IX

Los Angeles.--Our Beautiful Anchorage.--First Impressions.--Sunday

Morning in a Garden.--St. Paul's Church.--Pasadena.--The Diva's Car.

--Journeying to San Diego.--First View of the Pacific.

We reached Los Angeles at nightfall, and it was a fitting entrance to

that enchanted spot. Through the shadows, as we approached, we caught

glimpses of the beauties that awaited us when light should dawn.

The station was bright and cheerful, and the anchorage for our car was

in a delightsome spot, withdrawn in a garden from the noise and

confusion so inevitable in the regions of the iron horse. Night as it

was, we made a little tour of inspection ere turning in for sleep.

Emerging from the depot, the first thing that confronted us was a giant

palm, towering up in the darkness of the night, yet glowing with

electric light, which brought out its tropical foliage splendidly. Its

graceful and splendid form made a beautiful initial letter to the

bewitching chapter which Los Angeles presented for our future

inspection.

Sunday morning came to us in our smiling garden like a benediction. The

place was small in itself, but so well laid out that it had the full

effect of spaciousness. It was glowing with roses, pansies, stocks, and

any number of other flowers. A gorgeous bordering of a species of ice

plant with splendid magenta blooms was especially effective. All this

profusion was accented by beautiful trees--the pepper-tree, the red

gum, and several species of palm. There was also near by a collection

of Arizona plants in all their grotesque shapes, and a most interesting

group of hieroglyphic rocks brought from some mountain place, having on

them prehistoric inscriptions of lines and rude figures, suggesting the

Ogham records found in Ireland and other parts of Europe, usually

attributed to most primitive times.

It was my privilege to assist at the service at St. Paul's Church,

where the Bishop of Los Angeles preached. The unwinterish conditions of

this climate were well suggested by the out-of-door passage of choir

and clergy from the choir-room to the church. The service was well

rendered by a choir of men and boys. In the evening it was my lot to

preach. It was delightful to join in the worship of the Church, and to

be as much at home among brethren on the shores of the Pacific as if we

were thousands of miles away, on the other side of the continent, near

another sea. We spent our next day at Los Angeles and neighborhood in

democratic fashion, going by street and electric cars in various

directions. We went out to Pasadena, where a Chicago friend gave us a

pressing invitation to stay over and visit his villa built on the old

Spanish model. His kind hospitality, so hearty and unexpected, we could

not accept. We had, like most tourists, to press on. Now California, of

all places, is a region to tarry in. It is too huge, too complicated,

too strange to be done in a flying visit, although a flying visit is

well worth having. The clear atmosphere makes you imagine you could

take an easy stroll over to the mountains, but a day would not suffice

to reach them. You think you have exhausted some place or other, but

you find that you have only skimmed over the surface.

We left Los Angeles with regret in the afternoon of our third day

there. We were sorry to leave our pretty garden anchorage, where we had

for a near neighbor the distinguished Madam Melba, travelling on a

concert tour in her private car. The diva had quite a suite in

attendance. The only music that we heard from its sacred interior was

from her colored _chef_, who, while his mistress was on the concert

stage, made the garden, where we were wandering about in the moonlight,

vocal with her piano and his by no means unmelodious voice. There was a

touch of the comic in this sentimental proceeding quite irresistible.

Our memory of Los Angeles and the whole _entourage_ of that garden

spot will always be a vision of palms and flowers, of beautiful homes

embowered in roses, of orange-trees in fruit and flower, and of a

far-extended city whose future must be as magnificent as its present is

beautiful.

We spent a delightful afternoon on our journey southward from Los

Angeles to San Diego and Coronado Beach. We passed through the

distinctive orange belt of Southern California, and the golden fruit

was in evidence on every hand. Oranges lay on the ground. The groves

were like gardens of the Hesperides with glittering yellow fruit for

all mankind. They were ready in trains side-tracked for transhipment

across the continent; they were in warehouses, where we could see

through the great open doors the busy packers at their work; they were

everywhere, until the eye almost tired of them, and the formal rows of

the orange groves, and the bare earth underneath always kept ploughed

up for advantage to the coveted crop. In other places we passed

enormous herds of cattle, fat and well liking, giving one an idea of

the huge proportions of ranch life on this great Pacific Coast.

Our route brought us for the first time really close to the great ocean

which we had never seen. When one comes on the first view of any great

object there is always a thrill of expectancy. We had left the great

Atlantic behind us, and we were speeding on rapidly to the shores of

the Pacific. We knew that in a few moments it would burst upon our

sight, but just then a dense, soft, and chilling fog surrounded us. It

seemed a great disappointment to have such a hindrance to our sight

just at that time; but, it was all for the best, as we soon discovered;

for when we did see the mighty deep, nothing could be more sublime than

its veiled magnificence. There was a fog, it was true, but it was a

vast veil of pearl-tinted tissue, and out of it rolled the huge

breakers, like giants at play, whose locks were white as wool, and

their great pale arms entwined in majestic sport.

We were passing on high bluffs close to the shore. The curious and

precipitous clay banks were worn into fantastic shapes. Here and there

we could see, far down, fishermen's huts and settlements, and

occasional villages. Oil wells, also, with their hideous cranes and

well machinery closely jostled together in eager greed, offended our

sense of the picturesque, with their uncompromising utility; but on and

beyond all was the mighty deep, muffled by the mist, and looking more

mysterious and magnificent with its great dashing breakers than if we

were viewing it under the light of the brightest day.

With the attendant symphony of this deep shrouded sea, we reached San

Diego.

X

San Diego.--The Bathing-House.--Alarming Disappearance.--The Mystery

Solved.--Carriage Drive to Mission Cliffs.--Coronado Beach.--The

Museum.--The Hotel.--High Fog.

Our ride of four hours from Los Angeles to San Diego was rather warm,

and after our arrival we cared to do little more than lounge about the

station in the evening. Near by was a most inviting bathing-house,

beautifully fitted up with all sorts of appliances for comfort, not the

least of these being a superb swimming-pool, whose tempered waters were

sending to us insinuating invitations to take a good plunge and enjoy

the charms of their dark, silent depths. It was too soon after eating,

and we put it all off until next day.

When we men folk returned to our car from the adjacent bath-house, a

feeling of gloom and melancholy settled down upon us. The "Lucania" was

silent and lonely, save for the servants. Not another soul was visible.

The ladies had all disappeared!

Here was an alarming state of affairs. Those who had wives, were as

though they had them not, and those who had not wives, were as though

they had. We were all alike disturbed and miserable at the unaccountable

absence of our better halves. What had become of them? We seemed to be

quite on the outskirts of San Diego. The wide streets, stretching away

in darkness, looked terrible and forbidding. Who could tell what

desperado might not have made away with them? It would be a mere matter

of a sudden stoop down from a horse, perhaps, a seizure by a pair of

strong arms, a wild ride over the boundless plain, and misery would

settle down upon us as another mysterious disappearance had to be

recorded, and remain possibly forever unexplained. We called a council

of war, so to speak. We determined to investigate, and boldly plunged

into the unknown town in search of our lost ones. Every man we met had

the possibilities in him, to our excited imaginations, of a double-dyed

cut-throat; every saloon was a gate of Hades; but we bravely pushed on.

We found ourselves soon in rather an attractive street. Shops were gay

with life. The ever-present electric lamps gave us their cold glitter

and their fantastic shadows, until at last, joyful sight, we saw all

our ladies shopping to their hearts' content in a Chinese curio shop,

where a great, bland, round-faced Chinaman, like a six-foot baby, was

all smiles and attention to the purchasing crowd. We joined them as if

nothing had happened, and remained with them until we saw them safe

back. All the preceding is summed up in one of the ladies' diaries

briefly thus: "We arrived at San Diego at 6 P.M. After tea the ladies

of the party started out to _see the town_, visited two curio shops,

and went back to the car before nine, and received a very severe

scolding for going off by ourselves." The italics in the above are

mine.

I think the ladies served us right, for we should have awaited their

pleasure; but who could have dreamed that they wanted to do anything

more than rest after their fatiguing ride?

The comical side of the whole thing is this: that our ladies, in their

little independent cruise in San Diego, were as safe as if they were in

any Eastern village. San Diego is, in fact, a typical American town of

the better class, nurtured by Boston capital, so largely invested in

stock of the Santa Fe Railroad, whose western terminus is at San Diego,

which is also peopled by New Englanders, who have duly brought with

them to the Pacific Slope, a full and perennial supply of their steady

habits.

In our one full day in San Diego we saw much to interest us. A carriage

drive took some of us over Mission Cliffs, others went round in the

great, double-decked tram cars, and all took in the vast extent of San

Diego, as it lies on a huge, sloping shelf over the Pacific, giving

constant prospects of the mountains and the sea. We also visited

Coronado, the city so called, the beach, and the hotel. The city, on

the great peninsula between San Diego Bay, a beautiful expanse of

water, and the great ocean beyond, has, of course, what every Western

effort has--a future.

The beach, where the great rollers of the Pacific dash in, was

magnificent; but one cannot safely bathe thereon. The water is

heroically cold, and the surf too fierce and heavy for ordinary

mortals. The sea water, warmed, tamed, and confined in a bath-house, is

what is safest to take.

I quite sympathized with one of our ladies who declared to me that she

was never more disappointed in her life than with the beach at

Coronado. "Why," said she, "I thought I could gather shells and

sea-weed, and pick pretty pebbles; but there is nothing." Well, she was

right in a sense. Perhaps it was because that particular spot was

harried over and over by visitors _a la_ Coney Island, so that it

was bare of all those curious things "cast up by the sea;" or perhaps

it was that the huge surf constantly tumbling in raises the sand

perpetually, and buries all objects, whatever they may be, rapidly out

of sight.

One of our party, who wished to improve the occasion and also give me a

treat, paid fifty cents a piece for himself and myself to gain

admission to a museum on the beach, said to be a wonderful collection

of interesting things in natural history.

I noticed rather a startled look upon the lady caretaker's face as the

money was paid. I may here say we found the doors open and a sign at

the entrance giving price of admission. We might have pushed in without

the formality of a cash payment, but the dignity of our cloth forbade.

My friend really made an effort to summon the caretaker from some inner

recess. She took our money--his money, I should say--with a startled

air, and we entered.

Well, the less said the better about that museum. No wonder that our

payment to get in was startling. We who had seen Kensington, the

Crystal Palace at Sydenham, the British Museum, the World's Fair, and

about one hundred and twenty years of life between us, were greeted

with shabby plaster reproductions of this, that, and the other; with

jute-haired, manufactured monsters and other absurdities; the only

thing that really commanded our respect being an American coon

tolerably well stuffed and set up. We left disgusted. My reflection to

my friend was that in such localities the best things were always "free

shows," as I pointed out to the boundless Pacific; the hard, firm sand

of the beach; and

"The white arms out in the breakers, tirelessly tossing."

But the melancholy of the museum had yet an outside chapter, for there

were cages of wild beasts--miserable captives--and some wretched

monkeys, whose capacity for the pathetic grief which was stamped upon

their poor faces, turned one's thoughts inward to the tragedy of all

life.

The hotel was one of the many "largest hotels in the world," and is

really a wonderful place. The great interior court, with glass roof

covering in a collection of tropical trees and plants, was all a thing

of beauty. Into this magic place quite a number of rooms opened. The

dining-room, the ballroom, the verandas, the sun-parlors, the public

rooms--all were vast, grandiose, and what one might say "perfectly

splendid." I pity the taste of any one who could stand all this

splendor, with its crowds of people, for any length of time. It seemed

rather deserted when we were there; too late for one season, too early

for another. This, and a certain shabby want of repair here and there,

made the place seem somewhat sad. It is no easy matter to keep up a

show place of such huge extent, with the hungry air of the great

Pacific ever whetting its teeth upon every atom of its vast and

profusely ornamented surface.

While at San Diego, we noticed a weird effect common on the Pacific

Coast, resulting from certain curious atmospheric conditions. The

heavens at times are hung with a great veil of what is called "high

fog." This bank of vapor shuts out all the upper sky. Between it and

the earth is a stratum of hot, dry air, down through which the

collected moisture above can never descend. It has to float off to the

distant mountains. It has to be caught by their rocky arms, and turned

into rain or snow, and then descend as rivers to the dry and dusty

plains beneath.

When we were starting out on our carriage ride in the morning, as I

noticed this lowering mass of vapor above us, I asked the driver if it

was going to rain. "Lord," said he, with an amused and bored shrug, "it

will not rain here until next November!" It must have a queer effect

upon people to be constantly held in the vise of such inevitable and

square-cut atmospheric influences as these.