he inhabitants of Riverside do not concede that Pasadena is a
place for orange growers. At Redlands, luckily above frost terrors, the
terrible losses at Riverside from that trouble are profusely narrated.
San Diego gets its share of humorous belittlement from all. You hear the
story quoted of the shrewd Chinee who went to that city to look for
business, where one hears much of future developments, but did not
settle, saying, "It has too muchee bym-bye." Friends, and especially
hotel proprietors, exclaim in disgusted astonishment, "What! going to
Riverside? Why, there's nothing there but oranges."

I find more: fine and charming drives, scenery that differs from that
of Pasadena, "that poem of nature set to music beneath the swaying
rhythm of the pine forests of the lofty Sierra Madres," but is equally
enjoyable and admirable.

Still, above all, and permeating every other interest, is the _orange_.
As to dampness, a physician threatened with consumption, and naturally
desirous of finding the driest air, began while at Coronado Beach a
simple but sure test for comparative degrees of "humidity" by just
hanging a woolen stocking out of his window at night. At that place it
was wet all through, quite moist at Los Angeles, very much less so at
Pasadena, dry as a bone or red herring or an old-fashioned sermon at
Riverside. Stockings will tell! (From April to September is really the
best time to visit Coronado.) I experienced a very sudden change from a
warm, delightful morning to an afternoon so penetrating by cold that I
really suffered during a drive, although encased in the heaviest of
Jaeger flannels, a woolen dress, and a heavy wrap. I thought of the
rough buffalo coat my uncle, a doctor, used to put on when called out
on a winter night in New Hampshire, and wished I was enveloped in
something like it, with a heated freestone, for feet and a hot potato
for each hand. If I can make my readers understand that these sudden
changes make flannels necessary, and that one needs to be as careful
here as in Canada as regards catching cold from night air and these
unexpected rigors, I shall feel, as the old writers used to say, "that I
have not written entirely in vain."

In one day you can sit under the trees in a thin dress and be too warm
if the sun is at its best, and then be half frozen two hours later if
the wind is in earnest and the sun has retired. In the sun, Paradise; in
shade, protect yourself!

CHAPTER X.