A California Maze— By Charles S. Aiken 



A TWENTY-YEAR-OLD LABYRINTH THAT CAUSES NO END 

 OF MERRIMENT AND VEXATION TO YOUNG AND OLD 



JUST why the labyrinth or maze has fallen 

 into disrepute I do not know. Perhaps 

 it is too costly to maintain on a private place 

 in a country where estates are not entailed. 

 Then, too, people who have spent half the 

 night wandering about in a maze, seem to 



223. Each successive wall becomes higher toward 

 the centre. The inner ones are taller than a man 



think it is "too much of a good joke." Amer- 

 icans do not like obstacles, except to over- 

 come, and the average small boy loses pa- 

 tience before long and goes crashing through 

 the evergreen walls on his way to liberty. 

 Naturally, the bill for repairs is a considerable 

 item. Anyhow, the landscape-gardeners of 

 this country do not take the maze seriously. 

 It used to be popular in the sixteenth and 

 seventeenth centuries in the Old World, but 

 there are only two notable mazes known to 

 me in America. One of them is a new one 

 made by Miss Cornelia Warren, at Waltham, 

 Mass., which will be pictured before long in 

 Country Life in America. The other is the 

 famous old maze at the Hotel del Monte, 

 California, which is here depicted. 



This labyrinth was planted more than 

 twenty years ago by Ulrich, an excellent 

 gardener, who for many years directed the 

 floriculture of Del Monte. The immense 

 growth is entirely of Monterey cypress, which 

 resembles the yew very strongly in habit and 

 development. The design is similar to that 

 of the maze at Hampton Court, near London, 

 but that maze is composed entirely of yews. 

 The wanderer in these footpaths may travel 

 over a mile before finding his way to liberty. 

 The tree-growth at present varies from six 



to sixteen feet in height, with hedges many 

 of them more than five feet thick. Around 

 the top of hedge boundaries are designs of 

 chess men, rooks, castles, knights, and pawns. 

 These fantastic shapes have been preserved 

 for several years by means of careful and 

 constant trimming. 



The maze with its borders of ever-blooming 

 flowers is an attraction for old and young all 

 the year round. During the summer months, 

 especially when crowds of children are here 

 for their vacation outing, the labyrinth paths 

 are blocked with youngsters and the older 

 folks, too. Globe - trotters, staid tourists, 

 with their aggressive sight-seeing manners, 

 and bridal couples from everywhere, lose 

 themselves in this labyrinth. If you want to 

 have a jolly time, eat a good hearty dinner, 

 go down to the maze and watch the people 

 inside who have missed their dinners. 



The manager of one of the largest whole- 

 sale business houses of San Francisco walked 

 venturously in the maze main entrance not 

 long ago, and half an hour later his wild 

 shouts for help were heard. He was lost, 



224. The Monterey cypress is trimmed into the shape 

 of chessmen and other fantastic forms 



225. Can you solve the maze ? The white lines are 

 the paths, the darK ones the hedges 



and one of the watchmen assisted him with 

 a step-ladder to climb from his evergreen 

 prison. Another hotel guest, a young Scotch- 

 man whose ancestors fought at Flodden 

 Field, endeavored to explore the maze by 

 moonlight. It looked easy, and he walked 

 and walked and walked, but he forgot to strew 

 the walks with torn paper after the manner 

 of the hare-and-hoimd sportsmen (not an 

 uncommon method among the maze rovers) ; 

 omitted, too, to adopt the tactics by which the 

 Arabian Nights' hero traced his way easily 

 to freedom, and the result was the rousing 

 of the hotel in the early morning hours. The 

 night watchman, a part of whose business it 

 is to know the mazy by-paths, rescued the 

 adventurous nobleman from his plight. It 

 is not an uncommon sight to witness bewil- 

 dered men and women scrambling wildly 

 over the hedge, discouraged at their efforts 

 either to find the goal or to retrace their steps. 

 It takes two men a month to trim these 



178 



boundary hedges, which rise sheer above the 

 height of the average rover, each parallel line 

 of hedge increasing in height as the centre of 

 the maze is approached. 



The accompanying illustrations show this 

 evergreen labvrinth in winter and summer. 



. 



226. "Abandon hope all ye who enter here," unless 

 you carry thread or bits of paper 



The views taken at these seasons show little 

 difference, only a few less blooms of surround- 

 ing flowers mark the pictures taken in the 

 middle of winter. 



The Monterey cypress is one of the most 

 famous evergreens in the world. On Mon- 

 terey Bay, not far from this maze, are the few 

 remaining specimens of the little colony from 

 which have been propagated the thousands 

 of cypresses that one sees in California. In 

 cultivation, the Monterey cypress (Cupressus 

 macrocarpa) makes a symmetrical tree of 

 great formal beauty. The original cypresses, 

 the rugged veterans on the seashore, are as 

 different from these as possible. Readers of 

 Country Lije in America may remember the 

 spectacular pictures of these in the California 

 number (January, 1902), together with these 

 verses of Mrs. Anna Botsford Comstock: 

 Staunch derelicts adrift on Time's wide sea, 



Undaunted exiles from an age pristine! 

 Your loneliness in tortured limb we see ; 



Your courage, in your crown of living green ; 

 Your strength unyielding, in your grappling 

 knee ; 



Your patience, in the calmness of your 

 mien. 

 Enrapt, you stand in mighty reverie, 



While centuries come and go unheard, 



227. A general view of the maze. It is surrounded 

 by ever-blooming flower beds 



