ld stand all this
splendor, with its crowds of people, for any length of time. It seemed
rather deserted when we were there; too late for one season, too early
for another. This, and a certain shabby want of repair here and there,
made the place seem somewhat sad. It is no easy matter to keep up a
show place of such huge extent, with the hungry air of the great
Pacific ever whetting its teeth upon every atom of its vast and
profusely ornamented surface.

While at San Diego, we noticed a weird effect common on the Pacific
Coast, resulting from certain curious atmospheric conditions. The
heavens at times are hung with a great veil of what is called "high
fog." This bank of vapor shuts out all the upper sky. Between it and
the earth is a stratum of hot, dry air, down through which the
collected moisture above can never descend. It has to float off to the
distant mountains. It has to be caught by their rocky arms, and turned
into rain or snow, and then descend as rivers to the dry and dusty
plains beneath.

When we were starting out on our carriage ride in the morning, as I
noticed this lowering mass of vapor above us, I asked the driver if it
was going to rain. "Lord," said he, with an amused and bored shrug, "it
will not rain here until next November!" It must have a queer effect
upon people to be constantly held in the vise of such inevitable and
square-cut atmospheric influences as these.

XI

San Diego to Santa Barbara.--The Old Mission.--The Inner Cloister.--The
Afternoon Ride.--The Lady of the Blue Jeans.--Samarcand.

Our car moved off from San Diego in the early morning, before
breakfast. We enjoyed that meal _en route_ for Los Angeles, returning
there by the way we came. After a delay of a few hours in the lovely
city of rose-covered homes and embowering trees, we began our journey
to Santa Barbara, which we reached well on into the evening. Our course
brought us soon again to the ever-attractive shores of the great
tossing ocean, ever full of mystery, and provocative of brooding
thoughts.

When we arrived at Santa Barbara, it was toward evening, so tea and a
stroll filled up the close of our day of travel.

The next morning found us ready for a full day of what turned out to be
exquisite pleasure. A drive to the old Mission of Santa Barbara, with a
prolonged stay within the charmed shade of the old cloister, filled the
forenoon.

The antiquity of more than a hundred years seems an eternity in su