A Rainbow in the Sierra Madre 85 



of Redlands, and so on, while a coast range, with Mount 

 Santiago as its Titan, skirts the coast within a few 

 miles of it far to the south. 



Indeed, Southern California is a maze of mountains 

 and its towns and villages are all on mountain slopes, or 

 in little valleys, shut in by vagrant ranges or mountain 

 spurs that seem to crop up and to extend in every 

 direction. The main range stands out clear and dis- 

 tinct, a wall of rock, often seemingly bare and barren, 

 facing the sea. It is cut and worn by the wear of 

 centuries, and while the first impression may be disap- 

 pointing, the possibilities of this barrier of stone, in 

 colour making, in grand and beautiful effects of light and 

 shade, are soon appreciated. The mountains seem to 

 be a mass of pyramids, and are cut by innumerable 

 canons that wind down from the summits, each having 

 countless branches. At irregular intervals, the caftons 

 open into the valleys and sweep on, like the Arroyo 

 Seco, almost to Los Angeles, ten miles distant ; cutting 

 a deep and well-wooded gulch, which tells of the force 

 of the winter floods that, beginning far back in the range, 

 come rushing down augmented by thousands of smaller 

 streams, and go whirling on to the distant sea. 



These canons are the gateways to the Sierra Madre, 

 and once within their rocky portals, all thoughts of bar- 

 ren mountains are dissipated, as they are natural parks, 

 filled with green bowers, sylvan glades, banks of fern, 

 the music of the rushing brooks, and the gentle rust- 

 ling of countless leaves; while the air is rich in the 



