*i56 Beyond the Sierra.f. 



hdurd passed ami the necessity came for getting to our coaches, we found 

 tlie rain pouring down, and as the eUition was at considerable distance, it 

 became a serious matter how we shouKi reach it. Part of the excursionists 

 got dolefully lost in the rayless streets of Chinatown; and some otherwise 

 dignitied gentlemen came to the train that night in such plight of mind and 

 person as they were never in before. Under .>-uch circumstances the warm 

 and gr;'nial apartments of a Pullman car at midnight are among the most 

 grateful refuges that a mad ami muddy wayfarer ever sought or found. For 

 the present, Oh, Queen of the Angels, au revoir. 



CHAPTER III. 



THE SAN .lOAc^flN VALLEY. 



Tilt" Mojave D'iert. — A Cdlifirnin Vdllfii. — Th»'. Sierras ami Coast Rang< . — 

 Tehacha'pi. — Feat uf Engineering.— The San Joaquin and the Sa/ranwniu. — 

 The Sijciety Mikes an Impression. — The Tulare Reception.— Sketches (f and 

 about the Citi/. — Products. — Temperature. — Fruit-Dniing, Natural and Arti- 

 ficial. — Invited to Fresno. — The Receptum There.. — Carriage Vifics of the 

 Environs. — Barton Viniyard. — The Vineijard Typical. — Off jor San Fran- 

 cisco. — View if the City. 



It was almo3t day-dawn on the morning of the '20th of January when 

 our pilgrims left Los Angeles behind tiiem and struck out through the 

 valley of S.in Fernando for the mountains. The reader must here examine 

 the map and note the course of the Southern Pacific Railway from the south 

 to Central California. He will observe that some thirty-live miles from Los 

 Angeles the railway strikes the mounUiin range, through which it makes its 

 pa-*sage down the northern slopes into the Mojave desert. The contrasts in 

 the forms and features of the landscape in this region are sufficiently strik- 

 ing and memorable. In emerging from the canon to the plain you find 

 yourself in a veriUvble desert. But here, as everywhere, the reader must be 

 on his guard with respect to the meaning of this word. Desert in Califor- 

 nia means simply a waterless plain. You must not think of sterility in this 

 connection except as superinduced by the lack of water. .Vs like as not 

 you are whirling along over a soil of infinite fertility and fifty feet in depth. 

 So it is, doubtless, in this Antelope valley, through which we pass after leav- 

 ing the mountains, and so, also, in the desert of the Mojave itself. But as 

 the case now stands this waste, much like some parts of Ariz aia, seems in- 

 capable of any production whatever. I have little doubt, however, that just 

 in proportion as the water sujiplies of yonder mountains are tapped and led 

 down in life-giving streams to this barren plain, the borders thereof at first, 

 and all parts afterward, will burst out blooming with all those things which 

 the senses of men desire and their appetites consume. 



