Home of the Mountain Lion 



many directions a richly wooded country that will tempt 

 the mountain lover on into other delightful regions. 

 All these places, particularly Fredalba, have summer 

 camps and the amateur mountaineer can climb the 

 range with ease, and have the comforts of civilisation; 

 but recognising mountain climbing as a gentle pastime, 

 I have in mind the lover of nature who would steal 

 away from the roar of great cities and seek the 

 solitude of the great silences of these mountains. I 

 recall a friend who prefers to be alone in the 

 mountains, who can be met in out-of-the-way places, 

 generally unarmed, with a pack burro and simple out- 

 fit ; sleeping where the fancy takes him beneath the 

 trees. Others ride to the great upland mesas on the 

 mountains in their own carriages or on horses, carrying 

 the outfit. The mountains of Southern California are 

 not often inviting to observers in the valleys ; their 

 south slopes have often been burnt over, are bare, 

 rocky, forbidding ; but the keen-eyed mountain lover 

 will see a fringe of trees on the lofty divides that are 

 mighty trunks. He will note the deep, blue cafions, 

 and once in their portals and over the divide on the 

 north and on well-wooded slopes, he will have discov- 

 ered the charm of Southern California woodlands. 

 Once the lower country was well wooded; the valleys 

 abounded in oak forests; but vandal hands have cut 

 them down, and the eucalyptus and other trees that 

 grow rapidly have been planted by the new-comers. 

 In the canons we shall find tall and picturesque syca- 



