e trees stand in the beautiful enclosed garden of
the Mission, where five thousand Indians are buried.

Four miles south of Santa Barbara are Montecito Valley and the
delightful Miramar Hotel on the sea. A very pleasant suburban colony is
grouped around the hotel. The hotel itself has within its grounds its
own rose-embowered cottages. One may live in a bungalow and have one's
own fireside, one's own sitting room and bed chamber, one's own
rose-covered porch, one's own home life, and go into the hotel only for
meals and for sociability's sake. It is an ideal winter life for those
who wish all the orderly, luxurious comfort of a well managed inn,
together with the privacy of home life in a rose cottage. We drove
through lovely little Montecito Valley, catching glimpses of fine houses
rising against a picturesque mountain background, some in the Mission
style of architecture, some in Italian and some in Spanish style. The
lawns of one estate were surrounded by long hedges of pink roses. We
turned south through Toro Valley where I recall a most beautiful
hillside olive orchard, the trees being planted on the slope sheltered
from the sea and facing the mountains. They were as beautiful in their
fresh grey-greenness as any olive orchard that we saw in all California.
Leaving Miramar we drove on along the coast to Ventura, the road running
by the sea and in some places on long platforms built out over the
water. At Ventura we turned west and came to Nordhoff, the bridge being
down on the Casitas Pass. We had a somewhat lonely evening drive through
a green fruited valley from Ventura to Nordhoff, and reached our hostel,
the Pierpont Cottages, a few miles from Nordhoff, late in the evening.
We were more than ready for supper and for rest in a lovely private
cottage, through whose open casement long sprays of pink roses climbed
in. The morning revealed to us the rare beauties of the secluded Ojai
Valley, in whose foothills stand the Pierpont Inn and cottages, 1000
feet above sea level.

It would be hard to exaggerate the charm and beauty of the Ojai Valley
for those who like its type of scenery. A magnificent wall of stone
mountain, whose colors run into greys, pinks, lavenders, and yellows,
forms the eastern boundary of the valley. On its level floor are
luxuriant orchards. Here in warm protection grow the fig, the olive, the
orange, and the lemon. The beautiful Matilija poppies grow in great
luxuriance here, their tall grey-g