d flowers, of beautiful homes
embowered in roses, of orange-trees in fruit and flower, and of a
far-extended city whose future must be as magnificent as its present is
beautiful.

We spent a delightful afternoon on our journey southward from Los
Angeles to San Diego and Coronado Beach. We passed through the
distinctive orange belt of Southern California, and the golden fruit
was in evidence on every hand. Oranges lay on the ground. The groves
were like gardens of the Hesperides with glittering yellow fruit for
all mankind. They were ready in trains side-tracked for transhipment
across the continent; they were in warehouses, where we could see
through the great open doors the busy packers at their work; they were
everywhere, until the eye almost tired of them, and the formal rows of
the orange groves, and the bare earth underneath always kept ploughed
up for advantage to the coveted crop. In other places we passed
enormous herds of cattle, fat and well liking, giving one an idea of
the huge proportions of ranch life on this great Pacific Coast.

Our route brought us for the first time really close to the great ocean
which we had never seen. When one comes on the first view of any great
object there is always a thrill of expectancy. We had left the great
Atlantic behind us, and we were speeding on rapidly to the shores of
the Pacific. We knew that in a few moments it would burst upon our
sight, but just then a dense, soft, and chilling fog surrounded us. It
seemed a great disappointment to have such a hindrance to our sight
just at that time; but, it was all for the best, as we soon discovered;
for when we did see the mighty deep, nothing could be more sublime than
its veiled magnificence. There was a fog, it was true, but it was a
vast veil of pearl-tinted tissue, and out of it rolled the huge
breakers, like giants at play, whose locks were white as wool, and
their great pale arms entwined in majestic sport.

We were passing on high bluffs close to the shore. The curious and
precipitous clay banks were worn into fantastic shapes. Here and there
we could see, far down, fishermen's huts and settlements, and
occasional villages. Oil wells, also, with their hideous cranes and
well machinery closely jostled together in eager greed, offended our
sense of the picturesque, with their uncompromising utility; but on and
beyond all was the mighty deep, muffled by the mist, and looking more
mysterious and magnificent with its gre