perhaps a gelatinous bird's nest, for variety.

Besides the ordinary residents, we meet many sailors from the hundreds
of vessels always in the harbor,--Greeks, Lascars, Malays, and Kanakas.
Their picturesque costumes and Oriental faces add still more to the
foreign look of the place.

In the midst of the greatest rush and confusion of one of the principal
business streets, stands a man with an electrical machine, bawling in
stentorian tones, "Nothing like it to steady the nerves, and strengthen
the heart,"--ready, for a small fee, to administer on the spot a current
of greater or less intensity to whoever may desire it. The contrast is
most ludicrous between the need that undoubtedly exists for some such
quieting influence, and the utter inefficacy of it, if applied, under
such circumstances.

OCTOBER 20, 1875.

We have just returned from Santa Barbara. How buoyant the air seems, and
how brisk the people, after our languid, dreamy life there! I, who went
there in robust health, spent six months in bed, for no other reason,
that I could understand, than the influence of the climate. Perhaps, on
homoeopathic principles, as Santa Barbara makes sick people well, it
makes well people sick. A physician that I have seen since coming here
tells me that he went there himself for his own health, and was so much
affected by the general atmosphere of sickness, that he was obliged to
return. It is a depressing sight, certainly, to see so many feeble,
consumptive-looking people about, as we did there. Where we lived I
think it was also malarious, from the _estero_ that winds like a snake
about the lowlands near the bay. The favorite part of the city is near
the foot-hills. It is probably more healthful there, but we cannot live
without seeing at least one little silver line of the sea. So we took up
our abode in the midst of the Spanish population, near the water.

We found it very difficult to get any one to help us in our work,
although we had supposed that in the midst of poor people we should be
favorably situated in that respect. We were told, however, that the
true Castilian, no matter how poor, never works; that we might perhaps
find some one among the Mexicans to assist us.

Our neighbors were quite interesting to watch, and we were pleased with
the simplicity of their lives. They had no apparent means of support,
unless it might be lassoing and taming some wild mustangs, which they
were sometimes engaged in doing