THE WONDERLAND OF CALIFORNIA 



thorn" splash the dull green of the sage- 

 brush with color. 



But during the dry season — and that 

 is most of the year — the sage runs, an 

 ashen sea, to saw-toothed ranges that 

 scratch the distant sky. If repellant at 

 first, all of these different faces grow on 

 acquaintance, become beautiful at last, as 

 the smile of an old friend. Those who 

 know the desert in its intimate moods do 

 not altogether favor the dry farming and 

 irrigation projects that threaten its in- 

 finite spread. 



Though the desert appears dead-flat to 

 the eye, it really runs in a series of levels, 

 and as your train climbs from one to 

 another, the engine gasps like a heart- 

 broken runner and pauses often to drink 

 at small, ramshackle towns, any one of 

 which might have furnished the model 

 for ^Wolfville." Each fences a few rods 

 of track from the yellow expanse, with a 

 double row of sun-bleached shacks. Each 

 has its Chinese restaurant and trading 

 store, with bright Navajo rugs spread 

 out on the veranda. 



STREET LIFE 



Always the street begins, ends, and is 

 absurdly full in the middle with saloons, 

 on the verandas of which lounge a mixed 

 crowd of cowmen, Indians, and Mexican 

 peons. At first sight they appear hope- 

 lessly squalid ; but, like the desert, they 

 grow on acquaintance. When viewed 

 with the eye of knowledge, they blossom 

 with sunset colors. 



The train slides on over the edge of 

 the desert and drops down into the sub- 

 tropical luxuriance of southern Califor- 

 nia with a suddenness that is almost dis- 

 concerting. Through a succession of 

 vineyards and orchards, in whose glossy 

 depths citrus fruits glow and burn, the 

 train runs in a couple of hours into the 

 bright, clean city of Los Angeles. 



AN HISTORIC MISSION 



It now behooves one to step rever- 

 ently, for this is holy ground. The Mis- 

 sions of San Antonio de Padua, San 

 Luis Rey, and San Diego lie close to that 

 city, in which the San Diego Exposition, 

 a lovely section of Moorish Spain, is just 

 as much at home as in its native country. 



Just outside of Los Angeles stands, 

 too, the famous old Mission of San Ga- 

 briel. Erected in 1771, it possessed in its 

 prime four "Asestencias," one of which,, 

 the Church of Nuestra Seriora la Reina 

 de Los Angeles, was built when the 

 proud and ambitious city was still a small 

 Mexican hamlet, with a total population 

 of 1,000 souls. Of the 22 missions 

 erected by the padres, San Gabriel is per- 

 haps the best known. 



liELLS O^ SAX GABRIEL 



In addition to the historical associa- 

 tions that cluster thick around its vener- 

 able walls, it has been a favorite subject 

 of poem and story. Stevenson wrote 

 about it, and Charles Warren Stoddard's 

 poem, "The Bells of San Gabriel," rings 

 out like their rich chimes, carrying one 

 back to the pastoral age, when the wan- 

 dering tribes flocked from the woods and 

 valleys to the mission's folds. 



There could be no pleasanter trip than 

 to follow the footsteps of the padres up 

 the coast. You will have to go ahorse, 

 for the way, a narrow mule path, is 

 sometimes washed by the Pacific surf, 

 and again it leads into the heart of the 

 mountains. The good padres had a fine 

 feeling for Nature, and whenever the 

 trail slips from a mountain's shoulder 

 into a fertile valley you will find a mis- 

 sion in a more or less perfect state of 

 preservation. 1 



Of La Purisima Concepcion there re- 

 mains little more than a ruined cloister 

 rising amidst the long grass and oaks of 

 a hill-bound plain ; but its close neigh- 

 bors, San Buenaventura and Santa Bar- 

 bara, are almost as good as new. Matins 

 and vespers are still intoned in their dim 

 chapels. You may see the soft-eyed 

 padres walking and talking in their pleas- 

 ant garden, or watch the lay brothers 

 swinging hoe and shovel at their daily 

 tasks. I 



Above San Simeon the trail disdains 

 all commerce with other ways and runs 

 for 90 miles under its own dignities and 

 title of "The Old Spanish Trail." With 

 absolute divorce from them comes also 

 the assurety that you are following the 

 very path blazed by Junipero Serra and 

 used by his followers in their journey- 



