From Yuma to Los Angeles. 255 



The return to Los Angeles on the afternoon of the 19th gave us oppor- 

 tunity to see the country by daylight. There was much variety of scenery. 

 Here and there a hamlet or small town, httle valleys with considerable ele- 

 vations in the distance, recurring orange orchards and farmers' ranches. 

 On arriving at the city we availed ourselves of the remaining day to visit its 

 places of principal interest, and to drive through some of the beautiful 

 suburbs. This was our first contact with the real city life on the Pacific 

 coast. The aspect of everything is sufficiently ditterent from what we should 

 meet in the Middle or Eastern States. It was our misfortune to reach Los 

 Angeles at a time when excessive rains had reduced everything to a loblolly. 

 The streets fairly sloshed with their currents of mud. The sidewalks, how- 

 ever, are good ; and little does the Queen of the Angels care for such a trifle 

 as mud. Of all the cities built by men, none has had a better opinion of 

 herself than this Los Angeles; and not often, I beUeve, has the opinion been 

 founded on better reasons. Perhaps the city has already reached a popu- 

 lation of 65,000. Her census is increasing at the rate of about 1,200a month. 

 She believes in herself and in her future. She goes with a rush. Here on 

 this principal street the throng is as great as on Fourth street in Cincinnati. 

 A regular funeral procession of hurrying citizens is on either side; and as 

 for business, the roar is like that of an incipient Babylon. She has her ex- 

 travagances, too. She has staked out all the circumjacent country and named 

 her streets and numbered her lots for miles away. She has put up the 

 price of these properties until the mention of the figures on a corner lot 

 would strike a millionaire with hiccough. 



The people talk of cutting California in twain about the midriff, making 

 a southern State withal. Of this, Los Angeles is to be the capital and glory. 

 She is going to do for herself, moreover, what nature has failed to do, that 

 is, scoop out a harbor down yonder on the Pacific, twelve miles away. No 

 matter what it costs, she will have a harbor. She will make one as good as 

 that of San Diego; and then, like ancient Athens, she will have a kind of 

 Pirreus and a Boulevard des Nations leading up to the metropolis. The fact 

 is that what Los Angeles has not dreamed of doing, and imagined herself 

 capable of doing, is inconceivable. The average visitor, as he scrutinizes all 

 this business, at first makes up his mind that all these booming schemes will, 

 one of these days, ^plit like a balloon, and that the fellows careening in the 

 basket below will find the earth by a sudden and accelerated descent. Da- 

 rius Green decided that flying was easy and delightful, but that the critical 

 point was when you came to alight. It is due to say, however, as it respects 

 this Queen of the Angels, that she has $15,000,000 on deposit in her banks, 

 and that she considers her present swell no more than a premonitory 

 symptom of the bigness of her destiny. The resources of this beautiful 

 valley of San Gabriel may, perhaps, justify her confidence and fulfill her 

 dreams. 



As we were not going to leave the city until midnight, many of the ex- 

 cursionists spent the evening as they would in seeing the sights. As tl:e 



