aw hedges and fields of lilies, hers went out of
the window. Another lady from Boston brought a quart bottle of the
blackest ink, only to spill it all upon a new carpet at Santa Barbara,
costing the boarding-house keeper thirty-five dollars. Everything that
one needs can be purchased all along the way, from a quinine capsule to
a complete outfit for any occasion.

As to the various ways of coming here, I greatly prefer the Southern
Pacific in winter, and Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe in spring or summer.
Either will take you from New York to San Diego and return for $137,
allowing six months' stay. The "Phillips Excursion" will take you from
Boston to San Francisco for fifty-five dollars. But in this case the
beds are hard, and you provide your own meals. Some try the long voyage,
twenty-three days from New York to San Francisco. It is considered
monotonous and undesirable by some; others, equally good judges, prefer
it decidedly.

I believe in taking along a loose wrapper to wear in the cars,
especially when crossing the desert. It greatly lessens fatigue to be
able to curl up cosily in a corner and go to sleep, with a silk
travelling hat or a long veil on one's head, and the stiff bonnet or
big hat with showy plumes nicely covered in its long purse-like bag, and
hanging on a hook above. The sand and alkali ruin everything, and are
apt to inflame the eyes and nose. I find a hamper with strap
indispensable on the train; it will hold as much as a small trunk, yet
it can be easily carried.

Now imagine you have arrived, very tired, and probably with a cold in
your head, for the close heated cars and the sudden changes of climate
are trying. You may be at The Raymond, and "personally conducted."
Nothing can be better than that. But if you are alone at Los Angeles, or
San Francisco, come straight down to Coronado Beach, and begin at the
beginning--or the end, as you may think it.

CHAPTER II.

AT CORONADO BEACH.

I associate Coronado Beach so closely with Warner (Charles D.), the
cultured and cosmopolitan, that every wave seems to murmur his name, and
the immense hotel lives and flourishes under the magic of his rhetoric
and commendation. Just as Philadelphia is to me Wanamakerville and
Terrapin, so Coronado Beach is permeated and lastingly magnetized by
Warner's sojourn here and what he "was saying."

But I must venture to find fault with his million-times-quoted adjective
"unique" as it is used. It has been