a at this season on account of
the heat. But I have no experience of a more delightful summer climate
than this, especially on or near the coast.

[Illustration: AVENUE LOS ANGELES.]

In secluded valleys in the interior the thermometer rises in the daytime
to 85 deg., 90 deg., and occasionally 100 deg., but I have found no place in them
where there was not daily a refreshing breeze from the ocean, where the
dryness of the air did not make the heat seem much less than it was, and
where the nights were not agreeably cool. My belief is that the summer
climate of Southern California is as desirable for pleasure-seekers, for
invalids, for workmen, as its winter climate. It seems to me that a
coast temperature 60 deg. to 75 deg., stimulating, without harshness or
dampness, is about the perfection of summer weather. It should be said,
however, that there are secluded valleys which become very hot in the
daytime in midsummer, and intolerably dusty. The dust is the great
annoyance everywhere. It gives the whole landscape an ashy tint, like
some of our Eastern fields and way-sides in a dry August. The verdure
and the wild flowers of the rainy season disappear entirely. There is,
however, some picturesque compensation for this dust and lack of green.
The mountains and hills and great plains take on wonderful hues of
brown, yellow, and red.

I write this paragraph in a high chamber in the Hotel del Coronado, on
the great and fertile beach in front of San Diego. It is the 2d of June.
Looking southward, I see the great expanse of the Pacific Ocean,
sparkling in the sun as blue as the waters at Amalfi. A low surf beats
along the miles and miles of white sand continually, with the impetus of
far-off seas and trade-winds, as it has beaten for thousands of years,
with one unending roar and swish, and occasional shocks of sound as if
of distant thunder on the shore. Yonder, to the right, Point Loma
stretches its sharp and rocky promontory into the ocean, purple in the
sun, bearing a light-house on its highest elevation. From this signal,
bending in a perfect crescent, with a silver rim, the shore sweeps
around twenty-five miles to another promontory running down beyond Tia
Juana to the Point of Rocks, in Mexican territory. Directly in
front--they say eighteen miles away, I think five sometimes, and
sometimes a hundred--lie the islands of Coronado, named, I suppose, from
the old Spanish adventurer Vasques de Coronado, huge bulks of beaut