266 Beyond (he Sierras. 



ensconced. Here, agiin, liowever, as the horticultural pilgrims lind to their 

 grief, the nuulof the streets is quite intolerable. It has arisen and overfl >wed 

 the crossings, and the word loblolly is again in requisition to describe it. Sin 

 J 1)8^ apologized ronmlly for this condition of atlairi^. It was her rainy sea- 

 son, she .siiid : and not once in years were the .skirls of her girments so be- 

 draggled and soiled. She was sorry. If she could have foreseen it she would 

 have had a force at work to clean the crossings. All this, however, passed 

 in a day or two, and the streets became first passable and then dry and neat. 



Here, then, is the first terminus of our pilgrimage to the Pacific coast. 

 San Jos^ is a beautiful city. Here about us are a few traces of the old Spanish 

 civilization which was planted in these lovely valleys before the coming of 

 the man who speaks English; but these remnants and traces of the ancient 

 regime are rapidly passing away. That project of Louis N.ipoleon to restore, 

 as he said, the equilibrium of the Latin races in the new world has ended 

 in thin smoke. The Spanish element in all the western slope of the United 

 States is subsiding. Like the adobe walls of the old mission houses which the 

 padres aforetime reared, with infinite labor, in this region, this southern 

 stock is crumbling down, and will soon be mingled with the soil. It may 

 interest the reader to know what he would easily infer to be true, namely, 

 that the Hispanio-Mexican population in California is most thickly distrib- 

 uted nearest the southern limits of the Slate. As you journey to the north- 

 ward the distribution, especially away from the coast, grows thinner and 

 thinner, even to nothing. In the vicinity of San Diego from 25 to 30 per 

 cent, of the population is still of Mexican blood. As far up as Los Angeles 

 nearly 20 per cent, of the people are of this stock; but with the latitude 

 of San Francisco it falls off to less than one-half of this proportion. Mean- 

 while, however, the Oriental has rushed into the place of the Spaniard— that 

 is, the Mexican Spaniard. It was a bad swap in most respects, but in other 

 points of view I am not sure that civilization has been injured by the ex- 

 change. Whatever may be said of the Chinaman in other respects, he is at 

 least industrious and frugal. 



On the morning of the 24th the first session of the American Horti- 

 cultural Society for 1888 was opened in the auditorium of the Baptist taber- 

 nacle. Everything had been arranged for the comfort and convenience of 

 our meetings. It had been one of the misfortunes of our excursion to Cali- 

 fornia thai the distinguished President of the Society, Mr. P.irker Eirle, of 

 Cobden, 111., had not been with us on the journey. He had, however, in due 

 time, arrived at San Jos^ on an excursion of his own, and w.is in his place at 

 the opening of the session. 



It is not the business of this general sketch of what we saw and heard and 

 imagined while on the Pacific coast to enter into the details of the horticult- 

 ural meetings held at San Jos^ and Riverside. These details, of course, con- 

 stitute the subject-matter of the interesting vo'ume to which the present 

 sketch is only an addendum, or afterpiece. This is what the old playwrights 

 used to call an epilogue— a piece to be spoken afterward, or omitted alto- 



