never stay, &c., &c. Of course I
was much disappointed, but as they were there, I must join them, and
I determined to see for myself. Thus, in spite of their warning, I
had come to California.

A few miles from Los Angeles the country became bare again. No trees,
no vegetation, sand everywhere, with low hills, but they were sand
too. "Is all California like this?" I asked in despair of an
intelligent American near me. "Yes," he answered, "pretty nearly so,
south of San Francisco. North of that city there is rain and any
amount of vegetation." My after experience showed me he was right,
but he qualified his statement. The mountain range, which runs down
the middle of this great country, is, he told me, richly clad, and
any amount of vegetation exists on either side some miles from its
base. This, he explained to me, is partly due to the greater rainfall
there (the hills and the vegetation on them being the cause), partly
to the rivers and streams issuing from this mountainous region, and
fed by the melting snows. Along their course for miles into the
plains, the country is thus watered, in a measure naturally, partly
by artificial means. He also told me that the waste and desolate
country we were then traversing only wanted water to make it fertile.

We were very near the Antelope Valley by this time, and I asked him
if he knew it. "Of course I do," he replied, "you are not going there
are you?" I told him all I have told the reader. "Well, it might be
worse," he added, "there are quite a few there now, sent out by the
same man (I know him well) from the mother country, who would go away
to-morrow if they could, but they have spent their all to come, and
are now in a tarnation fix. You take my advice, don't you stop there.
Take your sons with you, and be off while you can." I asked him if
doing anything there was hopeless? "Not at all," he replied "_if_
you've got lots of money, and can import labour, which does not exist
there, _if_ you sink a lot of artesian wells (they run expensive),
and _if_ when sunk they prove a success (the last two have been
failures), _if_ you care to live in such a barren spot, and like a
hot climate and the fiery glare from the sand. I might add a few more
'ifs,' but I've said enough. Given water (the rain I guess would not
wet your pocket-handkerchief through six times in a twelvemonth), the
soil will grow most things, but then you see there _is_ no water, and
as for the artesian wells, wh