r drooped from
his skull like Spanish moss, and whose brown hands resembled lumps of
adobe.

[Illustration: AN AGED SQUAW.]

"I am glad to have you see this man," said the guide, "for he has
rung these bells for seventy years, and is said to be more than a
hundred years old."

I could not obtain a portrait of this decrepit bell-ringer, for many
Indians are superstitiously opposed to being photographed; but I
procured the picture of an equally shriveled female aged one hundred
and thirty who might have been his sister.

[Illustration: RELICS OF AN ANCIENT RACE.]

[Illustration: "ECSTATIC BATHERS."]

"This," remarked my guide with a smile, "is what the climate of San
Diego does for the natives."

"The glorious climate of California" has been for years a theme of
song and story, and a discussion of its merits forms one of the
principal occupations of the dwellers on the Pacific coast. It is
indeed difficult to see how tourists could pass their time here
without this topic of conversation, so infinite is its variety and so
debatable are many of the conclusions drawn from it. It is the Sphinx
of California; differing, however, from the Sphinx of Egypt in that
it offers a new problem every day. The literature that treats of the
Pacific coast fairly bristles with statistics on this subject, and
many writers have found it impossible to resist the temptation of
adorning their pages with tables of humidity, temperature, and
rainfall. Some hotels even print in red letters at the top of the
stationery furnished to their guests:

"The temperature to-day is ----."

Among the photographs of San Diego are several which represent groups
of ecstatic bathers, ranging from small boys to elderly bald-headed
gentlemen, apparently ready to take a plunge into the Pacific; while
beneath them is displayed the legend, "January 1, 18--." Candor
compels me, however, to state that, as far as I was able to
ascertain, these pictured bathers rarely pay a New Year's call to
Neptune in his mighty palace, but content themselves in winter with
going no further than his ante-chambers,--the sheltered, sun-warmed
areas of public bath-houses.

[Illustration: MIDWINTER AT LOS ANGELES.]

"I believe this to be the best climate in the world," said a
gentleman to me in San Diego, "but I confess that, when strangers are
visiting me, it occasionally does something it ought not to do."

The truth is, there are several climates in Southern Ca