John L. Stoddard's Lectures Part 1

John L. Stoddard's Lectures.

by John L. Stoddard.

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Nature has carefully guarded Southern California. Ten thousand miles of ocean roll between her western boundary and the nearest continent; while eastward, her divinity is hedged by dreary deserts that forbid approach. Although the arid plains of eastern Arizona are frequently called deserts, it is not till the west-bound tourist has pa.s.sed Flagstaff that the word acquires a real and terrible significance.

Then, during almost an entire day he journeys through a region which, while it fascinates, inspires him with dread. Occasionally a flock of goats suggests the possibility of sustaining life here, but sometimes for a distance of fifty miles he may see neither man nor beast. The villages, if such they can be called, are merely cl.u.s.ters of rude huts dotting an area of rocky desolation. No trees are visible. No grazing-ground relieves the dismal monochrome of sand. The mountains stand forth dreary, gaunt, and naked. In one locality the train runs through a series of gorges the sides of which are covered with disintegrated rock, heaped up in infinite confusion, as if an awful ague-fit had seized the hills, and shaken them until their ledges had been broken into a million boulders. At another point, emerging from a maze of mountains, the locomotive shoots into a plain, forty or fifty miles square, and sentineled on every side by savage peaks.

Once, doubtless, an enormous lake was held encompa.s.sed by these giants; but, taking advantage of some seismic agitation, it finally slipped through their fingers to the sea, and now men travel over its deserted bed. Sometimes these monsters seemed to be closing in upon us, as if to thwart our exit and crush us in their stony arms; but the resistless steed that bore us onward, though quivering and panting with the effort, always contrived to find the narrow opening toward liberty. Occasionally our route lay through enormous fields of cactus and yucca trees, twelve feet in height, and, usually, so hideous from their distorted shapes and p.r.i.c.kly spikes, that I could understand the proverb, "Even the Devil cannot eat a cactus."

[Ill.u.s.tration: LIFE ON THE DESERT.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE DESERT'S MOUNTAINS.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: DESERT VEGETATION.]

As the day wore on, and we were drawn from one scene of desolation to another, I almost doubted, like Bunyan's Pilgrim, whether we should ever reach the promised land alive; but, finally, through a last upheaval of defiant hills which were, if possible, more desolate and weird than any we had seen, we gained the boundary of California and gazed upon the Colorado River. It is a stream whose history thrilled me as I remembered how in its long and tortuous course of more than a thousand miles to this point it had laboriously cut its way through countless desert canons, and I felt glad to see it here at last, sweeping along in tranquil majesty as if aware that all its struggles were now ended, and peace and victory had been secured.

It was sunset when our train, having crossed this river, ran along its western bank to our first stopping-place in California,--the Needles. Never shall I forget the impression made upon me as I looked back toward the wilderness from which we had emerged. What! was that it--that vision of transfiguration--that illumined Zion radiant with splendor? Across the river, lighted by the evening's after-glow of fire, rose a celestial city, with towers, spires, and battlements glittering as if sheathed in burnished gold. Suns.h.i.+ne and distance had dispelled all traces of the region's barrenness, and for a few memorable moments, while we watched it breathlessly, its sparkling bastions seemed to beckon us alluringly to its magnificence; then, fading like an exquisite mirage created by the genii of the desert, it swiftly sank into the desolation from which the sun had summoned it, to crown it briefly with supernal glory. Turning at last from its cold immobility to the activity around us, I saw some representatives of the fallen race of California, as Indian bucks and squaws came from their squalid hovels to sell the trifling products of their industry, and stare at what to them is a perpetual miracle,--the pa.s.sing train. Five races met upon that railroad platform, and together ill.u.s.trated the history of the country. First, in respect to time, was the poor Indian, slovenly, painted and degraded, yet characterized by a kind of bovine melancholy on the faces of the men, and a trace of animal beauty in the forms of the young squaws.

Teasing and jesting with the latter were the negro porters of the train, who, though their ancestors were as little civilized as those of the Indians, have risen to a level only to be appreciated by comparing the African and the Indian side by side. There, also, was the Mexican, the lord of all this region in his earlier and better days, but now a penniless degenerate of Old Castile. Among them stood the masterful Anglo-Saxon, whose energy has pushed aside the Spaniard, civilized the Negro, developed half a continent, built this amazing path of steel through fifteen hundred miles of desert, and who is king where-ever he goes. While I surveyed these specimens of humanity and compared them, one with another, there suddenly appeared among them a fifth figure,--that of Sing Lee, formerly a subject of the oldest government on earth, and still a representative of the four hundred millions swarming in the Flowery Kingdom. Strangely enough, of all these different racial types, the Mongol seemed the most self-satisfied. The Yankee was continually bustling about, feeding pa.s.sengers, transporting trunks, or hammering car-wheels; the Negroes were joking with the Indians, who appeared stolidly apathetic or resigned; the Mexicans stood apart in sullen gloom, as if secretly mourning their lost estate; but Sing Lee looked about him with a cheerful calmness which seemed indicative of absolute contentment and his face wore, continually, a complacent smile. What strange varieties of human destiny these men present, I thought as I surveyed them: the Indian and the Mexican stand for the hopeless Past; the Anglo-Saxon and the Negro for the active Present; while Sing Lee is a specimen of that yellow race which is embalmed in its own conservatism, like a fly in amber.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LOOKING BACK AT THE MOUNTAINS.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: A CALIFORNIA RANCH SCENE.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: INDIAN HUTS.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: "A FALLEN RACE."]

[Ill.u.s.tration: A MEXICAN HOUSE AND FAMILY.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE BLOSSOMING WILDERNESS.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: COMPLACENT MONGOLS.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHARACTERISTIC SCENERY.]

The unsuspecting traveler who has crossed the Colorado River and entered Southern California, naturally looks around him for the orange groves of which he has so often heard, and is astonished not to find himself surrounded by them; but, gradually, the truth is forced upon his mind that, in this section of our country, he must not base his calculations upon eastern distances, or eastern areas.

For, even after he has pa.s.sed the wilderness of Arizona and the California frontier, he discovers that the Eldorado of his dreams lies on the other side of a desert, two hundred miles in breadth, beyond whose desolate expanse the siren of the Sunset Sea still beckons him and whispers: "This is the final barrier; cross it, and I am yours." The transit is not difficult, however, in days like these; for the whole distance from Chicago to the coast can be accomplished in seventy-two hours, and where the transcontinental traveler of less than half a century ago was threatened day and night with attacks from murderous Apaches, and ran the risk of peris.h.i.+ng of thirst in many a waterless "Valley of Death," the modern tourist sleeps securely in a Pullman car, is waited on by a colored servant, and dines in railway restaurants the management of which, both in the quality and quant.i.ty of the food supplied, even in the heart of the Great American Desert, is justly famous for its excellence.

At San Bernardino, we enter what is called the Garden of Southern California; but even here it is possible to be disappointed, if we expect to find the entire country an unbroken paradise of orange trees and roses. Thousands of oranges and lemons, it is true, suspend their miniature globes of gold against the sky; but interspersed between their groves are wastes of sand, reminding us that all the fertile portion of this region has been as truly wrested from the wilderness, as Holland from the sea. Accordingly, since San Bernardino County alone is twice as large as Ma.s.sachusetts, and the County of Los Angeles nearly the size of Connecticut, it is not difficult to understand why a continuous expanse of verdure is not seen. The truth is, Southern California, with a few exceptions, is cultivated only where man has brought to it vivifying water. When that appears, life springs up from sterility, as water gushed forth from the rock in the Arabian desert when the great leader of the Israelites smote it in obedience to Divine command. Hence, there is always present here the fascination of the unattained, which yet is readily attainable, patiently waiting for the master-hand that shall unlock the sand-roofed treasure-houses of fertility with a crystal key. It can be easily imagined, therefore, that this is a land of striking contrasts. Pa.s.s, for example, through the suburbs of Los Angeles, and you will find that, while one yard is dry and bare, the next may be embellished with a palm tree twenty feet in height, with roses clambering over the portico of the house, and lilies blooming in the garden. Of the three things essential to vegetation--soil, sun, and water--man must contribute (and it is all he can contribute) water.

[Ill.u.s.tration: STRIKING CONTRASTS.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: WRESTED FROM THE SAND.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: A PALM-GIRT AVENUE, LOS ANGELES.]

Once let the tourist here appreciate the fact that almost all the verdure which delights his eyes is the gift of water at the hand of man, and any disappointment he may have at first experienced will be changed to admiration. Moreover, with the least encouragement this country bursts forth into verdure, crowns its responsive soil with fertility, and smiles with bloom. Even the slightest tract of herbage, however brown it may be in the dry season, will in the springtime clothe itself with green, and decorate its emerald robe with spangled flowers. In fact, the wonderful profusion of wild flowers, which, when the winter rains have saturated the ground, transform these hillsides into floral terraces, can never be too highly praised. Happy is he who visits either Palestine or Southern California when they are bright with blossoms and redolent of fragrance. The climax of this renaissance of Nature is, usually, reached about the middle of April, but in proportion as the rain comes earlier or later, the season varies slightly. At a time when many cities of the North and East are held in the tenacious grip of winter, their gray skies thick with soot, their pavements deep in slush, and their inhabitants clad in furs, the cities of Southern California celebrate their floral carnival, which is a time of great rejoicing, attended with an almost fabulous display of flowers. Los Angeles, for example, has expended as much as twenty-five thousand dollars on the details of one such festival. The entire city is then gay with flags and banners, and in the long procession horses, carriages, and riders are so profusely decked with flowers, that they resemble a slowly moving throng of animated bouquets. Ten thousand choice roses have been at such times fastened to the wheels, body, pole, and harness of a single equipage. Sometimes the individual exhibitions in these floral pageants take the form of floats, which represent all sorts of myths and allegories, portrayed elaborately by means of statues, as well as living beings, lavishly adorned with ornamental gra.s.ses, and wild and cultivated flowers.

Southern California is not only a locality, it is a type. It cannot be defined by merely mentioning parallels of lat.i.tude. We think of it and love it as the dreamland of the Spanish Missions, and as a region rescued from aridity, and made a home for the invalid and the winter tourist. Los Angeles is really its metropolis, but San Diego, Pasadena, and Santa Barbara are prosperous and progressive cities whose population increases only less rapidly than their ambition.

[Ill.u.s.tration: AN ARBOR IN WINTER.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAIN STREET, LOS ANGELES.]

One of the first things for an eastern visitor to do, on arriving at Los Angeles, is to take the soft sound of _g_ out of the city's name, and to remember that the Spaniards and Mexicans p.r.o.nounce _e_ like the English _a_ in fate. This is not absolutely necessary for entrance into good society, but the p.r.o.nunciation "Angeelees" is tabooed. The first Anglo-Saxon to arrive here was brought by the Mexicans, in 1822, as a prisoner. Soon after, however, Americans appeared in constantly increasing numbers, and, on August 13, 1846, Major Fremont raised at Los Angeles the Stars and Stripes, and the house that he occupied may still be seen. Nevertheless, the importance of Los Angeles is of recent date. In 1885 it was an adobe village, dedicated to the Queen of the Angels; to-day, a city of brick and stone, with more than fifty thousand inhabitants, it calls itself the Queen of the State. Its streets are broad, many of its buildings are ma.s.sive and imposing, and its fine residences beautiful. It is the capital of Southern California, and the headquarters of its fruit-culture. The plains and valleys surrounding it are one ma.s.s of vineyards, orange groves and orchards, and, in 1891, the value of oranges alone exported from this city amounted to one and a quarter millions of dollars. It must be said, however, that there is less verdure here than in well-cared-for eastern towns of corresponding size, and that Los Angeles, and even Pasadena, notwithstanding their many palm trees, have on the whole a bare appearance, compared with a city like New Haven, with its majestic elms and robe of vivid green, which even in autumn seems to dream of summer bloom. Nevertheless, Los Angeles is clean, and poverty and squalor rarely show themselves; while, in the suburbs of the city, even the humblest dwellings are frequently surrounded by palm trees, and made beautiful by flowers.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FREMONT'S HEADQUARTERS.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: PALATIAL RESIDENCES IN LOS ANGELES.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: LOS ANGELES.]

Another charm of Los Angeles is the sudden contrasts it presents.

Thus, a ride of three minutes from his hotel will bring the tourist to the remains of the humble Mexican village which was the forerunner of the present city. There he will find the inevitable Plaza with its little park and fountain, without which no Mexican town is complete.

There, too, is the characteristic adobe church, the quaint interior of which presents a curious medley of old weather-beaten statues and modern furniture, and is always pervaded by that smell peculiar to long-inhabited adobe buildings, and which is called by Steele, in his charming "Old California Days," the national odor of Mexico.

Los Angeles, also, has its Chinatown, which in its manners and customs is, fortunately, as distinct from the American portion of the city as if it were an island in the Pacific; but it gave me an odd sensation to be able to pa.s.s at once from the handsome, active settlement of the Anglo-Saxon into the stupidity of Mexico, or the heathenism of China.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLAZA AND ADOBE CHURCH, LOS ANGELES.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: BROADWAY, LOS ANGELES.]

"How can I distinguish here a native Californian from an eastern man?" I asked a resident.

"There are no native Californians," was the somewhat exaggerated reply; "this is not only a modern, but an eastern city. Nine-tenths of our inhabitants came here from the East less than fifteen years ago, many of them less than five. We are an old people with a new home."

Ostrich rearing is now a profitable industry of California, and farms have been established for this purpose at half a dozen points in the southern section of the State. Two of them are in the vicinity of Los Angeles, and well repay a visit; for, if one is unacquainted with the habits of these graceful birds, there is instruction as well as amus.e.m.e.nt in studying their appearance, character, and mode of life.

My first view of the feathered bipeds was strikingly spectacular. As every one knows, the ostrich is decidedly _decollete_ as well as utterly indifferent to the covering of its legs. Accordingly a troop of them, as they came balancing and tiptoeing toward me, reminded me of a company of ballet dancers tripping down the stage. While the head of the ostrich is unusually small, its eyes are large and have an expression of mischief which gives warning of danger. During a visit to one of the farms, I saw a male bird pluck two hats from unwary men, and it looked wicked enough to have taken their heads as well, had they not been more securely fastened. It is sometimes sarcastically a.s.serted that the ostrich digests with satisfaction to itself such articles as gimlets, nails, and penknives; but this is a slander. It needs gravel, like all creatures of its cla.s.s which have to grind their food in an interior grist-mill; but though it will usually bite at any bright object, it will not always swallow it. I saw one peck at a ribbon on a lady's hat, and, also, at a pair of shears in its keeper's hands, but this was no proof that it intended to devour either. On another occasion, an ostrich s.n.a.t.c.hed a purse from a lady's hand and instantly dropped it; but when a gold piece fell from it, the bird immediately swallowed that, showing how easily even animals fall under the influence of Californian l.u.s.t for gold.

[Ill.u.s.tration: AN OSTRICH FARM.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: ORANGE GROVE AVENUE, PASADENA.]

Sixteen miles from Los Angeles, yet owing to the clear atmosphere, apparently, rising almost at the terminus of the city's streets, stand the Sierra Madre Mountains, whose copious reservoirs furnish this entire region with water. An excursion toward this n.o.ble range brought me one day to Pasadena, the pride of all the towns which, relatively to Los Angeles, resemble the satellites of a central sun.

Pasadena seems a garden without a weed; a city without a hovel; a laughing, happy, prosperous, charming town, basking forever in the suns.h.i.+ne, and lying at the feet of still, white mountain peaks, whose cool breath moderates the semi-tropical heat of one of the most exquisitely beautiful valleys in the world. These mountains, although sombre and severe, are not so awful and forbidding as those of the Arizona desert, but they are notched and jagged, as their name _Sierra_ indicates, and scars and gashes on their surfaces give proof of the terrific battles which they have waged for ages with the elements. A striking feature of their scenery is that they rise so abruptly from the San Gabriel Valley, that from Pasadena one can look directly to their bases, and even ride to them in a trolley car; and the peculiar situation of the city is evidenced by the fact that, in midwinter, its residents, while picking oranges and roses in their gardens, often see snow-squalls raging on the neighboring peaks of the Sierra.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THREE MILES FROM ORANGES TO SNOW.]

It would be difficult to overpraise the charm of Pasadena and its environs. Twenty-five years ago the site of the present city was a sheep-pasture. To-day it boasts of a population of ten thousand souls, seventy-five miles of well-paved streets, numerous handsome public buildings, and hundreds of attractive homes embellished by well-kept grounds. One of its streets is lined for a mile with specimens of the fan palm, fifteen feet in height; and I realized the prodigality of Nature here when my guide pointed out a heliotrope sixteen feet in height, covering the whole porch of a house; while, in driving through a private estate, I saw, in close proximity, sago and date palms, and lemon, orange, camphor, pepper, pomegranate, fig, quince, and walnut trees.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A PASADENA HOTEL.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: A PASADENA RESIDENCE.]