198 A CALIFORNIA TRAMP. 



gardens adorned with orange trees and vines. These 

 belonged to the better classes, and were roofed with tiles. A 

 rural, quiet air pervaded the suburbs, but in the business 

 centre was noise and confusion compared with what was 

 known there ten years before, when it was an exclusively- 

 Mexican town. Here was to be seen in greatest contrast the 

 varied population of Los Angeles. Plainly attired nuns 

 and fashionably dressed American women were seen together, 

 as well as the swarthy Mexican, in his attire of shirt and 

 drawers, along with the Yankee " dude." Chinese, Indians and 

 negroes abounded ; in fact all the odds and ends of humanity 

 seemed here brought in contact, and, chattering and jabbering 

 in their many tongues, made up strange scenes, rarely 

 witnessed in so small a place. Occasionally an ox-team would 

 come creeping into town, laden with wine casks in transit to 

 the coast, and following after a troop of donkeys with back- 

 loads of wood packed from the neighboring mountains. Now 

 and then the scene would be varied by the appearance of a 

 horseman, who, fully equipped with a Mexican rider's outfit, 

 would gallop by with a rattle of spurs and a stir of dust. 



I spent the afternoon of my arrival looking around the 

 town, in the busy centre, the quiet suburbs, and along the 

 shore of the little river flowing by. In the water of this I 

 saw a score of washerwomen with bare feet and in short 

 skirts, pounding the dirt from soiled clothing by means of 

 clubs as it lay in the water. I loitered about the stores, watch- 

 ing the swarthy customers ride up and remain mounted till 

 their purchases were delivered to them, when they would 

 gallop away. 



I am speaking of the Puebla of thirty years ago, before it 

 was, as now, a distinctively American town, the Mexican 

 portion a curiosity merely, and speculation wild, and building 

 lots selling at inflated prices. Now a railroad runs by the 

 town and the screech of the locomotive has frightened the 



