The country here during this rainless season does not seem to the Eastern visitor enough like what he has known as country in the summer to warrant any outlay in getting there.  He must, however, understand that here people go to the country for precisely opposite reasons to those which influence Eastern tourists to leave the city and betake themselves to rural districts.  In the East, one leaves the crowded streets and heated atmosphere of the great city to seek coolness in some sylvan retreat.  Here, we leave the chilling winds and fogs of the city to try to get warm where they cannot penetrate.  Warm it may be; but the country at this season is not at its best as to looks.  The flowers and the grass have disappeared with the rains, the latter, however, keeping in its dry, brown roots, that the sun scorches daily, the germ of all next winter’s green.  Of the trees, the live-oak alone keeps to the summer livery of Eastern forests.  Farther up in the mountain counties it is very different.  No fairer summer could be wished for than that which reigns cloudless here; and with the sparkling champagne of that clear, dry air in his nostrils, our Eastern visitor forgets even to sigh for a summer shower to lay the dreadful dust.  And even in the valleys and around the bay, we must confess that some advantages arise from the no-rain-for-six-months policy.  Picnickers can set forth any day, with no fear of the fun of the occasion being wet-blanketed by an unlooked-for shower; and farmers can dispose of their crops according to convenience, often leaving their wheat piled up in the field, with no fear of danger from the elements.

Still we do get very tired of this long, strange summer, and the first rains are eagerly looked for and joyously welcomed.  The fall of the first showers after such a long season of bareness and brownness is almost as immediate in its effects as the waving of a fairy’s magic wand over Cinderella, sitting ragged in the ashes and cinders.  The change thus wrought is well described by a poet of the soil in a few picturesque lines: 

Week by week the near hills whitened, In their dusty leather cloaks;

Week by week the far hills darkened, From the fringing plain of oaks;

Till the rains came, and far breaking, On the fierce south-wester tost,

Dashed the whole long coast with color, And then vanished and were lost.

With these rains the grass springs up, the trees put out, and the winds disappear, leaving in the air a wonderful softness.  In a month or two the flowers appear, and the hills are covered with a mantle of glory.  Bluebells, lupins, buttercups, and hosts of other blossoms, spring up in profusion; and, illuminating every thing, the wild California poppy lifts its flaming torch, typifying well, in its dazzling and glowing color, the brilliant minds and passionate hearts of the people of this land.  All these bloom on through the winter, for this is a winter but in name.