feet high, fourteen masts sixty feet high, and hundreds of private lights. The electric railroad is also being rapidly extended. The cars run at the rate of ten or twelve miles an hour, which can be increased to twenty outside the city limits. The road’s capacity is said to be four times that of a horse road, and its cost only one-half, while there is no torturing of poor horses in the hot noonday sun. A ride or a walk along the streets of Los Angeles conveys the impression that the city is quite as large and as “metropolitan” as it claims to be; the natural bustle and activity being increased by the winter visitors from the East.

In every country the smaller cities are apt to take after the metropolis. Thus, Rouen constantly suggests Paris; Linz, Vienna; the English cities, London, etc. Similarly, Los Angeles suggests San Francisco in many details,—the appearance of the stores, hotels, Chinese shops, and the gardens, although the gardens have a more decided semi-tropical aspect, and there is a general appearance of more open-airness, if the word be permissible. The city is surrounded on all sides by high mountains and buried among groves and gardens. Orange, lemon, “pepper,” and fig trees adorn the gardens everywhere, side by side with many luxuriant shrubs and flowers, dwarfed apologies for which are often seen in Eastern gardens. In size and brilliancy of color these California flowers are incomparable, but the same causes which tend to give quinces, for instance, a less pronounced flavor than they have in the East, appear to impair the fragrance of some flowers. This fact has often been commented on, but I believe that too much emphasis has been placed on it. Repeated experiment has convinced me that the verbena and heliotrope, and perhaps the geranium, have a less delicious fragrance in California than in New York, at least in October; but the same is not true of roses and pinks and lilies; and the countless varieties of wild flowers that adorn the hill-sides in spring have a most intoxicating fragrance, wherewith they allure so many bees that honey can be sold at four cents a pound.

The present ambition of the Los Angeles people is to surpass all the rest of the world in as many things as possible. In one thing certainly they were pre-eminent, a few years ago,—in the number of real-estate offices that decorated their town. Neither San Francisco nor any mining town ever had so many saloons to the number of inhabitants as Los Angeles had of these land offices; and the day after my arrival I heard a mother scolding her baby for putting a handful of dirt in its mouth—doubtless because she thought real estate was too valuable to be thus wasted in luxurious living. Almost every landowner, whether he had a sign over his door or not, was willing to part with some or all of his property for a consideration—not a slight one, by any means; and the whole county was affected with this epidemic, there being places of only a few thousand inhabitants where corner lots were sold almost at New York City prices.

One day, driving along a country road about twenty miles from Los Angeles, I noticed half-a-dozen well-dressed men resting under a tree. My companion informed me they were doubtless a syndicate looking about for a place to locate a new town. At Fullerton, a few miles from Anaheim, I saw one of these new towns. It consisted of the framework of a large hotel and of a few hundred yards of elegant cement sidewalk, not in front of the hotel, but in another part of the “town.” Elsewhere towns get pretty large before any one begins to think of a sidewalk, even of the most primitive kind; but the residents in Los Angeles County of course would not be satisfied with a sidewalk in any way inferior to that in front of Mr. Vanderbilt’s house in Fifth Avenue. I may add that since then Fullerton has grown up into quite a little town.

Having built his sidewalk and his large hotel (with real-estate office) in place of the saloon which usually is the pioneer building in Western towns, the Southern Californian begins to cast about for a supply of water; not so much for domestic use—since wine is almost as cheap as water—as for the irrigation of his garden and fields. If a river or brook is near by, a water company is formed, ditches are dug, and each shareholder, after paying his dues, may have his water “on tap” whenever he wants it. In the absence of a river, wells are made to supply the water. Sometimes these wells are bored horizontally into the mountain side, thus creating an artificial spring; but, as a rule, the wells are vertical, from eighty to five hundred feet deep, or even more, although at one hundred to two hundred feet the water is generally obtained in abundance. A windmill is then erected over the well, which pumps the water into a large, high tank, whence it is easily conveyed to the garden or field by hose. There is no lack of wind to drive these mills; for the charm of Southern California’s climate lies in this, that although the sky is commonly cloudless, and the sun warm, winter and summer, there is almost always a brisk breeze to temper the solar rays, and deprive them of their sting.

This is true especially of Los Angeles County, which is situated between the deep sea and an imposing circular range of mountains, that send their breezes down over the valley as soon as the ocean breezes cease; and although at some seasons both these air-currents, near their source, would be unpleasantly cold for invalids, they are almost always mellowed and warmed by the sun’s rays before they reach the centre of the valley. The morning—till about two o’clock—is the warmest part of the day; but in the autumn the morning heat is tempered by a daily fog, which remains till about ten o’clock. It is not a depressing fog, and is rather enjoyed by the natives, as a temporary change from the everlasting sunshine. In fact, sunny monotony is the gravest charge that can be brought against the climate of Southern California. In the autumn and spring a few rainy days afford refreshing variety; but summer and winter are alike in their cloudless skies, warm sunshine, and alternating mountain and ocean breezes. As a physician at Anaheim remarked to me, the seasons do not differ in character, but only in flavor, like the differences between several kinds of apples. He also informed me that, although the temperature sometimes rises above a hundred in the shade, he has never seen a case of sunstroke—thanks to the dryness of the air and the almost incessant breezes. Yet, like all southern climates, it fosters indolence, mental and physical; and he would not recommend it, therefore, to young persons, except for money-making purposes. But for invalids and for elderly persons, it is the best place in the world. The somnolence brooding in the air (except in Switzerland I have never slept so soundly in my life as here) would cure the worst case of Wall Street insomnia; and the incessant sunshine and constant life in the open air can hardly fail to add ten years or more to the life of old men or women who desert their over-heated and ill-ventilated Eastern homes for the open air and winter sunshine of Los Angeles County.

The general irrigation now resorted to, and the numerous green oases which have in consequence sprung up amid the deserts of prickly cactus, have already exerted some influence on the climate, and there is reason to believe that rain will be more abundant in the future than it has been in the past. A potent factor in producing this change will be the groves of trees that are being planted everywhere. There are some poplars and locusts and other trees that appear to flourish tolerably well, but the two species that most triumphantly defy sunshine, dust, and drought are the red-pepper-tree and the Australian eucalyptus, both of them beautiful to behold. The red-pepper-tree, with its gracefully drooping branches, resembles a weeping willow, but its growth is more luxuriant, its dimensions larger, and it is adorned with bunches of beautiful small red berries. The leaves, when bruised, have a strongly pungent cayenne odor, whence the name of the tree. The leaves and fruit of the eucalyptus have a still more objectionable odor when crushed (very much like assafœtida), but the tree has a most stately appearance, and its marvellously rapid growth—a seed becoming a large tree in a few years—causes it to be raised on a large scale for fuel and for shady avenues.

But although Los Angeles County can raise the Australian eucalyptus and the pepper-tree, there is a point at which the climate draws the line further south. Thus, the banana and the pineapple, although they can be raised here, do not usually thrive well, and the same is true of the almond. Yet the Los Angeleños do not despair on that account, as they have a superabundance of other fruits to fall back on. Of the vast and fruitful orange and lemon orchards of this region every one has read. Figs grow abundantly and are in good demand, especially those of the Smyrna variety, which are now displacing the others. The demand for California olive oil is greater than the supply, and it is equal in quality to the best Italian oil. English walnut-trees yield a profitable crop. Peaches are so abundant that they are fed to the cows, and some varieties (but not all) are equal in flavor to the New Jersey and Delaware crop. Ears of corn a foot long, with twenty rows to the ear, can be seen in the market, side by side with gigantic twenty-horse-power onions, and potatoes weighing from two to five pounds. Sugar-beets are on exhibition, weighing fifty pounds, and pumpkins of one hundred and fifty to one hundred and seventy-five pounds. Pumpkins, melons, tomatoes, and other creepers grow wild, without any care, and may even become a weedy nuisance. If a Chinaman eats a watermelon under a tree along the road, the chances are that a crop of wild melons will be found in that neighborhood the following season; and on one farm I saw a volunteer tomato plant which the owner said he had ploughed down twice, but when I saw it, it measured at least twelve feet square, and had thousands of small red fruit on it of the kind which is only used for preserves, although, like the little yellow ones, it is of a much more delicate flavor than the large tomatoes, which alone, for some inscrutable reason, are ever seen on our tables.

This list is very far from complete and is being constantly extended; for California is still largely in an experimental stage of development. The experiment with ostrich-farming near Anaheim has resulted successfully, and other farms have been started near Los Angeles. I visited the original farm near Anaheim. The keeper, an Englishman imported from Africa, showed me a fine lot of healthy birds and some beautiful specimens of feathers, naming prices which, if they were advertised by a New York house, would create a riot among “bargain”-seeking women; for it is to be hoped that women, having abandoned the vulgar fashion of wearing stuffed bird-corpses on their hats, will return to their old love, the delicate plumes of the ostrich, the wearing of which involves no cruel massacre of innocents. And California has another kind of plume to which the attention of women should be directed, the product of what might be called the vegetable ostrich,—pampas grass. Nothing more exquisite for a vase or for a (fan-shaped) wall ornament could be imagined than these bushy white (or colored) plumes, which in Los Angeles County attain the height of thirty-six inches, not including the stem. Formerly, when these plumes were imported from South America, florists charged a dollar or even a dollar and a half apiece for them; now the retail price is twenty-five cents, and the wholesale price three or four cents. Vast quantities are being exported to Europe, and Southern California is able to supply the demand of several continents, as the pampas grass, like most plants, grows there like a weed.

A dark cloud has, however, lately risen, and is for the moment casting an ominous shadow over the cheerful prospects of California. All the products so far mentioned are, of course, subordinate in importance to the grape crop; and the California grape-vine has been for several years threatened by an enemy more dangerous, because more obscure, than the phylloxera. A few years ago some of the grape-vines in Los Angeles County suddenly began to die out. Among these were some of the oldest vineyards, eighty years old or more. Indeed, the old Mission grape was the first to be attacked. Then followed other varieties, always in the same order in each vineyard. The disease begins at the tip of the vines and slowly spreads downwards, the roots being affected last. The second season the crop is a comparative failure, and the third the vineyard is a graveyard. One lady told me she had dug up and used for fuel as many as eighty thousand of her vines within a few years. The disease is said to be not phylloxera nor mildew; nor have the chemical experts who have examined the vines been able to throw any light on the matter, except by attributing the decay to a kind of cellular degeneration. Various theories are being discussed, and the owners of the vineyards meanwhile console themselves with the statement that a similar mysterious disease affected the grapes of Sicily and Madeira at one time, and disappeared after a few years, allowing the young vines to grow as before. What causes them to look with comparative indifference on this temporary (as they hope) interruption of business is the fact that there has been an over-production of grapes, in consequence of which the price of wine has fallen to unprofitable figures. An interruption of a few years in this excessive production would raise the prices, and thus pay for the losses now sustained.

OSTRICH FARM—SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA.

In the meantime the wine-growers would do well to ponder the fact that quality is of much more value, financially and gastronomically, than quantity. Labor is scarce in harvest-time, and, to save trouble, too many of the small growers neglect to pick out the green and sour grapes, which therefore vitiate the juice of the whole bunch; or else they intrust the cleaning of their old barrels to ignorant Chinamen (the Indians have all disappeared), with equally disastrous results. Too many Eastern people have contracted absurd prejudices against California wines, because chance threw some of this sour wine into their cellars. But it may be safely stated that the average California claret and white wine and port are superior to the wine that may be bought for the same money in France and Germany and elsewhere. The labels of famous French wines and Cognacs are for sale openly in the show-cases of country stores in Los Angeles County! These honest folks are practically compelled to use this stratagem. They would much prefer to sell their best wines under California labels, in order to build up their reputation. And if California wine-growers used the same caution as those of Europe, this subterfuge would no longer be necessary. I have tasted old Zinfandel equal to the best French château wines, because made with the same care, and it fetched almost as high a price in San Francisco as foreign wines.

Whatever may be the outcome of the present vineyard epidemic, Southern California will have plenty of other things to fall back upon. A few years ago it looked as if all the crops were to be neglected, comparatively, and a specialty made of building hotels for invalids and tourists. Among the special attractions for tourists is quail-hunting in the foothills. The physician already referred to kindly took me out on an afternoon hunt. We drove in a tough two-horse buggy, up and down hill and along the dry bed of a brook, carefully dodging the bristling cactus bushes, which are apt to make a deep impression on “tenderfoot” visitors, less by the grotesque manner in which their fleshy leaves are stuck on one another at odd angles than by their fish-hook-like spines. These prickly leaves are so arranged that nothing larger than a quail or a rabbit can get under their protecting shadows. The dogs give them a wide berth, and the quail can only be shot on the wing if they are alarmed and fly from one group of cactus bushes to another. The result of an hour’s buggy-hunting was nine quails, three pigeons, and two rabbits.

II.

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA IN WINTER.

A COLLAPSED “BOOM”—LOS ANGELES TO-DAY—PROSPECTS FOR IMMIGRANTS—POULTRY AND CATTLE—FIVE SOURCES OF WATER FOR IRRIGATION—WINDMILLS, AND TUNNELS UNDER RIVER BEDS.

In 1887 all the hotels in Los Angeles were overcrowded, the post-office almost unable to get through with its business, the city growing like an asparagus stalk after an April shower, and the demand for labor so great that the workmen could practically dictate their own terms. The smaller towns and would-be towns had also caught the infection, and were building huge hotels, cement sidewalks, and street-car lines; not because it was supposed that towns of two thousand inhabitants needed such things, but in order to be able to advertise in the Eastern papers and in real-estate circulars that the place had street-car lines, cement sidewalks, and hotels “with all the modern conveniences.” Each town printed a special illustrated pamphlet in which its unique attractions, as compared with all rivals, were set forth, culminating in the claim that its township was the “Italy of America” or of the West; while San Diego brought matters to a climax by styling itself “the Italy of Southern California.”

In 1889, when I made my second visit to Los Angeles County, I found everywhere evidences that the boom had collapsed. The street-car lines in the small towns barely paid expenses, though it was regarded as an act of local patriotism to ride on them; and the cement sidewalks, which had been prolonged far into the fields, had failed to charm into existence the rows of houses that had been looked for. In the metropolis itself, workmen were grumbling at insufficient employment, merchants clamored that their rents were fifty per cent too high, many store windows were pasted with closing-out notices, real-estate offices were no longer as abundant as saloons, and the bookstores, more wretchedly supplied than those of any town of ten thousand inhabitants in the United States, were even selling the twenty-cent paper novels at “cut rates.” The newspapers of Northern California, of Oregon, Washington, and other Western States as far east as Kansas, which had long been jealous of the prosperity of Southern California, and desired a boom of their own, crowed loudly over the “busted boom” of Los Angeles, while the papers of that city, no longer compelled by the pressure of real-estate advertisements to add two or four extra pages to their issues, had daily elaborate editorials to disprove the allegations of their envious rivals.

An unprejudiced observer, interested only in the climate and the scenery, and not in the real estate, of Southern California, could not but admit, from the signs just noted, that these “envious rivals” were right in insisting that the boom had collapsed; but the inferences drawn from this fact, that Southern California had been overpraised, and that its road was to be down hill in the future, were absurd. Southern California cannot be overpraised, and, in my humble opinion, its prospects are brighter than those of any other portion of the United States. To a large extent the late boom was nothing but a huge gambling scheme, an epidemic of wild land-speculation, which carried along in its rush thousands of thoughtless victims, like the mad stampede for Oklahoma. Southern Californians knew better than others that the sudden rise in their land prices were artificially stimulated and would be followed by a reaction; but they were bound to make hay while the sun shone, and found to their delight that the sun shone longer in California than elsewhere, in the metaphorical sense as well as in reality. At last the storm came, and swept away many of the “tenderfeet,” or late comers, and their new buildings, whose débris is now lying about, so to speak, and is pointed at as a terrible warning and lesson; but the only lesson it does teach is that people should avoid real-estate gambling. The fragments of the ruins will soon be cleared away, and then it will be found that, although many individuals have suffered during the storm, the State as a whole has been benefited by it.

In many cases the large, useless hotels built in the small towns have already been secured at a bargain for school buildings, and in the larger cities many public works have been provided which, without the artificial stimulus of the boom, would have been postponed to the indefinite future; as, for instance, the long flume, costing almost a million of dollars, which now provides San Diego and vicinity with abundant pure water, and will do more to develop the resources of the county than the discovery of several gold mines. Los Angeles made the great mistake of not building a sewer to the sea during flush times, and now suffers under the disadvantage of vitiated air, which, if not remedied, will destroy its reputation as a health resort.

In other respects, Los Angeles is already recovering from the effects of the collapse. Fine new buildings are again going up, the streets are always animated, and the cable-car tracks have been lately prolonged into the picturesque hilly region behind the city, which affords the finest imaginable sites for suburban cottages, with superb views of the mountains, and a glimpse of the Pacific Ocean, fourteen miles away. Though founded in 1781, Los Angeles had less than five thousand inhabitants in 1860, and only thirteen thousand in 1880, while to-day it has sixty thousand or more. Thirteen years ago no railroad connected it with other parts of the world, while to-day it is one of the greatest railroad centres in the West. And as it still remains, what it always was, unsurpassed by any city in the world for climatic and scenic advantages, it has every reason to look forward to a prosperous and brilliant future.

Southern California includes five counties,—Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, Ventura, San Bernardino, and San Diego,—embracing, as General N. A. Miles points out, “a territory nearly the size of the State of New York, and with natural resources of ten times its value.” This seems a big statement, but its truth can be realized, without the use of figures, by considering that these five counties are capable of supplying the United States with all the figs, raisins, prunes, wine, olives and olive oil, oranges, lemons, nuts, and canned fruits that are now imported from France, Italy, and Spain; most of them, with proper care, equal in quality if not superior to the imported articles. Although large quantities of all these fruits are already raised, they are a mere trifle compared with what the soil is capable of yielding to a larger population. It has been proved over and over again that ten to twenty acres of good irrigable land are all that is needed to support a family, and there is therefore room for hundreds of thousands of immigrants. However, it is candidly admitted that Southern California is a land of more promise to the farmer who has at his disposal a capital of a few thousand dollars than to the emigrant who brings with him little but a team and a pair of muscular arms; for improved land, with bearing vines and fruit trees, costs from one hundred to five hundred dollars an acre, while unimproved land, though it may be had for one-fifth those prices (twenty to one hundred dollars), yields no return for several years, unless grain is raised; for all of the semi-tropical fruits above named require from three or four to ten years before a profitable crop is yielded.

And yet personal observation has led me to believe that there are special opportunities in this region precisely for the farmer with limited means, if he is willing to curb his ambition and content himself with dairy farming and the raising of poultry on a large scale for the market. The farmers now settled in Southern California are so ambitious to become orange, olive, or vineyard kings that they entirely neglect the farmyard, and have hardly enough milk and butter and vegetables for home consumption. It is almost impossible in any part of Southern California to get a good piece of beef or mutton, and chickens are imported by the carload from Kansas and other “Eastern” States, and sold at absurdly high prices at Los Angeles, although in this mild climate it is easy to raise chickens all the year round, and I have myself seen splendid broods of young ones grow up in about half the time they need in the East to reach a marketable size, the simple precaution being taken of providing them with dry housing during rainy nights. If this is not done, their growth is remarkably retarded, and many of them become diseased, and, if not killed or isolated, will infect a whole yardful of poultry.

Cattle-raising, too, must prove profitable in a region where the animals can feed on the green foothills and valleys all the “winter,” and in summer eat the sun-dried grass or clover which covers the whole country. The wild, clover-like alfileria, which furnishes most of this natural hay, grows in profusion along the roadsides and in the meadows, and even fills up the empty patches in the cactus fields. After the spring rains it attains a height of ten to fifteen inches, with a dozen plants to the square inch, and is so juicy and tender that one can mow it down with a cane or with the hands; and a week later it is as high as if it had never been cut. It looks so luscious and sweet as to almost make one long to be a cow or a sheep, in order to be really “in clover” for once. Again, the cultivated clover, or Chilian alfalfa, if sufficiently irrigated, yields half-a-dozen or more crops of hay a year, which makes the sweetest butter and meat in the world. Yet the Southern Californians, as I have just said, import most of their butter and meat; consequently, if some farmers should undertake to supply the local market with homemade products, fresher and cheaper, because with no freight charges on them, they would have a sure source of prosperity before them. It is probable that the drought of 1863–64 discouraged the cattle business; but there has been none since that time, and with the present railway facilities and a reasonable foresight in storing hay, no disaster need be feared in the future. Moreover, one of the best and cheapest kinds of cattle food, pumpkins, as large as beer-barrels, can be raised here by the thousand with hardly any trouble or expense. Sometimes they lie in a field so densely that one might walk over it without touching the ground; and I saw several fields in which hundreds of fine pumpkins, for which the farmers had no use, owing to the scarcity of cattle, were left to rot on the ground.

Before purchasing land in California of the South, it is well that the investor should have made up his mind in regard to what branch of agriculture he wishes to devote himself. For although it is one of the chief advantages of this soil that it can be made to produce most of the fruits of the temperate and semi-tropical, and some of the tropical zones, yet each township or locality has its special adaptedness for this or that product, and to ignore this is to labor under disadvantages. Thus, Riverside and vicinity have been found most favorable to the culture of the orange, because the destructive scale-bug does not flourish here as it does nearer to the coast. Of lemons, the finest specimens are grown near the Mexican border, in San Diego County, which also furnishes some of the best raisins and olives. Santa Barbara County yields the finest pampas plumes and the best walnuts, and Los Angeles County is still the wine centre of the South, notwithstanding the ravages of the mysterious vine disease. The conclusion, too, is being gradually reached that for vineyards the foothills are the best localities, since in Europe all the best vines are raised on the hill-sides. Plants of a distinctly tropical type, also, like tea, bananas, etc., might perhaps be successfully raised on the lower foothills, which have an immunity from the light frost that occasionally, in winter and spring, visits the lowlands near the ocean. And besides these facts, it is well to know that in the same locality the soil often presents great differences, so that in a twenty-acre field one-half may be well adapted for the orange or olive, while the other half needs a different crop. Above all things, “tenderfeet” should beware of buying land immediately after the spring rains; for then the whole face of the country is covered with a rich carpet of grass and flowers, so that it is difficult to distinguish the good land from the sand-bottomed site of a former river bed, useless for anything but cactus.

Finally comes the most important of all questions,—the facilities for irrigation. Grain, if sown in winter or early spring, ordinarily needs only the regular rains of the season to reach maturity, and there are localities where many other crops can be raised without irrigation; but these are the exception, and as a general thing the semi-tropical fruits which constitute the specialty of Southern California, need water for profitable culture. So well is this now understood that it is a favorite joke of the natives to say that if you pay for the air and water, they will throw in the land gratis.

FRUIT FARM IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA.

Fortunately there are no fewer than six sources from which crops are supplied with water, if we include rain. For small vegetable or flower gardens sufficient water can be raised by means of windmills, which are kept in brisk motion every afternoon by the sea-breeze in the whole region within twenty or thirty miles of the ocean, except during two or three of the “rainy months,” when they are not needed. These mills also supply the kitchen, and it is curious to note how cold the water remains in the large tanks exposed all day long to a semi-tropical sun. Much of the water used in town and orchard is supplied by artesian wells, which, however, occur only in certain belts, especially in Los Angeles and San Bernardino Counties, although none of these, I believe, equal one dug in Sonoma County last winter, which is one hundred and fifteen feet deep, cost only two hundred dollars, and yields almost half a million gallons every day.

Rivers of the size of the Sacramento, or those of Oregon, Southern California has none, but there are some smaller rivers and a large number of creeks, fed by the mountain snows, which are tapped in two ways for irrigating purposes,—on the surface and below the bed. The surface water is often carried many miles in ditches; and wise is the community which lines its ditch at once with cement, else in summer it loses almost two-thirds of its water supply by absorption on the way. The Santa Ana River, which is quite a respectable stream in winter, and after rains becomes a formidable torrent, liable to overflow its banks and change its channel (thereby causing boundary disputes), is in summer tapped so freely that its bed becomes dry, and not a drop reaches the ocean.

Much more curious than this surface tapping, however, is the tunnelling, by means of which the water which has buried itself beneath the sandy river bed, as if to escape the merciless pillaging of the hot sun and the greedy farmers, is brought to the surface again and utilized. It is in this way that the Santa Ana River is despoiled of its last drop, and the value of this procedure may be estimated from the statement made by the San Bernardino Times, that “the Ontario Land Company has driven a tunnel in under San Antonio Creek, a distance of nearly eighteen hundred feet, at a cost of about fifty-two thousand dollars, and they have about two hundred and fifty inches of water, worth a quarter of a million of dollars.” As it hardly ever rains during the summer, all the water thus drawn off the rivers in the irrigating season comes from the springs and the melting snows in the mountains. This is just about sufficient for the present needs of the population; but no fears need be entertained for the future, since, as the rural population increases, it will become profitable to expend large sums in building reservoirs in the cañons to store the abundant winter water which now runs to waste in the ocean. In this way the mountains can be made to yield an absolutely unlimited amount of water, sufficient to support tens of millions; and the lesson taught by the Johnstown disaster will prevent the dams from being carelessly constructed.

III.

THE GREAT AMERICAN PARADISE.

VALUE OF RESERVOIRS—WINTER IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA—FLOWERS AND SUNSHINE—WHERE RAIN MEANS “BETTER WEATHER”—DRY AIR AND SEA-BREEZES—FOGS AND FROST—CALIFORNIA FOR INVALIDS AS COMPARED WITH ITALY, SPAIN, AND AFRICA—RURAL CITIES OF THE FUTURE—THE PACIFIC ANDALUSIA—SOME DISADVANTAGES—GOPHERS, DUST-STORMS, DROUGHT—ENEMIES OF THE ORANGE AND VINE.

That there could be no better way of investing capital than by building reservoirs is shown by the fact, recently pointed out by the California State Board of Trade, that ten years ago the lands of Fresno sold at from three dollars to twenty dollars per acre, while now, with water on it, the same land sells at from seventy-five to seven hundred and fifty dollars per acre. Equally great is the gain from an æsthetic point of view. Without water, four-fifths of Southern California is a dreary cactus desert during the greater part of the year; with water, it is a veritable garden grove. Nothing could be more delightful than to watch the effect of water in this magic climate, when the first rains fall in October or November. Up to that period everything except the irrigated garden and orchard oases wears a parched yellow and brown aspect; but hardly has the rain penetrated a few inches into the soil, when the grass turns green, and before the eye has become accustomed to the change, gaudy flowers, gradually increasing in variety and abundance, spring up on all sides, even on land which appeared to be pure sand, but which on closer examination proves to be rich in decomposed vegetable matter. The irrigated gardens have an abundance of choice flowers all the year round, and the garden of the house where I lived, though without the slightest pretensions, had in full bloom, in January, petunias, calla lilies, violets, honeysuckles, geraniums (six feet in height), stock, California poppy, hyacinths, smilax, heliotropes, nasturtiums, red, white, yellow, and green roses, etc. In February a frost nipped the leaves of the bananas, heliotropes, and nasturtiums, but in a few days they were out again; and of the three or four subsequent frosts none was heavy enough to injure them, while the other flowers mentioned grew uninjured all the “winter.” This was at Anaheim, twelve miles from the sea and twenty-eight miles south of Los Angeles, and gives a better idea of the climate than columns of statistics. Nor was it an exceptional year; for there are orange-trees in the State over eighty years old, and at the San Fernando Rey Mission olive-trees over a hundred years old, proving that in all this period there has been no frost sufficiently severe or prolonged to injure these sensitive trees. In 1880 a little snow fell in Los Angeles County—just enough to astonish the young folks, who had never before seen any; nor have they seen any since. The only time when ice ever forms (never more than a quarter of an inch in thickness) is immediately before sunrise, and hardly has the sun risen above the horizon when it disappears again.