In the heart of San Francisco stands a tall, slender iron pillar, with a
bell hanging from its down-turned top, like a lily drooping on its
stalk. This bell is a northern guide post of the famous El Camino Real,
the old highway of the Spanish monks and monasteries on which still
stand the ruins of the ancient Mission churches and cloisters. We
purpose to drive south the entire length of the six hundred miles of El
Camino Real; and then turning northward to cross the mountain backbone
of the State of California, and to come up through the vast and fertile
stretches of its western valleys, meeting the Lincoln Highway at the
town of Stockton.
It is the morning of the 21st of April when we swing around the graceful
bell, run along Market Street to the Masonic Temple, turn left into
Mission Road, and from Mission Road come again into El Camino Real. We
first pass through the usual fringe of cheap houses, road saloons, and
small groceries that surrounds a great city. Then comes a group of the
city's cemeteries, "Cypress Grove," "Home of Peace," and others. We have
a bumpy road in leaving the city, followed by a fine stretch of smooth,
beautiful cement highway. On through rolling green country we drive, and
into the suburb of Burlingame with its vine covered and rose embowered
bungalows, and its houses of brown shingle and of stucco. The finer
places sit far back from the road in aristocratic privacy, with big,
grassy parks shaded by noble trees in front, and with the green
foothills as a background.
At San Mateo, a town with the usual shaven and parked immaculateness of
highclass suburbs, we have luncheon in a simple little pastry shop. The
woman who gaily serves us with excellent ham sandwiches, cake, and
coffee, tells us that she is from Alsace-Lorraine. She and her husband
have found their way to California. From San Mateo we drive to Palo
Alto, where we spend some time in visiting Leland Stanford University.
The University buildings of yellow sandstone with their warm red tiled
roofs look extremely well in the southern sun. Here are no hills and
inequalities. All the buildings stand on perfectly level ground, the
situation well suited to the long colonnades and the level lines of the
buildings themselves. It is worth the traveler's while to walk through
the long cloisters and to visit the rich and beautiful church, whose
restoration from the ravages of the earthquake is about completed. With
its tiling and mosaic work, its striking mottoes upon the walls, and its
fine windows, it is very like an Italian church.
The town of Palo Alto is a pretty little settlement, depending upon the
University for its life.
From Palo Alto we drive on into the Santa Clara Valley. We are too late
to see the fruit trees in bloom, a unique sight; but the valley
stretches before us in all its exquisite greenness and freshness after
the spring rains. Miles of fruit trees, as carefully pruned and weeded
and as orderly in every detail as a garden, are on every side of us.
Prune trees, cherry trees, and apricot trees; there are thousands of
them, in a most beautiful state of cultivation and fruitfulness. No
Easterner who has seen only the somewhat untidy and carelessly
cultivated orchards of the East can imagine the exquisite order and
detailed cultivation of the California fruit orchards. We saw miles of
such orchards always in the same perfect condition. Not a leaf, not a
branch, not a weed is left in these orchards. They are plowed and
harrowed, sprayed and pruned, down to the last corner of every orchard,
and the last branch of every tree.
Through the clean aisles, between the green rows, run the channels for
the precious water that has traveled from the mountains to the plains to
turn tens of thousands of acres into a fair and fruitful garden.
The Santa Clara Valley is one of the loveliest valleys of all
California, and indeed of all the world. Set amid its orchards are
tasteful houses and bungalows, commodious and architecturally pleasing;
very different from the box-like farmhouses of the Middle West and the
East. On either side rise high green hills. It is a picture of beauty
wherever one looks.
At Santa Clara, on our way to San Jose, we stop to see the Santa Clara
Mission, just at the edge of the town. All that remains of the first
Mission is enclosed within a wall, the new church and the flourishing
new school standing next to the enclosure.
In the middle of the valley is the city of San Jose, an active, bustling
town, full of life and business. We spent a pleasant day at the Hotel
Vendome, an old-fashioned and delightful hostel, surrounded by a park of
fine trees and flowering shrubs. The Vendome is a good place in which to
rest and bask in the sunshine.
When we next motor through the Santa Clara Valley, we shall visit the
New Almaden quicksilver mine, twelve miles from San Jose, and commanding
from its slopes a wondrous view of the valley and the Garden City, as
San Jose is called. And there is the interesting trip from San Jose to
Mt. Hamilton and the Lick Observatory. One can motor by a good road to
the summit of the mountain, 4,209 feet above sea level, and spend the
night at the hotel below on the mountain slope.
Leaving San Jose, we were more and more charmed with the valley as we
drove along through orderly orchards and past tasteful bungalows. This
was the California of laden orchards, of roses and climbing geraniums,
of green hills rising beyond the valleys, of which we had read. As we
approached the foot hills of the Santa Cruz Mountains we looked back
and saw the green valley with its ranks of trees unrolled below us.
Passing through the little town of Los Gatos (The Cats), we began to
climb. As we turned a curve on the winding mountain road, the green
expanses of the Happy Valley were lost to view. We were coming now into
the region of immense pine trees and of the coast redwoods, the Sequoia
sempervirens. The road was fair but very winding, requiring close
attention. We crossed singing brooks and passed wayside farms high in
the hills, with their little patches of orchard and grain. We saw a big
signboard indicating the two-mile road to the Montezuma Ranch School for
boys, and shortly after were at the top of the grade. Then came the
descent, the road still winding in and out among the forests. At the
Hotel de Redwood, a simple hostel for summer sojourners from the
valleys, we saw a magnificent clump of redwoods, around which had been
built a rustic seat. At the foot of the hill we turned left instead of
right, thus omitting from our itinerary the town of Santa Cruz and the
redwoods of the Big Basin. We hope to see this noble group of trees
sometime in the future. We took luncheon in a little cafe at
Watsonville. When I asked the young German waiter for steamed clams he
said, "Oh! you mean dem big fellers!" From Watsonville, a bright little
town, we drove on toward Salinas, making a detour which took us around
the town instead of directly through it. We were crossing the green
plains of the Salinas Valley, and before us rose the dark wooded heights
of the famous Monterey Peninsula. On through the town of Monterey to
Pacific Grove, a mile beyond, and we were soon resting in an ideal
bungalow watched over by two tall pines. What a memorable week we spent
at "Woodwardia"! A quarter of a mile to our right was the sea, whose
sound came up to us plainly on still nights. Less than a quarter of a
mile to our left were the forest and the beginning of the Seventeen Mile
Drive. We took the drive once and again, paying the seventy-five cent
entrance fee at the gate of the Pacific Improvement Company's domain,
thus becoming free to wander about in the great wooded territory of the
Peninsula. We took luncheon at the picturesque Pebble Lodge, where we
had soup served in shining abalone shells, and where the electric lights
were shaded by these shells. We halted in leisurely fashion along the
Drive to climb over the rocks and to scramble up the high dunes, with
their riot of flowering beach peas. They were ideal places to sit and
dream with the blue sea before one and the dark forest behind. We
photographed the wind-swept cypress trees, beaten and twisted into
witchlike shapes by the free Pacific breezes. We watched the seals,
lazily basking in the sun on the rocks off shore. We visited the
picturesque village of Carmel, where artists and writers consort. We
selected, under the spell of all this beauty, numerous sites for
bungalows on exquisite Carmel Bay, where one might enjoy forever and a
day the fascination of the sea and the spell of the pine forests.
We visited the Carmel Mission, now standing lonely and silent in the
midst of green fields. A few of the old pear trees planted by the
Mission fathers still maintain a gnarled and aged existence in an
orchard across the road from the church. The church is a simple
structure with an outside flight of adobe steps, such as one sees in
Italian houses, running up against the wall to the bell tower. At the
left of the altar are the graves of three priests, one being that of
Father Junipero Serra, the founder of many of the Missions, the devoted
Spanish priest and statesman who more than once walked the entire
length of six hundred miles along which his Missions were planted. A
wall pulpit stands out from the right wall of the church. The most
touching thing in the empty, dusty, neglected little place is a partly
obliterated Spanish inscription on the wall of the small room to the
left of the main body of the church. It is said to have been painted
there by Father Serra himself, and reads, being translated: "Oh, Heart
of Jesus, always shining and burning, illumine mine with Thy warmth and
light."
A memorable excursion was to Point Lobos beyond Carmel village, a rocky
promontory running out like a wedge-shaped plateau into the sea. One
approaches the sea across exquisite green, turfy spaces, shaded by pine
trees, to find the point of the wedge far above the water, cut by rocky
and awesome gashes into which the waves run with a long rush and against
whose walls they boom continually. The quiet woods of Point Lobos do not
prepare one for the magnificence of its outlook and the wonderful sight
of its great rocks rising ruggedly and precipitously far above the
water. I have seen the entire three hundred miles of the French and
Italian Riviera, having motored all along that enchanting coast; and I
am free to say that Point Lobos is as fine a bit of scenery as one will
find, not only on the Pacific Coast but along the Mediterranean shore.
Point Lobos was purchased a number of years ago by a Pacific Grove
gentleman who had an eye for its rare beauty and grandeur, and who has
built for himself a modest home on a green meadow at the entrance to the
promontory. A small admission fee is charged for the Point, largely to
exclude those who in former days, when the Point was free to
excursionists, abused this privilege.
The owner has established on a little cove a short distance from his
house an abalone canning factory. Here the Japanese and other divers
bring their boat loads of this delicious shellfish. Monterey Bay is the
home of the abalone and it has been so ruthlessly fished for that new
laws have had to be made to protect it. The big, soft creature, as large
as a tea plate, fastens itself to rocks and other surfaces, its one
shell protecting it from above. The diver slips under it his iron
spatula, and by a quick and skillful twist detaches it from its firm
anchorage. Abalone soup has a delicate flavor, really superior to clam
soup. Both the exterior and the lining of the abalone shell have most
exquisite coloring and are capable of a high polish. In the lining of
the shell there is often found the beautiful blister or abalone pearl,
formed by the same process as the oyster pearl, the animal throwing out
a secretion at the point where it is irritated. The result is a blister
on the smooth lining of the shell which when cut out and polished shows
beautiful coloring, ranging from satiny yellow to changing greens. We
spent an hour in wandering about the canning factory, looking over heaps
of cast-off shells, admiring their beautiful lining, and choosing some
to carry with us across country to a far distant home. That many of the
shells had had marketable blisters was shown by little squares cut in
the lining.
Another drive was that across Salinas Valley, through the bright and
prosperous town of Salinas, up the steep San Juan grade, where one may
eat luncheon on a green slope commanding a lovely view, and down into
the little old town of San Juan, where stands the mission of San Juan
Baptista, with its long cloisters still intact. Next to the Mission is
an open square which is said to have been the scene of bull fights in
the old Spanish days.
[Illustration: 1. Spanish Governor's House at San Juan. 2. San Juan
Batista Mission.]
A day was spent in driving over the Salinas road and the Rancho del
Monte road, on through a lovely valley, up over the mountain along a
shelf-like road, and down into Carmel Valley; then along another
mountain road by a stream, and up again to the lush meadows of a private
ranch twelve hundred feet above the sea. We left the car at the foot of
the hill and drove in a farm wagon to the ranch house. We visited the
vineyard on a sunny slope back of the house, so sheltered that grapes
grow by the ton. We climbed into heavy Mexican saddles, ornately
stamped, with high pommel and back, and rode astride sturdy horses over
steep rounding hills through thick grass to view points where we could
look down on Carmel Valley and off to the silvery sea. As we retraced
our journey in the afternoon sunlight, a bobcat came out from the forest
and trotted calmly ahead of us. A beautiful deer ran along the stream,
his ears moving with alarm, his eyes watching us with fear and wonder. A
great snake lay curled in the middle of the road and we ran over him
before we really saw him. He made a feeble attempt to coil, but the
heavy machine finished him. He was only a harmless ring snake, whose
good office it is to kill the gophers that destroy the fruit trees, so
we were sorry we had ended his useful career. He was the first of many
snakes that we killed in California. Sometimes they lay straight across
our road; sometimes they were stretched out in the ruts of the road and
our wheels went over them before we could possibly see them; sometimes
they made frantic efforts, often successful, to escape our machine; we
always gave them a fighting chance.
It seemed that we would never tear ourselves away from the Monterey
Peninsula. We wandered through the beautiful grounds of the Hotel del
Monte with their ancient live oaks. We walked and mused along the
streets of Monterey, where Robert Louis Stevenson once walked and mused.
We rejoiced in the sight of a lovely old Spanish house at the head of
Polk Street, carefully kept up by its present owner. We saw the Sherman
Rose cottage, the old home of Sherman's Spanish love, and the
Sherman-Halleck quarters, and the old Hall of Records. We stopped to
gaze at old adobe dwelling houses, some with thick walls roofed with
tile around their yards; some with second floor galleries, supported by
plain, slender wooden posts, roses clambering over them.
We visited the San Carlos Mission on the edge of the town. Unlike the
deserted little church at Carmel, San Carlos is in excellent repair,
perfectly kept and in constant use. There they show you some of the old
vestments said to be Father Serra's own. There you may see his silver
mass cards, with their Latin inscriptions engraved upon the upright
silver plate, reading: "In the beginning was the Word," etc. The same
beaten silver water bucket which Father Serra used for holy water is
to-day used by the incumbent priest. On the walls are the adoring angels
which Father Serra taught the Indians to paint. One of the special
treasures of the Mission is Father Serra's beautiful beaten gold
chalice, a consecrated vessel touched only by the priests. Back of the
church is kept as a precious possession the stump of the old oak tree
under which Father Serra celebrated his first mass and took possession
of California in the name of Spain. The spot where the oak tree stood,
on the highway between Monterey and Pacific Grove, is marked by a modest
stone just below Presidio Hill.
We browsed about the curio and gift shops of Monterey, and the
"Lame Duck's Exchange" of Pacific Grove. We saw Asilomar
(Retreat-by-the-Sea), the fine conference grounds of the Young Women's
Christian Associations of the Pacific Coast, whose commodious assembly
and living halls are the gift of Mrs. Phoebe Hearst. We learned the
delicious flavor, on many picnics, of the California ripe olive. One
might be dubious about the satisfying quality of Omar Khayam's bottle of
wine and loaf of bread "underneath the bough." But with the loaf of
bread and plenty of California olives one could be perfectly content. I
could have a feast of Lucullus any day in California on abalone soup,
with its delicate sea flavor, bread, and olives.