To the Base of Shasta. 289 



Feather river, .it a distance, as the crow flies, of four hundred miles 

 from Los Angeles, and over live hundred miles from San Diego, the 

 orange trees, and even the lemon trees, growing in the open yards were 

 laden with fruit, as in the far south, and that the evidences of the winter's 

 f rose were scarcely more distinctly seen on the leaves and branches here 

 than on those at Santa Ana and Riverside. A strange climate is this. You 

 can not generalize about it at all. The climate of every little district is 

 its own. It is astonishing to find away inland little whorls among the 

 mountains and patches of valley so situated as to receive the warm breath 

 of the far Pacific and to feel the genial caresses of that influence the 

 year around. I say you can not generalize about anything in California. 

 Everything is local and peculiar. Each district is a study. The very 

 mountains are personal. Each river has its caprices and individuality. 

 One of our company frankly and fully summarized the whole business 

 by saying, " This country beats the dickens." That is true, my friends. 

 Whatever that great philosophical fact called the dickens may be, it is, I 

 think, the precise term with which to define the climate of California; and 

 I am obliged to the genius who first made the application. 



Meanwhile, we are bowling along through this somewhat broken but 

 very beautiful country around the town of Oroville. We have a drive of 

 two and a-half hours. We see the young city with its orange trees in the 

 yards and orchards. To tell the truth, however, we had now become so 

 much accustomed to this thing that it had somewhat palled on our senses ; 

 and we were delighted when our cavalcade drove into the great gold-mining 

 plateau northwest of the town. Here every faculty was keenly awake, and 

 our people quickly jumped from the carriages to inspect the field where the 

 great hydraulic engines had done their work and then disappeared after 

 their battle with the riparians on the banks of the Sacramento. 



The scene was really wonderful. Yonder are the mountain-sides against 

 which the tremendous torrents of water had been directed ; and here, over a 

 vast area almost level, are spread the bowlder wrecks of the devastation. 

 Here are sections of the old sluices down which the torrent rushed. They are 

 still filled with running water, but it is now directed to the distant fields and 

 orchards, where its fertilizing power is to be manifest in fruits and flowers. 

 Turning again to the city, we see in the distance, to the right, the little 

 town of Thermalita, recently platted, and already claiming its place as a 

 flourishing young community. At Oroville we did not banquet, for the 

 reason that the Southern Pacific had kindly provided otherwise. Certain 

 it is that the city could have fed us, and then taken up twelve hundred 

 baskets-full of fragments. 



The town of Oroville is on a branch line of the railway leading from 

 Sacramento to Redding. Ic is the present terminus of that line. After 

 leaving the place we returned at once to Marysville, where we were received 

 in the usual way and were banqueted with the usual profusion. Here again 

 the abundance of wines was noticeable at the festival. It is needless to re- 



