They Are Perfectly Hilarious In Their Newly Found Life, Work
Like Ants In A Sunny Noonday, And, Looking Far Into
The future,
hopefully count their orange chicks ten years or more before they are
hatched; supporting themselves in the meantime
On the produce of a few
acres of alfalfa, together with garden vegetables and the quick-growing fruits, such as figs, grapes, apples, etc., the whole
reinforced by the remaining dollars of their land purchase money.
There is nothing more remarkable in the character of the colony than
the literary and scientific taste displayed. The conversation of most
I have met here is seasoned with a smack of mental ozone, Attic salt,
which struck me as being rare among the tillers of California soil.
People of taste and money in search of a home would do well to
prospect the resources of this aristocratic little colony.
If we look now at these southern valleys in general, it will appear at
once that with all their advantages they lie beyond the reach of poor
settlers, not only on account of the high price of irrigable land - one
hundred dollars per acre and upwards - but because of the scarcity of
labor. A settler with three or four thousand dollars would be
penniless after paying for twenty acres of orange land and building
ever so plain a house, while many years would go by ere his trees
yielded an income adequate to the maintenance of his family.
Nor is there anything sufficiently reviving in the fine climate to
form a reliable inducement for very sick people. Most of this class,
from all I can learn, come here only to die, and surely it is better
to die comfortably at home, avoiding the thousand discomforts of
travel, at a time when they are so heard to bear. It is indeed
pitiful to see so many invalids, already on the verge of the grave,
making a painful way to quack climates, hoping to change age to youth,
and the darkening twilight of their day to morning. No such health-fountain has been found, and this climate, fine as it is, seems, like
most others, to be adapted for well people only. From all I could
find out regarding its influence upon patients suffering from
pulmonary difficulties, it is seldom beneficial to any great extent in
advanced cases. The cold sea winds are less fatal to this class of
sufferers than the corresponding winds further north, but,
notwithstanding they are tempered on their passage inland over warm,
dry ground, they are still more or less injurious.
The summer climate of the fir and pine woods of the Sierra Nevada
would, I think, be found infinitely more reviving; but because these
woods have not been advertised like patent medicines, few seem to
think of the spicy, vivifying influences that pervade their fountain
freshness and beauty.
XI
The San Gabriel Mountains[13]
After saying so much for human culture in my last, perhaps I may now
be allowed a word for wildness - the wildness of this southland, pure
and untamable as the sea.
In the mountains of San Gabriel, overlooking the lowland vines and
fruit groves, Mother Nature is most ruggedly, thornily savage. Not
even in the Sierra have I ever made the acquaintance of mountains more
rigidly inaccessible. The slopes are exceptionally steep and insecure
to the foot of the explorer, however great his strength or skill may
be, but thorny chaparral constitutes their chief defense. With the
exception of little park and garden spots not visible in comprehensive
views, the entire surface is covered with it, from the highest peaks
to the plain. It swoops into every hollow and swells over every
ridge, gracefully complying with the varied topography, in shaggy,
ungovernable exuberance, fairly dwarfing the utmost efforts of human
culture out of sight and mind.
But in the very heart of this thorny wilderness, down in the dells,
you may find gardens filled with the fairest flowers, that any child
would love, and unapproachable linns lined with lilies and ferns,
where the ousel builds its mossy hut and sings in chorus with the
white falling water. Bears, also, and panthers, wolves, wildcats;
wood rats, squirrels, foxes, snakes, and innumerable birds, all find
grateful homes here, adding wildness to wildness in glorious profusion
and variety.
Where the coast ranges and the Sierra Nevada come together we find a
very complicated system of short ranges, the geology and topography of
which is yet hidden, and many years of laborious study must be given
for anything like a complete interpretation of them. The San Gabriel
is one or more of these ranges, forty or fifty miles long, and half as
broad, extending from the Cajon Pass on the east, to the Santa Monica
and Santa Susanna ranges on the west. San Antonio, the dominating
peak, rises towards the eastern extremity of the range to a height of
about six thousand feet, forming a sure landmark throughout the valley
and all the way down to the coast, without, however, possessing much
striking individuality. The whole range, seen from the plain, with
the hot sun beating upon its southern slopes, wears a terribly
forbidding aspect. There is nothing of the grandeur of snow, or
glaciers, or deep forests, to excite curiosity or adventure; no trace
of gardens or waterfalls. From base to summit all seems gray, barren,
silent - dead, bleached bones of mountains, overgrown with scrubby
bushes, like gray moss. But all mountains are full of hidden beauty,
and the next day after my arrival at Pasadena I supplied myself with
bread and eagerly set out to give myself to their keeping.
On the first day of my excursion I went only as far as the mouth of
Eaton Canyon, because the heat was oppressive, and a pair of new shoes
were chafing my feet to such an extent that walking began to be
painful. While looking for a camping ground among the boulder beds of
the canyon, I came upon a strange, dark man of doubtful parentage.
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