When you go to a place scarcely thirty miles distant, which, in New England, you would reach in an hour, you are obliged to travel all night, as you must climb cloud-touching mountains, going many miles to cover what would be only one mile in a straight line; now you glide along close to the long, lazy waves of the great Pacific Ocean, where the grass kisses the salt lips of the sea; now from the tops of the Santa Cruz mountains, you survey the world at your feet; now you rush through the red-wood primeval forests, giants touching the clouds with their tops, while in the hollow trunk of one of these trees a family of twelve can live quite comfortably; then on to Los Angeles,—­“City of the angels,” they call it—­a beautiful city for those possessed of means or who are dispossessed of bodies which must be clothed and fed.

[Illustration:  The Dome of Mount Shasta Gleams like “the Great White Throne.”]

Some have “struck oil” here, and the stench and grime from the spouting wells have ruined the houses of hundreds who have reaped no profit from the petroleum, because they did not own the adjoining lots where it was found; then on we go to lovely Passadena on a table-land surrounded by snow-capped mountains; but the winds from the cold summits come suddenly when you are melting with the heat, bringing plenty of catarrh for all; then on to San Diego on the hill by the sea, where the fog is sometimes so thick you can cut it into blocks with an axe; then on to the far-famed Coronado Hotel, close by the sea.

In the boom-time, this was claimed to be the veritable “Garden of Eden,” and soil was considered worth its weight in gold, but now my guide offered me six house lots which cost him three thousand dollars, for two hundred dollars; the bubble had burst, a few had become rich, while hundreds of speculators had lost their all.

I swam in the spacious warmed-water sea-baths, communed with the wild ducks, cormorants and pelicans, looked with amazement at the giant ostriches, and sympathized with their seeming wonderment as to why we were all sent into this sad, bewildering maze of life.

At National City the refluent wave of the boom had left many of the houses and business blocks dilapidated and unoccupied save by bats, spiders and flies.  You could occupy free of rent many buildings with none to molest or make you afraid.

Thence on dashes the train to the celebrated Hotel Delmonte, at Monterey, the show place of the Southern Pacific Railroad, which, by its extortionate transportation charges, has ruined many struggling fruit raisers in this state where monopoly holds such mighty sway.

There are many hotels in Florida which far surpass this as far as the buildings are concerned; but the grounds are extensive and very beautiful, and the wide piazzas are embowered in a profusion of all kinds of climbing vines covered with the loveliest blossoms.  Stretching away until earth and sky meet, is an imperial domain, covered with noble trees which were giants when Adam was a baby, many festooned with English ivy and flowering trumpet creepers almost to the stars.  Then we walked under long Gothic arches, cool and fragrant.