But, However
This May Be, Among My Memories Of This Strange Land, That Oquirrh
Mountain, With Its Golden Lilies, Will Ever Rise In Clear Relief, And
Associated With Them Will Always Be The Mormon Lily Of San Pitch.
X
The San Gabriel Valley[12]
The sun valley of San Gabriel is one of the brightest spots to be
found in all our bright land, and most of its brightness is wildness - wild south sunshine in a basin rimmed about with mountains and hills.
Cultivation is not wholly wanting, for here are the choices of all the
Los Angeles orange groves, but its glorious abundance of ripe sun and
soil is only beginning to be coined into fruit. The drowsy bits of
cultivation accomplished by the old missionaries and the more recent
efforts of restless Americans are scarce as yet visible, and when
comprehended in general views form nothing more than mere freckles on
the smooth brown bosom of the Valley.
I entered the sunny south half a month ago, coming down along the cool
sea, and landing at Santa Monica. An hour's ride over stretches of
bare, brown plain, and through cornfields and orange groves, brought
me to the handsome, conceited little town of Los Angeles, where one
finds Spanish adobes and Yankee shingles meeting and overlapping in
very curious antagonism. I believe there are some fifteen thousand
people here, and some of their buildings are rather fine, but the
gardens and the sky interested me more. A palm is seen here and there
poising its royal crown in the rich light, and the banana, with its
magnificent ribbon leaves, producing a marked tropical effect - not
semi-tropical, as they are so fond of saying here, while speaking of
their fruits.
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