A Truthful Woman in Southern California Read online

  Charles Nordhoff, the veteran journalist and author, lives within sight of the hotel (which he pronounces the most perfect and charming hotel he knows of in Europe or America), in a rambling bungalow consisting of three small cottages moved from different points and made into one. He believes in California for “health, pleasure, and residence.” It is a rare privilege to listen to his conversation, sitting by his open fire or at his library table, or when he is entertaining friends at dinner.

  So ends my sketch of Coronado. Coronado! What a perfect word! Musical, euphonious, regal, “the crowned”! The name of the governor of New Galicia, and captain-general of the Spanish army, sent forth in 1540 in search of the seven cities of Cibola. General J. H. Simpson, U. S. A., has written a valuable monograph on “Coronado’s March,” which can be found in the Smithsonian Report for 1869.

  I intend to avoid statistics and history on the one side, and extravagant eulogy on the other.

  Now we will say good-by to our new friends, take one more look at Point Loma, and cross the ferry to San Diego.

  CHAPTER III.

  SAN DIEGO.

  “The truly magnificent, and—with reason—famous port of San Diego.”—_From the first letter of Father Junipero in Alto California._

  Fifteen cents for motor, ferry, and car will take you to Hotel Florence, on the heights overlooking the bay, where I advise you to stop. The Horton House is on an open, sunny site, and is frequented by “transients” and business men of moderate means. The Brewster is a first-class hotel, with excellent table. The Florence is not a large boarding-house or family hotel, but open for all. It has a friendly, homelike atmosphere, without the exactions of an ultra-fashionable resort. The maximum January temperature is seventy-four degrees, while that of July is seventy-nine degrees, and invalid guests at this house wear the same weight clothing in summer that they do in winter. The rooms of this house are all sunny, and each has a charming ocean or mountain view. It is easy to get there; hard to go away. Arriving from Coronado Beach, I was reminded of the Frenchman who married a quiet little home body after a desperate flirtation with a brilliant society queen full of tyrannical whims and capricious demands. When this was commented on as surprising, he explained that after playing with a squirrel one likes to take a cat in his lap. Really, it is so restful that the building suggests a big yellow tabby purring sleepily in the sunshine. I sat on the veranda, or piazza, taking a sun-bath, in a happy dream or doze, until the condition of nirvana was almost attained. What day of the week was it? And the season? Who could tell? And who cares? Certainly no one has the energy to decide it. Last year, going there to spend one day, I remained for five weeks, hypnotized by my environments—beguiled, deluded, unconscious of the flight of time, serenely happy. Many come for a season, and wake up after five or six years to find it is now their home. “There seems to exist in this country a something which cheats the senses; whether it be in the air, the sunshine, or in the ocean breeze, or in all three combined, I cannot say. Certainly the climate is not the home-made common-sense article of the anti-Rocky Mountain States; and unreality is thrown round life—all walk and work in a dream.”

  At Coronado Beach one rushes out after breakfast for an all-day excursion or morning tramp; here one sits and sits, always intending to go somewhere or do something, until the pile of unanswered letters accumulates and the projected trips weary one in a dim perspective. It is all so beautiful, so new, so wonderful! San Diego is the Naples of America, with the San Jacinto Mountains for a background and the blue sunlit bay to gaze upon, and one of the finest harbors in the world. Yet with all this, few have the energy even to go a-fishing.

  Now, as a truthful “tourist,” I must admit that in the winter there are many days when the sun does not shine, and the rainy season is not altogether cheerful for the invalid and the stranger. Sunshine, glorious golden sunshine, is what we want all the time; but we do not get it. I noticed that during the heavy rains the invalids retired to their rooms, overcome by the chill and dampness, and some were seriously ill. But then they would have been in their graves if they had remained in the East. There are many charming people residing in San Diego, well, happy, useful, who know they can never safely return to their old homes.

  There has been such a rosy glamour thrown over southern California by enthusiastic romancers that many are disappointed when they fail to find an absolute Paradise.

  Humboldt said of California: “The sky is constantly serene and of a deep blue, and without a cloud; and should any clouds appear for a moment at the setting of the sun, they display the most beautiful shades of violet, purple, and green.”[1]

  [Footnote 1: Humboldt had never been in Alta California, and procured this information in Mexico or Spain.]

  Now, after reading that, a real rainy day, when the water leaks through the roof and beats in at the doors, makes a depressed invalid feel like a drenched fowl standing forlornly on one leg in the midst of a New England storm. With snow-covered mountains on one side and the ocean with its heavy fogs on the other, and the tedious rain pouring down with gloomy persistence, and consumptives coughing violently, and physicians hurrying in to attend to a sudden hemorrhage or heart-failure, the scene is not wholly gay and inspiriting. But when the sun comes forth again and the flowers (that look to me a little tired of blooming all the time) brighten up with fresh washed faces, and all vegetation rejoices and you can almost see things grow, and the waves dance and glitter, and the mountains no longer look cold and threatening but seem like painted scenery, a la Bierstadt, hung up for our admiration, and the valleys breathe the spicy fragrance of orange blossoms, we are once more happy, and ready to rave a little ourselves over the much-talked-of “bay ‘n’ climate.” But there are dangers even on the sunniest day. I know a young physician who came this year on a semi-professional tour, to try the effects of inhalations on tuberculosis, and it was so delightfully warm that he straightway took off his flannels, was careless about night air, and was down with pneumonia.

  The tourist or traveller who writes of San Diego usually knows nothing of it but a week or two in winter or early spring.

  Southern California has fifty-two weeks in the year, and for two thirds of this time the weather is superb.

  I can imagine even a mission Indian grunting and complaining if taken to our part of the country in the midst of a week’s storm. We flee from deadly horrors of climate to be fastidiously critical. If, in midsummer, sweltering sufferers in New York or Chicago could be transported to this land they would not hurry away. The heat is rarely above eighty-five degrees, and nearly always mitigated by a refreshing breeze from the bay. I am assured that there have not been five nights in as many years when one or more blankets have not been necessary for comfort. In summer everything is serene. No rain, no thunderstorms, no hail, or water-spouts. (The dust pest is never spoken of!) The picnic can be arranged three weeks ahead without an anxious thought about the weather. The summer sunsets are marvellously beautiful.

  One must summer and winter here before he can judge fairly, and the hyper-sensitive should tarry in New Mexico or in the desert until spring. I believe that rheumatic or neuralgic invalids should avoid the damp resorts to which they are constantly flocking only to be dissatisfied. Every sort of climate can be found in the State, so that no one has the right to grumble.

  Do not take off flannels, although the perspiration does trickle down the side of your face as you sit in the sun. A fur cape is always needed to protect one shoulder from a chilling breeze while the other side is toasted. It is not safe for newcomers to be out-of-doors after four or five o’clock in the afternoon, nor must they ride in open cars except in the middle of the day. These innocent diversions give the doctors their support.

  Bill Nye, with his usual good sense, refused to drive in a pouring rain to view the scenery and orchards when visiting San Diego in March, and says: “Orange orchards are rare and beautiful sights, but when I can sit in this warm room, gathered about a big coal fire, and see m
iles of them from the window, why should I put on my fur overcoat and a mackintosh in order to freeze and cry out with assumed delight every half-mile while I gradually get Pomona of the lungs?”

  There are many places worth visiting if you can rouse yourselves for the effort. Point Loma, twelve miles distant, gives a wonderful view, one of the finest in the world. I warrant you will be so famished on arriving that you will empty every lunch-basket before attending to the outlook. National City, Sweet Water Dam, Tia Juana (Aunt Jane), La Jolla—you will hear of all these. I have tried them and will report.

  The Kimball brothers, Warren and Frank, who came from New Hampshire twenty-five years ago and devoted their energies to planting orchards of oranges, lemons, and olives, have made the desert bloom, and found the business most profitable. You will like to watch the processes of pickling olives and pressing out the clear amber oil, which is now used by consumptives in preference to the cod-liver oil. Many are rubbed with it daily for increasing flesh. It is delicious for the table, but the profits are small, as cotton-seed oil is much cheaper. Lemons pay better than oranges, Mr. Kimball tells me. Mrs. Flora Kimball has worked side by side with her husband, who is an enthusiast for the rights of woman. She is progressive, and ready to help in every good work, with great executive ability and a hearty appreciation of any good quality in others.

  It does not pay to take the trip to Mexico if time is limited, there is so little of Mexico in it. After leaving the train and getting into an omnibus, the voluble darkey in charge soon shouts out, “We are now crossing the line,” but as no difference of scene is observed, it is not deeply impressive. One young fellow got out and jumped back and forth over the line, so that if asked on his return if he had been to Mexico he could conscientiously answer, “Oh yes, many times.” We were then taken to the custom-house, where we mailed some hastily scribbled letters for the sake of using a Mexican stamp,—some preferred it stamped on a handkerchief. And near by is the curio store, where you find the same things which are seen everywhere, and where you will doubtless buy a lot of stuff and be sorry for it. But whatever other folly you may be led into, let me implore you to wholly abstain from that deadly concoction, the Mexican tamale. Ugh! I can taste mine now.

  A tamale is a curious and dubious combination of chicken hash, meal, olives, red pepper, and I know not what, enclosed in a corn-husk, steamed until furiously hot, and then offered for sale by Mexicans in such a sweet, appealing way that few can resist the novelty. It has a more uncertain pedigree than the sausage, and its effects are serious.

  A friend of mine tasted a small portion of one late at night. It was later before she could sleep, and then terrible nightmares intruded upon her slumber. Next morning she looked so ill and enfeebled, so unlike her rosy self, that we begged to know the cause. The tale was thrilling. She thought a civil war had broken out and she could not telegraph to her distant spouse. The agony was intense. She must go to him with her five children, and at once. They climbed mountains, tumbled into cañons, were arrested in their progress by cataracts and wild storms, and even the hostile Indian appeared in full war-paint at a point above. This awoke her, only to fall into another horrible situation. An old lover suddenly returned, tried to approach her; she screamed, “I am now a married woman!”—he lifted his revolver, and once again she returned to consciousness and the tamale, and brandy, and Brown’s Jamaica ginger. If she had eaten half the tamale the pistol would doubtless have completed its deadly work. A kind old gentleman of our party bought a dozen to treat us all. We were obliged to refuse, and it was amusing to watch him in his endeavor to get rid of them. At last he made several journeys to the car door, throwing out a few each trip in a solemn way. He didn’t want to hurt the feelings of the natives by casting them all out at once.

  Sweet Water Dam is a triumph of engineering, one of the largest dams in the world, holding six million gallons of water, used for irrigating ranches in Sweet Water Valley; and at La Jolla you will find pretty shells and clamber down to the caves. There the stones are slippery, and an absorbing flirtation should be resisted, as the tide often intrudes most unexpectedly, and in dangerous haste. Besides the caves the attractions are the fishing and the kelp beds. These kelp beds form a submarine garden, and the water is so clear that one can see beautiful plants, fish, etc., at forty or fifty feet below the sea surface—not unlike the famous sea-gardens at Nassau in the Bahamas. There is a good hotel, open the year round.

  Lakeside is a quiet inland retreat twenty-two miles from San Diego, where many go for a little excursion and change of air. The Lakeside Hotel has seventy large rooms and complete appointments. The table is supplied with plenty of milk and real cream from their own cows, vegetables and fruit from the neighboring ranches, game in its season, shot on the lake near by, and, in the valleys, meats from homegrown stock. The guests who are not too invalidish often go out for long drives, never forgetting the lunch-baskets. One day we try the Alpine stage. Winding across the mesa at the rear of the hotel, we have a lovely view of the little lake half hidden in the trees, reflecting in its quiet surface the mountains that rise up beyond it. Gradually climbing upward, we come to a tract of land that is watered by the Flume. To our surprise we learn that this is practically frostless, and that since this has been discovered many young orchards of oranges and lemons have been planted. The red mesa land on the side-hills will not be touched by the frosts of a cold night when the valley at its foot will have enough frost to kill all tender growth. This is a new discovery, and has placed thousands of acres on the market as suitable for the culture of citrus fruits. Do you notice how the appearance of the landscape is changing? The nearer hills are much sharper and steeper, and their sides are studded by great boulders. There are stone walls, and here and there are great flocks of sheep. The horses stop of their own accord at a lovely spot where they are used to getting a drink of cool spring water. Did any ever taste quite so good as that drunk from an old dipper after a long warm drive? The live-oaks and sycamores look too inviting to be resisted, and we get out to explore while the horses are resting. Underneath the evergreen shade we pick up some of the large pointed acorns and carry them away as souvenirs. This would be a delightful spot for a picnic, but we have many miles before us and must go on. In a few more miles we reach a little town known as “Alpine.” In the distance looms the Viejas, and if any of the party wish to travel over a grade, now is the opportunity. The top of the grade brings us to a lovely view. Eastward is an unbroken chain of mountain-peaks, from whose summits may be seen the broad Pacific on one side and the Colorado Desert on the other.

  One of the favorite drives is into the Monte. This is a large park or tract of a thousand acres. On each side the hills rise, and in front El Cajon shows new beauties with every step of the way. Great live-oaks with enormous trunks, ancient sycamores, elders, and willows make in some spots a dense shade. On the edge of the hillsides the Flume may be seen, which furnishes many ranches as well as the city of San Diego with the purest mountain water. Underneath the trees and up on the rocks the lover of flowers and ferns will scramble. There are the dainty forget-me-nots, tiny flowers of starry white, flowers of pale orange with centres of deep maroon, the wild galliardia, and the wild peony with its variegated leaves. Many other delicate blossoms which we cannot stop to describe are there too. And the ferns! All kinds may be found by the initiated, and many are close at hand. The fern lined with gold or with silver, the running ferns, the ferns of lace-like fineness, the ferns as soft as velvet, all growing in the greatest profusion. And each day of the week a different drive and new delights.

  There is the valley of El Cajon (“the box”), which should be visited in grape-picking time. The great Boston ranch alone employs three hundred and twenty-five pickers. Men, women, children, all busy, and the grapes when just turned are sweet, spicy, and delicious, making the air fragrant. This valley is dotted with handsome villas and prosperous ranches. The range of mountains which looms up before us from the veranda of the hotel
is not yet dignified by a name, yet it is more imposing than the White Mountains, and in the distance we see old Cuyamaca, nearly seven thousand feet high. But we must take the next train for San Diego, or this chapter will be a volume in itself. And I have not even alluded to the “Great Back Country.”

  The founder of San Diego is still living, still hopeful, still young at heart. “Father” Horton, the typical pioneer, deserves more honors than he has yet received. Coming from Connecticut to California in 1851, he soon made a small fortune in mining, buying and selling gold-dust, and providing the diggers with ice and water for their work. He rode over the country in those lawless times selling the precious dust disguised as a poverty-stricken good-for-naught, with trusty revolver always in his right hand on the pommel of the saddle—the handsome green saddle covered with an old potato sack. In this way he evaded the very men who had been on his track for weeks. Once he came near capture. He passed a bad-looking lot of horsemen, one of whom had a deep red scar the whole length of his cheek. He got by safely, but one, looking round, exclaimed, “My God! That’s Horton! I see the green saddle.” And back they dashed to kill him and gain his treasure, but he escaped into a cañon, and they lost their one chance.

  At another time he had $3500 in gold in his belt, and at a tavern of poor repute he could hear through cracks in the floor of his bedroom the gamblers below laughing about the old greenhorn above who had his supper of mush and milk and had asked for a lock on his door.