the handsome and commodious Hotel Virginia we visited Mr. Roper of
"Cherry Creek" who has been down here all the winter, and we found
him getting better, but slowly.

Although there are many Victorians go south to spend the winter each
year, the great majority are for many reasons unable to do so, and I
thought it might be of some interest to these latter to give them
"items by the way" in going and coming on this most enjoyable sojourn
to the land of fruit, flowers and beautiful homes.

At all these winter resorts for people from the East and North are
flowers, trees and fruit, with handsome hotels, fruits, beautiful
shade trees, and last but not least, beautiful homes. There are
public parks in all of them where in January people may sit out of
doors among their flowers, with the mocking-birds singing on all
sides. Residences are nearly all in the bungalow style, with
projecting roofs. The more imposing residences may be of Spanish
architecture with red tiled roofs which look very handsome.

I wondered at the large and handsome hotels in Pasadena, although
Riverside, San Bernardino and San Diego all have good hotels. In
Pasadena there was the Maryland with its pergola, a Spanish appendage
covered with climbing flower vines which was very attractive; also
the Green and the Raymond. There is little to be seen of the original
inhabitants of this country, that is to say, of their descendants. It
put me in mind of our own Indians, of the remnant of the Songhees
tribe. They are all seemingly half or quarter breeds, and work as
laborers for the railway company. I have already given in my boyhood
experiences in San Francisco an account of a flag incident, and
strange to say, I nearly had another in Los Angeles. One day I saw
what might be an English flag flying from a high building, and the
sight stirred me. So to make sure I threaded my way through the crowd
for some distance and when opposite the building I walked off the
sidewalk and craned my neck to look up six stories to make sure if it
were really a Union Jack. Well, well! I thought, is it up so high to
protect it from molestation, or is it that they are more
liberal-minded here? I felt pleased, but when I espied what turned
out to be the British coat-of-arms below the flag I saw the reason
why. Just then along came a motor cycle and a motor car, and in the
opposite direction a street car, and I recovered myself and got out
of the way in quick time. It was the offi